Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Everyone in Red Hollow believed Margaret Vane had left her husband for another man.
Mayor Vane repeated the story whenever anyone asked.
Her portrait still hung inside the mayor’s house, but no one had seen her in nearly a year.
Thomas’s letter told a different story.
Margaret discovered Amos Vane had created false land companies.
She copied account records and planned to testify with Thomas and Owen.
On the night Thomas disappeared, Margaret arranged a wagon to take him north.
The final line read:
If I fail to reach Fort Griffin, ask Mrs. Vane where the church money was sent.
Ruth checked old church records.
Margaret had managed the women’s relief account.
Three days before her supposed departure, she withdrew fifty dollars and paid a stage driver named Jacob Mills.
Jacob no longer lived in Red Hollow.
But his sister owned a boardinghouse near Fort Griffin.
Elias sent a telegram.
The reply arrived the following afternoon.
JACOB MILLS DIED LAST WINTER. LEFT SEALED LETTER FOR RED HOLLOW SCHOOLMISTRESS.
Ruth had never received it.
Silas controlled the telegraph office.
The letter had been intercepted.
The telegraph clerk admitted Silas ordered him to surrender all messages involving Owen, Thomas, or Margaret.
He had obeyed because Silas threatened his family.
A search of Silas’s office uncovered unopened letters and a small notebook.
One letter was addressed to Ruth.
Jacob Mills wrote that he transported Margaret and an injured Thomas away from Red Hollow.
Thomas was alive when they reached a mission hospital near Santa Fe.
Margaret continued east under another name.
The letter contained no current address.
Elias gripped the page.
“My brother may have survived.”
Clara felt hope and dread at once.
If Thomas lived, why had he never contacted Elias?
The answer appeared in Silas’s notebook.
A payment had been made to a man named Harlan Beck for “finishing the Mercer problem.”
Harlan was a bounty hunter known across the territory.
The payment date was two weeks after Thomas reached the mission.
Silas claimed the note referred to stolen cattle.
No one believed him.
Judge Rebecca Sloan’s arrival was still four days away.
The citizens placed Silas, Vane, and Wade in separate locked rooms under armed guard.
Red Hollow had no secure jail large enough for all three.
That night, someone cut power to the telegraph line.
Minutes later, a shot was heard near the hotel.
Silas’s guard was found unconscious.
Silas was gone.
On the wall, he had written one sentence in charcoal:
May you like
THE WIDOW GOES BACK ON THE WAGON AT DAWN.
👉 Silas had escaped with help from inside the town, and this time he intended to ensure Clara never survived long enough to testify.
