Chapter 2 - The Debt Beneath the AshesAt sunrise, Chloe stood before the ruins of her cabin.
Dominic had refused to bring her until daylight.
He had also refused to let her come without twelve armed riders.
The roof had collapsed.
Her mother’s chair was gone.
The curtains Chloe had sewn at seventeen were ashes.
The little blue cup her mother used for morning coffee lay cracked in the mud.
Chloe crouched beside it.
Dominic remained several yards behind her.
For once, he said nothing.
She appreciated that.
People often tried to fill grief with words because silence frightened them.
Dominic apparently understood that some losses required silence.
Chloe sifted through ash until her fingers turned black.
Then she found something.
A metal box.
Partially burned.
Her mother had kept important papers inside.
Chloe opened it.
Most documents were destroyed.
One survived.
A folded deed.
Dominic noticed her expression.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
He approached.
Chloe handed him the document.
His eyes narrowed.
“This property isn’t your cabin.”
“What?”
“This deed is for eighty acres north of Copper Ridge.”
“My mother never owned land.”
“Apparently she did.”
Chloe stared at him.
Dominic read the signature.
“Eleanor Bennett.”
“That’s her.”
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
Dominic looked toward Leo.
“Get the horses.”
“Why?”
Dominic handed the deed back.
“Because Copper Ridge is where the new railroad is supposed to run.”
Chloe stared at him.
“And?”
“And somebody just burned your house the same night you saved my life.”
He looked toward the ashes.
“I’m beginning to think those events aren’t separate.”
They rode north before noon.
By evening, Chloe learned the first truth her mother had taken to the grave.
The eighty acres were not worthless scrubland.
They contained the only natural pass through Copper Ridge wide enough for railroad tracks.
And three different companies had been trying to acquire it for years.
One company belonged to Silas Creed.
The dead man who apparently wasn’t dead.
Chloe stood on the ridge watching the sunset bleed across the desert.
Dominic dismounted beside her.
“How much is this land worth?”
“To the right buyer?”
He looked toward the valley.
“Enough to start a war.”
Chloe laughed bitterly.
“My mother died owing doctors.”
Dominic said nothing.
“She had land worth a fortune and still died in a freezing cabin.”
“There may have been a reason she never sold.”
“What reason?”
Dominic looked at the distant railroad survey markers.
“That’s what we need to discover.”
They found their first clue beneath an old boundary stone.
A tin cylinder containing a letter.
The handwriting belonged to Chloe’s mother.
Her hands trembled as she opened it.
Chloe,
If you are reading this, then I was not able to tell you the truth myself.
Your father did not die in a mining accident.
He was murdered.
Chloe stopped.
The world seemed to tilt.
Dominic caught the paper before it slipped from her hand.
She forced herself to continue reading.
The men responsible wanted Copper Ridge.
Your father refused to sell because he discovered what they intended to build beneath the railroad.
Storage tunnels.
Weapons.
Smuggling routes.
Men wearing respectable coats are sometimes worse than thieves wearing guns.
Trust no railroad man bearing the Creed name.
Chloe looked up.
Dominic’s expression had become stone.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He said nothing.
“Dominic.”
He took a breath.
“Silas Creed was once my partner.”
Chloe felt something cold settle inside her.
“What?”
“Years ago.”
“You worked with the man who murdered my father?”
“I didn’t know about your father.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Dominic looked directly at her.
“Yes.”
Chloe slapped him.
Leo, standing twenty feet away, froze.
Dominic’s head turned with the impact.
He slowly looked back at her.
Chloe’s hand stung.
“You knew him.”
“Yes.”
“You made money with him.”
“Yes.”
“And now you expect me to trust you?”
“No.”
That answer stopped her.
Dominic continued.
“I expect you to decide for yourself.”
He handed her the letter.
“But decide after you know everything.”
That evening, beside the campfire, Dominic told her about Silas Creed.
About two young men who had built an outlaw empire transporting silver across territories where rail companies refused to travel.
About greed.
About Creed’s increasing brutality.
About the night Dominic discovered Creed had murdered three homesteaders who would not sell their land.
Dominic had ended their partnership.
Six months later, Creed supposedly died when his train plunged into a canyon.
“Supposedly,” Chloe said.
Dominic nodded.
“And you never checked?”
“I saw a burned body wearing his ring.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
Dominic stared into the flames.
“I wanted him dead badly enough that I accepted convenient evidence.”
For the first time, Chloe saw something beneath the legend.
Regret.
Not theatrical guilt.
Something heavier.
She understood that Dominic Moretti carried ghosts.
Perhaps as many as she did.
A rifle cracked from the darkness.
Dominic tackled Chloe to the ground.
The bullet struck the tree behind them.
“AMBUSH!”
Gunfire erupted.
Leo and the riders scattered for cover.
Dominic pulled Chloe behind a boulder.
“You hit?”
“No.”
“Stay here.”
He rose.
Chloe grabbed his coat.
“Don’t.”
Their eyes met.
Then another bullet struck the rock.
Dominic gave her his spare revolver.
“Know how to use one?”
“No.”
“Point away from yourself.”
“That’s your lesson?”
“It’s the important part.”
He disappeared into the darkness.
The firefight lasted five minutes.
It felt like an hour.
Then silence.
Dominic returned with blood on his sleeve.
Chloe stared.
“You’re hurt.”
“Scratch.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Still a scratch.”
She grabbed his arm.
“Sit down.”
Dominic actually obeyed.
Chloe tore cloth from her underskirt and wrapped the wound.
His eyes remained on her face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“Nobody tells me to sit.”
“Perhaps more people should.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
It transformed him.
For one startling second, he looked almost ordinary.
Almost young.
Chloe tied the bandage tighter than necessary.
Dominic winced.
“That was deliberate.”
“Perhaps.”
He smiled again.
Then Leo emerged from the darkness.
“Found one alive.”
The captured gunman carried a brass railroad token.
Stamped into the metal were two letters.
SC.
Silas Creed.
And suddenly Chloe understood something.
The assassin in the saloon had not simply been trying to kill Dominic.
He had been trying to begin something.
May you like
A war.
And Chloe Bennett had accidentally placed herself directly in its center.
Related Stories
