Read Chapter 13: Aftermath of the Raid

The smoke had barely cleared from the cabin when the first riders from town crested the ridge. Eli stood over the fallen miner—Harry Baines, he’d said, a name that meant nothing to Eli but everything to the man who’d sent him. The riders pulled up short, dust settling around their horses’ hooves, and Deputy Marsh slid from his saddle with a face like stone.

“Marshal Hawk.” Marsh’s eyes flicked to the body, then to Maeve standing in the cabin doorway, her hands still shaking. “We heard shots.”

“You heard them from town?” Eli’s voice was flat. “That’s a half-hour ride.”

Marsh’s jaw tightened. “Some of the boys were camped nearby. Heard the commotion and came running.”

Eli glanced at the other two riders—Reverend Cole and a man he didn’t recognize. No one who’d been close enough to tip off Price, unless Marsh had sent word through someone else. Eli filed that thought away and gestured to the body.

“This is Harry Baines. He was a witness to the claim fraud. He’s dead.”

Marsh stepped forward, eyes widening as he got a better look. “Harry? I knew Harry. He worked the diggings north of town. Quiet fella.” He looked up at Eli. “Who did this?”

“A man named Price.”

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Marsh’s face went through a series of small convulsions—surprise, then something darker, then a careful blankness that Eli recognized from every liar he’d ever interrogated.

“Price the mercantile man?” Rev. Cole asked. “That can’t be right. He’s one of the founding families.”

“He killed Silas Cole. He killed the miners on that list. And he sent riders here to kill us.” Eli deliberately didn’t look at Maeve. “Your deputy knew about this raid beforehand, Reverend. I’d watch your tongue around him.”

Marsh’s hand went to his holster, but he stopped himself. “You accusin’ me of something, Hawk? Because I’m the one who’s been covering for you, telling everyone you were legit despite not a single piece of paper saying so.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Eli said slowly. “I’m telling you what I saw. A man rode out of this cabin a few minutes before Price’s men showed up. He was wearing a town badge.”

Marsh went rigid. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” Eli stepped closer. “You want to prove me wrong, you can ride with me to Price’s store right now. See what we find.”

Marsh’s hand was still on his holster. His eyes darted to Maeve, then back to Eli, and something in his face shifted—calculation, not anger. “I’ll ride with you. But if you’re wrong about Price, you’ll be the one answering to the town council.”

“Fine.”

Maeve stepped forward, her voice cutting through the tension. “I’m coming too.”

“No,” Eli said.

“Yes.” She met his eyes, and he saw something there that made his protest die in his throat. “That man killed someone who was about to tell us the truth. And I’m not going to hide in my hotel while you two sort out who’s lying.” She looked at Marsh. “I’ll ride behind the reverend.”

Marsh’s expression flickered—surprise, then something almost like respect. He nodded. “Suit yourself.”

---

The ride back to Gold Creek was quiet. The sun had begun its descent, painting the hills in shades of amber and rust, and the town sprawled below them like a wound that hadn’t quite healed. Maeve sat behind Rev. Cole, her arms wrapped around his waist, her thoughts spinning through what she’d seen and what she still hadn’t told Eli.

The map. The locket receipt. McCormick & Associates.

She’d been so close to telling him when Harry had started speaking, and then everything had gone sideways. Now there was a dead man’s widow to face, and a town that was about to learn that one of its most respectable citizens was a murderer.

They reached the livery stable as the last light faded. Maeve slid off the horse before Rev. Cole could help her, feeling the ache in her thighs and the deeper ache in her chest. She knew where she had to go first, and her feet carried her there before she could talk herself out of it.

Harry Baines’ widow lived in a small house behind the blacksmith’s shop—a narrow frame structure with a leaning chimney and a patch of kitchen garden that had gone to weeds. Maeve knocked twice before the door opened.

The woman who stood there was younger than Maeve had expected—mid-thirties, maybe, with dark hair pulled back in a severe knot and eyes that looked like they’d been crying for hours. She looked at Maeve without recognition.

“You’re the hotel woman,” she said. “The one who took over O’Donnell’s place.”

“Maeve.” She hesitated. “You’re Harriet Baines?”

“Hattie.” The woman’s chin lifted. “You’ve come to tell me he’s dead, haven’t you.”

Maeve’s throat tightened. “Yes.”

Hattie stepped back from the door, letting Maeve inside. The room was small but well-kept—a corn broom by the hearth, a patchwork quilt folded over a chair, a small table with a Bible on it. Hattie sat down heavily at the table and gestured for Maeve to do the same.

“He told me he was doing something dangerous,” Hattie said, her voice steady even as her hands trembled. “Said he’d found something that would set us up for life. A claim, he said. A real one.” She laughed, a bitter sound. “Like every man in this town who ever said that.”

“I’m sorry,” Maeve said. “He was trying to tell us something. About a man named Price.”

Hattie’s eyes sharpened. “That name. Harry said that name. He said Price was the one who’d taken his partner.” She reached under her collar, pulling out a silver locket on a worn chain. “He gave me this before he left. Said if anything happened to him, I was to hold onto it. That it would lead someone to the truth.”

Maeve’s breath caught. The locket was round, not heart-shaped, but the engraving on its face—a small scrolled corner, a raised ridge running down the center—was unmistakable. It was the mate to the one she’d been carrying for weeks, the one she’d never told Eli about.

“Can I see it?” Maeve asked.

Hattie unclasped the chain and handed it over. Maeve held it in her palm, turning it over. The catch was the same as her own—stiff, resistant. She thumbed it open.

Inside was a photograph, sepia-toned and faded, of Harry and a younger man with his arm slung over Harry’s shoulder. They were smiling, both of them, in that careless way of men who didn’t yet know what the world would do to them.

“His partner,” Hattie said. “John Cole. That’s the man Harry was with.”

John Cole. Maeve’s throat went dry. Eli’s brother.

“Harry saved John’s life once,” Hattie continued. “In a flood up near the pass. They called each other brothers after that. When John died, Harry took it hard. He said the men who killed John were going to pay.” She looked at Maeve. “Did he get them? In the end?”

Maeve couldn’t answer. She pressed the locket back into Hattie’s hands. “This—this is important,” she said. “This might be what proves what happened to John.” She paused. “What did Harry tell you about a company called McCormick?”

Hattie’s brow furrowed. “McCormick? No. He said Price was the one. The middleman, he called him. But the man behind it all—the one who signed the papers—he never said a name. He just said there was a ledger somewhere. In Price’s store.”

---

Eli found Maeve outside Hattie’s house an hour later. He was still dusty from the ride, his face set in grim lines.

“Price is calling a town meeting,” he said. “First thing tomorrow. He’s claiming I shot Harry Baines. That I’m some kind of outlaw who came here to stir up trouble.” He shook his head. “Half the town believes him. The other half is waiting to see which way the wind blows.”

“Did you find anything at his store?” Maeve asked.

“Nothing. He knew we were coming. Cleared the place out—no papers, no ledger, nothing that would tie him to anything.” Eli’s jaw tightened. “Marsh was with us the whole time. Wouldn’t let me within ten feet of the back office.”

Maeve looked down at her hands. Her locket was still tucked inside her dress, warm against her skin. The one Hattie had shown her was the second half of the story she’d never told him.

She opened her mouth to tell him about it. About the map. About McCormick & Associates.

But Hattie was watching from her window, and the street was filling with men heading for the saloon, and there was no time to explain everything that had been sitting in her room for weeks. She’d waited this long. A few more hours wouldn’t change anything.

“I’d like to see Price’s store,” she said. “Before the meeting. He might have missed something in the rush to clear out.”

Eli shook his head. “It’s a crime scene. Marsh has it sealed.”

“Marsh.” Maeve’s voice was flat. “The man who tipped off the killers.”

Eli was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I can get you in the back way. But you’ll have to be quick.”

---

The back of Price’s store opened onto an alley that smelled of rotting vegetables and horse manure. Eli worked the lock with a thin piece of wire—a skill Maeve didn’t ask about—and they slipped inside.

The store was dim, lit only by the last gray light coming through the front windows. Shelves stood bare in places, their contents moved to the back. Maeve walked past the counter, past the racks of tools and provisions, to the narrow staircase that led to Price’s office.

Eli stayed at the door, watching the street. Maeve climbed the stairs alone.

The office was a mess—paper-strewn, drawers hanging open, a safe in the corner with its door ajar. Price had taken what he needed and left the rest. Maeve sorted through the discarded papers—receipts, orders, invoices, most of them for goods that had nothing to do with mining claims.

And then, in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet, tucked beneath a stack of old seed catalogs, she found something that didn’t belong.

A deed. To a claim called the Blue Ridge Lode.

The paper was clean, barely handled. The signature at the bottom was unmistakable. *Jonas Price.*

And in the corner, small and precise, a stamped mark. *McCormick & Associates.*

Maeve stood there a long moment, the deed in her hands, and thought about the receipt in her own locket. The one that connected the same company to the sale of her husband’s mine. The one that had always seemed so strange, so out of place.

She folded the deed carefully and slipped it into her dress. Then she walked back down the stairs, past Eli, and out into the cooling night air.

“Well?” he asked.

“Nothing useful,” she said. But her hand was pressed against the paper, and the weight of it felt like a stone.