Chương 5
Silas swallowed. “Then he was a good man.”
“He was.”
“I’m glad.”
“You don’t look glad.”
“Mae,” Nora said, sharper now. “Bed.”
This time the girl obeyed. At the door she looked back, not at Silas but at her mother.
When she was gone, Nora said, “You could have lied.”
“I have done enough of that.”
“You told her you don’t know if you want her.”
“I told her I don’t know how to be her father.”
“She is eight. She hears what she fears.”
“She asked me for the truth.”
“She asked because I was foolish enough to give her your name.”
Silas stood. “Why did you?”
Nora’s eyes filled, though no tears fell.
“Because when the bottle made me sick and I couldn’t get off that barn floor, I thought I had killed myself by accident. I thought they would find me dead in the morning. She needed somebody.”
“There was Caleb’s family.”
“Gone.”
“Yours?”
“My father died. My mother won’t answer letters.”
“So you chose me.”
“I chose the last name I had left.”
The words should have hurt. Instead they opened a hollow place in him large enough for grief.
He moved to the window. Across the yard, the livery lantern swayed in the wind. A man led a limping horse into a stall. Ordinary life continued with its customary cruelty.
“Where are the copies?” Silas asked.
Nora’s expression closed.
“If Voss thinks you have them, he will not stop at calling the deputy.”
“I know.”
“Where?”
“I burned them.”
“You said you meant to bargain.”
“I changed my mind.”
“You are lying.”
“You have no authority to question me.”
“No. But I am paying the doctor, sitting beside your bed, and trying to keep Voss from dragging you to jail before sunrise. That earns me one useful answer.”
She studied him for a long time.
“They’re safe,” she said.
“That is not useful.”
“It is all you get.”
Silas picked up his hat.
“Where are you going?”
“To find out why Gideon Voss knew my name.”
Nora’s hand closed around the blanket. “Silas.”
He paused.
“Do not challenge him like you did Thomas.”
Her brother’s name entered the room without raising its voice.
Silas put on his hat.
“I’m not twenty-four anymore.”
“No,” Nora said. “Now you have more to lose.”
Gideon Voss lived in a house of red brick on the north edge of town, where cottonwoods had been coaxed into growing beside an irrigation ditch. The house had glass windows, a wraparound porch, and a brass knocker shaped like a lion. Silas used his fist.
A Mexican housekeeper opened the door and regarded him without welcome.
“Mr. Voss is asleep.”
“No, he isn’t.”
A lamp burned in the study behind her.
She followed his gaze. “Then he does not wish to see you.”
“Tell him Silas Rourke has come to discuss Nora Kincaid.”
The housekeeper’s expression shifted by a degree. She stepped aside.
Voss sat behind a walnut desk with his coat removed and his shirtsleeves held by silver bands. A decanter and two glasses rested near his hand. He was reading a newspaper from Denver.
“You are either brave or poorly raised,” he said.
“Both have been suggested.”
Voss folded the paper. “Whiskey?”
“No.”
“I had you investigated six years ago.”
Silas had expected evasions. The directness unsettled him.
“Why?”
“Nora wrote letters.”
“To me?”
“To several cattle outfits asking whether they employed a man named Silas Rourke. One letter reached a buyer who did business with me. He asked if I knew her.”
“And you read them?”
“She used my postage.”
Silas stepped closer to the desk. “Did you send them?”
“I sent enough to learn you were alive.”
“Did she learn?”
Voss poured whiskey into one glass. “She had a husband.”
“That was not your decision.”
“Caleb Kincaid was loyal to me. He deserved peace in his house.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Nora?”
“No.”
Silas stared at him.
Voss drank. “You vanished for years. She married. She had children. You may resent me for denying you a dramatic reunion, but I prevented disorder.”
“You prevented her from choosing.”
“Choice is a word men use when they do not pay the bill.”
The study was warm. A clock ticked on the mantel. Silas wanted to overturn the desk, break the decanter against the wall, and pull truth from Voss with his hands. Nora’s warning held him in place.
“Why did Caleb fall from the roof?” he asked.
Voss’s eyes narrowed. “Because roofs are high.”
“Was he working for you?”
“He was repairing my grain shed.”
“Who saw him fall?”
“Two ranch hands.”
“Names?”
“You are not a lawman.”
“No.”
“Then stop pretending.”
Silas leaned forward, palms on the desk. “You knew I was Mae’s father.”
Voss’s gaze did not move.
“That child is Caleb Kincaid’s by law and by upbringing.”
“That was not my question.”
“Nora arrived here already carrying her. Caleb married her anyway. That made him more generous than either of us.”
“Why keep me away?”
“Because Caleb asked.”
Silas straightened.
Voss took another drink.
“He found one of Nora’s returned letters after they married,” he said. “He knew she still wondered whether you were alive. He asked me to make inquiries. When I found you, he asked me not to tell her.”
“And you obliged.”
“He loved her.”
“He was afraid.”
“Most love contains fear.”
Silas looked around the study. Books lined one wall, many uncut. A framed photograph showed Voss beside twenty ranch hands. Caleb might have been among them, though Silas did not know his face.
“What do you want from Nora?” he asked.
“My money and my documents.”
“She says she burned the documents.”
“She lies poorly.”
“So do you.”
Voss smiled. “She stole thirty-eight dollars from the payroll box.”
“I’ll repay it.”
“That is not enough.”
“What is enough?”
May you like
“She returns my papers, signs a statement that she altered the books without my knowledge, and leaves Mercy Crossing.”
“With the children?”
