Chapter 6 - Ashes at South Creek
Clara reached the ranch before the fire brigade.
The barn roof had already collapsed.
Flames moved through the dry timber with a sound like distant gunfire.
Annie Rose was safe with the schoolteacher, but the horses were trapped.
Clara cut the side gate while ranch hands fought the smoke.
Gideon appeared from the darkness and helped drive the animals into the pasture.
The house had been searched before it was set on fire.
Drawers were open.
Mattresses had been cut.
Floorboards had been lifted.
Whoever came had been looking for the ledger.
Clara found one thing untouched.
Annie’s recipe book lay on the kitchen table.
She opened it without knowing why.
Between two pages was a thin sheet covered in numbers.
Not recipes.
Land parcel numbers.
Thomas had given the book to Clara years earlier and never noticed the page.
At the bottom Annie had written, The flowers know where the water bends.
South Creek curved through three properties before reaching the Hail ranch.
One belonged to the Vale estate.
One belonged to the church.
The third had belonged to Clara’s father.
At dawn, Clara rode to the creek with Gideon.
They found an old stone marker hidden beneath blackberry vines.
Behind it was a rusted metal door set into the bank.
Gideon used his key.
The lock opened.
Inside was a narrow storage chamber filled with survey maps, deeds, and sealed court documents.
The ledger was not there.
But a photograph was.
It showed Annie seated beside a dark-haired infant several months old.
On the back were the words, James, Denver, 1882.
Thomas’s son had survived at least one year.
Clara nearly dropped the photograph.
A voice came from the entrance.
“I was hoping you would find that for me.”
Sheriff Doyle stood there with a rifle.
Beside him was Edwin Vale.
Edwin was younger than Clara expected, elegantly dressed and perfectly calm.
“Give me the photograph,” he said.
Clara held it against her chest.
“Where is James?”
Edwin smiled.
“You have been raising him in your imagination for one morning.”
“Where is he?”
Edwin’s smile vanished.
“He is alive.”
Then he looked at Gideon.
May you like
“And he belongs to us.”
