# PART 2 FULL — The Woman Jonah Abernathy Tried to Bury
The fire popped
The fire popped.
Neither moved.
Gideon had been examined by the same doctor who had treated Mabel.
The same doctor Jonah had paid.
The same doctor whose initials appeared beside the word certificate.
Mabel’s heart began pounding.
“Gideon.”
“What?”
“I need to examine your scar.”
His eyebrows rose.
“No.”
“Your medical scar.”
“No.”
“You were wounded during the war.”
“Badly.”
“Where?”
He looked uncomfortable.
“Low.”
“How low?”
“Mabel.”
“If Doctor Harlan lied—”
“He didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was there when he examined me.”
“An examination proves injury. It does not prove infertility.”
Gideon stood.
“This conversation’s finished.”
“No.”
“Mabel.”
“You told me I wasn’t livestock.”
“You’re not.”
“Then don’t treat me as if I’m too delicate for the truth.”
Gideon stared at her.
She stepped closer.
“Did Doctor Harlan perform surgery on you?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After I came home.”
“Why?”
“He said there was damage that hadn’t healed properly.”
“Did you have pain before the surgery?”
“Some.”
“After?”
His silence answered.
Mabel felt cold.
“How much did Jonah know about you before arranging our marriage?”
“All of Ridge Creek knew.”
“No. Think.”
Gideon frowned.
She continued.
“Jonah needed me gone before my birthday. He chose you. A man living far from town. A man with debts. A man everyone believed could never produce heirs.”
Gideon’s face hardened.
“And?”
“And what happens to my share of the mine if I die without children?”
He stared at her.
“Jonah gets it?”
“Yes.”
The answer hung between them.
Gideon looked suddenly murderous.
Mabel whispered, “I don’t think Jonah chose you because you were convenient.”
“Then why?”
“He chose you because someone made sure you could never complicate his inheritance.”
Gideon’s hand closed into a fist.
Before he could answer, hooves thundered outside.
Both turned.
Not one horse.
Several.
Gideon extinguished the lamp.
“Back room.”
“I can shoot.”
“I know. Back room.”
This time Mabel obeyed.
Gideon moved to the window.
Five riders emerged from the trees.
Then six.
A lantern rose.
Someone shouted.
“Gideon Caldwell!”
He recognized the voice.
Sheriff Roland Pike.
Gideon swore softly.
“Caldwell! Come out unarmed! You and the woman are under arrest!”
Mabel appeared behind him.
“The woman?”
“Apparently marriage didn’t earn you a name.”
Another voice sounded outside.
Familiar.
Smooth.
Satisfied.
Jonah Abernathy.
“Mabel!”
Her blood froze.
“I know you’re in there!”
Gideon chambered a round.
“Stay behind me.”
“No.”
“Mabel.”
“No.”
She stepped toward the door.
Gideon caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
Jonah called again.
“Come peacefully, girl! Gideon murdered Silas Crowe!”
Mabel looked at Silas’s fresh grave beyond the window.
“He knows.”
“Of course he knows.”
“No.” Her voice sharpened. “He knows Silas is dead.”
Gideon understood.
Only three living people knew.
Gideon.
Mabel.
Elias.
They both turned.
Elias Boone was gone.
The blanket where he had slept beside the stove was empty.
The back door stood slightly open.
Mabel whispered, “He betrayed us.”
Gideon looked outside.
The sheriff’s men were spreading around the cabin.
Then Jonah stepped into the lantern light.
He looked almost cheerful.
Beside him stood Doctor Harlan.
Mabel felt Gideon become very still.
The doctor smiled.
“Gideon.”
Gideon’s voice was quiet.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
Doctor Harlan chuckled.
“On the contrary. I think I should have come years ago.”
Mabel stepped beside her husband.
Jonah saw her.
“There she is.”
For the first time in Mabel’s life, her stepfather’s smile did not frighten her.
It angered her.
“You poisoned me.”
Jonah sighed.
“Still dramatic.”
“You paid Harlan.”
“Careful with accusations.”
“I have your ledger.”
Jonah’s smile disappeared.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But Mabel saw it.
So did Gideon.
“Where?” Jonah asked.
Mabel smiled.
For once, she was the one holding a secret.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Jonah lifted his pistol.
Gideon immediately stepped in front of her.
“Don’t.”
Jonah ignored him.
“You were always trouble, Mabel. Even as a child.”
Mabel’s voice remained steady.
“Is my mother alive?”
Everything stopped.
Sheriff Pike frowned.
Doctor Harlan turned toward Jonah.
And Jonah…
Jonah smiled.
Slowly.
“That fool Silas talked.”
Mabel’s knees nearly weakened.
“Where is she?”
Jonah laughed.
“Closer than you think.”
Then Doctor Harlan spoke.
“Enough.”
His voice was different now.
Not the gentle physician who had patted Mabel’s hand and prescribed tonics.
This voice carried authority.
Jonah glanced at him.
And something extraordinary happened.
Jonah obeyed.
Mabel saw it.
Gideon saw it too.
The balance of power had shifted.
Jonah Abernathy was not giving the orders.
Doctor Harlan was.
Gideon whispered, “Well, damn.”
Mabel’s mind raced.
The payments.
The mine.
Her mother.
Her father.
Gideon’s surgery.
All of it.
Jonah had never been the center.
He had been a piece.
Doctor Harlan stepped forward.
“Mabel, put down the weapon.”
She raised it instead.
The doctor sighed.
“You have your mother’s stubbornness.”
“Where is she?”
“Alive.”
Mabel stopped breathing.
“And your father?” she asked.
Harlan smiled.
“Also alive.”
Jonah whipped toward him.
“You said—”
Harlan shot Jonah.
The gunshot split the night.
Jonah stumbled backward.
Sheriff Pike shouted.
Men scattered.
Gideon dragged Mabel behind the cabin wall.
Outside, chaos erupted.
Jonah fell into the snow, clutching his shoulder.
“You bastard!” he screamed.
Doctor Harlan calmly lowered his smoking pistol.
“You’ve become inconvenient.”
Mabel stared through the window.
Everything she believed had just shattered.
Jonah had tried to kill her.
But apparently someone else had been using Jonah too.
Doctor Harlan turned toward the cabin.
“Mabel!”
She did not answer.
“I imagine you found Miriam’s letter.”
Mabel clutched the journal.
“How could he know?” she whispered.
Gideon looked grim.
Harlan continued.
“She left many letters. Most of them never reached you.”
Mabel’s stomach twisted.
“Come with me and I will take you to your parents.”
Gideon shook his head.
“Trap.”
“I know.”
“You sound tempted.”
“I am.”
“Mabel.”
“My mother has been dead for fifteen years.”
“Maybe.”
“My father my entire life.”
“Maybe.”
She looked at him.
“And you think I can walk away without knowing?”
Gideon had no answer.
Outside, Jonah screamed again.
“He’s lying, Mabel!”
Harlan looked down at him.
“You poisoned her.”
“You ordered me to!”
Mabel froze.
Sheriff Pike froze.
Every man in the yard heard it.
Jonah seemed to realize too late what he had shouted.
Doctor Harlan smiled.
Then shot him again.
This time Jonah did not move.
Mabel stared at the man who had raised her.
The man she had feared.
Hated.
The man she had believed was the architect of every nightmare in her life.
Dead in the snow.
Disposed of like a broken tool.
Harlan turned back toward the cabin.
“There. One problem solved.”
Gideon raised his rifle.
“Got one more.”
Harlan laughed softly.
“Still impatient, Caldwell.”
“You know me?”
“Better than you imagine.”
Harlan reached inside his coat.
Gideon aimed.
“Slow.”
The doctor removed a folded document.
He held it up.
“Mabel, there is one thing your husband hasn’t told you.”
Mabel looked at Gideon.
His expression changed.
Again.
That fear.
Doctor Harlan continued.
“Ask him what happened the night Thomas Higgins disappeared.”
Mabel whispered, “Gideon?”
He said nothing.
“Ask him,” Harlan called, “who was holding the rifle that supposedly killed your father.”
Mabel’s eyes moved to Gideon.
The scarred mountain man stared at the floor.
And suddenly she knew.
“No.”
Gideon closed his eyes.
“No.”
“Mabel—”
“You shot him?”
“I thought I did.”
The words struck harder than any slap.
She stepped away.
Gideon reached for her.
She recoiled.
Outside, Harlan laughed.
“But that isn’t even the best secret.”
Mabel could barely breathe.
Gideon whispered, “Don’t listen.”
Harlan unfolded the document.
“You wanted to know about Gideon’s infertility.”
Silence.
Mabel looked toward the window.
Harlan’s voice carried through the cold mountain air.
“I lied.”
Gideon froze.
Mabel stared at him.
Doctor Harlan smiled.
“Gideon Caldwell was never infertile.”
The world seemed to stop.
Gideon’s face went blank.
Mabel’s mind raced backward through every moment.
Jonah arranging the marriage.
The mine inheritance.
The requirement that Mabel reach twenty-seven.
The absence of heirs.
Harlan’s surgery.
If Gideon had never been infertile…
Then why convince everyone he was?
Why convince Gideon himself?
Outside, Doctor Harlan answered the question before she could ask.
“Because Thomas Higgins asked me to.”
Gideon stepped toward the window.
“What?”
Harlan smiled wider.
“Your father-in-law chose you long before Jonah did.”
Mabel could hear nothing except her own heartbeat.
Harlan raised the document.
“And if you want to understand why, come to the Higgins Mine tomorrow at midnight.”
Gideon shouted, “Why would we trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
Harlan mounted his horse.
Sheriff Pike stared helplessly between him, Jonah’s body, and the cabin.
Before turning away, Harlan called one final thing.
“Oh, Mabel?”
She forced herself toward the window.
Doctor Harlan’s smile vanished.
“Bring Gideon.”
A pause.
“Your mother refuses to speak unless she sees the man she believes murdered her husband.”
Then he rode into the darkness.
The remaining riders followed.
Sheriff Pike hesitated longest.
Finally he looked at Jonah’s body.
Then at Gideon.
“I didn’t see you kill anybody tonight.”
He mounted.
“And I ain’t arresting anyone until I figure out which damned liar I’m working for.”
He rode away.
Soon the mountains were silent.
Mabel stood in the doorway.
Snow fell on Jonah Abernathy’s body.
Behind her, Gideon said nothing.
Eventually she turned.
“Did you shoot my father?”
Gideon looked at her.
“Yes.”
Mabel’s face went white.
“But I saw him alive afterward.”
She stopped.
“What?”
“Three months after I watched him fall.”
“Where?”
“Inside the Higgins Mine.”
Mabel’s pulse thundered.
“What was he doing?”
Gideon looked toward the dark mountains beyond the cabin.
“When I found him, he wasn’t mining silver.”
“What was he mining?”
Gideon’s answer came barely above a whisper.
“Nothing.”
She stared.
“He was building a room.”
“What kind of room?”
Gideon looked at the brass key still lying on the table.
“A blue one.”
Mabel felt every hair on her arms rise.
Gideon picked up the key.
“And your father told me something before he disappeared.”
“What?”
Gideon’s scarred face had gone pale.
“He said one day I’d marry his daughter.”
Mabel could not speak.
“That was twelve years before I ever met you.”
Outside, beneath the fresh snow, something exploded deep inside the mountain.
The cabin windows rattled.
Mabel and Gideon turned toward the distant Higgins Mine.
A faint blue light pulsed once against the clouds.
Then vanished.
And somewhere beneath thousands of tons of stone, a bell began to ring.
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