Caleb wanted to believe the matching paper was coincidence.
Beatrice did not.
She had opened hundreds of Edwin Shaw's letters during her years at Hawthorne Academy. The stationery came from a small Beacon Hill printer who made the paper exclusively for a handful of wealthy clients.
Seeing the crest in Montana felt like finding a snake beneath her pillow.
"Shaw is here?" Caleb asked.
"I don't know."
"Would he cross two thousand miles over eleven thousand dollars?"
Beatrice looked at him.
"It was never just eleven thousand."
Caleb waited.
"Shaw stole for years. If the full records ever surfaced, the missing amount could be ten times that."
"And he thinks you still have proof."
"I did."
"You said it disappeared."
"I said my copies disappeared."
"Meaning?"
Beatrice hesitated.
Caleb's eyes narrowed.
"Beatrice."
She stood and walked to the cupboard.
From behind a sack of flour, she removed a small tin spice box.
She opened it.
Inside was a brass key.
Caleb stared.
"What does it open?"
"A safe-deposit box in Chicago."
He sat back.
"Good Lord."
"I couldn't carry the records while running. A former schoolteacher helped me mail several documents to Chicago before Shaw accused me."
"So the proof still exists."
"I hope."
"You hope?"
"The woman who mailed it died of pneumonia before telling me exactly which documents she managed to save."
Caleb ran both hands down his face.
"Does Shaw know about the box?"
"I don't know."
"But Abernathy?"
"No."
Caleb looked toward the bunkhouse.
"Abernathy arranged your marriage."
"Yes."
"How did he know Ironwood needed a wife?"
Beatrice frowned.
"Advertisements."
"I never advertised."
Silence.
"What?"
"I wrote Abernathy after he contacted me."
"Contacted you?"
"Said he'd heard I needed a housekeeper and wife."
Beatrice slowly sat.
"Then someone gave him your name."
"Wyatt knew I was considering marriage eventually."
Their eyes met.
The connection formed without either saying it.
Wyatt.
Abernathy.
Shaw.
Ironwood.
"Why here?" Caleb asked.
"I don't know."
Then Beatrice did.
Or at least she saw part of it.
"Because I was supposed to disappear."
Caleb frowned.
"Abernnathy sent me farther west than I intended. He said Montana was safest."
"You think he worked for Shaw."
"Maybe."
"And Wyatt?"
"Maybe Wyatt was already stealing from you. Shaw simply needed someone willing to watch me."
Caleb's face hardened.
"He brought you into my house to keep track of you."
"Or to destroy me if necessary."
Caleb stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
"No one is destroying you."
Beatrice looked up.
He seemed surprised by his own words.
Then he repeated them more quietly.
"No one."
That afternoon, Caleb gathered the ranch hands.
He did not tell them everything.
He told them Wyatt had disappeared and that theft was suspected.
The reaction was immediate.
Disbelief.
Anger.
A few men defended the foreman.
Others had clearly suspected him for months.
Mercer finally stepped forward.
"I should've told you."
Caleb's gaze sharpened.
"Told me what?"
Mercer swallowed.
"Wyatt paid me to move cattle some nights."
The yard went silent.
"How many?"
"I don't know. Twenty here. Thirty there."
"Where?"
"North trail. He said they were sales you didn't want the crew knowing about because of the bank."
Caleb's hands curled into fists.
"You believed that?"
"At first."
"And later?"
Mercer looked ashamed.
"I needed the money."
Caleb turned away.
Beatrice intervened.
"Where were the cattle taken?"
"Old mining road beyond Black Gorge."
"What's there?" she asked.
Billy answered.
"Rail siding at Stanton."
Caleb looked at him.
"Abandoned."
"Mostly," Billy said. "Freight still stops if somebody pays."
North Star Transport.
Beatrice felt the pieces coming together.
The missing cattle were not being driven randomly across Montana.
They were being moved to rail.
Caleb saddled immediately.
Beatrice followed.
"No."
She ignored him and checked her horse's girth.
"Beatrice."
"You need someone who recognizes Abernathy."
"I need you alive."
"And I need answers."
"This isn't a kitchen."
She turned.
"Do you truly want to finish that sentence?"
Caleb almost smiled despite himself.
"No."
"Excellent."
They rode with Billy, Mercer, and four trusted hands.
Black Gorge was twenty miles northwest.
By late afternoon they found signs of a large herd.
Fresh manure.
Broken brush.
Tracks.
Caleb's face changed.
"They came through here."
The trail led into a narrow valley.
Near sunset, they saw smoke.
Caleb motioned everyone down.
Through binoculars, he studied a temporary camp near an abandoned mining shed.
Cattle filled the valley.
Ironwood cattle.
Hundreds.
"We found them," Billy whispered.
Caleb handed the binoculars to Beatrice.
She searched the camp.
Men.
Horses.
A wagon.
Then one figure walked from the shed.
Beatrice's stomach dropped.
Horace Abernathy.
The marriage broker who had smiled in Boston, pocketed her money, and promised Montana would be a place where no one knew her name.
He was talking to Wyatt.
Caleb saw her expression.
"Him?"
"Yes."
Caleb's jaw tightened.
Before they could withdraw, a rifle cracked.
The bullet struck rock beside Billy.
"DOWN!"
Men scattered.
Gunfire erupted from the valley.
Caleb pulled Beatrice behind a boulder.
"Stay here!"
"Stop giving me impossible instructions!"
Another shot ricocheted.
Their horses panicked.
The Ironwood men returned fire—not to kill, but to cover retreat.
They were badly outnumbered.
"We need the sheriff," Caleb shouted.
"Then leave!"
"Not without you."
Beatrice glanced downslope.
A narrow drainage ditch ran behind the boulder toward the horses.
"We crawl."
"What?"
"We crawl."
Caleb looked at the ditch.
Then at her.
"You're serious."
"Caleb, they are shooting at us."
"Fair point."
They moved.
Mud soaked Beatrice's dress.
Stones cut her palms.
At one point her body wedged between two rocks.
Caleb reached back.
She slapped his hand away.
"If you say anything about my size—"
"I was going to say the rifle behind us is getting closer."
"Oh."
"May I help now?"
"Yes."
He pulled.
They reached the horses.
The group escaped through timber as darkness fell.
Two hours later, they stopped near a stream.
Nobody was badly hurt.
Caleb sat beside Beatrice while Billy tended the horses.
"You crawled through a drainage ditch under rifle fire."
"So did you."
"You wore a dress."
"That was admittedly inconvenient."
Caleb laughed.
It was the first time Beatrice had heard him laugh fully.
She found herself laughing too.
For a moment, the fear left them.
Then Caleb became serious.
"We go to Sheriff Barnes tomorrow."
Beatrice nodded.
"And after that?"
"We recover the cattle."
"And Abernathy?"
"We make him talk."
"You sound optimistic."
"I'm married to a woman who fed thirty men after someone poured kerosene over dinner."
He looked at her.
"I'm beginning to believe impossible things happen around you."
Beatrice's smile faded.
"Caleb."
"Yes?"
"If this becomes too dangerous—"
"It already is."
"I mean for Ironwood. For you."
He reached for her hand.
She let him take it.
"Beatrice, before you came, Ironwood was dying slowly. Wyatt had been stealing from me for months, maybe years. I was too tired and too proud to see it."
His thumb brushed her knuckles.
"You didn't bring danger here."
He looked toward the dark mountains.
"You brought the lantern."
At dawn they rode toward Bitter Creek.
They were six miles outside town when they saw smoke.
For one terrible second Beatrice thought another ranch building had burned.
Then they came over the ridge.
Ironwood lay below.
And the cookhouse was on fire.