Chapter 3 - The Secret in the Ledger
Three days passed in a quiet, rhythmic peace that Christa had not known since her mother died five years ago.
The snowstorm raged continuously outside, burying Black Ridge in three feet of soft white powder, completely cutting off the cabin from the valley below. But inside, the fire never died.
Gideon spent his days in the lean-to or out on the snow-covered ridge checking his winter traps. He came into the cabin only twice a day—once at dawn to build up the fire and drop off fresh spring water, and once at dusk to deliver wood, meat, or wild winter roots he had dug from beneath the snow.
He barely spoke. He ate his meals in silence at the edge of the table, his head turned toward the small glass window, and slept in the drafty lean-to despite the sub-zero temperatures.
He never touched Christa. He never looked at her with the greasy hunger she had grown to expect from men. He treated her with a strange, solemn distance—as if she were a fragile guest stranded in his camp during a storm.
By the fourth morning, Toby’s fever had broken, his rasping cough softening under the pine-needle tea and hot broth Christa brewed on the hearth.
While Gideon was out on the ridge, Christa set about cleaning the cabin.
She washed the tin plates, swept the pine floors with a broom made of fir twigs, and organized the wooden shelves near the fireplace. Behind a row of dry medicinal tins on the top shelf, her hand brushed against something heavy and bound in dark, oil-stained leather.
It was a small, brass-clasped ledger book.
Christa hesitated. She knew it was wrong to pry into a man's private belongings—especially a man who had bought her freedom. But the mystery of Gideon Sullivan pulled at her like an anchor rope. Why did a man living like a hermit on a mountain have eighty dollars in gold? Why did he look at Black Creek with such deep, burning hatred?
She opened the leather cover.
On the first page, written in a clear, elegant hand that did not match the rough, calloused hands of a mountain trapper, was a name:
Captain Gideon Sullivan — 2nd Colorado Volunteer Cavalry, 1864.
Christa held her breath. She turned the yellowed pages.
They were not financial accounts. They were military field logs and personal journal entries written during the dark years of the War Between the States.
Page after page described cavalry patrols, cold river crossings, and skirmishes along the territorial borders. But as she reached the middle of the book, the entries grew sparser, the handwriting jagged and frantic.
November 29, 1864 — Sand Creek. Colonel Chivington gave the order to attack the village at dawn. White Antelope had the American flag raised above his lodge. We were ordered to advance. I refused the order. Sergeant Rooker drew his sidearm on me.
Christa’s blood ran cold. She stared at the name on the page.
Sergeant Rooker.
She read on, her eyes skimming the desperate lines.
I struck Rooker down and broke formation. Tried to pull three children out of the timber behind the creek bed. Was shot from behind by Rooker's corporal. Left for dead in the snow. Dishonorably discharged in absentia. Striped of rank. Wanted for treason.
Christa closed the book with a soft, trembling snap.
The truth descended upon her with the weight of a falling mountain.
Gideon Sullivan hadn't bought her because he wanted a woman. He hadn't paid eighty dollars out of sudden pity or lust.
He knew Jebediah Rooker. He knew him from a war twelve years ago—a war where Rooker had been a butcher and a coward, and Gideon had lost his rank, his reputation, and his life for trying to stop a slaughter.
And when Gideon had stepped into the rain in Black Creek and seen Rooker auctioning off a helpless girl and her starving brothers, he hadn't just been saving Christa.
He had been declaring war on the man who had destroyed his life.
The cabin door clicked open.
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Gideon walked in, carrying a quarter of fresh deer meat over his broad shoulder, his coat covered in snow. He stopped in the doorway, his gray eyes falling instantly onto the leather ledger book sitting on the table beneath Christa’s hand.
The air in the room instantly grew ice-cold.
