They hid the tools beneath brush and continued with the lightened wagon. When they stopped at noon, Silas repaired the spoke while Maeve studied the envelope. The words on the back had been written over faint, older impressions, as though Thomas had used the envelope beneath another sheet of paper. Maeve rubbed charcoal across it. Letters emerged from the pressure marks:
The records were moved to the chapel after the courthouse roof failed. Come before the General Land Office inspector arrives. — Hollis
"Silas," she said, "he wrote to Thomas even though he knew my father."
"Then we need to ask him why," Maeve said, folding the envelope. "Either way, Thomas knew someone had found the records."
Silas looked back along the road. No riders were visible, but a thin plume of dust moved beyond the southern ridge. They were no longer searching for a twenty-year-old truth; they were racing men who meant to bury it again.
Silver Hollow appeared late the following afternoon, a town reduced to the bones of its former ambition. Empty buildings leaned along a single street. Wind moved dust across the porches. The mine above town had been closed for twelve years, and only a dozen families remained where hundreds once crowded saloons, boarding houses, and assay offices.
The chapel stood at the north end of the street. One window had been broken recently; fresh boards covered the opening. Reverend Amos Hollis opened the door only a few inches. He was a narrow, elderly man with white hair and the weary eyes of someone who had learned that surviving a dying town required knowing which questions not to answer.
"Silas Mercer," he said. "You have your father's face."
"Then you know why I'm here."
Hollis's gaze moved to Maeve and stopped. "Who is she?"
"Maeve Callahan."
The door began to close. Maeve placed her boot against it. "Thomas received your letter," she said. "He destroyed it, but he missed the envelope."
Hollis looked past them toward the street. "You should leave."
"Thomas came here," Maeve said.
The Reverend's silence answered.
Silas stepped closer. "When?"
"Eight days ago. He asked whether I had found Elias's claim papers. When I denied it, he broke that window and searched the vestry after dark." Hollis lowered his voice. "Yesterday, two men came asking about a woman traveling with you. I told them I had seen neither."
"Why did you write to Thomas?" Maeve asked.
"I did not know where Elias's family had gone. Thomas's name appeared on the later deed, so I wrote to the address recorded beside it, hoping he could tell me where to find the Mercers." Shame entered the reverend's face. "I told him too much before I understood what he feared."
He admitted them and barred the door. The chapel's rear room held boxes rescued when the abandoned courthouse roof collapsed during the winter. The General Land Office inspector, due the following week, intended to catalog the surviving territorial records and transfer them to Cheyenne. Hollis had found the Mercer file while separating water-damaged papers.
He removed a hymnbook from a shelf. The center had been hollowed to conceal a thin ledger.
"Thomas found the file," Hollis said. "He tore out the deed and relinquishment. He did not find this."
The book belonged to Elias Mercer. Silas recognized the handwriting before Hollis opened it. The early pages listed pieces Elias carried for sale. Number 47 was described as a plain woman's band, unclaimed, marked with two crescents. The final pages concerned the disputed property west of town. The last entry was dated June 18th, 1868:
Thomas Callahan came again. He offered money if I surrendered the west parcel before the silver assay becomes public. When I refused, he said no piece of ground was worth leaving a boy without his father. Tomorrow I will meet him at the western boundary marker, then take my evidence directly to the land office. If anything prevents me, the duplicate survey remains beneath the hearthstone at the cabin.
Silas read the paragraph twice. His father had known he was in danger.
Maeve noticed something else. "Thomas stole the original claim records," she said. "But he came here eight days ago. Why hasn't he left?"
Hollis turned toward the shuttered window. "Because he never found the duplicate survey."
At that moment, someone tried the chapel door. The latch lifted once, then again.
"Reverend," Jonas Pike called. "Open the door. We only want to talk."
Hollis's hands began to tremble. Silas motioned for Maeve to move behind the stone wall separating the vestry from the sanctuary.
She did not. "Where is the rear exit?" she whispered.
Hollis pointed toward a narrow door beside the altar.
Maeve handed the ledger to Silas. "Give me your hat."
"Why?"
"Because they followed a dark-haired cowboy and a woman in a green shawl. If they see both leaving toward the cabin, they will follow both." She exchanged her shawl for Hollis's black coat and covered her hair with the reverend's broad hat.
Silas understood. "I'll take the wagon through the front yard," he said. "You and Hollis leave through the cemetery."
"No. They know the wagon; let them see two people in it. Mrs. Hollis can wear my shawl."
The reverend blinked. "My wife?"
"Is she willing to help?"
A firm voice answered from the doorway behind them: "You might have asked me before deciding I wasn't."
Mrs. Hollis was nearly seventy, small and straight-backed. She put on Maeve's green shawl and climbed beside Silas without complaint. When Hollis opened the chapel door, Silas drove the wagon south. Pike and his companion followed within seconds.
Maeve left through the cemetery with the ledger beneath her coat and Reverend Hollis beside her. They crossed between weathered markers, descended into a narrow alley, and entered the back of the general store.
From there, Hollis sent two telegrams: one to the United States Marshal's office in Cheyenne, and another to the General Land Office inspector already traveling toward Silver Hollow.
Maeve added a final sentence herself:
Thomas Callahan is here. I possess evidence he removed federal land records. Come before he reaches the Mercer claim.
"A marshal cannot arrive before tomorrow," Hollis said.
"Then Thomas will believe he still has tonight," Maeve replied.
When Silas returned after losing Pike among the old mine roads, he found Maeve waiting inside the store with supplies, two saddle horses, and a plan to reach the cabin before dark.
"You sent Mrs. Hollis out as bait?" he asked.
"I asked. She agreed."