“No.”
“Then why are you checking it?”
“Habit.”
Smoke began entering beneath the door.
Ezra coughed.
Elsie looked toward the ceiling.
“They're burning the bank?”
“No,” Gideon said.
“They're smoking us.”
The ventilation shaft ran near the top of the wall.
Too small for Gideon.
Too small for Ezra.
But not too small for Elsie.
Gideon looked at her.
She understood immediately.
“No.”
“You're the only one who fits.”
“No.”
“Elsie.”
“If I leave, they'll kill you.”
“If you stay, we'll all die.”
Her eyes filled.
Gideon crouched.
“Listen to me. Your father survived long enough to protect this evidence. Don't waste what he gave you.”
She took the ledger.
“How do I get out?”
“Follow the shaft.”
“To where?”
“Probably the alley.”
“Probably?”
He smiled.
“Adventure.”
“I hate you.”
“That makes two of us.”
She climbed.
The shaft scraped her arms.
Smoke filled her lungs.
Behind her, Gideon and Ezra began coughing harder.
Elsie crawled forward.
Ten feet.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Then darkness ended.
She kicked loose a grate.
Fell into the alley.
And landed directly in front of Harland Pike.
He was waiting for her.
Harland Pike
Harland Pike did not look like a killer.
That was the first thing Elsie thought.
He was sixty.
Silver hair.
Trimmed mustache.
Expensive coat.
He looked like the kind of man who donated money to churches and shook hands with governors.
In fact, he did both.
He stared at Elsie.
Then at the ledger in her arms.
“Well.”
She backed away.
Pike smiled.
“Your father caused me a great deal of trouble.”
Elsie tightened her grip.
“You killed him.”
“I did not shoot Thomas.”
“Who did?”
“That hardly matters.”
“It matters to me.”
Pike took one step closer.
“You're very much like him.”
Elsie ran.
Pike shouted.
Two men chased her.
She knew Dry Hollow better than they did.
She cut between buildings.
Crawled beneath a wagon.
Ran through the stable.
Jumped a fence.
The ledger felt like a stone against her chest.
She reached the church.
Reverend Cole was locking the door.
“Elsie?”
“Help me.”
He saw the men behind her.
For once, a respectable man in Dry Hollow did not look away.
He pulled her inside.
Locked the door.
“What happened?”
“Pike.”
That one word was enough.
Reverend Cole led her to the bell tower.
“Hide.”
She climbed.
Below, fists hammered the door.
The Reverend opened it.
“You men need something?”
“Girl came through here.”
“No girl.”
“You calling me a liar?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then violence.
Elsie heard Reverend Cole fall.
She almost went down.
Then remembered Gideon.
The ledger.
Her father.
She stayed.
The men searched downstairs.
One eventually started climbing.
Elsie looked around.
Only one escape.
The bell rope.
She wrapped it around her hands.
Then jumped from the tower window.
The rope burned her palms.
She swung toward the lower roof.
Hit hard.
Rolled.
Nearly fell.
But survived.
She jumped to the alley.
Ran again.
This time toward the railway.
A freight train was pulling in.
She climbed aboard a moving cattle car.
Pike's men reached the platform too late.
Elsie lay between wooden slats, shaking.
The train would take her east.
Away from Dry Hollow.
Away from Gideon.
She could carry the evidence to the territorial marshal.
But Gideon and Ezra were still locked in the bank.
She had a choice.
Run.
Or return.
Her father had once told her courage was rarely the absence of fear.
“Most times,” he had said, “courage is being scared and deciding something else matters more.”
Elsie jumped from the train before it cleared town.
She hit the ground hard.
Rolled through weeds.
Tore her dress.
Then ran back.
Smoke now poured from the bank basement.
People had gathered.
Nobody moved.
Of course.
Dry Hollow was watching.
Elsie climbed onto a water trough.
“There's people inside!”
Sheriff Gannon stepped forward.
“Get down.”
“Gideon Vale and Ezra Bell are trapped in the vault!”
“They broke into the bank.”
“So you burn them alive?”
Whispers spread.
The sheriff's face hardened.
“Get down.”
Elsie held up the ledger.
“My father found Pike's records!”
The crowd went silent.
Pike arrived.
His expression changed.
“She's lying.”
Elsie opened the ledger.
“Joseph Turner!”
An old farmer looked up.
“Your farm was marked here six months before the bank took it.”
Turner's face went pale.
“Margaret Wilson!”
A widow in the crowd stiffened.
“Your husband's debt was eighty dollars. Pike changed it to two hundred and eighty.”
She covered her mouth.
“Samuel Mercer!”
People murmured.
“Pike's old partner knew. He was marked too.”
Pike shouted, “Enough!”
Elsie stared at the crowd.
“My father didn't steal!”
Sheriff Gannon drew his revolver.
That was his mistake.
Dozens of townspeople saw it.
They finally understood.
Not rumor.
Not whispers.
Not fear.
A sheriff pointing a gun at a thirteen-year-old girl carrying evidence.
Mateo, the stableman, stepped forward with a shotgun.
“Put it down.”
Gannon laughed.
Then Joseph Turner moved beside Mateo.
Then Reverend Cole, bleeding from the mouth.
Then Margaret Wilson.
Then the blacksmith.
Then the bartender.
Then twenty more.
Dry Hollow had spent years looking away.
It finally looked directly at Wade Gannon.
The sheriff lowered his gun.
“Open the vault,” Elsie said.
Gannon refused.
Mateo raised the shotgun.
“Open it.”
Five minutes later, Gideon stumbled from the bank basement carrying Ezra Bell over one shoulder.
He was black with smoke.
His eyes searched the crowd.
Then he saw Elsie.
Alive.
Holding the ledger.
He smiled.
“You came back.”
Elsie began crying.
“You told me not to waste what my father gave me.”
Gideon looked at the crowd.
“What did he give you?”
She wiped her face.
“A reason.”
The Grave North of Red Creek
Harland Pike was arrested before sunrise.
Not by Sheriff Gannon.
Gannon found himself locked in his own jail.
The blacksmith kept the keys.