Chapter 22
Those were the last words he had spoken before the doctor pulled the curtain.
Now Matilda rode behind Jedodiah beneath a violet winter sky.
Elias followed.
Sheriff Hollis and three miners came with them.
No one trusted the road.
So they crossed the frozen creek and climbed through timber.
After two hours, Elias raised his hand.
“There.”
A black pine leaned over a narrow stream.
Below it stood a small stone marker.
No name.
Wild rose canes, long d/e/@/d from winter, twisted around the base.
Matilda dismounted.
“This is a grave.”
Elias looked devastated.
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
He swallowed.
“Your mother's sister.”
Matilda stared.
“I had an aunt?”
“Anna.”
“Why did nobody tell me?”
“She d/i/ed before you were born.”
Elias knelt beside the stone.
“Anna discovered Thatcher's books first.”
Matilda understood.
“She was one of the people they silenced.”
“Yes.”
Elias's voice turned rough.
“She tried to take the evidence to Denver.”
Matilda looked at the unmarked stone.
“What happened?”
“Her wagon went over a ravine.”
Jedodiah's expression hardened.
“Accident?”
“No.”
Elias brushed snow away.
“Your mother never believed it.”
Matilda remembered the lullaby.
Her mother had been singing about her sister's grave.
Every night.
Not as a map.
As remembrance.
Matilda knelt.
They moved the rose roots carefully.
Beneath the marker was a rusted iron plate.
Jedodiah pried it open.
Inside lay a watertight metal chest.
Matilda's pulse quickened.
They lifted it out.
Elias inserted the little iron key Silas had given Matilda.
It turned.
Inside were ledgers.
Letters.
Survey maps.
Affidavits.
Photographs.
And one object nobody expected.
A child's wooden horse.
Matilda picked it up.
Her breath caught.
She had owned an identical toy as a girl.
Thomas had carved it for her.
She turned it over.
Initials were burned into the underside.
E.H.
Elias Harrow.
“You made this.”
He nodded.
“For you.”
“How did Thomas have it?”
“Your mother must have taken it.”
Matilda held the horse against her chest.
The past suddenly felt less like a mystery and more like a room filled with people who had loved badly, lied fearfully, failed terribly—and still loved.
Sheriff Hollis opened one ledger.
“My God.”
“What?”
“Names.”
His face paled.
“Not just Thatcher.”
He flipped pages.
“Denver officials. Railroad executives. Bank directors.”
Elias took it.
“This is enough.”
A voice came from the trees.
“Enough to ruin hundreds.”
Everyone turned.
Abigail stood on the ridge above them.
Six men surrounded her.