For one bewildered second, everyone stared.
The shot had not come from Pratt.
Nor Mason.
Anna stood with a small revolver in her hand.
Mercer looked down at the blood spreading through his coat.
“You…”
Anna’s arm did not tremble.
“You should have left my daughter alone.”
Mercer collapsed.
But he was still breathing.
Pratt kicked the pistol away and knelt beside him.
“You’re going to live long enough to hang.”
Mercer laughed weakly.
“You still don’t understand.”
Mason approached.
“Understand what?”
Mercer smiled through bloody teeth.
“The ledger was never mine.”
Anna froze.
Mercer looked at her.
“Tell him.”
Mason’s stomach tightened.
“Tell me what?”
Anna said nothing.
“Anna?”
Mercer began laughing.
Then coughing.
Finally, he whispered:
“Ask her who paid the first three hundred dollars.”
Mason stared.
Three hundred dollars.
The exact amount written beside Anna’s name.
The exact amount Mason had paid at the auction for Clara.
Coincidence.
It had to be.
Anna went white.
“Silas…”
“Tell him.”
Pratt grabbed Mercer.
“Enough.”
“No.”
Mason looked at Anna.
“Tell me.”
Her eyes filled.
“When my father died, I thought Mercer was responsible for everything.”
“What everything?”
“The forged deeds. The intimidation. The killings.”
“And?”
“I was wrong.”
A horrible stillness settled over the yard.
Anna looked toward the burning barn.
“My father started it.”
Clara frowned.
“Your father?”
“He created the ledger.”
Mercer wheezed.
“Finally.”
Anna continued.
“Jeremiah Vale used accidents and debt to acquire land. Mercer worked for him as a young man.”
Mason remembered the ledger notation.
A. Callaghan — silenced.
“But your father was dead when you disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Then who ordered your death?”
Anna closed her eyes.
“No one.”
Mason stared.
“What?”
“The notation didn’t mean murder.”
She was shaking now.
“It meant payment for silence.”
“To whom?”
Anna looked directly at him.
“To me.”
Mason recoiled.
“What are you saying?”
“The three hundred dollars was money I took from Mercer.”
Clara whispered, “Mother…”
Anna began crying.
“The night of the wreck, I was leaving.”
Mason felt the world crack beneath him.
“Leaving me?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Leaving Texas.”
“Why?”
“To find Clara.”
Mason could barely understand.
“You staged your death?”
“I arranged to disappear.”
The silence afterward was monstrous.
Even the fire seemed far away.
Mason stared at the woman he had mourned for seven years.
“You let me bury you.”
“I never meant for that.”
“You let me believe you were dead.”
“I thought Mercer had killed the men helping me. I thought if anyone knew I survived—”
“You could have written.”
“They watched the mail.”
“You could have sent someone.”
“I tried.”
“For seven years?”
Anna’s face collapsed.
“Yes.”
Mason turned away.
He had imagined a hundred reunions with Anna in his loneliest dreams.
None had felt like this.
The dead were supposed to return innocent.
Not carrying choices.
Clara stepped between them.
“Stop.”
Mason looked at her.
