PART 1: The Names His Father Buried

The first thing Jack Holloway noticed was his own name carved into a tree that had been standing long before he was born.

The second was the names of five women he had never met.

And the third was the date beside the last woman’s name.

1889.

That was only last year.

Yet the woman herself had arrived in town just seven days ago.

Jack stood frozen beneath the towering cottonwood, his hammer hanging uselessly from one hand. He had come to repair a broken fence along the northern boundary of his Wyoming ranch, not uncover a mystery that seemed to reach into his own blood.

He brushed away the moss covering the trunk.

At the top, someone had carved a single word.

HOLLOWAY.

Beneath it were six names.

Eleanor Marsh — 1868.

Clara Bennett — 1871.

Jack Holloway — 1873.

Rose Whitaker — 1876.

Mabel Carter — 1881.

Lila Grant — 1889.

Jack’s stomach tightened.

1873 was the year he had been born.

He traced the letters of his name with a trembling finger. The cuts were old, their edges darkened by decades of weather.

Whoever had carved them had known about him almost from the beginning.

But the last name was different.

Its letters were pale and sharply cut, as though someone had returned to the tree much more recently.

“Lila Grant,” Jack whispered.

He knew that name.

A young woman had arrived in Clearwater Creek the previous week. She had taken a room above the general store and spent her days asking questions about old ranch boundaries.

People called her strange.

Jack had barely noticed her.

Until now.

He rode into town before sunset.

The general store was nearly empty when he entered. Behind the counter, Mrs. Wilkins looked up from a ledger.

“Afternoon, Jack. Need supplies?”

“I’m looking for Miss Grant.”

The older woman’s expression changed.

“You’re the third man asking about her today.”

Jack frowned. “Who were the others?”

“Two gentlemen from the land office. Didn’t give their names.”

“Where is she?”

Mrs. Wilkins lowered her voice.

“Upstairs. But if you’ve come to tell her to leave, you’re too late. Somebody already tried.”

Before Jack could ask another question, footsteps sounded on the staircase.

A young woman appeared, carrying a worn leather satchel.

She had auburn hair pinned beneath a plain brown hat and green eyes that seemed to study everything without trusting anything.

“Are you Jack Holloway?” she asked.

He nodded.

Her face went pale.

“Then you’ve found the tree.”

Jack stared at her.

“How could you possibly know that?”

Instead of answering, Lila opened her satchel and removed a yellowed photograph.

It showed six people standing before a large wooden house.

Five were women.

The sixth was a young man whose face looked disturbingly familiar.

Jack recognized him immediately.

“That’s my father.”

Lila nodded.

“Yes. Thomas Holloway.”

Jack studied the photograph. His father had always claimed he came west alone, built the ranch with his own hands, and knew nothing about the families who occupied the valley before him.

But here he stood beside five women.

“Who are they?” Jack asked.

“The people your father spent twenty years trying to forget.”

Jack felt anger rising.

“My father was a decent man.”

“I never said he wasn’t.”

“Then explain yourself.”

Lila looked toward the store window, where two riders had stopped across the street.

“Not here.”

She led him through the rear door into a narrow alley.

“My grandfather worked for the Holloway family before the valley was divided,” she said. “There was an agreement. Six people were named as rightful heirs to the original property.”

“Six?”

“Five women. And one boy.”

Jack swallowed.

“Me.”

“Yes.”

He shook his head.

“That’s impossible. My father owned that land. I inherited it after he passed.”

“You inherited the ranch house and the southern pastures,” Lila replied. “But the original estate stretched across nearly forty thousand acres. Your father never owned all of it.”

Jack stared at her.

“Then who does?”

Lila hesitated.

“That’s what someone has been trying to prevent us from discovering.”

She unfolded a brittle document covered with faded handwriting.

At the bottom was Thomas Holloway’s signature.

Beside it were five other signatures.

“The women agreed to hold their shares in trust until the youngest heir reached adulthood,” Lila explained.

“But the records disappeared. The families scattered. Some were told their claims had expired.”

“And the tree?”

“Your father helped maintain a record of the heirs. My grandfather believed the names were carved there so they could never be erased from the land itself.”

Jack looked again at the document.

“Why was your name added in 1889?”

Lila’s eyes filled with emotion.

“Because that was the year my grandmother died. Her claim passed to me.”

Jack suddenly understood.

The dates were not all birth years.

They marked when each person’s claim had been recorded.

But one question remained.

“If my father knew about this, why didn’t he tell me?”

Lila reached inside the satchel again.

This time she handed him a sealed envelope.

His name was written across the front.

In his father’s unmistakable handwriting.

Jack’s breath caught.

“Where did you get this?”

“My grandmother kept it hidden for seventeen years.”

He broke the seal.

Inside was a short letter.

My son,

If you are reading this, then someone has finally found the names.

I did what I believed was necessary to protect you. But protecting one person should never have meant denying five others what was rightfully theirs.

There is something buried beneath the old cottonwood. It will explain why I kept silent.

Forgive me for what you are about to learn.

Father.

Jack read the letter twice.

Outside, a horse whinnied sharply.

Lila hurried to the alley entrance.

Her expression changed.

“Jack. We need to leave.”

“Why?”

“Those men from the land office. They’re coming.”

Jack folded the letter and slipped it into his coat.

“Then we’ll go back to the tree.”

They rode north as the sun sank behind the mountains.

By the time they reached the cottonwood, the valley had fallen into darkness.

Jack tied his horse and knelt beside the roots.

Something about the earth looked wrong.

Fresh dirt.

Broken roots.

Marks from a shovel.

Someone had already been digging.

He pulled aside a loose stone and found an empty hole.

At its bottom lay a small brass key.

Attached to the key was a strip of stained paper.

Jack unfolded it beneath the lantern.

Four words had been written across it.

ASK WHO YOUR MOTHER WAS.

His heart seemed to stop.

His mother had died when he was an infant.

At least, that was what his father had always told him.

Behind him, Lila made a small, frightened sound.

Jack turned.

Standing between the trees was a gray-haired woman in a dark traveling cloak.

She stared at him with tears streaming down her face.

Then she whispered something that made the entire world beneath Jack’s feet seem to shift.

“Your father promised me you’d never find out I was still alive.”