Read Chapter 10: The Missing Miner

The morning light cut through the slats of the hotel's back porch as Maeve scrubbed the last of the breakfast plates. Her hands moved on habit while her mind turned the badge over and over—Silas Cole, engraved in brass, buried in the woods like a secret too heavy to carry above ground.

She hadn't slept. Every creak of the floorboards had been a gunshot. Every shadow outside her window had been the shooter, coming back to finish what he'd started.

The front door banged open.

Maeve dried her hands on her apron and stepped into the main parlor. A man stood there, caked in trail dust from boot to beard, his clothes patched and stained with weeks of hard travel. She recognized him—one of the prospectors who'd been working the eastern claim fields, a man named Hollis who came into town every few weeks for supplies.

"Miz O'Donnell," he said, voice hoarse. "I need to see the marshal."

"He's not here yet. What's wrong?"

Hollis pulled off his hat and wrung it between calloused hands. "It's Silas. Silas Cole. You know him? Fellow who used to come around, asking questions about claim deeds and such."

Maeve's chest tightened. Silas Cole. The name on the badge she'd dug from the dirt with her own hands. The name Eli Hawk had claimed belonged to a missing miner. The name that belonged to the man standing in front of her pretending to be someone else.

"I know of him," she said carefully. "What about him?"

"He's gone. Vanished." Hollis's eyes were bloodshot, wild. "We were camped up near the north ridge, working a claim he'd helped us file. He went out to check the water run-off one morning and never came back. His tent was still there. His gear. His—" Hollis stopped, swallowed hard. "His rifle was still there, Miz O'Donnell. A man doesn't walk away from his rifle."

Maeve's mind raced. Elias Hawk—Silas Cole—had told her his brother died investigating the fraudulent claims. But if his real name was Silas Cole, then who was the miner Hollis spoke of? A brother who shared his name? A partner?

Or was Eli using his own identity as cover, disappearing himself only to have someone discover his trail?

"When did this happen?" she asked.

"Four days ago. I been walking since. Took a different route through the pass—didn't want to risk—" He cut himself off.

"Risk what?"

Hollis looked at her, and for the first time, she saw real fear beneath the grime. "Risk running into whoever took him."

The door behind her opened. Maeve turned to find Eli Hawk standing in the frame, his hat low over his eyes. He took in the scene in an instant—Hollis's agitation, Maeve's guarded stance, the tension thick enough to choke.

"Marshal," Hollis said, relief flooding his voice. "Thank God. I got news about Silas Cole. He's gone missing."

Eli's face didn't move. Not a flicker. But Maeve saw his hand tighten on the door frame.

"Come inside," Eli said. "Tell me everything."

---

They sat in the hotel's small office, the door closed. Hollis repeated his story while Maeve stood by the window, watching the street through the curtain. Eli asked questions in a calm, steady voice—when did Silas leave, what direction, had he mentioned any trouble, had he seemed worried.

Hollis answered each one with the same refrain: Silas was fine one morning, gone the next. No sign of struggle. No tracks leading away. Just a man swallowed by the mountain.

"Did he have any papers on him?" Eli asked. "Anything he was working on?"

"He always had papers. Some notebook he carried everywhere." Hollis scratched his beard. "But he'd left it in his tent. I found it when I packed up his gear. Didn't look at it—seemed wrong, you know? But I brought it in. Figured someone ought to see it." He reached into his pack and pulled out a leather-bound journal, worn at the edges, the pages yellowed and water-stained.

Eli took it carefully, like it was made of glass. "You did the right thing."

"I hope he's alright," Hollis said. "He was a good man. Helped a lot of us small-timers file our claims proper. Made sure the big companies didn't cheat us out of what we'd earned."

Maeve turned from the window. "The big companies? Like McCormick and Associates?"

Hollis's eyes widened. "You know about them? That's exactly who Silas was worried about. He said they were buying up claims up and down the valley, but something weren't right. He was tracking their purchases, trying to find the pattern."

"And did he?" Eli asked.

"Don't know. He got real quiet the last few days before he disappeared. Started burning some of his papers at night, which I thought was strange. And he kept looking over his shoulder like he expected someone to be there."

Eli stood and offered his hand to Hollis. "I appreciate you bringing this to me. You'll stay in town tonight—my treat at the boarding house across the street. Maeve, you got a room?"

"I'll set one up."

Hollis looked between them, gratitude plain on his weathered face. "Thank you both. I just want to know what happened to him."

After Hollis had gone to wash up, Maeve closed the door and faced Eli. He was already flipping through the journal, his jaw tight.

"Silas Cole," she said quietly. "The man you told me about. The one who vanished. The one whose badge I found in the ground."

Eli looked up. His eyes were flat, unreadable. "My brother."

"Your brother had the same name as you."

"Cole is the family name. We were both Silas Cole. Silas Cole the elder and Silas Cole the younger." A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Our father had a dark sense of humor. Named us both after himself."

Maeve filed that away. It explained the badge, at least—Eli had buried his brother's badge, not his own. But it didn't explain why he'd claimed his brother was investigating alone, or why he'd fabricated the story of Silas being a separate missing contact.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked. "When you said your brother died investigating the fraud, why not tell me his name?"

"Because I didn't know who you were yet." Eli closed the journal and set it on the desk. "I still don't. You've been to the assay office at odd hours. You pulled a dead woman's locket from a crime scene. You've got a counterfeit coin in your pocket that matches markings from a payroll heist that never officially happened."

Maeve's hand moved involuntarily to her skirt pocket. He'd seen it. Of course he'd seen it.

"Here's what I know," Eli continued. "Someone is killing people who get too close to the truth about McCormick and Associates. They killed my brother. They killed the woman whose locket you stole, and her miner husband. They've tried to kill at least one other person, and they shot at you twice." He stepped closer, his voice dropping. "And now my brother's partner has gone missing too. The man I was supposed to meet when I got here."

Maeve's breath caught. "Hollis? He was your contact?"

"Hollis is my brother's old partner. He and Silas Senior worked together for years. When I got to Gold Creek, I'd planned to find him through the usual channels. But I haven't been able to contact him without tipping my hand. He came to us instead." Eli picked up the journal again. "Which means the one advantage I had—the fact that no one knows who I really am—just got exposed to anyone who was watching Hollis's movements."

"So what do we do?"

Eli looked at her for a long moment. Something shifted in his expression—the wariness cracking, just slightly, to reveal the exhaustion underneath.

"Your coin. The one you found. Let me see it."

Maeve hesitated. This was the moment. The point of no return. She could keep her secrets, protect herself, stay safe and alone. Or she could trust the man who'd buried his own brother's badge and invented a dead man to hide behind.

She pulled the coin from her pocket and held it out.

Eli took it, turning it over in his fingers. He held it to the light, studied the edge, tapped it against the desk.

"Counterfeit," he said. "But not silver. The weight's wrong. This is lead with a silver wash. Whoever's making these isn't just laundering gold—they're flooding the town with fake currency to buy up claims at rock-bottom prices." He looked at her. "You found this in your till?"

"Three days ago."

"Who paid with it?"

"I don't know. I didn't see the face." Maeve shook her head. "But if it's coming through my hotel, it's coming through every business in Gold Creek."

"Then we find out who's circulating them." Eli pocketed the coin. "But first, we find out what happened to Hollis's partner." He held up the journal. "This is where Silas Senior kept his notes. If there's a pattern to the claims McCormick is buying, it's in here. And if there's a list of names—" He paused, flipping to a page near the back. His face went pale.

"What is it?"

Eli turned the journal toward her. On the page, in shaky handwriting, was a column of names. Five of them crossed out with a single line each. The sixth name, at the bottom, was circled twice.

Silas Cole Sr.

"He knew," Eli said, his voice rough. "He knew they were coming for him. And he kept going anyway."

Maeve looked at the circled name, then at the man standing across from her—the brother who'd buried his sibling's badge and taken his name to finish what he'd started.

"Then we finish it for him," she said. "Together."

Eli looked at her, and for the first time since she'd met him, the mask slipped away completely. What remained was grief, determination, and something else—something softer that he quickly masked.

"Together," he agreed. "But we do this my way. No more running off alone. No more secrets between us. You tell me everything you know, and I'll do the same."

Maeve thought of the map in her room, marked with coordinates and x's. She thought of the dead widow's locket and the receipt inside. She thought of Otis Pemberton's too-eager loan and the clause hidden in the fine print.

She wasn't ready. Not yet. But she was closer than she'd been a week ago.

"Deal," she said. "But I've got conditions of my own."

"I wouldn't expect anything less." Eli almost smiled. "Start talking."