I check the columns a third time, unable to believe it. When I flip back and check previous months, they all show the same trend.
Uncle has been stealing from Father—from our family. Stealing also from the buyers Father worked so hard to forge relationships with in California and along the Gulf. Stealing from the miners, even, to whom Father promised small bonuses on particularly profitable months. According to the ledgers, there were two months in the past six alone that should have yielded those miners extra earnings, but the profit went into Uncle’s pocket instead.
I flip back to a year ago. This is where the trend starts, at least at an easily recognizable rate. Father’s illness had grown exceptionally grave then. He was unable to have any involvement in the mine, and Uncle did his worst as Mother and I were distracted at Father’s bedside and waiting for the inevitable.
I tear out the sheets from both ledgers for November and December of last year, knowing they’re old and Uncle won’t miss them. Folding the papers up, I tuck them into my journal and arrange the ledgers as I’d found them. Then I dart back to my room. When I hear Uncle leaving Mother’s, I throw open the closet door and begin to plan.
It is not until twilight that I have a chance to speak with Mother alone.
I squeak my bedroom door open, tiptoe down the hall to hers. I knock. Her door opens a crack. “Charlotte,” she breathes, and ushers me quickly inside before locking the door behind me.
“We have to leave,” I say, swinging a makeshift bag onto the bed. It is actually more of a sack, thanks to the sheet I stripped from the mattress and the curtain ties I used to secure it. I stuffed it with anything from my bedroom that I deemed remotely useful: two candles and their gilded holders, matches, a wool blanket, a wooden bowl that had been holding potpourri, a steak knife I stole during dinner, and a bit of bread, also swiped from the table, wrapped in a napkin. My journal and the stolen ledger pages are tucked inside as well.
“And go where?” Mother asks. “We’ve no money, certainly no appropriate attire.” Her eyes fall on the plain brown work dress I’m now wearing. It surely belonged to Aunt Martha before her passing and is too large for my frame, but it was the only woman’s dress in my room’s closet and much cleaner than my stained and sweaty mourning dress. I’ve an apron wrapped around my middle—for added warmth—and a robe over my shoulders, as any winter coats are sure to be in the hall closet and I won’t be able to grab one and mosey out the door while waving to Uncle Gerald. Perhaps most important, I have shoes again—a pair of boots. Like the dress, they are a bit too large and sure to give me blisters, but I do not mention it. I need Mother agreeable, not armed with excuses for staying put.
“That doesn’t matter. We have to go. Now, before things get worse. We could head to the mine, get help from the workers. He’s been pocketing some of the profits,” I explain, telling her quickly about the falsified ledgers. The shock that paints her expression informs me that this is a surprise to her too, that even though we’ve always known Uncle Gerald to be greedy and manipulative, she never once expected him capable of such flagrant fraud. “The miners will be up in arms,” I continue. “They’ll help us! Or we can write to your sister in Pittsburgh, Cousin Eliza. Write to an attorney in Yuma. Anything.”
“To what end, Charlotte? We cannot send any word until first light, and our chances of freezing with no place to stay during the night are too high.”
“I didn’t freeze in the Rose Kid’s coach.”
“A stagecoach still offers more protection than the streets.”
There’s a knock on the door. “Lillian?” calls Uncle Gerald.
I grab Mother’s hands, desperate. “If we stay together, just get outside town, we can sell the candlesticks and purchase passage south. We only have to make it back to Yuma, and this will all be over.”
The doorknob jiggles. “Lillian, unlock this door.”
Mother thrusts open the window. “You go,” she whispers, dragging me near it.
“But he’ll kill you. He said as much.”
“He wants the mine, which he’ll only get by marrying me. Mr. Douglas is ignoring the will, but the words written within it are still true. A wedding ensures that the transfer of ownership of the mine won’t look suspicious—not even to people your uncle hasn’t bought.”
“But after.”
“I’ll delay as long as possible then,” she says. “Just go get help. People in town may be in his pocket, same goes for folk at the mine. There’s no guarantee he hasn’t paid off some of the employees for their silence. After all, look at what happened with Mr. Douglas. Find someone impartial, an outsider.”
“Lillian!” Uncle Gerald roars from the hall, his fist pounding on the door.
“Go,” Mother urges. “Please. I’ll stall him, discuss wedding plans, whatever it takes to keep him from your room and give you time to disappear.”
She grabs my sack and shoves it out the window. It drops to the ground with a heavy thunk. I glance at the door, which is trembling under Uncle’s fist, and then at Mother, her eyes pleading with me.
I don’t like it. Leaving without her was never part of my plan. But she does have a point. How far will we get, truly, if we flee together? Uncle will notice our absence the moment he breaks down her bedroom door, and then he’ll start combing the streets, enlist the help of townsfolk and the Law. But if Mother can stall him, if I have time to slip off unbeknownst, I might have a shot.
I heave a leg over the windowsill.
“One moment, Gerald!” Mother shouts. “I’m not decent.” She turns to me. “I love you, Charlotte.”
I drop down to the ground, glance up at Mother. If I ignore the panic in her eyes, she looks almost like an angel, with her hair spilling over her shoulders, the lanterns illuminating the room behind her.
She slides the window closed and turns for the door without a backward glance.
“I love you, too,” I whisper. Then I grab the sack, sling it over my shoulder, and run for the stable.
I steal one of Uncle’s sorrels. No, I borrow it. I’ll bring it back when I return with help.
I’m glad to have the cover of night in my favor. If someone were to recognize Uncle’s mare, if I were to be deemed a horse thief . . . Men have hung for such crimes.
Is that all it takes? One misfortune in your life, one act done out of desperation, and suddenly you’re a criminal?
I push the thought away and focus on the saddle. When the sorrel is ready, I scramble into the seat, not caring that my skirt is hiked up around my waist, that my bloomers are showing, or that the cold winter night is blowing straight through them. I urge the sorrel out of the stable, along the edge of Uncle’s property, and into the street.