The Gunslinger Who Came to Bury His Past — Then the Town Gave Him a Reason to Draw Again
CHAPTER 7
Silas Vane didn’t enter the mine.
He sent fire.
Flames erupted around the entrance.
Gabriel grabbed the girl.
Boone kicked open a side tunnel.
They escaped through smoke and darkness.
By dawn, the mine had collapsed.
Vane announced that Gabriel Shaw and Calder Boone had killed Marshal Reed.
The town believed him.
Ada didn’t.
She had spent the night searching Samuel Monroe’s records.
She finally found the missing document.
A signed agreement.
It proved that Silas Vane had purchased the land illegally.
But there was something else.
A second signature.
Gabriel’s father.
Ada’s heart sank.
She understood.
Elias Shaw hadn’t been working for Vane.
He had infiltrated him.
The signature was evidence.
Not betrayal.
She rushed to the church.
Gabriel was there.
“So,” he said quietly.
“You found something.”
She handed him the document.
He read it.
His hands trembled.
“My father was trying to expose him.”
Ada nodded.
“Yes.”
Gabriel looked toward the church doors.
“Then why did he die?”
Ada hesitated.
“Because someone betrayed him.”
“Who?”
She looked at him.
“Your father’s closest friend.”
Gabriel froze.
“Who?”
Ada whispered the name.
“Jonah Reed.”
Gabriel stared.
The marshal had been alive.
He had been helping Vane.
He had also been protecting his daughter.
But the betrayal had happened twenty years earlier.
Reed had given Vane the location of the hidden documents.
And Samuel Shaw had never made it home.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
The past was finally making sense.
But one question remained.
“Where is Reed now?”
Ada shook her head.
“Missing.”
A church bell rang.
Once.
Twice.
Then three times.
A rider appeared outside.
It was Reed.
And he was dead.
Pinned to his chest was a piece of paper.
THE DEBT IS PAID.
