“Black bird. Could have been a crow. Hard to tell once a thing has been butchered.”
“And the fourth?”
“Ruthie Crane. She heard a woman crying in the woods each night. Said the mountain hated wives.”
“Did you hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you find the woman?”
“No.”
“The fifth?”
His hand tightened on the reins.
“Nell Ward.”
Miriam recognized the pause.
Not love, perhaps.
But guilt had its own shape.
“What happened to Nell?”
“She stayed eleven days. She was brave. Kinder than she needed to be. I thought…” He stopped. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“She found a child’s shoe in the creek. Pink ribbon still tied through it. She thought it belonged to some poor soul I had hidden. She left before dawn.”
“Did you search?”
“For the child? For her? For whoever planted it? Yes. I found nothing.”
“Did Elias Crowe speak to each of them?”
Gideon pulled his horse to a halt so sharply the pack mule snorted.
Slowly, he turned.
“What did you say?”
“Did Elias Crowe speak to each bride before she fled?”
His face went very still.
Miriam watched the memories assemble behind his eyes.
“Cora stayed at his boardinghouse,” he said. “Agnes bought a cloak from his store. Lydia had tea with his sister. Ruthie sent a telegram from his office. Nell…” His voice dropped. “Nell told me Crowe warned her not to trust any man who lived above a graveyard.”
“Do you live above a graveyard?”
“No.”
“Then he lied.”
“People lie about me often.”
Miriam looked into the darkening trees.
“Yes,” she said. “But this lie had a pattern.”
They reached Gideon’s cabin near sunset.
It stood in a clearing beneath a wall of black rock, built from whole logs and roofed in cedar shakes. A creek ran behind it, wild with snowmelt. Beyond the creek, the pasture sloped toward a stand of aspens whose white trunks glowed like bone in the fading light.
The cabin was plain, but not neglected.
Wood was stacked under the eaves. Tools hung in order beside the door. A small barn stood nearby, its doors repaired with newer planks. The porch held two chairs.
One had been used often.
The other had hardly been touched.
Miriam saw Gideon notice her noticing.
“It came with the place,” he said.
“The chair?”
“The hope.”
She said nothing.
Inside, the cabin was warm and spare. A stove. A table. Shelves of flour, beans, coffee, lamp oil, cartridges, and medicine. A bed behind a curtain. A narrow cot near the hearth. A carved wooden horse sat unfinished on the mantel, its legs only partly shaped.
“You carve?” Miriam asked.
“When the weather traps me.”
“It is good.”
“It has no legs.”
“Many good things begin unfinished.”
He looked away as if the compliment had touched a bruise.
Miriam removed her gloves. “Where would a guest sleep?”
“The cot.”
“And where did Nell sleep?”
“The cot.”
“Where did she find the shoe?”
“Creek bank. East side.”
“I want to see it.”
“It’s nearly dark.”
“Then bring a lantern.”
His expression hardened. “You just arrived.”
“My sister has been dead two years.”
“That doesn’t mean you should walk into the trees at night.”
“No. It means I have already waited too long.”
For a moment, Miriam thought he would refuse.
Then Gideon took a lantern from a hook, lit it, and opened the door.
The creek was loud in the twilight. Miriam followed him along a narrow path edged with wet grass. The air smelled of pine resin and cold water. Somewhere far off, an owl called once.
Gideon stopped near a bend where the bank dipped lower.
“There,” he said. “Caught between those stones.”
Miriam crouched carefully. The mud was soft. Old footprints would not have lasted, but the shape of the place mattered.
“Could a shoe drift here from upstream?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a settlement upstream?”
“No.”
“A cabin?”
“Mine is the only one for eight miles.”
“Then someone placed it.”
“That was my thought.”
“Did you tell the sheriff?”
“I told Dobbs many things. He heard what he wanted.”
Miriam stood.
A branch cracked behind them.
Gideon moved instantly.
He stepped in front of her, one hand reaching beneath his coat.
“Who’s there?” he called.
The creek answered.
The trees did not.
Another sound came.
Soft.
High.
A woman crying.
Miriam’s skin tightened.
It drifted through the pines like grief with no body. A thin, broken sob. Then another. Then a whisper that might have been a name.
Gideon’s face turned to stone.
“That,” he said, “is what Ruthie heard.”
Miriam forced herself to breathe slowly.
The crying stopped.
From somewhere deeper in the trees came a man’s low chuckle.
Then silence.
Gideon grabbed the lantern and strode forward.
Miriam caught his sleeve.
“No.”
“They’re close.”
“Yes. And they want you angry.”
His nostrils flared. “I am angry.”
“I can see that. Try being useful instead.”
He stared down at her hand on his sleeve.