Not far from the Bear Paw Mountains, Joab Mudge had just killed his brother and Mr. Reed pulled the body out of the house, stowing it inside the Maxwell.
At the Blind Pig, Adelaide, Bertie, Fiona, Grace, and Sam were mounting their horses. Elizabeth didn’t know it yet, but they were coming to find her.
But they weren’t the only ones out searching that night.
Sam had a way of showing his frustration while riding with his mother. He would lean his chin into Grace’s left shoulder and press there. If she asked what he was doing, he could easily explain it away as an accident of posture. He’d been doing this, now and then, since he was old enough to ride behind her instead of in front.
“What is it then?” Grace shouted as they traveled.
Sam didn’t even have to pull his chin away to speak. He was an old pro.
“I want to ride out with the others,” Sam shouted. “I want to see Mrs. Henry’s sister for myself!”
“I know you do,” Grace said, not shouting anymore. “But what kind of mother would I be if I took you?”
Sam lifted his chin now. His mother wasn’t going to be swayed. He’d never believed she would, not really. He was old enough to know a plan destined for chaos when he heard it.
“Now understand me, Sam, I am going to help Mrs. Henry but you are going to bed.”
Sam went quiet. Why did it make him happy to hear those words? He would miss it, but his mother would go. Which meant he would hear about it later, firsthand. Better even than a headline in the newspaper. Eyewitness testimony. Okay, fine, that would have to do. Sam leaned into Grace then. No chin.
“Tell me something else then,” Sam asked. “Another town.”
Grace gave a little laugh. “I’m about to leave you at the cabin by yourself and you want me to tell you one of those? You’ll complain of nightmares.”
“Tell it anyway,” Sam said.
“All right then,” Grace said. “Where from?”
“Someplace close this time. Montana.”
The wind at night served as a third participant in their conversation. If they hadn’t spent years shouting to one another on horseback, this would’ve all been lost in the howls and shrieks of that endless Montana turbine. But when Sam and Grace spoke, it almost seemed as if they were always inside a small, cozy room, talking directly into each other’s ears; the chamber of mother and child.
“Did I ever tell you about Glendale?” Grace asked.
They’d been riding at a gallop, then had slowed to a canter, and now their horse moved at a trot, tiring as they neared their homestead. They hadn’t spoken at the higher speeds.
“Glendale used to be a mining town,” Grace began. “Over a thousand men lived there, mining silver and lead. But by 1900 or so the mines all died and nearly everyone left, chasing the next claim.
“Weren’t more than one hundred men left by 1910, and then, one day, there weren’t any men in Glendale at all.”
“They all left?”
“That’s what some people thought. But then, one day, someone went down to the charcoal kilns, not five miles from Glendale. They opened up those big old kilns and what did they find?”
Sam didn’t speak but the closeness of his face, the way he tilted his ear to hear her better, all made his question clear. What? What?
“Had a real cold winter going that year,” Grace said. “A killing frost. Twenty, thirty below zero. Most of the remaining men had the right idea, forget the town and find someplace safe to bed down. But five men made a different choice. Five men stayed.
“Hid themselves inside the kilns, hoping for a little protection. And someone had the foolish idea to start the fires going. Must’ve got real warm in there. Lot of smoke, too.”
“They burned up?” Sam asked.
“More likely they choked to death on the smoke,” Grace said. “The fire just burned the flesh. That’s your ghost town story for tonight,” Grace said.
She might’ve asked, for the hundredth time, why the child liked to hear such things, since his imagination was so rich it always kept him up. But he insisted. Wheedled and whined. So she told him about all those disappeared towns and the tall tales associated with each one. Zortman. Alder Gulch. Now add Glendale. Maybe she did it because it tickled at her teacher’s heart as well.
“Oh,” Sam said, hardly a whisper.
She thought it was a delayed reaction to the idea of five men burning up inside that kiln, trying to decide which would be worse, the heat or the cold.
But that wasn’t what Sam had been reacting to.
They reached the homestead, but others were already there. Eight riders, all on horseback. She couldn’t tell who they were at first because they all wore scarves wrapped high over their faces and hats pulled down tight.
They might as well be wearing masks, Grace thought. Eight bandits at her home.
She rode up and one lowered the scarf and revealed themself.
“Mrs. Reed,” Grace said.
Looking to the others, seven other women.
The Busy Bees.
“I hoped we would find you,” Mrs. Reed said. “The men have gone after your friends.”