A mine that could have made this town rich!
Daniel wanted to ruin us over a few drainage records.”
“So you lit the powder.”
“I ordered the records destroyed.
I didn’t order those men to die.”
“But they did.”
He said nothing.
I stepped closer.
“And after Gideon saved Merrick, you let everyone blame his father.”
My father looked at the mitten again.
For one instant, I saw guilt.
Then resentment swallowed it.
“I spent the next twenty-nine years trying to recover what that accident cost me.”
I thought of our freezing house.
My mother’s worn dresses.
Merrick’s drinking.
The endless humiliation of unpaid debts.
And I understood the ugliest truth of all.
My father had never considered our suffering a reason to stop chasing his lost fortune.
He considered us the price of continuing.
He reached toward the lever.
Gideon suddenly moved.
He pushed past the marshal and entered the control house through the side doorway.
Silas turned.
A struggle followed.
The lever fell.
Metal struck stone.
Water roared through the spillway.
The marshal rushed forward.
I followed.
Inside, Gideon had pinned my father’s arm against the wall.
Silas struggled desperately.
Then he seized a heavy wrench from the table.
I shouted.
Gideon did not hear me.
But he saw the movement reflected in the control panel’s polished brass.
He stepped aside.
The wrench struck the wall.
The marshal seized Silas from behind.
Within seconds, my father was restrained.
But the spillway gate remained open.
Gideon hurried toward the control wheel.
He examined the mechanism.
Then he wrote a hurried instruction on the back of the map.
Counterweight jammed.
