But Caleb saw terror return to her eyes.
Different terror.
Not fear of Owen.
Recognition.
“Mae.”
She backed into the cabin.
“I’m tired.”
“You’ve heard that name.”
“I said I’m tired.”
Eliza stepped between them.
“That means this conversation is over.”
Caleb obeyed.
But that night he did not sleep.
Neither, he suspected, did Mae.
At dawn, Caleb smelled coffee.
He entered the kitchen and found Mae standing barefoot beside the stove in one of Eliza’s old dresses.
Sunlight touched the bruising along her jaw.
She poured two cups.
“I lied.”
Caleb sat.
Mae placed the second cup before him.
“About Clara?”
“Yes.”
Caleb waited.
Mae’s fingers trembled around her cup.
“There is a room beneath the Drayton house.”
His skin prickled.
“What kind of room?”
“No windows.”
She stared into the coffee.
“One door. Iron lock.”
Caleb said nothing.
“Owen told everyone it was an old root cellar. I believed him until last winter.”
“What happened?”
“I heard crying.”
Caleb’s breath slowed.
“A woman?”
Mae nodded.
“When I asked Owen, he slapped me hard enough to split my mouth.”
Her fingertips unconsciously touched her lip.
“He said it was a sick calf.”
Caleb’s chair creaked beneath his grip.
“Did you see her?”
“Not then.”
Mae looked toward the window.
“Three weeks ago Cyrus and Owen went to Billings. I found the cellar key inside Owen’s desk.”
Cyrus Drayton.
Owen’s father.
Patriarch of Mercy Bend.
A man whose portrait hung in the courthouse.
“I went downstairs.”
Mae swallowed.
“The room was empty.”
Caleb almost spoke.
Then Mae continued.
“But the walls weren’t.”
She closed her eyes.
“Names were scratched into them.”
Caleb felt cold despite the growing morning heat.
“How many?”
“I stopped counting at thirty.”
He could hear the clock.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
“Women’s names?”
“Yes.”
“Clara?”
Mae finally looked at him.
“Clara Rusk was carved beside the door.”
Caleb stood so quickly the table shifted.
Mae recoiled.
He immediately forced himself still.
“I’m not angry at you.”
“I know.”
But her body did not believe him yet.
“What else?”
“Dates.”
“What dates?”
“I think…the dates they came.”
“To the ranch?”
Mae nodded.
“Some had other words beside them. ‘Settled.’ ‘Transferred.’ ‘Widowed.’”
Caleb stared at her.
“And underneath Clara’s name?”
Mae’s voice fell.
“Disobedient.”
Something violent moved through him.
He crossed to the window because if he stayed at the table he might break something.
Behind him, Mae whispered, “There was another thing.”
Caleb turned.
She reached beneath the collar of Eliza’s dress.
From inside she pulled a folded piece of oilcloth.
“I took this.”
Inside were six pages torn from a ledger.
Names.
Dates.
Dollar amounts.
Property descriptions.
Marriage contracts.
Caleb scanned them.
Nora Bell — 320 acres.
Rebecca Shaw — cattle herd.
Miriam Frost — inheritance.
The final visible name froze him.
Clara Rusk — North Creek water rights.
Caleb’s family once owned North Creek.
After Clara disappeared, his father lost it in a disputed loan.
To Cyrus Drayton.
Caleb looked at Mae.
“They weren’t hurting women because they enjoyed it.”
Mae’s expression hardened.
