Charles closed his eyes.
“I know where your brother is.”
The words seemed to stop time.
Luke grabbed his father's coat.
“Where?”
Charles opened his eyes again.
“Under the old processing mill. There's a lower chamber beneath the riverbank. Briggs has been keeping him there.”
Luke stared at him.
“You knew all this time?”
Charles's face twisted.
“I thought I could bargain for his release.”
Luke released his coat.
For a moment, he wanted to strike him.
He wanted to ask how a father could choose money, reputation, and fear over his own child.
Instead, he stood.
“Can you walk?”
Charles shook his head.
“Then you'll have to crawl.”
Luke lifted him onto his shoulder and began moving toward the storage room's rear passage.
The room had another exit, a narrow ventilation shaft that connected to an old drainage channel. It was barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through, but it offered a way out.
Luke pushed Charles forward.
“Move.”
Behind them, the mine groaned.
And far beneath Blackwater Creek, Elias Harper was still waiting.
Nora reached the surface shortly before dawn.
She emerged from the old shaft covered in dust, her coat torn, the journal pressed against her chest.
Amos Bell was waiting beside the entrance with two horses.
When he saw her, he ran forward.
“Where's Luke?”
“Inside. His father was trapped.”
Amos looked toward the mine.
“Lord have mercy.”
Nora handed him the journal.
“Take this to the church. Find Reverend Miller and lock the doors. No one is to touch these papers.”
Amos hesitated.
“What about you?”
“I'm going to find Elias.”
Before Amos could stop her, Nora mounted the gray horse and rode toward the processing mill.
She had seen the drawing in her father's journal. She knew where the lower chamber was located.
The old mill stood beside a frozen river, its wooden wheel motionless beneath a blanket of snow. The building had been abandoned for years, though smoke occasionally rose from a chimney at the rear.
Nora dismounted behind a row of dead trees.
She could hear men talking inside.
One voice belonged to Sheriff Briggs.
Another was unfamiliar.
She approached the building and looked through a crack in the boards.
Briggs stood beside a table, pouring whiskey into a glass.
A large, scarred man sat across from him.
Between them lay a revolver and a folded document.
Nora recognized the scarred man's face from her father's drawings.
Caleb Rusk.
The foreman of the Blackwater Mining Company.
He had been present the night her father died.
Briggs lifted his glass.
“Once the Harper boy is dead, we can finish the shipment and leave this miserable place.”
Rusk shook his head.
“And the girl?”
“She's already dead. The cabin burned.”
Nora felt a cold rage settle inside her.
Briggs continued.
“The old man is finished. Charles has no strength left to interfere. We take the ledger, destroy the remaining records, and let the company deal with the authorities in Denver.”
Rusk glanced toward the floor.
“And the prisoner?”
Briggs smiled.
“He won't be a problem for much longer.”
Nora moved away from the window.
She had to find Elias before they killed him.
At the rear of the mill, she discovered a narrow wooden door half-hidden behind stacked barrels. It was secured with a heavy iron chain.
She took the small knife from her boot and worked at the chain.
It took several minutes, but the lock finally gave way.
The door opened onto a staircase descending into darkness.
A foul smell rose from below.
Nora covered her mouth and began climbing down.
At the bottom, she found a small room with stone walls and a single barred cell.
Inside sat a man with long hair, a beard, and a face so thin that she barely recognized him.
His hands were chained to the wall.
When he raised his head, his eyes widened.
“Who are you?”
Nora stepped closer.
“Elias Harper?”
He stared at her.
Then his gaze fell to the brass button hanging from a chain around her neck.
His expression changed.
“My brother sent you?”
“No,” she whispered. “Your brother is coming.”
Elias closed his eyes.
For a moment, he seemed unable to speak.
Then he began to cry.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
He simply lowered his head, and the tears fell onto the dirty floor.
Nora knelt beside the bars.
“My father was Samuel Carter.”
Elias looked up.
“Samuel?”
“He tried to save you.”
Elias swallowed.
“Is he alive?”
Nora shook her head.
The silence that followed was unbearable.
Elias gripped the bars.
“They killed him?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes again.
“I should have gotten him out.”