Inside the drift, the air was colder and older. Thomas held the lantern high. Shadows climbed the ribs of timber like dark animals. Evelyn smelled wet stone and the faint sweetness of old powder. She thought of Philadelphia parlors and how little they prepared a person for the fact of a mountain's inside.
"I come from rooms with carpets," she said. "I do not pretend that makes me useful underground."
"Useful starts with not lying about what you see," Thomas said. "You see saw marks. That's more useful than half the men Whitcomb will ask."
They were interrupted by the younger rider—Durn—on the ridge above, a silhouette against cloud. He did not descend. He watched. Thomas raised a hand—not a greeting, an acknowledgment that being watched was now part of the claim's weather. The silhouette withdrew.
On the ride back, Evelyn asked, "What does Rourke want from me specifically, now that I know?"
"Silence, ideally," Thomas said. "Or a signed statement that I lured you and abandoned you, which he can wave at investors. Or your departure before you become a person the town remembers by name. People are harder to erase than props."
"I won't sign a lie."
"I know. That's why you're dangerous to him in a way a suitcase isn't."
She watched the horse's breath plume. "And what do you want from me, Thomas Reed? Besides not being a prop."
He took a moment. The wagon wheel found a rut and complained. "I want you safe enough to choose. I want the truth on paper where other people can find it. I want not to invent a marriage to solve a problem that marriage didn't create. Past that, wanting gets personal, and personal can wait until nobody is forging our names."
Afternoon brought Holden Rourke himself into the Pine Bench parlor, as if the mountain had decided to settle accounts indoors. He was fifty, silver at the temples, coat cut well, boots clean enough to advertise that other men walked through mud for him. He removed his hat for Evelyn and nodded to Thomas without offering a hand.
"Miss Calder," he said. "I understand there has been a misunderstanding involving correspondence."
Evelyn remained seated. Dignity was easier seated. "There has been a forgery involving your seal."
Rourke's smile was small and almost sad. "My seal is used by clerks across three counties. Pettigrew has been dismissed pending review. I do not authorize marriage proposals in my name or anyone else's. I am here to apologize for the inconvenience and to offer passage East at my expense—properly receipted this time."