# PART 2 FULL — The Woman Jonah Abernathy Tried to Bury
Gideon looked at Silas
Gideon looked at Silas.
Then at the brass key in Mabel’s hand.
“What did your mother leave in that mine?”
“I don’t know.”
“You better start remembering.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You think I haven’t tried?”
“I think somebody just shot at my house because of it.”
“Our house.”
The correction slipped out.
They both went silent.
Elias suddenly found the mountains fascinating.
Gideon looked at Mabel.
“Our house,” he repeated.
Something warm and frightening moved through her chest.
She looked away first.
Silas regained consciousness near dusk.
This time they tied him to a chair.
Gideon sat opposite him, cleaning his revolver.
Mabel placed the brass key on the table.
Elias stood by the stove.
“Three against one,” Silas muttered.
“Four,” Mabel said.
Silas looked confused.
She gestured toward the rifle above the fireplace.
“My grandfather.”
Elias coughed to hide a laugh.
Even Gideon’s mouth twitched.
Silas glared.
Mabel sat across from him.
“My mother died when I was twelve.”
“That what you remember?”
“I was there.”
“No. You saw a coffin.”
Mabel’s smile vanished.
Silas leaned closer.
“Closed coffin.”
A memory struck her.
Black cloth.
Rain.
Jonah’s hand gripping her shoulder.
Too tightly.
The preacher saying her mother’s body had been damaged by fever and should not be viewed.
She had cried.
Begged.
Jonah had refused.
“I heard her coughing for weeks.”
Silas shrugged.
“People cough.”
“Where is she?”
“Don’t know.”
Gideon looked up from his revolver.
Silas immediately reconsidered his tone.
“Truth. I don’t.”
“What do you know?” Mabel asked.
Silas watched her.
“You ain’t stupid.”
“No.”
“You never were, were you?”
“No.”
“All those years, folks laughing…”
“I learned that being underestimated is useful.”
Silas nodded slowly.
“Your mama was the same.”
Mabel’s pulse hammered.
“Was?”
“Last I heard.”
“Where?”
“Durango.”
The room changed.
Gideon stopped cleaning the revolver.
Mabel’s fingers went numb.
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Then forget it.”
“Who saw her?”
“Jonah.”
Mabel rose so quickly the chair toppled backward.
Silas smiled.
“Got your attention now.”
Gideon stood.
“Mabel.”
“He told me she was dead.”
“I know.”
“He made me bury an empty coffin.”
“We don’t know that.”
She turned on him.
“My mother might be alive!”
“And he wants you emotional.”
Silas laughed softly.
Gideon’s eyes snapped toward him.
The laughter stopped.
Mabel pressed both hands against the table.
She wanted to run.
Down the mountain.
Into Ridge Creek.
Into Jonah’s house.
She wanted to tear open every door.
Every cellar.
Every lie.
Instead she breathed.
Once.
Twice.
Then she sat down.
Silas’s smile faded.
That frightened him more than her anger.
“Where in Durango?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Who does?”
Silas looked toward the brass key.
Mabel followed his gaze.
Her heart kicked.
“The key.”
Silence.
“What does it open?”
Silas swallowed.
“A deposit box.”
“Where?”
“San Juan Territorial Bank.”
“In Durango?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
Silas hesitated.
Gideon clicked the revolver cylinder shut.
“Silas.”
“Miriam Higgins.”
Mabel stopped breathing.
Her mother’s name.
The room blurred around her.
“She had a bank box?”
“Apparently.”
“Why does Jonah have the key?”
“He didn’t.”
“Who did?”
Silas smiled weakly.
“Your father.”
Another silence.
Gideon frowned.
“You said he died before she was born.”
“That’s what everybody says.”
Silas looked at Mabel.
“But everybody said Gideon Caldwell couldn’t have children too.”
Mabel turned toward her husband.
Something passed across Gideon’s scarred face.
Pain.
Fast.
Deep.
Gone.
Silas saw it.
And smiled.
“Hit something?”
Gideon moved.
Mabel caught his arm.
“No.”
Silas laughed.
“I heard stories about you, Caldwell. War injury, wasn’t it?”
Gideon’s voice became quiet.
“Careful.”
“Doctor told you your equipment was ruined?”
“Careful.”
“Must’ve been hard. Big mountain man. No son. No family.”
Gideon grabbed Silas’s chair and slammed it backward against the wall.
Mabel did not stop him this time.
Silas choked.
“Gideon.”
He leaned close to Silas.
“Mention my wife again and I’ll forget she wants you alive.”
My wife.
Mabel heard it.
So did Silas.
Gideon released him.
Silas coughed.
Then Mabel noticed something.
His right hand.
The cuff had loosened.
Silas had been working the rope.
“Gideon!”
Too late.
Silas lunged.
A knife flashed from his sleeve.
Gideon twisted.
The blade cut across his ribs instead of entering his stomach.
Elias tackled Silas.
Mabel raised the pistol.
Silas threw Elias aside and charged toward the door.
“Stop!”
He didn’t.
Mabel fired.
The bullet struck the doorframe beside his head.
Silas froze.
Mabel held the smoking pistol with both hands.
“I missed deliberately.”
Silas slowly turned.
Mabel’s hazel eyes were steady.
“Next one removes your ear.”
Even Gideon believed her.
Silas lifted his hands.
Then a second gunshot thundered.
Not Mabel’s.
Silas jerked.
A red stain appeared in the center of his chest.
His mouth opened.
He collapsed.
Everyone stared.
The shot had come through the window.
Gideon moved first.
He crashed through the door with his rifle.
A horse was already disappearing between the pines.
Too far.
Too fast.
Gideon fired.
Missed.
When he returned, Mabel was kneeling beside Silas.
Blood spread beneath him.
“Who?” she whispered. “Who shot you?”
Silas’s lips moved.
She leaned closer.
“What?”
His eyes found hers.
“Blue…”
“What blue?”
“Blue… room…”
His body shuddered.
Then stopped.
Mabel stared at him.
Gideon touched her shoulder.
“He’s gone.”
Mabel looked at the brass key.
“Somebody followed Elias.”
“I came alone,” Elias protested.
“They followed you anyway,” Gideon said.
Elias paled.
Outside, darkness thickened between the trees.
They buried Silas before sunrise.
Not because he deserved kindness.
Because wolves did not care about guilt.
Afterward, Gideon found Mabel sitting on a fallen pine overlooking the valley.
He lowered himself beside her.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Finally Mabel said, “Blue room.”
“You know what it means?”
“My mother had one.”
“In Jonah’s house?”
She nodded.
“Before she supposedly died. The walls were blue. Jonah locked it afterward.”
“What was inside?”
“Books. Papers. Mine records.”
Gideon looked toward the distant valley.
“Convenient.”
“Yes.”
“You thinking about going back?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She turned.
“You cannot forbid me.”
“Watch me.”
“I’m not livestock.”
“Never said you were.”
“You agreed to take me away as part of a debt bargain.”
His face tightened.
“That mistake’ll follow me awhile, won’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Fair.”
Mabel blinked.
She had expected an argument.
Gideon stared at the mountains.
“I took Jonah’s bargain because I thought you agreed.”
“I did.”
“I thought you wanted away from town.”
“I did.”
“I thought you understood I wasn’t offering affection.”
“I understood.”
He looked at her.
“But I didn’t know he was trying to kill you.”
“No.”
“If I had—”
“What?”
He stopped.
Mabel waited.
Gideon Caldwell could stare down rifles more easily than he could finish that sentence.
“If I had known,” he said at last, “I’d have married you without the debt.”
Mabel forgot how to breathe.
Gideon looked annoyed.
Not at her.
At himself.
“That came out wrong.”
“No.”
“It did.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“I’m not good at this.”
“I noticed.”
He frowned.
Mabel smiled.
A real smile.
Perhaps the first he had seen.
It changed her entire face.
Gideon stared.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“So are you.”
They both looked away.
For the first time since the church, silence between them did not feel hostile.
It felt dangerous for an entirely different reason.
That evening, Mabel opened another of her grandfather’s journals.
Something Silas said had bothered her.
Your father.
Everyone had told Mabel her biological father, Thomas Higgins, died in a mining accident six months before she was born.
Yet the brass key supposedly belonged to him.
Why would Silas know that?
She turned pages.
Dates.
Ore samples.
Medical notes.
Then a folded paper slipped from the binding.
Mabel frowned.
She opened it.
A letter.
The paper was yellow.
The ink faded.
But she recognized the handwriting immediately.
Her mother’s.
Mabel,
If you ever find this, then Jonah has discovered what Thomas and I learned.
Do not trust the mine records.
Do not trust the doctor.
And most importantly—
Mabel’s hands began to shake.
Gideon noticed.
“What?”
She continued reading.
Thomas is not dead.
The room tilted.
Gideon crossed to her.
Mabel read the final lines aloud.
“He found something beneath the Higgins shaft that Jonah believes could make him richer than silver ever could. Thomas left Ridge Creek to keep you safe. If Jonah ever learns where he went, he will kill him.”
Gideon took the letter.
There was one line remaining.
He read it silently.
His expression changed.
“What?” Mabel asked.
He did not answer.
“Gideon.”
Slowly, he handed the page back.
Mabel read the final sentence.
If you need to find your father, look for Gideon Caldwell.
Mabel stared at the words.
Once.
Twice.
Then she looked up.
Gideon had gone pale beneath his scars.
“You knew him.”
It was not a question.
Gideon said nothing.
Mabel stood.
“You knew my father.”
“I knew a man named Thomas.”
“Thomas Higgins?”
“He didn’t use that name.”
“What name?”
Gideon turned toward the fire.
“Gideon.”
“He saved my life.”
Her anger stopped.
Gideon’s voice was rough.
“During the war.”
Mabel stared.
“The war?”
“He was a field surgeon. Called himself Thomas Hale.”
“What happened to him?”
“I thought he died.”
“Where?”
Gideon closed his eyes.
“New Mexico.”
Mabel stepped closer.
“What does any of this have to do with your injury?”
Gideon’s eyes opened.
She saw something there.
Fear.
The mountain man who feared nothing was suddenly afraid to answer her.
Mabel remembered Silas.
Doctor told you your equipment was ruined?
She looked at Gideon.
Then at her mother’s letter.
Then at the medical journals.
And suddenly a terrible possibility formed.
“Who told you that you could never father children?”
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
“You know who.”
Mabel whispered the name.
“Doctor Harlan.”
