By sunrise the following morning, almost everyone in Miller’s Crossing had heard about the ledger.
By breakfast, three different versions of its contents were circulating through town.
By noon, Silas Pendleton had lawyers claiming the book was stolen, fabricated, altered, or meaningless.
Catherine found that amusing.
Apparently the ledger was simultaneously worthless and dangerous enough to require two attorneys from Helena.
Sheriff Boone locked the original inside the iron safe beneath his desk.
He made two handwritten copies.
Ben Harper kept one.
Reverend Cole kept the other.
“Why the preacher?” Catherine asked.
Boone shrugged.
“Men might break into my office.”
“And a church?”
“They might.”
The sheriff smiled humorlessly.
“But Reverend Cole sleeps with a shotgun.”
For the first time in days, Catherine laughed without pain.
Her ribs still hurt.
Her shoulder remained in a sling.
Her lip was swollen.
But she was standing.
Pendleton disliked that.
Catherine could tell.
Every time they crossed paths, his eyes seemed to ask the same question.
Why aren’t you afraid yet?
The truth was that Catherine remained terrified.
Courage had simply become more useful.
She stayed temporarily in the rooms above Mrs. Larkin’s bakery because half the town refused to let her sleep near the burned ranch.
Grayson stayed in the stable loft.
Catherine argued.
Mrs. Larkin argued harder.
“He’s a grown man,” the baker said. “If he wants feathers, he can rent a hotel.”
“He’d hate that.”
“Then hay it is.”
Catherine suspected Grayson genuinely preferred the hay.
She found him before dawn on the third morning repairing her saddle.
“You know I can do that.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
“You’re one-handed.”
“Temporary.”
“Still one-handed.”
Catherine sat beside him.
For a while they worked in comfortable silence.
She polished the bridle with her left hand.
Grayson replaced cracked stitching.
Finally Catherine said, “Why do you live up there?”
Grayson did not pretend not to understand.
“The mountains?”
“Yes.”
“Quiet.”
“That’s not the whole answer.”
“No.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I know.”
Again, silence.
Then he said, “I had a wife.”
Catherine stopped moving.
Grayson kept his eyes on the saddle.
“Her name was Ellen.”
“How long ago?”
“Fourteen years.”
“What happened?”
“Winter sickness.”
Catherine understood those words.
They could mean influenza.
Pneumonia.
Fever.
Any of a dozen illnesses that killed faster than doctors could travel.
“We had a boy,” Grayson continued.
Catherine’s chest tightened.
“He died three days after her.”
“Grayson…”
“I buried them before the ground froze completely.”
She did not touch him.
Some griefs deserved space.
“Afterward,” he said, “everyone kept telling me I’d start again.”
Catherine looked at him.
“That must’ve been awful.”
He looked surprised.
“Most people thought they were helping.”
“I’m sure.”
“They said I was young.”
Catherine nodded slowly.
“As if that meant they hadn’t existed.”
Grayson’s hands stopped.
“Yes.”
The word was nearly a whisper.
Catherine looked toward the window where dawn painted the mountains gray.
“My mother died six years ago.”
“I know.”
“My father never remarried. People told him to.”
“How’d he answer?”
Catherine smiled.
“He said, ‘I already had my great love. Don’t get greedy.’”
Grayson’s expression softened.
“He sounds like a good man.”
“He was stubborn.”
“Same thing sometimes.”
She laughed.
Grayson looked at her.
The moment lingered.
Then a bell rang downstairs.
Mrs. Larkin shouted, “Catherine! Sheriff wants you!”
The hearing was scheduled for that afternoon.
Judge Horace Bell had arrived from Missoula sooner than anyone expected.
The courthouse filled until people stood in the hall.
Silas Pendleton sat beside two attorneys.
Catherine sat with Sheriff Boone.
Grayson stood behind her.
Caleb and Jedodiah were brought in under guard.
Caleb’s shoulder had been treated, but his face remained hard.
Jedodiah looked as though he had aged ten years.
Victor Sloan sat separately.
Deputy Mercer refused to look at anyone.
Judge Bell began with Catherine’s statement.
She told everything.
Her father’s death.
The inheritance.
Her brothers’ arrival.
The demand.
The beating.
The deed.
Grayson’s intervention.
Pendleton’s riders.
The fire.
The ledger.
Pendleton’s attorney, Malcolm Price, stood for cross-examination.
He was polished.
Smooth.
And immediately unpleasant.
“Miss Miller, you say your brothers attacked you?”
“Yes.”
“They disagree about details.”
“Caleb disagrees.”
“And Jedodiah?”
“He admitted it.”
“After being captured by Mr. Hayes.”
“After surviving the men Pendleton sent.”
Price smiled.
“That is your interpretation.”
“No. Victor Sloan led them.”
“Mr. Sloan claims he approached your ranch regarding cattle.”
“With nine armed men at midnight?”
“Frontier business occasionally requires protection.”
Catherine stared.
“Protection from what?”
Price ignored the question.
“You and your brothers have had disagreements before?”
“Yes.”
“You resented them?”
“Sometimes.”
“Enough to exclude them from your father?”
Catherine understood the trap.
“I didn’t write the will.”
“But you influenced him.”
“No.”
“You cared for him.”
“Yes.”
“Controlled his medicine?”
“I gave him what Doc Harris prescribed.”
“Managed his correspondence?”
“When he became too weak.”
“Managed his finances?”
“Yes.”
“So you controlled virtually every part of Thomas Miller’s life when he decided to leave everything to you?”
The room shifted.
Catherine felt old shame rising.
The familiar suspicion.
A woman could work herself bloody caring for a dying father, and someone would still suggest kindness had been manipulation.
She looked at the judge.
Then at Price.
“My father made his will three years before he got sick.”
Silence.
Price paused.
Catherine continued.
“He also filed a copy with the county clerk in Missoula.”
Sheriff Boone smiled faintly.
Price changed direction.
“Let’s discuss your relationship with Mr. Hayes.”
Catherine stiffened.
Grayson did too.
“What relationship?”
“You claim he happened to hear you from half a mile away.”
“He did.”
“And happened to arrive precisely when your brothers were allegedly committing a crime.”
“Yes.”
“How convenient.”
Grayson took a step.
Catherine lifted one hand.
He stopped.
Price walked closer.
“Mr. Hayes has a reputation for violence.”
Catherine looked directly at him.
“Among whom?”
“People in this county.”
“Names?”
Price frowned.
“Excuse me?”
“You said people. Name them.”
“This isn’t—”
“You asked me.”
Judge Bell leaned forward.
“Answer if you have specific witnesses, Mr. Price.”
Price’s smile tightened.
“Mr. Hayes shot Caleb Miller.”
“After Caleb drew a revolver.”
“According to you.”
“And the revolver was on the floor.”
“Again according to you.”
Catherine suddenly understood.
Price did not intend to prove anything.
He intended to make everything uncertain.
If the facts became muddy enough, power could survive.
So Catherine changed tactics.
“Ask Caleb.”
Price stopped.
“What?”
“Ask my brother whether he drew.”
Caleb’s face hardened.
Price said, “I’m questioning you.”
“Because you know his answer.”
Judge Bell looked toward Caleb.
“Mr. Miller?”
Caleb remained silent.
Bell repeated, “Did you draw a firearm on Grayson Hayes?”
Caleb looked toward Catherine.
For a moment she saw the boy he had once been.
Then it disappeared.
“Yes.”
The courtroom erupted.
Judge Bell struck the desk.
“Order!”
Price’s confidence weakened.
Then Jedodiah testified.
He described meeting Pendleton’s agent.
The gambling debt.
The money.
The plan.
“You were supposed to convince your sister?” Judge Bell asked.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Any way.”
“Did Silas Pendleton specifically instruct you to assault her?”
Jedodiah hesitated.
“No.”
Pendleton’s attorneys relaxed.
“But Victor Sloan did.”
Everyone turned toward Sloan.
Jedodiah continued.
“He said if talking didn’t work, Catherine only had to be able to hold the pen.”
Catherine felt sick.
Sloan cursed.
Judge Bell ordered him quiet.
“Did Pendleton know?”
“I don’t know.”
That uncertainty mattered.
The ledger proved payments.
It proved interest in the water.
It contained the phrase “proceed with removal.”
But Pendleton’s lawyers argued removal meant legal eviction after transfer.
Ugly.
Plausible.
Difficult.
Then Deputy Mercer surprised everyone.
“I can prove it.”
Pendleton turned.
Mercer had remained silent for days.
Now he looked toward the judge.
“I want immunity consideration.”
Sheriff Boone swore softly.
Judge Bell said, “You may tell the court what you know. Any consideration comes later.”
Mercer swallowed.
“Pendleton paid me.”
“For what?”
“Records. Debt information. Land titles. Which owners had mortgages.”
“How long?”
“Four years.”
People whispered.
“Did he order violence?”
Mercer looked toward Pendleton.
Fear crossed his face.
Then he nodded.
“Not directly.”
Price stood.
“Objection.”
Judge Bell waved him down.
Mercer continued.
“He never said ‘burn that ranch’ or ‘kill that man.’ He’d say a property had become troublesome.”
“What did that mean?”
“Sloan handled the rest.”
Pendleton’s face had gone still.
“What did it mean?” Bell repeated.
Mercer closed his eyes.
“Threats. Missing cattle. Fences cut. Fires sometimes.”
“And Miller Valley?”
Mercer looked toward Catherine.
“He said if the transfer wasn’t complete before the first snow, there wouldn’t be an owner left to argue about it.”
Catherine stopped breathing.
The entire courthouse seemed to stop with her.
Silas Pendleton rose.
“That is a lie.”
It was the first time Catherine had heard him raise his voice.
Mercer laughed bitterly.
“You said it in your office.”
“You’re a thief trying to save yourself.”
“I kept your letters.”
Pendleton’s face changed.
Judge Bell leaned forward.
“Where?”
Mercer looked at Sheriff Boone.
“Under the floor of my house.”
Pendleton moved toward the door.
Grayson stepped into his path.
Nobody had ordered him to.
Nobody needed to.
Pendleton stopped.
Judge Bell spoke.
“Mr. Pendleton, sit down.”
“I have business elsewhere.”
“You have business here.”
Pendleton looked around the room.
For years people had moved when he entered.
Now no one did.
He sat.
Sheriff Boone sent Ben Harper and two men to Mercer’s house.
They returned an hour later carrying an oilcloth packet.
Letters.
Receipts.
Payments.
Instructions.
Not one document explicitly ordered Catherine’s murder.
Together they revealed a pattern no reasonable person could ignore.
Pressure.
Threats.
Illegal surveillance.
Bribery.
Property transfers after suspicious fires.
Judge Bell ordered Silas Pendleton detained pending territorial charges.
People gasped as Sheriff Boone approached him.
Pendleton did not resist.
He simply looked at Catherine.
“This isn’t finished.”
Catherine held his gaze.
“No.”
She stood.
“But it’s finally started.”
Outside the courthouse, people surrounded her.
Questions.
Congratulations.
Apologies.
One woman who had mocked Catherine’s dresses years earlier hugged her and cried.
Catherine did not know what to do with that.
Then she noticed Grayson walking away.
“Grayson!”
He stopped.
She caught up.
“Where are you going?”
“Mountain.”
“That’s it?”
He looked confused.
“You’re safe.”
Catherine stared.
“You nearly died.”
“So did you.”
“You saved my life.”
“You fought for most of it yourself.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
Grayson looked toward the distant peaks.
“I’m not good in towns.”
“Neither am I.”
“You belong here.”
Catherine laughed.
“Did you somehow miss the last twenty years?”
He looked at her.
“You stood in a courthouse full of people who underestimated you and made them listen.”
“So?”
“So maybe they’ll learn.”
She studied him.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Maybe you could learn too.”
His expression became guarded.
“Learn what?”
“That being alone because you choose it is different from being alone because you’re afraid to lose somebody again.”
Grayson recoiled as though she had struck him.
Catherine immediately regretted it.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked away.
“No.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“You’re right.”
That surprised her.
He rubbed one hand across his beard.
“That’s worse.”
Catherine smiled despite herself.
“Stay until my house is rebuilt.”
He stared.
“As what?”
She considered.
“A man who keeps repairing things nobody asked him to repair.”
“That a job?”
“It is now.”
“How’s the pay?”
“Terrible.”
“Meals?”
“If Mrs. Larkin keeps feeding everyone, excellent.”
Grayson smiled.
“All right.”
Catherine felt an unexpected warmth in her chest.
Then a rider came racing down Main Street.
He shouted before stopping.
“Fire!”
Everyone turned.
Catherine’s blood went cold.
“Where?”
“South pasture!”
The rider gasped.
“Miller Valley!”
Catherine looked toward the horizon.
Black smoke was rising.
Silas Pendleton was sitting in jail.
Victor Sloan was sitting in jail.
But Pendleton had employed more than two men.
And someone had decided that if he could not own Catherine’s valley, she would inherit ashes.
Catherine ran for her horse.
Her shoulder screamed.
Grayson was already beside her.
The courthouse victory had lasted less than fifteen minutes.
And Miller Valley was burning again.
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