Clementine cut her meat.
“Everyone says blue is Clementine’s color.”
Mabel nearly asked whether the potatoes had an opinion.
Harrison finally turned to Clementine.
“You’ve been unusually quiet.”
Clementine looked up.
“So have you.”
“I’ve answered approximately forty questions about cattle.”
“Not the important one.”
Josiah’s fork stopped.
Mabel felt it.
So did Harrison.
Clementine put down her knife.
“Why don’t you tell him, Father?”
Martha whispered, “Please.”
“Tell me what?” Harrison asked.
Clementine turned toward Mabel.
“Do you remember Uncle Edwin?”
“Barely.”
“Of course not.”
Their mother stood abruptly.
“That is enough.”
“No.”
Clementine’s voice broke.
Everyone stared.
She pushed back her chair.
“I am tired of this family pretending.”
Mabel rose.
“Pretending what?”
Clementine’s eyes filled with tears.
For the first time, Mabel’s anger faltered.
Clementine was not performing.
She was terrified.
“Eleven years ago,” she said, “Father went to Cheyenne with Uncle Edwin.”
Josiah stood.
“Clementine!”
“And only Father came home.”
Harrison went still.
Mabel whispered, “What?”
She remembered Edwin Marsh.
Her mother’s younger brother.
A laughing man with red hair who had once carved Mabel a wooden horse.
She had been thirteen when he disappeared.
Martha always claimed he had traveled east.
Clementine continued.
“Uncle Edwin didn’t go east.”
Her voice shook.
“He died.”
Mabel stared at her parents.
“Is that true?”
Martha began crying.
Josiah looked twenty years older.
“Yes.”
“Why did you lie?”
“Because…”
He swallowed.
“Because I was responsible.”
Nobody moved.
Josiah lowered himself into his chair.
“We had invested together. Cattle. Land outside Cheyenne. Edwin discovered irregularities.”
“What irregularities?” Mabel asked.
“I had borrowed against his share without permission.”
Mabel’s stomach turned.
“How much?”
“A great deal.”
Harrison’s expression hardened.
Josiah continued.
“He threatened to expose me. We argued. He left the hotel in a rage.”
His hands trembled.
“The next morning, his body was found beside the railway tracks.”
Martha covered her face.
Mabel could barely breathe.
“You killed him?”
“No!”
Josiah surged upright.
“No. God help me, no. The sheriff ruled it an accident. He’d been drinking.”
“Then why hide it?”
“Because Edwin left papers.”
Harrison spoke.
“What papers?”
Josiah looked at him.
And suddenly fear entered his eyes.
“A partnership agreement.”
“With whom?”
Josiah said nothing.
Harrison stepped closer.
“With whom?”
Clementine answered.
“Thomas Cole.”
Harrison’s father.
The room seemed to tilt.
Mabel gripped the table.
Harrison stared at Clementine.
“My father knew Edwin Marsh?”
“They were partners,” Clementine said.
Josiah whispered, “For a time.”
“In what?”
“Longhorn Valley.”
Harrison’s face lost color.
“That ranch belonged to my grandfather before my father.”
“Most of it.”
The words fell heavily.
Josiah reached for the whiskey bottle.
His hand shook too badly to pour.
“Your grandfather owned the original property. Thomas expanded it. Edwin provided money for the southern acreage and cattle purchases.”
“How much money?”
Josiah closed his eyes.
“Enough to receive a twenty-five percent interest.”
Mabel stared.
Harrison said nothing.
Clementine did.
“When Uncle Edwin died, his share passed to the beneficiary named in the partnership agreement.”
Mabel knew before anyone said it.
She knew because Martha began sobbing harder.
She knew because Josiah could not look at her.
She knew because Clementine’s anger had disappeared completely.
“Mabel,” Clementine whispered.
The room became unbearably small.
“What are you saying?”
Clementine’s tears spilled.
“Uncle Edwin left his share to you.”
Mabel’s knees nearly gave way.
Harrison caught her elbow.
She tore away from him instinctively.
“No.”
“Mabel—”
“No.”
She turned on her father.
“You knew?”
Josiah said nothing.
“You knew for eleven years?”
“I was trying to protect this family.”
“By stealing from me?”
“I did not steal—”
“You concealed property that belonged to me!”
“The claim was complicated.”
Harrison’s voice became dangerous.
“How complicated?”
Josiah looked at him.
“Thomas Cole paid me.”
