The first thing Cora noticed about Bitter Creek was the silence.
Not the peaceful silence of Harlon's mountain cabin.
This was different.
The settlement had a sawmill, a general store, several cabins, and a large fenced compound beside the river.
But the people moved with their heads down.
Children carried buckets heavier than their arms should have managed.
Men watched from porches with rifles resting across their knees.
And nobody smiled.
Harlon noticed it too.
“Stay close,” he murmured.
Cora nodded.
They rode past the sawmill.
A boy no older than twelve struggled beneath a sack of grain.
When he stumbled, a foreman struck the fence beside him with a whip.
The boy scrambled upright.
Cora's breath caught.
Harlon saw her expression.
“Don't,” he whispered.
She looked at him sharply.
“Don't what?”
“Don't rush in before we know what we're dealing with.”
Her eyes flashed.
“That's what people said in Orofino.”
Harlon absorbed the accusation.
Then he nodded.
“You're right.”
He looked toward the compound.
“We're not leaving those children here.”
They found lodging at a boardinghouse run by an older widow named Martha Bell.
Martha had silver hair, sharp eyes, and a voice that could cut through iron.
She looked Harlon over.
Then Cora.
Then the horses.
“You two running from trouble or toward it?”
Harlon answered, “Depends.”
Martha snorted.
“That's what I thought.”
She gave them a room.
That evening, while serving stew, she noticed Cora staring toward the fenced compound.
“You looking for somebody?”
Cora hesitated.
“My sister.”
Martha's expression changed.
“Name?”
“Elsie.”
“How old?”
“Twelve now.”
Martha put down the ladle.
“Blonde?”
Cora's heart stopped.
“Yes.”
“Hazel eyes?”
“Yes.”
Martha looked toward the kitchen door.
Then she lowered her voice.
“There's a girl working in Redd's laundry house. Calls herself Ellie.”
Cora gripped the table.
“Does she have a crooked front tooth?”
Martha nodded.
Cora made a sound Harlon had never heard from her before.
It was half sob, half gasp.
“She’s alive.”
Martha reached across the table.
“Easy, honey.”
“Where is she?”
“In the compound.”
Cora stood.
Harlon caught her hand.
“Wait.”
She turned on him.
“She's there!”
“I know.”
“She's right there!”
“I know.”
Her eyes filled with desperation.
“Then why are we sitting here?”
Harlon looked toward the window.
“Because Redd's men are armed, and if we charge in, they may hurt her before we reach her.”
Cora froze.
The truth was unbearable.
But she understood.
Slowly, she sat.
Martha leaned closer.
“If you're going to get that girl out, you'll need more than courage.”
Harlon looked at her.
“What do you know?”
Martha's expression hardened.
“Enough to wish somebody had stopped Silas Redd years ago.”
Over the next two days, Martha helped them learn the compound's routine.
The children rose before dawn.
They worked in the laundry, sawmill, kitchens, and stables.
Some had been sold by desperate families.
Others had been tricked into signing contracts they could not read.
A few had simply disappeared from settlements along the river.
Redd claimed they were apprentices.
But he kept them behind locked gates.
He withheld their wages.
And he punished anyone who tried to leave.
Martha knew several families who had searched for missing children.
She also knew a former clerk who had copied some of Redd's records before fleeing.
The clerk lived in a cabin outside town.
His name was Samuel Price.
When Harlon and Cora visited him, they found a frightened man with shaking hands.
Samuel refused to open the door until Martha called his name.
Inside, he kept a locked wooden chest.
“I tried to tell the sheriff,” he said.
“What happened?” Harlon asked.
“He told Redd.”
Samuel opened the chest.
Inside were ledgers.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Contracts.
Cora searched the pages with trembling fingers.
Then she found it.
Elsie Bennett.
Missouri.
Age nine.
Ten dollars paid to father.
Transferred to Silas Redd.
Assigned to Bitter Creek.
Cora stared at the entry.
There it was.
Her sister's life reduced to a few lines of ink.
She touched the name.
“Elsie.”
Harlon looked over her shoulder.
The ledger listed another amount beside the transfer.
Forty dollars.
Cora's face drained.
“He sold her again.”
Samuel nodded.
“Redd made his money by selling labor contracts.”
Harlon clenched his jaw.
“Children aren't contracts.”
Samuel looked at him sadly.
“Tell that to the men who profit from them.”
That night, Cora could not sleep.
She sat beside the window, watching the distant lights of the compound.
Harlon approached quietly.
“You need rest.”
“She might be cold.”
He said nothing.
“She might be hungry.”
He sat beside her.
“She might think I forgot her.”
Harlon looked toward the compound.
“Then tomorrow we make sure she knows you didn't.”
Cora turned.
“How?”
He reached into his coat.
He held out a small folded piece of cloth.
It was pale blue.
Cora recognized it immediately.
Her mother's old handkerchief.
She had kept it hidden in the lining of her flour-sack dress.
Harlon had found it while helping repair the garment.
“I thought you might want this.”
Cora took it.
Her eyes filled.
“Elsie used to sleep holding this.”
Harlon nodded.
“Martha says the laundry girls take linens to the river every afternoon.”
Cora understood.
“If I can get close enough…”
“You can show her.”
The following afternoon, Cora dressed in a plain work apron and carried a basket of laundry toward the river.
Martha had arranged for her to help an older washerwoman.
Harlon remained nearby, pretending to inspect a wagon wheel.
The compound gate opened.
Three girls emerged carrying heavy bundles.
Cora's heart began pounding.
The first girl was tall and dark-haired.
The second was small and thin.
The third—
Cora stopped breathing.
Blonde hair.
Hazel eyes.
A narrow face.
And when the girl turned, Cora saw the crooked front tooth.
“Elsie,” she whispered.
The girl did not hear.
Cora stepped forward.
“Elsie.”
The girl looked up.
For a moment, she simply stared.
Then her basket slipped from her hands.
“Cora?”
The sound shattered three years of grief.
Cora dropped her own basket.
She ran.
Elsie ran too.
They collided beside the riverbank.
Cora fell to her knees and wrapped both arms around her sister.
Elsie clung to her so tightly that Cora could barely breathe.
“You came,” Elsie sobbed.
Cora buried her face in the girl's hair.
“I promised.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“No.”
“I waited.”
“I know.”
“I waited every Christmas.”
Cora began crying harder.
“I'm sorry.”
Elsie shook her head fiercely.
“You came.”
For several precious seconds, the world disappeared.
There was no compound.
No auction.
No Silas Redd.
Only two sisters holding each other beside a cold river.
Then a voice cut through the afternoon.
“Well, isn't this touching?”
Cora looked up.
Silas Redd stood beside the gate.
He wore a dark green coat.
A silver watch chain crossed his vest.
And the little finger on his left hand was missing.
Behind him stood Mercer.
Both men were smiling.
Redd looked at Cora.
“Three years I've been waiting for you to come looking.”
Cora tightened her arms around Elsie.
Harlon stepped away from the wagon.
His hand moved toward his rifle.
Redd raised one finger.
Six armed men appeared along the fence.
“Careful, mountain man,” Redd called.
He looked at the sisters.
“Because this time, I'm not selling either of them for twenty dollars.”