“I know.”
“And you’re telling me I’m related to the man who founded Copper Ridge?”
“I’m telling you something worse.”
He opened the land patent.
The original Mercer property did not consist of one farmhouse.
Or ten acres.
Or fifty.
The boundaries stretched across the valley.
The mill.
The northern grazing fields.
The courthouse square.
The spring west of town.
And nearly every parcel Victor Caldwell had spent twenty years claiming as his own.
I sat down.
Nathan remained standing.
“Victor doesn’t just want your house.”
My voice barely worked.
“What does he want?”
“Your name.”
I looked at the birth record.
“Why?”
“Because Caleb discovered Elias Mercer’s will.”
Nathan laid another document before me.
“Mercer placed his property in a family trust. It could only pass permanently outside the Mercer bloodline if every surviving heir signed away the claim.”
I understood.
Slowly.
Horribly.
“The debt settlement.”
Nathan nodded.
“There’s a quitclaim buried inside it.”
The room became silent.
Victor had never wanted forty dollars.
Victor Caldwell had been trying to make me surrender Copper Ridge without knowing it belonged to me.
I stared at Caleb’s letter.
“He knew?”
“For about three months before he died.”
“And never told me.”
“He was trying to prove the documents were real first.”
A terrible thought came.
“How did he die?”
Nathan did not answer.
I stood.
“How did my husband die?”
His silence answered before his words did.
“The wagon didn’t fall accidentally.”
I gripped the table.
“Who?”
“We don’t have enough proof.”
“Who?”
Nathan met my eyes.
“Victor.”
Something inside me broke.
Not loudly.
There were no screams.
No shattered dishes.
I simply sank into Caleb’s chair and stared at the wall.
All those nights.
All those prayers.
All those moments when I had blamed God, bad roads, bad luck, winter rain.
And somewhere in town, Victor Caldwell had been watching me mourn a man he had murdered.
Nathan stepped closer.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at him.
“You knew this before you walked into that square.”
“Yes.”
“And you still let him stand there talking about Caleb’s debt?”
“I needed him to produce the forged agreement.”
“You used me.”
The words struck him.
He did not deny them.
“I needed Caldwell to show his hand.”
“So you let him tie me to a post?”
“No.”
His voice sharpened.
“I reached town after they took you. Had I arrived ten minutes earlier, none of that would have happened.”
“But once you arrived, you saw an opportunity.”
“Yes.”
His honesty enraged me more than an excuse might have.
I slapped him.
The sound cracked through the room.
Nathan barely moved.
My hand burned.
“Get out.”
He picked up his hat.
At the doorway, he stopped.
“There’s something else.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will.”
I turned away.
“Victor knows those documents exist.”
That frightened me enough to look back.
“How?”
“Because Caleb told someone.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
Nathan put on his hat.
“And until we do, don’t trust anyone in Copper Ridge.”
My house burned that night.
I woke to smoke.
By the time I opened my eyes, flames were crawling across the kitchen ceiling.
I screamed and ran for the door.
It would not open.
Someone had wedged it shut from outside.
