Asked questions.
Her hands began shaking.
Silas said:
“I think Edgar cut the post.”
“Can you prove it?”
“No.”
Clara looked toward the mountains.
Silas continued.
“But there may be more records.”
“Where?”
“Thomas kept a second account book.”
Clara looked back.
“How do you know?”
“Wilkes saw it.”
“He called it the red ledger.”
Clara remembered something.
Thomas had a red leather book.
Always locked inside his desk.
After his death she searched the desk.
Nothing.
Then remembered the hidden compartment beneath the drawer.
She had never figured out how to open it.
Silas saw recognition.
“You know.”
“Maybe.”
They walked toward the house together.
Not reconciled.
Purpose temporarily larger than anger.
Jake saw Silas.
His face changed.
He stood in the doorway.
Silas stopped.
“Jake.”
The boy stared.
“You’re my uncle.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Silas looked at Clara.
Then back at Jake.
“Because I was ashamed.”
“Of me?”
Silas’s expression broke.
“No.”
He crossed toward the boy but stopped several feet away.
“Never you.”
“Of myself.”
Jake folded his arms.
“My dad hated you.”
“He had reasons.”
“You left him.”
“Yes.”
“You could’ve come back.”
“Yes.”
Jake stared.
Silas did not defend himself.
That mattered.
Finally Jake asked:
“Did you care when he died?”
Silas swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you come to the funeral?”
“I learned too late.”
Jake’s eyes watered.
He turned away angrily.
Silas said:
“I can’t make what I did better by explaining it.”
Jake looked back.
“No.”
Silas nodded.
“No.”
The boy went inside.
Silas stood in the yard.
Clara watched his face.
Pain did not absolve him.
But it was real.
They found the red ledger beneath Thomas’s desk.
The hidden catch opened after Silas removed a warped trim piece.
Inside:
Ledger.
Letters.
Insurance receipts.
One sealed envelope addressed to Clara.
She stared.
Thomas had never written her a letter.
Silas handed it over without opening.
Clara broke the seal.
The handwriting was Thomas’s.
Clara,
If I die before Edgar returns the Hartley money, take five hundred from the cellar and give it to the boy. Do not ask how I got it.
Clara stopped.
Silas read her face but not the paper.
She continued.
Jonah should never have died. I did not tell Edgar to hurt him. I told Edgar to frighten him. Edgar decided a dead man asked fewer questions.
Clara’s hands turned cold.
Thomas knew.
He knew Edgar murdered Jonah.
He concealed it.
The letter continued.
I kept quiet because Edgar had records that could put me in prison. If he learns I wrote this, he will come for the ledger.
I did many things I justified as survival. Some were simply greed.
You deserved better than me.
Clara stopped again.
The words came too late.
Dead men could apologize safely.
No risk.
No repair.
Still, reading them hurt.
She finished.
The ranch deed is clear. It is yours. Do not let Edgar convince you otherwise.