The search lasted two days.
Finally Clara found a loose hearthstone in the old smokehouse.
Behind it, another wrapped packet.
Not accounts.
Letters.
Thomas Thorne had written them to his wife.
The last:
If I am taken, do not believe what they publish. The bank and company have used false debts to seize land from dead men’s families. The Number Three blast is planned. They believe destroying the lower chamber will destroy both witnesses and papers. I have told the sheriff, but I do not know whether he is theirs. Keep Elias away from town.
Clara stopped reading.
Elias’s hands gripped the table.
The letter continued.
The black tree mark is on every company tag, cap crate, stable book and powder key. If I fail, take the red account to the territorial court in Denver, not Blackwood.
Clara looked toward the copper fragment.
Black tree.
Circle.
The evidence now told a horrifying story.
Elias’s father discovered fraud and a planned explosion.
The blast occurred.
Men died.
Thomas Thorne disappeared.
The company accused him.
Young Elias must have witnessed what happened afterward.
The men deliberately destroyed his hearing.
Then the town believed a fever did it.
But one question remained.
What happened to Thomas Thorne?
The answer came from the old blacksmith.
When Clara and Elias returned with the ledger, the old man’s resistance collapsed.
He sat on a stool.
Removed his cap.
And told the truth.
Twenty years earlier, he had been a young apprentice.
He saw Thomas Thorne brought to the company stable after dark.
Alive.
Hands tied.
The bank president.
Mine superintendent.
Company doctor.
Two hired men.
Young Elias had followed his father.
The blacksmith had been hiding in the loft because he was stealing oats for his family’s mule.
He saw everything.
Thomas refused to tell them where the duplicate ledger was.
The superintendent beat him.
Elias cried out.
They found the child.
Thomas begged them to let the boy go.
The old blacksmith’s voice broke.
“They said a boy who couldn’t hear could never repeat what he heard.”
Clara went cold.
Elias read her transcription.
His face emptied.
The blacksmith continued.
The doctor objected at first.
Then the bank president threatened him.
They cut two strips from copper cattle tags.
Held Elias down.
Used them to destroy both eardrums.
One fragment broke.
Another remained.
The boy screamed until he could no longer hear his own screaming.
Clara had to stop writing.
Her hands shook too badly.
Elias stared straight ahead.
The blacksmith cried.
“I did nothing.”
He covered his face.
“I was seventeen.”
“I hid.”
“I heard your father begging.”
“I heard that boy screaming.”
“I did nothing.”
Elias stood.
The blacksmith flinched.