"Bookkeeping."
Caleb's expression hardened.
"At the ranch?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't know whether you would believe me."
"Believe what?"
Clara sat down.
"My father accused your father of stealing money."
Caleb went silent.
"How much?"
"I don't know."
"Did he?"
"My father believed he did."
"And then?"
"He disappeared."
Caleb's voice became quiet.
"What do you mean disappeared?"
"One night, he left home."
"He ran?"
"No."
She looked at him.
"He never came back."
Caleb stared at the floor.
"When?"
"Three days after he told my mother he was going to expose someone."
"Who?"
"He never said."
Caleb walked to the window.
Twenty years.
A dead father.
A missing man.
A land dispute.
And now Clara had arrived with a pendant bearing the Morgan symbol.
"What does the pendant have to do with it?"
Clara looked down.
"My father gave it to me."
"When?"
"The day before he disappeared."
Caleb turned.
"He told me never to give it to anyone."
"Why?"
"He said it was proof."
"Proof of what?"
Clara's voice shook.
"I don't know."
Before Caleb could respond, a gunshot cracked across the night.
The window shattered.
Clara screamed.
Caleb grabbed her and pulled her to the floor.
Another shot struck the wall.
Caleb drew his revolver.
"Stay here."
He moved toward the back door.
"Caleb!"
He looked back.
Clara's face was pale.
"Don't go."
"I'm not leaving you."
He stepped outside.
The ranch was silent.
Too silent.
He moved toward the barn.
A horse screamed.
Caleb ran.
A shadow disappeared behind the corral.
He fired once into the air.
"Stop!"
The figure mounted a horse.
Caleb chased him.
They raced across the pasture.
The moon was high.
The rider disappeared among the cottonwoods.
Caleb stopped.
He knew he couldn't catch him in the dark.
When he returned to the house, Clara was waiting.
She was holding something.
A small envelope.
"I found this under the floorboard."
Caleb looked at it.
"My father hid it there."
"What's inside?"
Clara opened it.
One piece of paper.
A name.
Silas Blackwell.
And beneath it:
He knows what happened to Jonathan.
Caleb stared at the words.
For twenty years, he had believed his father died with no unfinished business.
He had been wrong.
The past wasn't buried.
It had simply been waiting.
The Secret Beneath the Floor
The next morning, Caleb and Clara rode into Red Hollow.
They went directly to the courthouse.
The county records office smelled of dust and old paper.
Caleb asked for every document relating to Morgan Ranch and Blackwell Ranch from twenty years earlier.
The clerk looked nervous.
"You'll need the judge's approval."
"Why?"
"Some records are restricted."
"Why?"
The clerk glanced toward the hallway.
"Mr. Blackwell requested it."
Caleb understood.
Money had a way of becoming invisible when it belonged to the right person.
They left the courthouse with nothing.
But Clara had noticed something.
"The clerk was afraid."
"I noticed."
"Of Silas."
"Everyone is."
"Why?"
Caleb looked at her.
"Because he owns half the town."
"That isn't power."
"What is?"
"Being able to destroy someone without anyone asking why."
Caleb studied her.
"Where did you learn that?"
"My father."
They rode back toward the ranch.
Halfway home, they found their northern fence cut.
Someone had driven cattle through it.
Dozens of Morgan cattle had escaped.
Caleb cursed.
They spent three hours bringing them back.
By sunset, they were exhausted.
Then a wagon appeared.
Silas Blackwell sat behind the reins.
He was tall, silver-haired, and dressed in black.
He stopped beside the fence.
"Caleb."
"Silas."
Silas looked at Clara.
"So you're Jonathan's daughter."
Clara stiffened.
"You knew my father?"
"I knew him."
"What happened to him?"
Silas looked at Caleb.
"Ask your husband."
Caleb stepped forward.
"You know where he is."
Silas smiled.
"You should be careful, boy."
"I'm thirty-two."
"Still a boy."
Caleb's hand moved toward his revolver.
Clara touched his arm.
Silas noticed.
Then he laughed.
"Your father had the same temper."
"What happened to my father?" Clara asked.
Silas looked at her.
"Some men disappear because they deserve to."
Caleb stepped closer.
"Get off my property."
Silas laughed again.
"This land won't be yours much longer."
He turned the wagon.
As he rode away, Clara watched him.
"He knows."
"Yes."
"What do we do?"
Caleb looked toward the ranch.
"We find the truth."
That night, they searched the house.
They checked every floorboard.
Every cabinet.
Every attic beam.
Near midnight, Clara noticed something beneath the old staircase.
A loose plank.
Caleb removed it.
Underneath was a metal box.
Inside were letters.
Old bank receipts.
A map.
And a photograph.
Caleb held it beneath the lantern.
It showed three men.
His father, Thomas Morgan.
Jonathan Whitmore.
And Silas Blackwell.
On the back was a date.
October 14, 1904.
Clara's hands trembled.
"That's my father."
Caleb unfolded one of the letters.
It was written by Thomas Morgan.
Jonathan, I swear to you I never took the money.
Another letter.
Silas is lying. The ledger will prove it.
Another.
If anything happens to me, the original records are hidden where the old water tower once stood.
Caleb looked at Clara.
"The old water tower."