They Called 19-Year-Old Abigail a Liar and a Harlot—Then the Feared Mountain Man Walked In and Said, “That Child Is Mine.”

Chapter 6

Then Silas shouted, “Riders!” and everyone turned, and men were approaching from below, more than twenty this time, and at their center rode Mayor Charles Hastings, Billy’s father. The mayor looked nothing like his son, because Billy was polished and vain while Charles Hastings was heavyset and gray-bearded and smiling, and that smile frightened Abigail more than Billy’s knife ever had. He stopped his horse below the avalanche field and called up to them. “Well,” he said, “that was disappointing.”

Reverend Preston stepped forward and said, “You tried to kill your own son,” and the mayor shrugged and said, “Billy has always been expensive.” Billy stared at his father as if he had been struck, and he said, “Father?” and the mayor said, “Don’t look surprised,” and Billy asked if he had known he was there, and the mayor said, “Precisely,” and Billy’s face collapsed, because for perhaps the first time in his life he understood what it felt like to be disposable. Mayor Hastings pointed at Reverend Preston and said, “I want the ledger,” and Morgan moved in front of Abigail and the seven ranch hands spread out beside him and Silas raised his rifle, but the mayor just sighed and told them to consider their position carefully, that they could hand over one book and go home wealthy.

Silas spat into the snow and said, “You tried to bury us,” and the mayor said it had been a miscalculation, and Silas said, “You call that a miscalculation?” and the mayor said, “I call it business.” Abigail felt something change among the men then, because until that moment many of them had feared Morgan, but now they understood who the true monster was, and it was not the trapper standing beside a frightened girl, it was the smiling man on the horse. Mayor Hastings looked at Abigail and said, “And you. You have caused an extraordinary amount of inconvenience,” and she forced herself not to step backward and said, “You mean I survived,” and his smile vanished and he said, “Yes.” Morgan raised the Winchester, and the mayor’s men raised theirs, twenty rifles against eight, and the mathematics were simple, and Billy suddenly spoke. “Father.”

Charles glanced at him, and Billy stepped away from Morgan’s group, and Abigail’s stomach tightened, because of course, whatever his father had done, Billy would choose power, he always had. Billy walked slowly downhill past Silas, who warned him, and he approached his father, and Charles smiled faintly and said, “Sensible at last,” and Billy stopped beside his horse. “You planted the charges?” Billy asked, and his father said yes, and Billy asked if he had known he was there, and the mayor said he had assumed Billy had enough intelligence to leave before they went off. Billy stared at his father for a long moment, and then he began laughing, and Charles frowned and asked what was amusing, and Billy reached into his coat and Morgan tensed, but Billy did not pull a weapon, he pulled out a small notebook, and Charles Hastings’ face changed. “You always said I was too stupid to understand business,” Billy said, holding it up, and when his father demanded it, he said, “So I started keeping records.”

The mayor’s smile disappeared, and Billy turned toward Morgan and told him that the notebook contained every payment his father had made to Crowe for the last three years, and Elias Crowe cursed, and Billy continued, listing the bribes and the burnings and the threats and the two men who had disappeared after refusing to sell their land. Silas stared, and Reverend Preston crossed himself, and Abigail looked at Billy in disbelief, and he met her eyes, and there was no redemption in his expression, only rage, but sometimes terrible men helped destroy worse ones for terrible reasons. Billy turned back to his father and said, “You were going to kill me,” and Charles Hastings spoke softly and said, “You were becoming inconvenient,” and Billy nodded and threw the notebook uphill, and Morgan caught it. Charles raised his hand and said, “Kill them,” and twenty rifles lifted, and Morgan grabbed Abigail and pulled her down, and shots cracked across the valley, but the bullets did not come from below, they came from above.

Mayor Hastings’ men scattered as three rifles flew from their hands and one horse bolted, and Charles spun around to find figures appearing on the ridge, dozens of them, and at their front stood a broad man wearing a federal marshal’s badge, and behind him were soldiers, and beside them were townspeople from Bitter Creek, women and ranchers and shopkeepers and even members of Reverend Preston’s congregation. Abigail could not understand what she was seeing, and the marshal called down, “Charles Hastings! Drop your weapons!” and Charles looked at Reverend Preston and said, “You,” and the reverend shook his head and said no, and Morgan asked who had brought them, and a woman stepped forward. It was Mrs. Martha Bell, the widow who ran Bitter Creek’s general store, who had been in the church the day Abigail was condemned and had been one of the women who turned her face away, and now she lifted something in her hand, the silver mate to Billy’s missing cufflink.

Martha descended the ridge with the marshal, pale but determined, and she said, “I found this behind the harvest tents the morning after Abigail disappeared,” and Billy’s mouth opened, and she said, “I knew it belonged to him.” Abigail whispered, “Why didn’t you speak?” and Martha’s eyes filled with tears and she said, “Because I was a coward,” and the words echoed across the snow, and Reverend Preston closed his eyes. Martha looked directly at Abigail and explained that her husband had owed Mayor Hastings money, and she had thought that if she accused Billy they would lose the store, and then her husband had died in January, and when she examined his account books she had learned that the debt had never existed. Mayor Hastings shouted that she was lying, and the marshal raised a document and said, “Federal treasury investigators disagree,” and Charles went silent.

The marshal looked at Morgan and said they had received a package three weeks earlier containing copies of town accounts and property records and a statement about Abigail Preston, and Morgan frowned and said he had not sent anything, and everyone looked at Reverend Preston, who shook his head, and then at Martha, who said no, and then at Silas, who also said no. A strange expression crossed Billy’s face, and Abigail noticed and asked, “You?” and Billy laughed bitterly and said, “Not exactly,” and when she asked who then, Billy looked toward Elias Crowe, who had gone pale. Morgan grabbed Crowe, and Crowe resisted, and something fell from his coat, a tiny wooden whistle, and Abigail recognized it and so did Morgan, and his face changed as he picked it up. Three initials had been carved into the wood. T.M.M.

Abigail asked what it was, and Morgan could not speak, and for the first time since she had known him, the mountain man looked frightened, not of guns and not of death, but of hope. He turned toward Crowe and asked, “Where did you get this?” and Crowe said nothing, and Morgan slammed him against a tree and asked again, and Crowe finally whispered, “From Thomas.” Morgan staggered backward, and Abigail had never heard that name, and she asked who Thomas was, and Morgan looked at her and said, “My brother,” and Reverend Preston frowned and said, “Your brother died,” and Morgan said, “So I thought.”