The fire cracked.
Neither spoke.
Then he read the name.
Edwin Vale.
Clara screamed.
Not loudly.
It was the sound of a person discovering that a locked room inside her memory had finally opened.
Jack dropped the letter.
“No.”
Clara stood so fast the chair overturned.
“No!”
She backed toward the wall.
“He’s my father.”
Jack grabbed the page again.
There was one more line.
He is not.
Silence.
Jack stared.
Mary had underlined the words.
Edwin Vale is not your father.
Clara stopped breathing.
Jack continued.
Our mother confessed everything to me before she died. Edwin married her when you were already an infant. Your true father was Samuel Reed, a young deputy she loved before Edwin forced him away.
Jack looked up.
Clara whispered, “Reed?”
Outside, horses approached.
Sheriff Amos Reed had returned.
The door opened before Jack reached it.
Sheriff Reed entered alone.
He removed his hat.
His face looked twenty years older than it had that morning.
“You read the letter.”
Jack stared at him.
“You knew.”
Reed nodded.
Clara stood motionless near the wall.
The sheriff looked at her.
And began to cry.
“I knew your mother before Vale did.”
Clara’s lips parted.
“Samuel Reed.”
“My older brother.”
Jack felt the pieces shift again.
Reed continued.
“Samuel disappeared when you were an infant. Vale told everyone he abandoned your mother.”
“What happened to him?”
Reed looked toward the floor.
“We found his bones last year in an abandoned shaft on Vale property.”
Clara swayed.
Jack caught her elbow.
Reed pulled another folded paper from his coat.
“My brother’s pocket watch was with him. So was a letter he’d written to your mother.”
He handed it to Clara.
“He knew you were his daughter.”
Clara did not open it.
She stared toward the door.
“My father…”
“Vale killed Samuel,” Reed said. “Or ordered it.”
Jack’s jaw tightened.
“And Clara?”
The sheriff’s eyes turned hard.
“I didn’t know what he had done to her until tonight.”
A horse whinnied outside.
Then came a gunshot.
The window exploded.
Jack threw Clara to the floor.
Lily screamed.
Another shot tore into the wall.
Sheriff Reed drew his revolver.
“Back room!”
Jack scooped Lily from the cradle.
Clara crawled toward them.
Outside, Vale shouted:
“Give me the papers!”
Reed fired through the broken window.
A man screamed.
Jack shoved Lily into Clara’s arms.
“Cellar.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Clara!”
Vale fired again.
The lamp shattered.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Reed shouted, “There are three men with him!”
Jack grabbed his rifle.
Clara clutched Lily.
The baby was wailing now—loud, furious, alive.
The sound struck Jack with almost unbearable force.
A week earlier he had begged to hear that cry.
Now bullets were flying toward it.
He pushed Clara toward the cellar.
“Go!”
The front door burst inward.
A man charged.
Jack fired.
The intruder fell backward.
Reed exchanged shots through the doorway.
Then Edwin Vale appeared behind the smoke.
His revolver pointed directly at Clara.
Everything stopped.
Vale’s face had lost all refinement.
All wealth.
All pretense.
“You should have stayed quiet,” he told her.
Clara held Lily against her.
“You killed Samuel.”
Vale laughed.
“Samuel Reed was a fool.”
Sheriff Reed raised his weapon.
Vale pivoted.
Jack fired first.
The bullet struck Vale’s shoulder.
He spun but did not fall.
His revolver discharged.
Sheriff Reed staggered backward.
Clara screamed.
Vale rushed through the doorway and seized her by the hair.
Lily shrieked.
Jack lifted his rifle.
“Let her go.”
Vale pressed his revolver beneath Clara’s jaw.
