## PART 2 FULL — THE HOUSE THAT NEVER SLEPT
"## PART 2 — THE HOUSE THAT NEVER SLEPT
“## PART 2 — THE HOUSE THAT NEVER SLEPT
Elias Boone already knew the answer.
Danger had been waiting at the Miller Ranch long before he rode through its gate.
He just didn’t know its name yet.
Hannah’s fingers remained twisted in the front of his shirt. Her grip was weak, but whenever he shifted away, panic flashed across her face.
“”Don’t let him see me,”” she whispered.
“”Who?””
Her eyes moved toward the ranch house.
Before she could answer, the distant creak of a screen door carried across the yard.
Hannah went rigid.
Her breathing stopped.
Elias turned.
Someone was standing on the ranch-house porch.
A man.
Tall.
Motionless.
Watching the barn.
For several seconds, neither man moved.
Then the stranger stepped down from the porch.
Hannah made a small sound.
“”No.””
Elias leaned closer.
“”Is that your husband?””
She shook her head violently.
“”No.””
The man crossed the yard at an unhurried pace.
There was something worse about that than if he had been running.
A man who ran could be frightened.
A man who walked slowly toward trouble usually believed he owned it.
Elias rose.
“”Can you stand?””
Hannah tried.
Her face drained white.
Her knees failed beneath her.
Elias caught her before she struck the floor.
“”I’m carrying you.””
“”No—””
“”There isn’t time.””
The approaching man’s boots were audible now.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Elias lifted Hannah as carefully as possible. She bit down on her sleeve to keep from crying out.
He carried her toward the opposite barn door.
Then a voice came from behind them.
“”Put her down.””
Elias stopped.
The man stood inside the doorway.
He appeared to be in his late forties, broad through the shoulders, with a sun-darkened face and a perfectly trimmed gray mustache. His white shirt was clean despite the heat.
A revolver hung at his side.
His right hand rested casually near it.
Elias recognized him.
Silas Miller.
Owner of the ranch.
The man who had advertised the black stallion Elias had traveled thirty miles to inspect.
Silas smiled.
“”You must be Boone.””
Elias kept Hannah in his arms.
“”I am.””
“”I was expecting you earlier.””
“”Had business in town.””
“”Fortunate delay.””
Silas’s eyes moved to Hannah.
“”Otherwise you might have interrupted something private.””
Hannah buried her face against Elias’s chest.
He felt her trembling.
Silas sighed.
“”Always dramatic.””
Elias’s jaw tightened.
“”What happened to her?””
“”Nothing concerning you.””
“”Looks concerning.””
“”You’re here for a horse.””
“”I was.””
Silas tilted his head.
“”Was?””
Elias glanced at Hannah.
“”I’ve changed my mind.””
The rancher smiled wider.
“”I don’t think you have.””
The barn suddenly seemed very small.
Elias understood men like Silas.
They were dangerous not because they were angry, but because anger was unnecessary for them. They had grown accustomed to obedience. Violence became nothing more than another instrument, used with the same thought given to a hammer or branding iron.
Elias shifted Hannah slightly.
Silas noticed.
“”You won’t make it to your horse carrying her.””
“”I reckon I’ll try.””
Silas’s fingers touched the revolver grip.
“”No.””
One word.
Quiet.
Certain.
Elias looked toward the open field beyond the rear door.
His gelding, Samson, was tied near the fence.
Thirty yards.
Too far.
Silas followed his gaze.
Then he chuckled.
“”You’re thinking faster than most men.””
“”Thinking keeps men alive.””
“”Obedience keeps them alive longer.””
For the first time, Elias smiled.
“”Never been talented at that.””
Silas stopped smiling.
The change lasted less than a second.
Then Elias moved.
He dropped low while still holding Hannah.
The gunshot exploded through the barn.
Wood splintered above his shoulder.
Horses shrieked inside their stalls.
Elias lunged behind a stack of feed sacks and lowered Hannah carefully.
“”Stay down.””
She grabbed his wrist.
“”Don’t leave me!””
“”I’m getting us out.””
Silas fired again.
Dust burst from the floor.
Elias rolled behind a support beam.
He carried a Colt beneath his coat, but drawing while protecting Hannah had been impossible.
Now his hand closed around it.
Silas called from across the barn.
“”You don’t know what you’re involving yourself in, Boone.””
Elias checked the cylinder.
“”Seems fairly simple from here.””
“”It isn’t.””
Silas’s footsteps shifted.
Elias listened.
One step.
Two.
Pause.
“”You think you’ve discovered a helpless woman and a wicked rancher,”” Silas continued. “”That’s the story you’ve already written in your head.””
“”Seen enough pages.””
“”You haven’t seen the first chapter.””
Elias leaned from behind the beam.
Silas fired.
Elias answered.
His bullet struck a lantern hanging beside the doorway.
Glass exploded.
Oil splashed across the wall.
Silas cursed and stepped backward.
That was enough.
Elias grabbed Hannah.
“”Now.””
He hauled her toward the rear entrance.
Another shot rang out.
Pain burned across Elias’s upper arm.
He stumbled but did not fall.
Hannah gasped.
“”You’re hit.””
“”Still moving.””
They reached Samson.
Elias lifted Hannah onto the saddle.
She cried out as her injured legs touched the leather.
“”I’m sorry.””
“”Go.””
Elias climbed behind her.
Silas appeared in the doorway.
He raised his revolver.
Elias kicked Samson hard.
The gelding lunged forward.
A gunshot cracked behind them.
Another.
Then another.
Samson thundered across the pasture.
Hannah leaned against Elias, unconscious before they reached the tree line.
—
Doc Harlan lived two miles outside Bell Crossing in a white house that smelled permanently of tobacco, alcohol, and boiled cloth.
When Elias pounded on his door shortly before sunset, the old physician took one look at Hannah and stopped asking questions.
They carried her inside.
“”How long has she been feverish?””
“”Don’t know.””
“”Who did this?””
“”Silas Miller.””
Doc Harlan froze.
Only for a moment.
But Elias saw it.
“”What?””
“”Nothing.””
“”That wasn’t nothing.””
The doctor avoided his eyes.
“”Get me hot water.””
“”Harlan.””
“”Hot water, Elias.””
There was fear in the old man’s voice.
Elias obeyed.
For the next hour, he waited in the kitchen while Doc Harlan and his widowed sister, Martha, treated Hannah behind a closed bedroom door.
Outside, darkness settled across the prairie.
Elias cleaned the graze on his arm himself.
The bullet had only torn flesh.
He had received worse injuries mending fences.
But he could not stop thinking about Silas’s words.
You haven’t seen the first chapter.
Finally the bedroom door opened.
Doc Harlan emerged.
“”She’s alive.””
Elias stood.
“”Will she stay that way?””
“”If the fever breaks.””
“”And her injuries?””
Harlan lowered his voice.
“”She has been restrained for a long period. Dehydrated. Beaten. There are signs of repeated mistreatment.””
Elias’s expression hardened.
“”How long?””
“”Some bruises are several days old. Some older.””
“”You’ve seen this before.””
Harlan said nothing.
“”You knew her.””
Still nothing.
Elias stepped closer.
“”Doctor.””
Harlan poured himself whiskey.
His hand shook as he drank.
“”Three women,”” he finally said.
Elias stared at him.
“”What?””
“”Three.””
Harlan set down the glass.
“”Over six years.””
The room became silent.
“”Women from Miller Ranch?””
The doctor nodded.
“”The first was named Clara Voss. Silas introduced her in town as a distant cousin. She disappeared six months later.””
“”And the second?””
“”Rebecca Crane. Housekeeper.””
“”What happened?””
“”Silas claimed she stole money and ran east.””
“”You believed him?””
“”No.””
“”Then why didn’t you speak?””
Harlan laughed bitterly.
“”To whom?””
“”The sheriff.””
“”Sheriff Wade drinks Miller whiskey and sleeps beneath a roof repaired with Miller money. Half the cattlemen in this county owe Silas something.””
Elias looked toward the bedroom.
“”And Hannah?””
“”I’ve never seen her before.””
From inside the room came a faint voice.
“”Elias.””
He opened the door.
Hannah lay beneath white blankets.
Her face looked smaller now.
Younger.
Too young for the exhaustion in her eyes.
Martha sat beside her.
“”It’s all right,”” Elias said. “”You’re safe.””
Hannah stared at Harlan.
“”No one is safe.””
The doctor paled.
Hannah saw his reaction.
“”You know.””
Harlan swallowed.
“”Know what?””
“”The cellar.””
Elias looked between them.
“”What cellar?””
Hannah began trembling again.
“”The cellar under the Miller house.””
Harlan whispered something Elias couldn’t hear.
“”What is beneath it?”” Elias asked.
Hannah closed her eyes.
“”I don’t know.””
“”You’ve been there.””
“”Only once.””
She opened her eyes again.
“”He made me watch.””
Elias pulled a chair beside the bed.
“”Watch what?””
Hannah’s lips parted.
But before she answered, a horse galloped outside.
Everyone froze.
Elias crossed to the window.
A rider approached along the road.
One horse.
Fast.
Elias drew his revolver.
Martha extinguished the lamp.
The house dropped into darkness.
The rider stopped outside.
A voice called.
“”Doctor Harlan!””
Harlan exhaled.
“”It’s Deputy Shaw.””
Elias didn’t lower the gun.
“”Does Shaw belong to Miller too?””
“”I don’t know.””
Deputy Thomas Shaw entered with both hands visible.
He was young, perhaps twenty-six, with dust covering his coat.
His expression changed when he saw Elias.
“”Boone.””
“”Deputy.””
“”Silas Miller reported you.””
“”Imagine he did.””
“”Says you attacked him and abducted his wife.””
The word struck the room.
Elias turned toward Hannah.
“”Wife?””
Shaw looked confused.
“”That’s what he says.””
Hannah laughed.
It was a terrible sound.
“”I’m not his wife.””
Shaw stared at her.
“”Miss, what’s your name?””
“”Hannah Vale.””
Shaw’s face changed.
Elias noticed immediately.
“”You know that name.””
The deputy slowly removed his hat.
“”Everyone knows that name.””
Hannah gripped the blanket.
“”Why?””
Shaw looked at Elias.
Then at Harlan.
“”Because Hannah Vale died eleven years ago.””
Nobody spoke.
Outside, cicadas screamed into the darkness.
Hannah whispered, “”What?””
Shaw stepped backward.
“”There was a wagon accident near Willow Creek. A family traveling west. Daniel Vale, his wife Margaret, and their daughter Hannah.””
“”I remember no wagon.””
“”You would’ve been around nine.””
“”I was eight.””
Shaw stared.
Hannah touched her temple.
“”I remember a house. A woman singing. My father had a pocket watch.””
“”What kind?””
“”Silver. A bird engraved on it.””
Deputy Shaw sat slowly.
“”The newspaper description mentioned the watch.””
Elias watched Hannah carefully.
“”How did you survive?””
“”I don’t know.””
She began crying soundlessly.
“”I don’t remember.””
Her childhood existed in fragments.
A yellow kitchen.
A creek.
Her mother’s green dress.
A wagon wheel.
Rain.
Then nothing.
Her next clear memory began years later in a boardinghouse in Missouri, where a woman named Mrs. Bell told her that her parents had abandoned her.
She had worked kitchens.
Washed laundry.
Slept in rooms where rats moved through the walls.
Three months ago, a man approached her in Wichita.
He said he knew her father.
That was how she came to Miller Ranch.
“”What was his name?”” Elias asked.
“”He called himself Mr. Cole.””
“”Describe him.””
“”Thin. Black beard. Missing part of his left ear.””
Deputy Shaw stood suddenly.
“”I know him.””
“”Who?””
“”Amos Reed.””
Doc Harlan’s glass slipped from his hand.
It shattered.
Every face turned toward him.
The doctor’s skin had become gray.
Elias rose slowly.
“”Start talking.””
Harlan shook his head.
“”You should leave.””
“”We’re past that.””
“”All of you. Leave Bell Crossing tonight.””
“”Harlan.””
The old doctor finally looked at Hannah.
