“Sick how?”
“Fever.”
Jonas looked down.
“He’d gotten a cut while digging me out. Small one. Across the palm. It started swelling. By the time I noticed, red lines had reached his wrist.”
Infection.
Miriam understood before he said it.
No doctor.
No medicine.
No town close enough.
Philip’s condition worsened.
Jonas tried to leave on the eleventh morning despite his damaged leg, but the storm had buried the trail.
Philip stopped him.
“He knew I wouldn’t make it.”
Jonas’s voice tightened.
“We argued.”
Miriam imagined both men, equally stubborn, one fevered, one injured, each convinced the other should survive.
“Then what?”
“He gave me the ring.”
Jonas stared at the fire.
“And your name.”
Miriam whispered, “My name?”
“Your full name. Your Baltimore address. The name of the church where you were married.”
The room blurred at the edges.
“He made me repeat it until he was sure I’d remember.”
Miriam’s hand trembled now.
“What exactly did he ask you to do?”
Jonas looked at her.
“He said if he didn’t leave that cabin, I was to find you.”
Miriam swallowed.
“Why?”
“Because he knew there were debts.”
Her face tightened.
Of course.
“He said men would come for everything.”
“They did.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because he told me where his account papers were hidden.”
Miriam stared.
“What account papers?”
Jonas stood.
He crossed toward a cedar chest beneath the window.
Miriam watched him open it.
From beneath folded blankets, he removed a leather packet tied with faded string.
He placed it on the table.
“I didn’t know whether to show you this tonight.”
Miriam laughed once in disbelief.
“You have already produced my dead husband’s wedding ring. I think caution has lost its usefulness.”
Jonas accepted that.
He untied the string.
Inside were three letters.
A bank certificate.
A property deed.
And one folded page in Philip’s handwriting.
Miriam recognized it instantly.
Her knees weakened.
This time she sat.
Jonas remained standing across from her.
“Read it.”
He slid the letter forward.
Miriam did not touch it immediately.
She stared.
Four years of anger seemed to collect around that folded piece of paper.
Philip abandoning her.
Creditors knocking.
Furniture carried downstairs.
Her mother’s silver sold.
The rooms getting smaller.
Jobs denied because she was a widow.
Men offering help that always came with a condition.
Everything.
Finally she opened the letter.
Miriam,
If Jonas Rook is the man carrying this, then I have run out of chances to become better before coming home.
I have written apologies before and burned them because I always found some excuse that made me less guilty on paper.
I will not do that now.
I lied about why I came west.
I did not come only for work.
I invested money with Gideon Vale, who promised railroad contracts and mining shares. I borrowed against our house because I believed I could return wealthy enough that every bad year before it would stop mattering.
I was wrong.
Vale cheated several men. Some lost everything. I came west trying to recover enough money to keep his creditors from reaching you.
I found part of it.
The certificate enclosed represents money that belongs to you, not me.
There is also a deed to forty acres outside Black Pine, Colorado. I purchased it after learning Vale planned to acquire the land cheaply. It may be worthless. It may not.
If I do not return, sell what you need. Keep what you want.
Do not let any man tell you the debts I made are yours to carry.