No cheering.
No carriage decorated with flowers.
Only Caleb’s heavy wagon, two horses, one canvas trunk containing everything Beatrice owned, and Marcus Bell standing near the hitching rail with his thumbs inside an expensive vest.
Marcus was fifty-eight.
Tall.
Gray beginning at the temples.
Handsome enough that people trusted him before they had reason to.
Beatrice’s mother had married him when Beatrice was nine.
At first he had been kind.
Or Beatrice remembered him as kind.
Time had made that memory difficult to examine.
Marcus smiled as they approached.
“Well.”
Caleb stopped.
Marcus looked toward Beatrice.
“Mrs. Mercer.”
The name felt foreign.
Beatrice said nothing.
Marcus reached into his coat and removed a folded paper.
He handed it to Caleb.
“The note.”
Caleb unfolded it.
Five hundred dollars.
The debt that had brought them here.
Caleb had borrowed the money after an avalanche damaged his cabin and killed seven of his pack animals the previous winter.
The Territorial Bank refused him.
Marcus did not.
At ten percent interest.
Caleb had expected to repay after spring trapping and timber work.
Then another accident injured his left shoulder.
Work disappeared.
The debt remained.
Marcus had appeared at the mountain cabin in June with an extraordinary offer.
Marry my stepdaughter.
Take her away from Ridge Creek.
The debt disappears.
Caleb had almost thrown him out.
Then Marcus had described Beatrice as a woman facing “limited prospects.”
A woman who wanted marriage.
A woman accustomed to simple living.
Caleb had asked why Marcus would erase five hundred dollars merely to see her married.
Marcus answered that there were “family tensions.”
Caleb should have asked more questions.
Instead, he had looked around at the cabin he was weeks from losing.
Then at the debt.
Then at the possibility of a companion after years alone.
He had hated himself for considering it.
He hated himself more for accepting.
Now Marcus held out a match.
Caleb looked at him.
“What?”
“Burn it.”
Caleb stared.
Marcus smiled.
“You fulfilled your end.”
Caleb tore the debt note in half instead.
Then again.
Marcus’s smile disappeared slightly.
Caleb dropped the pieces into his coat pocket.
“I’ll burn it myself.”
“As you like.”
Marcus looked at Beatrice.
“You have everything?”
“Yes.”
“No reason to return for forgotten possessions?”
Beatrice met his eyes.
“No.”
Something passed between them.
Caleb saw it.
Marcus smiled again.
“Good.”
Beatrice stepped toward the wagon.
Marcus caught her elbow.
Not violently.
But his fingers tightened.
She froze.
He leaned closer.
“Remember what we discussed.”
Beatrice looked at him.
“I remember everything.”
Marcus released her.
Caleb watched.
“What was that?”
Marcus answered before Beatrice could.
“Family matter.”
Caleb disliked the phrase immediately.
Beatrice climbed into the wagon without assistance.
Caleb loaded her trunk.
It weighed far more than expected.
Beatrice almost smiled when he adjusted his grip.
He noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“This trunk contains stones.”
“Books.”
“All of them?”
“Not all.”
Caleb stared at her.
She sat with both hands folded.
For a second, the hard line of his mouth nearly became a smile.
Then Marcus approached again.
“One final thing.”
Caleb turned.
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Ridge Creek has a long memory.”
“So do mountains.”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m asking that you build your life elsewhere.”
Caleb looked toward Beatrice.