Chapter 4: THE STONE MARY LEFT BEHIND
They reached the ranch shortly before sunrise.
At first glance, nothing seemed disturbed.
That worried Caleb far more than a broken door would have.
He walked directly to the well.
Kalisa followed.
Tokala remained near the barn, watching the surrounding ridges.
Caleb placed his hand against the stones.
He had repaired this well after buying the ranch.
He had raised the wall.
Changed the rope.
Built the wooden cover.
For eight years, he had thought every visible part of it belonged to his work.
Yet the foundation stones were clearly older.
Far older.
Kalisa crouched beside him.
“One.”
They counted clockwise.
At seventeen, Caleb stopped.
The stone looked no different from the others.
He pushed against it.
Nothing happened.
He pulled.
Still nothing.
Kalisa examined the material surrounding it.
“Here.”
There was a narrow line beneath the stone.
It was not mortar.
It was clay.
Caleb used his knife to scrape it away carefully.
The stone moved.
His heart began pounding.
Together, they pulled it free.
A dark opening appeared behind it.
Caleb reached inside.
His fingers touched metal.
He drew out a narrow tin cylinder sealed with black wax.
Neither he nor Kalisa spoke.
Caleb broke the seal.
Three objects were inside.
A folded sheet of paper.
A brass key.
And a silver locket.
Caleb knew the locket immediately.
Mary had worn it during the first year of their marriage.
Then one day it was simply gone.
She had told him the chain broke and the locket had been lost.
Caleb opened it.
There was no portrait inside.
Only two engraved initials.
R.H.
Kalisa watched his face.
“What do they mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Yet Caleb suddenly remembered the way Hargrove had spoken about Mary.
How precisely he had known where to press against Caleb’s grief.
He remembered one evening years earlier when Mary had been reading a newspaper and quickly folded it as soon as Caleb walked into the room.
He opened the letter.
The handwriting belonged to Mary.
His hands trembled so badly that Kalisa reached out and steadied the page.
Caleb, if you are reading this, then I failed to tell you before someone stopped me.
He swallowed.
Several lines had been damaged by water.
Some words had disappeared completely.
Others remained.
The cattle thefts are not random.
The patrol reports are altered.
He is buying every parcel that touches the underground water survey.
Do not trust the official account if anything happens to me.
The evidence is not here.
The key opens the strongbox beneath—
The rest of that sentence had dissolved.
Caleb cursed under his breath.
“Beneath what?”
Kalisa took the letter and angled it toward the morning light.
Nothing else could be read.
Tokala suddenly hurried from the barn.
“Riders.”
Caleb quickly returned the objects to the cylinder.
“How many?”
“Seven.”
“Hargrove?”
“I cannot tell from here.”
Caleb looked at Kalisa.
“Take this.”
He held out the cylinder.
“No.”
“Take it.”
“And leave you here?”
“If they find the two of us together, everything ends now.”
Kalisa took it reluctantly.
Tokala led her toward a narrow trail behind the ranch.
Caleb went inside the house.
The riders arrived about ten minutes later.
Hargrove led them.
His face was uncovered this time.
Six men rode behind him.
Caleb stood on the porch.
Hargrove smiled.
“A little early for visitors, perhaps.”
Caleb rested one shoulder against the post.
“You’re standing on my property.”
“So I am.”
“Lose your way?”
“Concerned neighbors seldom believe they are lost.”
The other men began spreading out.
Caleb recognized one of the horses.
Its rear shoe was broken.
A triangular piece was missing from the edge.
Caleb almost smiled.
Hargrove noticed where he was looking.
“Something amusing?”
“Just thinking about how useful tracks can be.”
The rider shifted in his saddle.
Hargrove kept his pleasant expression.
“There will be a town meeting tomorrow.”
“About what?”
“Your well.”
“My well does not belong to the town.”
“During times of fear, water often becomes everyone’s concern.”
“You mean drought.”
“Fear is its own kind of drought.”
Caleb stepped off the porch.
“What did Mary know?”
Silence followed.
One of Hargrove’s men glanced toward him.
Hargrove remained motionless.
“Your wife?”
“You knew her.”
“Everyone knew—”
“Don’t.”
Caleb’s voice cut him off.
Hargrove’s eyes cooled.
Caleb continued.
“You knew her before I did.”
The slightest reaction crossed Hargrove’s face.
“You look tired,” Hargrove said.
“I found something.”
This time, the reaction was clear.
One breath caught.
Hargrove’s jaw tightened.
Caleb knew he had struck something.
“What exactly did you find?”
Caleb gave him a cold smile.
“So there really was something for me to find.”
Hargrove’s eyes moved briefly toward the well.
Then returned to Caleb.
“You should be in town tomorrow.”
“I intend to be.”
“There may be a vote.”
“About stealing my property?”
“About safeguarding public welfare.”
Caleb laughed once.
Hargrove came closer.
He lowered his voice until only Caleb could hear.
“You have no idea what you’re touching.”
“Then explain it.”
“Certain graves are better left unopened.”
“Mary’s grave?”
Hargrove became absolutely still.
Caleb saw something then.
Pain.
Not merely guilt.
Real pain.
It disappeared almost immediately.
Hargrove backed away.
“Tomorrow.”
He climbed onto his horse.
The group rode off.
Caleb remained in the yard.
Tokala appeared again twenty minutes later.
“Kalisa is safe.”
Caleb nodded.
Then he said, “He cared about her.”
Tokala frowned.
“Hargrove?”
“When I said Mary’s name, I hurt him.”
“Guilt can hurt.”
“No.”
Caleb shook his head.
“That wasn’t guilt alone.”
He remembered the locket.
R.H.
A thought began forming in his mind.
Impossible.
Ridiculous.
But now that it existed, Caleb could not erase it.
“Did Mary ever tell you where she came from?”
Tokala considered.
“East.”
“Did she speak about family?”
“She said she had none.”
Caleb felt his stomach tighten.
Mary had always told him the same thing.
Her mother had died young.
Her father was dead.
No brothers.
No sisters.
Nothing behind her but places she preferred not to remember.
Caleb whispered, “R.H.”
Tokala turned toward him.
“What?”
Before Caleb could answer, a horse came pounding into the yard.
Silas Doyle nearly fell from the saddle when he pulled the animal to a stop.
“Caleb!”
His face was pale.
“What happened?”
Silas looked nervously back toward town.
“Hargrove is calling everyone together.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Silas shook his head quickly.
“You don’t know.”
He swallowed.
“They found Larson’s cattle.”
Caleb stared at him.
“Where?”
Silas could barely meet his eyes.
“Two miles from Tokala’s camp.”
The trap had just snapped shut.
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