PART 1: The Two Little Outlaws

The toughest cowboy in Red Creek had survived three cattle stampedes, two gunfights, and a winter that froze horses standing upright.

But by nine o’clock on Saturday morning, he was standing in the mayor’s kitchen with flour in his beard, a wooden spoon stuck in his boot, and two seven-year-old children threatening to hang him for stealing their breakfast.

And the worst part?

He had only been babysitting for forty-three minutes.

“I swear on my mother’s grave,” growled Silas Boone, “if either of you touches my hat again—”

“Your mother ain’t dead,” said little Molly Whitcomb.

“She lives in Kansas,” added her twin brother, Tommy.

Silas stared at them.

“How in blazes do you know that?”

Molly smiled sweetly. “Daddy told us everything about you.”

Tommy leaned closer. “Even the part about the dancing.”

Silas went perfectly still.

“What dancing?”

Both children burst into laughter.

Silas Boone was six feet four inches of trouble wrapped in a weather-beaten coat. A long white scar crossed his left cheek, and his black beard made him look like a man who ate rattlesnakes for breakfast.

Men stepped off sidewalks when he approached. Horses behaved better when he looked at them. Even the sheriff preferred asking politely before giving Silas an order.

Unfortunately, Mayor Henry Whitcomb had discovered the one weakness in the legendary cowboy’s armor.

Silas could not resist a wager.

It had happened the previous evening at the Red Creek Saloon.

“I’ll bet you twenty dollars you can’t shoot the cork off that bottle at fifty paces,” Mayor Whitcomb had declared.

Silas had laughed. “Henry, I could shoot the whiskers off a sleeping mouse.”

“Then surely you won’t mind the stakes.”

“Name ’em.”

“If you win, I pay you twenty dollars. If you lose, you watch my twins all Saturday while my wife and I prepare the Founders’ Day celebration.”

The saloon had gone silent.

Silas had looked at the bottle, then at the mayor.

“You’re on.”

What he hadn’t known was that the mayor had chosen a bottle with a cork already pushed down inside its neck.

Silas shattered the glass.

The cork landed untouched in the dust.

Mayor Whitcomb smiled.

“See you at eight, Mr. Boone.”

Now, standing in the mayor’s kitchen, Silas was beginning to understand why the Whitcomb family had gone through six governesses in eight months.

“All right,” he said, planting his enormous hands on his hips. “New rules. No running. No screaming. No climbing. No throwing anything that ain’t meant to be thrown.”

Tommy raised his hand.

“What about eggs?”

“Especially eggs.”

Molly raised hers.

“What about insults?”

“What about ’em?”

“Are we allowed to throw those?”

Silas closed his eyes.

Somewhere outside, the church bell rang nine.

He had nine more hours to survive.

At nine-fifteen, Tommy tied Silas’s bootlaces together beneath the breakfast table.

At nine-twenty, Molly convinced him that their pet goat, General Pickles, needed a bath.

At nine-thirty, General Pickles escaped through the parlor, dragging a wet tablecloth and three pieces of the mayor’s best china.

And at nine-forty, the twins stole Silas’s famous black hat.

That was when the chase began.

“GIVE ME BACK THAT HAT!”

His roar shook the front windows.

The twins fled through the front door, laughing so hard they could barely breathe.

Silas thundered after them.

They raced past the barber shop, through the blacksmith’s yard, and directly into the Founders’ Day festival preparations.

Women stopped hanging bunting.

Men abandoned their wagons.

And Mrs. Abigail Pritchard, the town’s most dedicated gossip, nearly dropped her lemonade when she saw the terrifying Silas Boone chasing two children while wearing a pink kitchen apron.

“Merciful heavens!” she cried. “Silas Boone has become a housewife!”

The entire street erupted with laughter.

Silas stopped long enough to point a threatening finger.

“One word about this, Abigail, and I’ll tell everybody who really broke the church organ!”

Abigail immediately looked away.

Unfortunately, the twins were already disappearing around the corner.

Silas followed them into the alley behind the general store, where he found Tommy standing alone beside a stack of wooden crates.

“Where’s your sister?” Silas demanded.

Tommy shrugged.

“Can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Secret outlaw business.”

Silas folded his arms.

“Listen here, little man. I’ve tracked cattle thieves across two territories. I’ve found lost horses in a blizzard. I can find one little girl.”

Tommy considered that.

Then he smiled.

“Not if she’s a ghost.”

A tiny giggle floated down from above.

Silas looked up.

Molly was perched on a low rooftop, wearing his black hat and waving like a queen greeting her subjects.

His heart nearly stopped.

“Molly! Don’t move!”

“Why?”

“Because you’re on a roof!”

“You climbed a roof when you were seven.”

“Who told you that?”

“Your mama!”

Silas silently promised to write his mother a very stern letter.

He climbed onto the crates, reached up, and carefully lifted Molly down.

For one brief moment, she clung to his neck.

“You’re stronger than Daddy,” she whispered.

Something in Silas’s expression softened.

Then she kissed his scarred cheek.

“But Daddy smells better.”

Tommy collapsed laughing.

Silas sighed.

“I should’ve stayed in the army.”

By noon, the cowboy had recovered his hat, lost his dignity, and somehow acquired two sticky little hands wrapped around his fingers.

He bought the twins peppermint sticks and took them to watch the festival wagons arrive.

For the first time all morning, they were quiet.

“Mr. Boone?” Molly asked.

“What?”

“Why don’t you have children?”

Silas’s smile faded.

He looked toward the distant mountains.

“Some things don’t work out the way a man hopes.”

Tommy studied him.

“Did you ever want some?”

Silas swallowed.

“Once.”

Molly squeezed his hand.

“Well, you can borrow us.”

Silas looked down at her.

Then, despite himself, he laughed.

“That’s a mighty generous offer, sweetheart.”

What the twins didn’t know was that Silas had once been engaged to a young schoolteacher named Clara Bennett. They had planned a house with blue shutters, a vegetable garden, and enough children to fill every room with noise.

But Clara had fallen ill one terrible winter and never recovered.

Silas had buried his future beside a little white church and spent the next twelve years convincing himself he preferred silence.

Now two children were making that silence feel awfully lonely.

At two o’clock, the Founders’ Day festival officially began.

There were fiddle players, pie contests, horse races, and a traveling magician who promised to make a live chicken disappear.

Silas bought the twins roasted peanuts and warned them to stay beside him.

“Remember our agreement,” he said.

“No running,” Molly recited.

“No climbing,” Tommy added.

“And no secret outlaw business.”

The twins exchanged a look.

Silas narrowed his eyes.

“I saw that.”

“Saw what?” they asked together.

Before he could answer, a wagon loaded with festival decorations rolled between them.

Silas stepped aside to avoid the horses.

It took perhaps five seconds.

When the wagon passed, both children were gone.

Silas stared at the empty street.

“Molly?”

No answer.

“Tommy?”

Only music and laughter.

He pushed through the crowd, scanning every face.

“MOLLY! TOMMY!”

His voice rose above the fiddles.

Nothing.

Within minutes, he had searched the candy stand, the horse pens, the churchyard, and every wagon along Main Street.

The twins had vanished.

Mayor Whitcomb arrived running, his face pale.

“Silas! Where are my children?”

Silas couldn’t answer.

For the first time in years, the toughest man in Red Creek felt something colder than fear.

He felt helpless.

Then he noticed something on the ground near the old livery stable.

Three small stones arranged in a triangle.

Beside them lay a single peppermint wrapper.

Silas crouched.

His eyes narrowed.

He remembered Tommy’s words in the alley.

Not if she’s a ghost.

And he remembered Molly whispering something to her brother earlier that morning.

Three stones mean the ghost went home.

Silas stood slowly.

“Henry,” he said, his voice suddenly steady, “I think I know where your children went.”

The mayor grabbed his arm.

“Where?”

Silas looked beyond the festival tents toward the abandoned buildings at the edge of town.

There was only one place the children called the Ghost House.

The old Miller place.

And it had been boarded shut ever since the cellar floor collapsed six years earlier.

Just then, from somewhere beyond the livery stable, came a faint metallic ringing.

Three taps.

A pause.

Three more.

Silas went white.

Because that was another part of the twins’ secret game.

Three knocks meant something very different from three stones.

Three knocks meant: We’re trapped.