By the time Nola reached Miller Junction, the sky had turned the color of old steel.
The town consisted of two muddy streets, a church, a livery, a bank, several stores, and enough saloons to keep every regret within fifty miles properly watered.
Nola tied the mare outside a building marked DR. HENRY WEBB — PHYSICIAN & SURGEON.
The office door was locked.
She pounded.
Nothing.
She pounded again.
A curtain moved upstairs.
“I know you’re in there!”
A window opened.
A thin gray-haired man looked down.
“Office is closed.”
“Then open it.”
“No.”
“A baby may die.”
Dr. Webb’s expression tightened.
“Hale’s?”
“Yes.”
He disappeared.
Nola expected the window to remain shut.
Instead, a minute later, the front door opened three inches.
“I already told Garrick—”
“You told him you wouldn’t come because he owes you money.”
The doctor’s eyes dropped.
“That wasn’t the entire reason.”
“I assumed as much.”
Nola pushed the door open.
Webb stepped back.
“You can’t simply barge—”
“I just did.”
She removed the bottle and placed it on his desk.
“Look at that.”
The doctor stared at it.
His face changed.
Nola saw recognition.
“You know it.”
“No.”
“You’re a poor liar.”
“I said no.”
“And your hands started shaking.”
Webb backed away.
“Get out.”
“A child is burning with fever after receiving a spoonful of this.”
The doctor froze.
Nola lowered her voice.
“Rebecca Hale took it too.”
Webb turned toward the window.
“God help us.”
There it was.
Not surprise.
Fear.
Nola walked closer.
“What is in that bottle?”
“I don’t know.”
“You suspect.”
Webb remained silent.
“You treated Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
“Did you prescribe this?”
“No.”
“Did you test it?”
He laughed bitterly.
“With what laboratory, Miss Vance?”
“You could’ve stopped her taking it.”
“I tried.”
“Did you tell Garrick?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He faced her.
“Because Vernon Crow owns the mortgage on this building.”
Nola said nothing.
“He owns my medical supply debt. He owns Bernard’s store. He holds notes on half the ranches around here.”
“So?”
“So people disappear.”
“People?”
Webb’s voice dropped.
“A surveyor named Daniel Mercer came through last winter.”
Nola remembered Rebecca’s letter.
“What happened?”
“He asked about the north ridge at Hollow Creek.”
“And?”
“Three days later, his horse returned without him.”
Nola felt a chill.
“Body?”
“Never found.”
“You think Crow killed him?”
“I think living men should be careful about accusing Vernon Crow.”
Nola leaned both hands on the desk.
“A baby is sick.”
Webb looked away.
“I cannot help Garrick.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Crow will ruin me.”
Nola stared at him.
“Then decide what kind of ruined man you want to be.”
He looked back.
“Excuse me?”
“You can lose this office because you treated a child.”
She pointed toward the bottle.
“Or keep it while knowing you let another Hale die.”
Webb closed his eyes.
Nola did not soften.
“Rebecca is already buried.”
The doctor’s shoulders sank.
“Get my bag.”
They rode back beneath approaching rain.
Webb examined Weston for nearly an hour.
His diagnosis was cautious.
Severe fever.
Dehydration.
Possibly infection.
Possibly compounded by something toxic.
Nola never left his side.
Together they cooled the baby, gave measured fluids, and prepared a simple treatment Webb trusted.
By evening Weston’s breathing eased.
Garrick sat beside the cradle with one huge hand wrapped around the infant’s tiny foot.
When Weston finally slept without whimpering, Garrick lowered his head.
Nola saw his shoulders shake once.
Only once.
She stepped into the hallway.
Some dignity deserved privacy.
Webb joined her.
“He may recover.”
“May?”
“He’s very young.”
Nola nodded.
“What about the bottle?”
The doctor glanced downstairs.
“I want a sample.”
“For what?”
“There’s an apothecary in Fort Mercy. He can test for several common poisons.”
“How long?”
“Three days there. Three back.”
“Too long.”
“It’s what we have.”
Nola thought.
“Could Rebecca’s symptoms fit arsenic?”
“Yes.”
“Could Weston’s?”
“If he was given repeated doses.”
“He’s had it more than once.”
Webb looked sick.
“Then yes.”
Garrick appeared behind them.
“How many?”
Nobody had heard him approach.
Nola answered.
“Eli said Crow brought the bottle several times.”
Garrick looked at Webb.
“You knew?”
The doctor flinched.
“I suspected.”
Garrick slammed him against the wall.
“Papa!”
Eli’s shout stopped him.
Garrick looked toward his son.
His hands loosened.
Webb stumbled backward.
“You let her die.”
“I tried treating her.”
“You knew Crow’s medicine might be hurting her!”
“I didn’t know!”
“You didn’t ask!”
“Neither did you!”
The words landed brutally.
Webb immediately regretted them.
Garrick stepped back.
His face went white.
Nola moved between them.
“That is enough.”
Garrick looked at her.
“I should’ve known.”
“No.”
“My own son noticed.”
“Because children see different things.”
“I was here every day.”
“You were keeping five people alive.”
“Four.”
Nola’s expression softened.
“Back then, five.”
Garrick looked toward Rebecca’s room.
“I should have saved her.”
Nola understood those words.
She had spoken them herself years ago.
Her husband Samuel had died during a winter influenza outbreak. Their only daughter, Anna, had followed two weeks later.
Nola had known medicine.
She had known what to do.
And neither had survived.
For ten years she had carried the belief that knowledge should have made her powerful enough to bargain with death.
It never had.
She looked at Garrick.
“Love doesn’t make you all-knowing.”
His eyes lifted.
“Sometimes the people we love hide pain because they’re trying to protect us.”
“Did yours?”
Nola stiffened.
He had guessed there was somebody.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Not tonight.”
Garrick nodded.
For once, he did not push.
The following morning, Nola inspected the ranch.
The cattle were thin.
Too thin.
She crouched beside a trough.
The water smelled faintly metallic.
Garrick joined her.
“What?”
“Where does this come from?”
“North spring feeds a cistern. Then pipes down here.”
“Does your house use the same source?”
“Some of it. Kitchen pump draws from a separate well.”
Nola looked toward the distant ridge.
“What about Rebecca?”
“She liked spring water.”
Garrick stopped.
Nola looked at him.
“So did the cattle.”
Neither needed to finish the thought.
They walked the line upstream.
Near the north pasture, Nola noticed several cows avoiding a shallow pool where overflow collected.
Animals sometimes knew danger before people.
Farther uphill, they discovered fresh wheel tracks.
Garrick crouched.
“Wagon.”
“How recent?”
“Day or two.”
They followed them toward a rocky cut.
Behind juniper brush stood three broken barrels.
Garrick lifted one.
A white residue coated the inside.
Nola touched none of it.
“Do you know what was in these?”
“No.”
A label had been scraped away.
But one fragment remained.
MINING USE ONLY.
Garrick’s expression darkened.
“Crow.”
“Maybe.”
“You still need proof?”
“I need enough proof that Crow can’t talk his way out of it.”
Garrick kicked dirt.
“How calm do you expect me to be?”
“Calm enough to stay alive.”
They searched farther.
Behind the rocks, Eli found something neither adult had seen.
A brass survey marker.
Stamped with Daniel Mercer’s name.
The missing surveyor.
Garrick picked it up slowly.
“He was here.”
Nola looked across the ridge.
“Rebecca heard Crow arguing with a surveyor.”
Garrick’s eyes hardened.
“She was right.”
“What about?”
They soon discovered the answer.
Beneath a shallow overhang lay exposed stone threaded with a dull silver-gray mineral.
Garrick stared.
“I’ve ridden past this a hundred times.”
Nola touched the surrounding rock.
“What is it?”
“Don’t know.”
A voice behind them answered.
“Silver-bearing galena, most likely.”
They spun.
Dr. Webb stood several yards away beside his horse.
“What are you doing here?” Garrick asked.
“I was leaving for Fort Mercy with the sample.”
He stared at the rock.
“My father mined in Nevada.”
Nola glanced toward the contaminated barrels.
“Would Crow poison an entire ranch for silver?”
Webb swallowed.
“If there’s enough beneath this ridge, Hollow Creek could be worth ten times what he offered.”
“More,” Garrick said.
Everyone looked at him.
His face had changed.
He was remembering something.
“Rebecca once asked why Crow kept offering to buy a ranch he called worthless.”
Nola waited.
“What did you tell her?”
“That Crow liked winning.”
Garrick closed his eyes.
“She tried telling me.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I laughed.”
Nola stepped closer.
“Garrick.”
“I laughed and kissed her forehead and told her she worried too much.”
His voice broke.
Nola took his hand.
He looked down at their joined fingers.
Neither had intended it.
Yet neither pulled away immediately.
Then a rifle cracked.
The bullet struck the rock inches from Garrick’s head.
Nola dropped.
Garrick dragged her behind the ridge.
A second shot exploded.
Webb crawled toward cover.
“Where’s Eli?”
Garrick’s face changed.
The boy had wandered twenty yards downhill.
“ELI!”
A horseman appeared above the ridge.
Another below.
Not Crow.
Hired men.
Garrick grabbed Nola’s shoulders.
“Stay here.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“My son is out there.”
“So am I.”
He looked at her.
She pointed toward an old drainage trench.
“It runs downhill. I can reach Eli from there without crossing open ground.”
“Nola—”
“You wanted someone capable of keeping up.”
Another shot hit the dirt.
She crawled.
Garrick swore and fired back with his revolver.
Nola reached the trench.
Eli lay flat behind a dead log.
“Miss Nola!”
“Stay down!”
“I found something!”
“This is an inconvenient time, Eli.”
She reached him.
He held a leather satchel.
Where had it come from?
“I saw it in the rocks.”
Nola grabbed him.
“Bring it.”
They crawled toward the house side of the ridge while Garrick and Webb kept the shooters occupied.
Minutes later, hoofbeats retreated.
The attackers had not expected resistance.
Garrick reached Nola and Eli.
He seized his son.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Don’t ever wander away like that again.”
“I didn’t—”
Garrick hugged him.
Hard.
Eli went silent.
Then hugged him back.
Nola looked away.
The boy’s satchel lay in the dirt.
Webb opened it.
Inside were survey notes.
Pages stained by rain.
A map.
And a signed statement.
Daniel Mercer had discovered a rich mineral vein running beneath Hollow Creek’s north ridge.
The most valuable access point lay directly beneath Hale property.
The final page read:
Mr. Crow has offered me five hundred dollars to alter the survey and tell Garrick Hale the ridge contains nothing of value. I refused. If anything happens to me—
The sentence stopped.
Nola stared at the paper.
Garrick’s voice became quiet.
“Now is it enough proof?”
Nola looked toward the ridge where the gunmen had disappeared.
“No.”
His face hardened.
She held up the papers.
“But it’s enough to make Vernon Crow desperate.”
That evening, while Hollow Creek prepared for whatever came next, nobody noticed a thin line of smoke rising behind the barn.
Until Clara screamed.
“Fire!”
Garrick ran outside.
Flames were already climbing the feed shed.
And inside the burning building were the winter grain, the ranch ledgers, and every remaining sack of feed keeping his cattle alive.
Someone had decided Hollow Creek would not survive long enough to tell its story.
---