Into a human one.
Then Eleanor saw tears in his eyes.
“You look like Jonathan,” Caleb whispered to Edward.
The room broke around them.
Sarah began crying.
Thomas turned away.
Eleanor gripped the table.
Her husband had a brother.
The feared man who had paid three hundred dollars was family.
But one sentence in Jonathan’s letter remained lodged inside her.
The children must never fall into Cromwell’s hands.
Eleanor looked at Caleb.
“Why?”
His smile disappeared.
“Sit.”
Caleb waited until the younger children were asleep.
Sarah and Thomas refused to leave.
Eleanor allowed them to stay.
They sat around the kitchen table.
Caleb placed three documents before Eleanor.
The first was a land deed.
The second a military discharge certificate.
The third a partnership agreement.
Eleanor read slowly.
Then again.
Her name was not there.
Jonathan’s was.
Jonathan Hayes and Caleb Roar, joint claimants, 640 acres, North Fork Valley.
Eleanor looked up.
“This homestead.”
“Half belonged to Jonathan.”
“When?”
“Since 1868.”
“Before I met him.”
“Yes.”
“Why did he live in Philadelphia?”
Caleb leaned back.
“Because he wanted away from Wyoming.”
“From you?”
“From what happened here.”
Thomas asked:
“What happened?”
Caleb looked toward Eleanor.
She nodded.
“Tell us.”
He began.
After the Civil War, Caleb and Jonathan came west.
They worked freight routes, railroad camps, and mines.
Covenant Creek was smaller then.
Poor.
Violent.
Territorial law existed mostly on paper.
A group of businessmen began buying debt from eastern relocation societies.
Widows and poor families arrived believing they had employment agreements.
Then discovered transportation fees, lodging fees, placement fees, and legal obligations had transformed them into indebted labor.
Children were separated.
Some were placed with legitimate families.
Others were sent to ranches, mines, and work farms where nobody checked conditions.
The woman running placement records even then was younger but familiar.
Cromwell.
Her husband controlled several contracts.
When Caleb and Jonathan discovered children working underground at a silver mine, they reported it.
The sheriff did nothing.
The territorial magistrate dismissed the complaint.
So Caleb did something less legal.
He took twelve men into the mine at night and removed fourteen children.
Thomas’s eyes widened.
“You rescued them.”
“I stole them according to the warrant.”
“What happened?”
“Men came after us.”
“Did you kill them?”
Thomas asked.
Eleanor shot him a look.
Caleb answered.
“Two.”
The rumors.
Men disappearing.
Violence following him.
Eleanor understood.
Caleb continued.
“Jonathan wanted to testify.”
“I wanted to burn the whole operation.”
“Which one did you do?”
Sarah asked.
Caleb looked almost ashamed.
“Both.”
He and Jonathan gathered records.
Before they could bring them before a federal judge, their cabin burned.
A witness died.
Jonathan believed Caleb died too.
Caleb had been away tracking one of Cromwell’s men.