PART 2 — THE MOUNTAIN MAN DISCOVERED HIS WIFE WAS CARRYING A CHILD EVERYONE SAID HE COULD NEVER HAVE

The words seemed to echo through the cabin.

“Nathaniel… I think I’m pregnant.”

For several seconds, Nathaniel Crowe didn’t move.

He stared at Clara as though she had just told him the mountains were about to disappear.

“Say that again.”

Clara swallowed.

“I don’t know for certain. I’ve been feeling sick in the mornings. I’ve been tired, and lately I’ve noticed things that weren’t happening before.”

Nathaniel carefully lowered her into a chair.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I wasn’t sure. And because I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

She looked down at her hands.

“Afraid of giving you hope when there might be nothing to hope for.”

Nathaniel turned away.

For years, he had carried the doctor’s diagnosis like a sentence. He had accepted that he would never hear a child call him father. He had convinced himself that the Crowe name would end with him.

And now Clara was sitting before him, suggesting that everything he believed might have been wrong.

He knelt beside her.

“Tomorrow, we’re riding to Dr. Bennett’s clinic.”

“What if he says it’s impossible?”

“Then we’ll come home and face whatever comes next. But I won’t let another doctor decide our future without looking into the truth.”

Clara placed her hand over his.

For the first time since their wedding, Nathaniel looked genuinely frightened.

Not of an enemy.

Not of the wilderness.

But of losing something he hadn’t even known he wanted so desperately.

The following morning, Nathaniel hitched the wagon before sunrise.

The journey to the nearest settlement took nearly four hours. Clara sat wrapped in blankets while Nathaniel drove through the snow-covered mountain road.

He barely spoke.

At one point, Clara reached across the seat and touched his hand.

“You’re going to wear a hole through those reins.”

He glanced at her.

“I’m thinking.”

“About what?”

“About how a man can spend years believing his life is finished, only to discover he might have been wrong.”

Clara smiled faintly.

“Perhaps we’re both wrong about a great many things.”

At the clinic, Dr. Thomas Bennett examined Clara and listened carefully to everything she described.

When he finished, he removed his spectacles.

“Mrs. Crowe, I believe you’re approximately eight weeks pregnant.”

Clara stared at him.

Nathaniel gripped the edge of the desk.

“Are you certain?”

“The signs are encouraging. We’ll need to monitor her closely, particularly given her previous illness, but I see no reason to dismiss the possibility.”

Clara covered her mouth.

A tear slipped down her cheek.

Nathaniel sat completely still.

“Eight weeks?” he repeated.

“Approximately.”

The doctor looked toward Nathaniel.

“And there’s something else. I reviewed the history you described. A severe fever does not automatically mean a man is incapable of fathering children. I cannot say what happened in your case, but whoever gave you that diagnosis may have been far too certain.”

Nathaniel looked down.

For nearly a decade, he had believed himself incapable of giving a woman a family.

Now, he was being told that the diagnosis might never have been reliable.

He reached for Clara’s hand.

She squeezed it.

Neither said anything for a long time.

Then Nathaniel whispered:

“We’re going to have a child.”

Clara nodded.

“If everything goes well.”

He looked at her.

“Everything is going to be different now.”

But happiness didn’t last long.

On their return journey, Nathaniel noticed something strange.

Fresh wagon tracks crossed the narrow road ahead.

They hadn’t been there that morning.

He stopped the horses.

“What is it?” Clara asked.

“Someone’s been watching the road.”

He studied the tracks without leaving the wagon.

Then he recognized the distinctive mark of a freight company owned by Victor Hale.

His expression darkened.

“Get your blanket around you.”

“Nathaniel?”

“We’re not going home by the main road.”

He turned the wagon toward an older trail leading through the pines.

Clara looked back.

Far behind them, a rider appeared on the ridge.

Victor knew they had gone to see a doctor.

And if he knew about the pregnancy, their situation had just become far more dangerous.

Three days later, a letter arrived at Crowe Ridge.

It was addressed to Clara in Victor’s familiar handwriting.

Nathaniel placed it on the table without opening it.

“Do you want me to read it?”

“No.”

“Are you certain?”

Clara picked up the envelope.

“I’ve spent years allowing that man to decide what I should know. Not anymore.”

She opened it.

Inside was a single sheet of paper.

Dear Clara,

I have been informed of your recent visit to Dr. Bennett. I sincerely hope you are feeling better.

There are matters concerning your mother’s estate that require immediate attention. Your continued refusal to cooperate is becoming inconvenient.

You have until the end of the month to return to Blackstone Creek and sign the necessary documents.

If you fail to do so, I will be forced to take steps to protect the interests of the Whitmore family.

Your loving stepfather,

Victor Hale.

Clara read it twice.

Then she laughed.

It wasn’t a happy laugh.

“He knows.”

Nathaniel stood.

“Knows what?”

“He knows I’ve been to the doctor. He doesn’t know everything yet, but he’s suspicious.”

Nathaniel took the letter and read it.

“What does he mean by protecting the interests of the family?”

Clara walked to the wooden chest beside the bed.

She unlocked it with the brᴀss key and removed a small leather notebook.

“This belonged to my mother.”

She opened it to a page marked with a faded ribbon.

“Three months before she died, she wrote down the names of several people who received money from the company without authorization.”

Nathaniel leaned closer.

One name appeared repeatedly.

Silas Mercer.

The doctor who had treated Clara’s mother.

The same doctor who had declared Nathaniel incapable of having children.

Nathaniel looked up.

“You think he was helping Victor?”

“I think he was doing much more than that.”

Clara turned another page.

There were dates, amounts, and short notes written in her mother’s delicate handwriting.

Then she stopped.

Her face went pale.

“What is it?” Nathaniel asked.

Clara pointed to a sentence.

Victor says the girl must never reach her twenty-eighth birthday with control of the shares.

Nathaniel read it again.

Then again.

“What girl?”

Clara looked at him.

“Me.”

That evening, Nathaniel went to speak with Amos, an old trapper who lived several miles east of Crowe Ridge.

Amos had known Nathaniel since childhood and had once worked for the railroad before settling in the mountains.

If anyone could help them understand the records, it was him.

But when Nathaniel arrived, he found Amos’s cabin empty.

The door stood open.

A chair lay overturned beside the fireplace.

On the table sat an envelope bearing Nathaniel’s name.

He opened it.

Inside was a short message.

Nathaniel,

I know what Victor Hale has done. I know about the doctor, and I know why your wife was sent away.

I have something that belongs to Clara’s mother. Something she gave me shortly before she died.

Do not trust anyone in Blackstone Creek.

Come alone.

There was no signature.

Nathaniel read it twice.

Then he noticed something beneath the letter.

A small brᴀss ʙuттon.

He recognized it immediately.

It belonged to Amos’s winter coat.

And there was something troubling about the ʙuттon.

It had been torn off recently.

Someone had been inside that cabin.

Someone who wanted Nathaniel to find the message.

He returned to Crowe Ridge before midnight.

Clara was waiting beside the stove.

“What happened?”

Nathaniel placed the letter on the table.

She read it.

Then she looked toward the dark window.

“Amos knows something.”

“Maybe.”

“Then we have to find him.”

Nathaniel shook his head.

“Not yet. If this is a trap, we’re not walking into it.”

Clara closed the notebook.

“I won’t spend another winter hiding from Victor.”

Nathaniel took her hands.

“You won’t. But you’re carrying our child now, and I’m not going to let him put you in danger.”

She looked into his eyes.

“Then promise me something.”

“What?”

“When this is over, we’ll give our child a life where nobody ever has to be afraid of telling the truth.”

Nathaniel pressed her hands between his.

“I promise.”

Neither noticed the shadow moving outside the kitchen window.

Someone had been listening.

And before dawn, a small fire would be discovered burning in the woodshed.

On the frozen ground beside it lay a single sheet of paper.

It contained only six words:

THE ORIGINAL RECORDS ARE UNDER THE CHURCH.

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