“So the physician is someone else.”
“Dr. Reese.”
Nathan’s voice became cold.
“He was the man treating Mara during the last four months.”
“Where is he?”
“No idea.”
“He left after the funeral.”
Clara looked toward Mara’s letters.
“Convenient.”
Nathan stood.
Ethan immediately said:
“Pa.”
Nathan stopped.
The boy’s voice shook.
“You promised.”
Nathan looked toward him.
“I promised nothing.”
“Mama knew.”
Those two words defeated him.
Nathan sat again.
Clara waited.
Finally:
“What do we do?”
That question mattered more than anything.
Nathan was asking.
Not deciding alone.
Clara pointed toward the papers.
“We verify.”
“How?”
“The bank first.”
“If Vale manipulated the note, there will be records.”
“He owns the servicing company now.”
“Then not Red Creek.”
“Cheyenne.”
Nathan nodded.
“What else?”
“Find Reese.”
“How?”
“Ask people who don’t know we care.”
Nathan thought.
“Stage drivers.”
“Doctors.”
“Apothecaries.”
“Exactly.”
“And Mara’s medicine?”
Nathan’s face tightened.
“We burned most after she died.”
“Most?”
He frowned.
“There may be one bottle.”
“Where?”
“I packed her things into the attic.”
Ethan suddenly looked up.
“Green bottle?”
Nathan turned.
“You remember?”
“Mama told me not to throw it away.”
Clara stared.
“Why?”
“She said maybe someday somebody would need to know what was in it.”
Silence.
Nathan rose.
Not toward the door.
Toward the attic stairs.
This time Clara followed.
They found the bottle wrapped inside one of Mara’s winter shawls.
Green glass.
Half full.
A faded handwritten label.
One spoon twice daily.
No ingredients.
No pharmacy name.
Only:
Dr. H. Reese.
Nathan held it as though the glass contained his wife’s ghost.
Clara took it carefully.
“Do not open this.”
“Why?”
“If there’s evidence, we preserve it.”
“You sound like a lawyer.”
“Samuel is rubbing off on me.”
From the stairwell Samuel shouted:
“I heard that!”
Nathan looked toward Clara.
For the first time since seeing the papers, he smiled.
Only briefly.
It mattered.
They wrapped the bottle again.
Nathan knew a retired military surgeon named Dr. Amos Bell who lived thirty miles west.
“He’ll test it?”
“He’ll know who can.”
“Can we trust him?”
Nathan looked offended.
“He delivered Samuel.”
Clara looked toward the stairs.
“Given Samuel’s personality, that is not automatically reassuring.”
A muffled protest came from below.
Nathan laughed.
Again.
The sound surprised both of them.
Then Nathan became serious.
“I’ll ride.”
“No.”
He stared.
“Nola—”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Who?”
Nathan blinked.