Nathan frowned, shaking his head. "A wagon hitch? A bell clapper?"
He stopped.
His eyes flew to hers.
"The church," Eleanor said, her voice rising with an excitement that made Samuel sit up straight. "The bell clapper is called the iron tongue! And where does it hang? 'High above the bronze'âno, 'where the bronze hangs high above the clay!' The cemetery, Nathan! The Methodist church by the old cemetery on the south road!"
Nathan stood as though struck by an electric current.
"The bell," he breathed. "My father paid for that bell. He had it shipped from the Buckeye Bell Foundry in Cincinnati in 1871, after the old log chapel burned down. He helped Reverend Hale hoist it into the belfry with a block and tackle from this very barn."
"He put the tin cylinder in the bell tower," Eleanor said, her hand clutching his forearm through the sleeve of his coat. "Itâs in the church. It has been sitting above the town of Wind River for twelve years, right over Silas Rourkeâs head."
Nathan looked at the mantle clock.
It was four o'clock in the morning.
"Zeb!" Nathan roared, his voice booming down the hallway toward the kitchen with enough force to rattle the tin cups on the dresser. "Get your boots on and harness the team! We're riding into town!"
The wind had shifted to the northwest, bringing with it a low, crawling ground-drift that hissed across the crust of the snow like a million tiny serpents.
By the time Nathanâs big bay gelding and the light buckboard carrying Eleanor and the boys reached the outskirts of Wind River, the eastern sky was the color of a bruised plum. The temperature had not risen; if anything, the arrival of the false dawn had pulled the mercury down further, coating the horses' eyelashes in thick white frost and turning the leather reins as stiff as dried hickory.
The Methodist church stood half a mile south of the main street, separated from the town by a shallow draw filled with dead cottonwoods. It was a modest, white-painted frame building with a modest square belfry perched above the entrance. Behind it lay the cemetery, where fifty wooden and stone markers stood tilted in the drifts, their inscriptions half-erased by winter storms.
Nathan dismounted before the gelding had fully stopped, throwing the reins over the hitching rail outside the parsonage gate.
"Stay in the wagon, Eleanor," he said, turning toward her as she reached for the handrail.
"I will not," she replied instantly, stepping down into the knee-deep snow, her skirts gathered in one hand and Davidâs old carpetbag in the other. "If Reverend Hale is awake, he will not let a man with a six-shooter and spurs tear up his sanctuary without an explanation. A woman carries more credit with the cloth than an armed rancher."
Nathan looked at her, his jaw tightening, but he did not argue. He turned and took the four steps of the church porch two at a time.
The heavy pine doors were locked with an iron padlock.
Nathan didn't hesitate. He stepped back, raised his right boot, and drove his heel against the doorframe beside the latch.
Crack!
The dried pine gave way with a splintering screech. The doors flew inward, banging against the interior plaster walls with an echo that sounded like thunder inside the cold, empty nave.
"Nathan Crowley!" a terrified voice shouted from the rear of the chapel.
Reverend Josiah Hale stood in the doorway leading from the vestry, wearing a flannel nightshirt over his trousers, holding an oil lamp high with a hand that shook so violently the glass chimney rattled against the burner. He was a small, frail man of sixty, with wispy white hair and spectacles that sat crooked on his long nose.
"What is the meaning of this sacrilege?" the old man cried, stepping into the center aisle. "Have you lost your senses, Nathan? Breaking the Lord's house at five in the morning?"
"I'm sorry about your door, Reverend," Nathan said, striding down the aisle, his spurs chiming against the pine floorboards. "I'll pay Walter Higgins to forge a new strike-plate before sundown. But I have business in your belfry."
"In the belfry?" Hale sputtered, looking past Nathan to where Eleanor was entering, her shawl drawn close, leading Henry by the hand while Samuel lagged behind, wide-eyed at the tall wooden pulpit. "Mrs. Pierce? You too? What madness has taken hold of you people?"
"It is not madness, Reverend Hale," Eleanor said, her voice calm, clear, and resonant in the chilly room. "It is a matter of law. And of an old friend's legacy."
Nathan had already found the small, narrow door in the corner of the vestibule that led to the bell tower stairs. It was secured by a simple wooden button. He turned the button, pulled the door open, and looked up into the black vertical shaft. A set of rough two-by-four rungs were nailed directly to the studs, disappearing into the darkness above.
"Give me the lamp, Reverend," Nathan said.
Hale, bewildered and overwhelmed by the sheer, unyielding momentum of the two people before him, handed the brass lantern to Nathan without another word.