The Twelfth Name
Eddie waited beside the cold stove until the iron stopped making small settling sounds.
“Samuel?”
Nothing answered.
Anna stood with both hands against the back of her chair.
“Ask him again.”
Eddie looked at her.
“Who was the twelfth man?”
The stove remained silent.
Outside, Clara moved a pot across the cooking grate. A wagon passed the house, its loose wheel knocking once with every turn.
Mary Jane closed the register.
“We need the table.”
Anna was already reaching for her shawl.
“I’m coming.”
Eddie began to object, then stopped.
She knew the house. She had known the man who repaired the leg. And whatever waited at the quarry had already reached into Clara’s kitchen.
“Stay with us,” he said.
Anna looked at the stove.
“I intend to.”
***
Hollis would not leave Shaw unattended.
He put a deputy named Baird in the office with instructions to admit nobody, then collected the wagon from behind the livery.
“Easier to carry a table this way.”
Mary Jane checked the rope beneath the seat.
“Easier to carry a man who falls through a rotten floor, too.”
“Comforting.”
“Watch where you step.”
Clara met them on the porch before they left.
“Lucy knows you’re going back to the house,” she told Anna. “Esther’s sitting with her.”
“Did she ask about her father?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“That you’re trying to help him.”
Anna nodded.
Clara held out a folded piece of paper.
“She asked you to take this.”
It was the drawing of the blue door.
Lucy had added a table beside it. Three figures sat around the table. A fourth stood in the doorway, drawn taller than the house.
Anna touched the paper.
“Will,” she said.
“Her brother?”
“She remembered him.”
For a moment, Anna seemed unable to look away.
Then she folded the drawing along its existing crease and put it inside her shawl.
Eddie watched her climb onto the wagon beside Hollis.
Mary Jane waited until they were beyond hearing.
“Good that she remembered.”
“Yes.”
“You’re wondering what heard her.”
Eddie checked Jack’s cinch.
“Yes.”
Mary Jane looked back at the boardinghouse.
“We still need her to have a brother.”
He knew what she meant.
He had no wish to begin guarding a child against her own thoughts.
***
At the mouth of the quarry road, they passed two men walking east.
One carried a shovel.
Hollis stopped the wagon.
“Where are you going?”
The man with the shovel looked at Anna, then at Eddie.
“Up the gorge.”
“What for?”
“Looking.”
Hollis rested the reins across his knees.
“Go back to town.”
“It’s a public road.”
“Farther up, it’s a washout and an abandoned quarry with a fresh disturbance I haven’t examined.”
The other man shifted his bundle.
“We heard people were finding—”
“I know what you heard.”
Hollis’s voice softened enough to make the next words harder to ignore.
“There’s no one up there taking requests.”
The man with the shovel stared at him.
Then he turned.
They passed without another word.
Eddie watched them until the bend hid them.
Hollis gathered the reins.
“That won’t hold long.”
“No,” Mary Jane said.
The wagon moved on.
***
They reached the quarry by the old powder-house track.
In daylight, the camp looked smaller.
The red moon had lost none of its color, but sunlight exposed ordinary things beneath it: lizards warming on stone, a wasp nest under an eave, grass working through the rail ties.
Eddie found those details almost harder to bear.
The world had not stopped to make room for what was wrong.
Shaw’s lamp remained on the office steps.
Its glass was dark.
Mary Jane walked first to the bell frame and checked the open mechanism.
“Still empty.”
Eddie examined the ground around the post.
Their tracks crossed and recrossed the dust. Beside them, one sharper impression faced the office.
A boot heel.
He crouched.
The edge was crisp. No windblown grit had softened it.
“Someone’s been here.”
Hollis came over.
“Ours?”
“Could be.”
Eddie looked at the office.
The front door stood open by the width of a hand.
He remembered leaving it shut.
Mary Jane followed his gaze.
“The house first?”
Hollis drew his revolver.
“I’ll look through the office. Stay together.”
Eddie watched him cross the yard before following Anna toward the blue door.
***
Anna stopped just inside.
Sunlight fell across the table.
The cracked bowl was gone because she had carried it to Mercy. The empty place on the shelf looked strangely deliberate.
She touched the doorpost where Lucy’s height had been marked.
Then she stepped aside.
“Here.”
Mary Jane laid a blanket on the floor.
Eddie helped her turn the table carefully onto its side.
One sound leg had loosened at the joint. The repaired one held.
Mary Jane ran her thumb along the packing-crate board.
“Someone knew how to make this last.”
“Samuel could mend most things,” Anna said.
The board had been fixed with four square nails, their heads driven almost flush. Eddie slid a thin blade beneath one edge while Mary Jane braced the leg.
“Slowly,” she said.
The old wood creaked.
One nail rose.
Then another.
They worked without speaking.
When the board came free, a narrow cavity showed inside the leg.
Something dark had been folded into it.
Eddie set down the blade.
Anna knelt beside him.
Oilcloth.
The edges had stiffened, but the wrapping remained whole.
Mary Jane lifted it out and placed it on the blanket.
Eddie unfolded it.
Inside lay six sheets of paper, a small brass quarry check, and a strip torn from a child’s exercise book.
The check bore a number.
Twelve.
Anna stared at it.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Eddie thought of the receiving disc wrapped in his coat.
Eight.
This check was older. Thicker. A rough hole had been punched near its edge for hanging on a board.
He laid it beside the papers.
Mary Jane lifted the top sheet.
The handwriting was small and steady.
Across the first line:
*For Anna, if I have failed to explain this myself.*
***
Anna read it standing beside the window.
Eddie and Mary Jane waited.
Outside, Hollis called that the office was clear.
Anna did not seem to hear.
Her eyes moved slowly down the page.
When she reached the bottom, she returned to the beginning.
“May I?” Eddie asked.
She handed it to him.
*For Anna, if I have failed to explain this myself.*
*There were twelve men beyond the lower support when the roof went. I entered twelve in the first account. Mr. Cress ordered eleven entered in the copy sent to the owners.*
*The disputed man is Jonah Reed.*
*His employment was denied because his name was not on the morning roll. He was sent below after the roll was closed. I issued his check myself.*
*He was sixteen.*
Eddie stopped.
Beside him, Mary Jane drew a slow breath.
He continued.
*There is no family here to contradict them. His sister is in the east. I have written twice and received no answer.*
*The other families are being made to sign receipts stating that the account is complete. Some cannot read what they have signed. I have told those I could reach.*
*I will not enter Jonah as having left the camp.*
Below that, written more heavily:
*If anyone says I changed my account, they are lying.*
Eddie lowered the page.
Anna stood very straight.
“He never told me.”
“He meant to,” Mary Jane said.
Anna looked at the open cavity in the table leg.
“Yes.”
***
The remaining papers were copies.
Eleven names, wages owed, sums offered to households.
Then a separate page for Jonah Reed.
Three weeks of pay.
A deduction for boots.
A deduction for bedding.
A deduction for the journey to camp.
At the bottom, the balance had been reduced to a figure so small that Eddie checked it twice.
Mary Jane read over his shoulder.
“They charged him to come here.”
“And to sleep here.”
Anna sat on the edge of Lucy’s bed.
“He ate with us once.”
Eddie looked at her.
“The boy?”
She nodded.
“Samuel brought him home because the cookhouse had shut. He kept apologizing for being hungry.”
Her gaze drifted toward the table.
“He wouldn’t take the last piece of bread until Lucy cut it in half.”
Nobody spoke.
Hollis entered carrying a sheet from the office.
He saw their faces.
“What did you find?”
Eddie handed him Samuel’s statement.
The marshal read it.
At the age, his jaw tightened.
“Cress,” he said.
“You know the name?”
“Seen it on old land papers.”
“Still alive?”
“I’ll find out.”
Mary Jane picked up the narrow strip from the exercise book.
There was writing on both sides.
One side held sums in a young, uneven hand.
On the other:
*Jonah Reed. If there is a letter, leave it with Mr. Vale.*
Beneath it was an address.
Mary Jane copied it before passing the strip to Anna.
The woman held it delicately, as though it might still belong to someone who would ask for it back.
***
Hollis laid his own find on the blanket.
It was a shipping receipt.
Fresh paper.
“Behind the office door. Somebody dropped it or wanted it found.”
Eddie examined the date.
Three days earlier.
The destination line read:
**MERCY — OLD QUARRY OFFICE**
Below it:
**ONE IRON BEARING ASSEMBLY. ONE REGISTER CASE.**
The sender’s name had been left blank.
Mary Jane leaned closer.
“The fitting came nine days ago, according to Shaw.”
“Yes.”
“This is another delivery.”
Hollis nodded.
At the bottom, someone had signed for it.
Not Orrin Shaw.
A single initial followed by a surname.
**S. VALE**
Anna went pale.
“No.”
Eddie looked toward the yard.
The office steps were empty.
The lamp sat where they had left it.
Mary Jane took the receipt.
“The signature?”
Anna shook her head before Mary Jane finished asking.
“He never made his V like that.”
She pointed toward Samuel’s papers.
“Look.”
The difference was plain when they placed them together.
Hollis bent over both.
“Someone used his name.”
Eddie thought of the voice in the stove, caught in the old disaster.
Someone had been expecting Samuel before Lucy had asked for him.
He looked again at the delivery date.
“We need to get back.”
***
They packed everything.
Mary Jane wrapped the papers in fresh cloth and placed them inside her tool bag. Eddie carried the quarry check separately from Anna’s receiving disc.
Hollis insisted on taking the table.
“If somebody comes searching, I’d rather they didn’t find what we were working on.”
They loaded it into the wagon with the damaged leg turned inward.
Anna went back for one thing.
A cup from the shelf.
She held it while Eddie helped her onto the seat.
“Samuel’s?”
She nodded.
The cup was plain white pottery, worn brown at the handle.
Eddie climbed onto Jack.
As he turned toward the track, the office door moved.
A narrow figure stood inside.
Bareheaded.
Young.
For a moment, Eddie thought one of the men from the road had followed them.
Then the figure stepped into the light.
Dust covered his hair and shoulders. One sleeve hung torn from elbow to wrist. His right trouser leg was dark with something that had dried long ago.
He looked past Eddie toward the wagon.
“Mr. Vale?”
Anna made a small sound.
Eddie dismounted.
The young man took one step, then stopped with his hand against the doorframe.
“Is he here?”
“What’s your name?” Eddie asked.
The young man frowned.
“Jonah.”
Eddie heard Mary Jane set down her bag.
“Jonah Reed?”
“Yes.”
His gaze moved from face to face.
“Has there been another fall?”
***
They brought him into the shade beside the office.
Hollis fetched water.
Jonah took the bottle, but his hands shook badly enough that Mary Jane steadied it while he drank.
He could not put much weight on his right leg.
Eddie knelt to examine it.
“May I?”
Jonah nodded.
The cloth was stiff. Eddie did not try to pull it free.
“Does it hurt?”
“Some.”
“Can you feel your foot?”
“Yes.”
Mary Jane rolled a blanket and placed it beneath his knee.
Anna stood a few feet away, holding Samuel’s cup.
Jonah noticed her.
“Mrs. Vale?”
“Yes.”
He tried to sit straighter.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you.”
She knelt beside him.
“That’s all right.”
“Is Lucy well?”
Anna’s mouth trembled.
“She’s in town.”
“I’ve got something for her.”
He reached toward his coat.
Then stopped.
His hand searched an empty pocket.
The look on his face was so young that Eddie had to turn briefly toward the yard.
“What was it?” Anna asked.
“A stone. Had a stripe through it.”
“She’d have liked that.”
Jonah nodded.
He looked down at his dusty hands.
“I must have dropped it.”
***
Mary Jane waited until he had finished drinking.
“Jonah, what do you remember just before you came out of the office?”
He glanced toward the door.
“I wasn’t in the office.”
“Where were you?”
“Below.”
“The lower gallery?”
“Yes.”
“With the others?”
His face tightened.
“I could hear them.”
Eddie crouched beside Anna.
“Was someone calling you?”
“No.”
“Did you see a light?”
Jonah nodded.
“Who held it?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“What did they say?”
“That my place was settled.”
Mary Jane looked at Eddie.
“Those words?”
“Yes.”
Jonah rubbed at a patch of dirt on his wrist.
“I told him Mr. Vale had my wages. I thought maybe that was what he meant.”
“And then?”
“He said I was entered now.”
Hollis stood behind Eddie, very still.
“Did he ask you to sign anything?”
“A page.”
“Did you?”
Jonah nodded.
“I thought I had to.”
***
Eddie crossed to the office.
The lamp remained dark.
Inside, dust lay over the counter and the shelves.
A rectangular patch on the desk was cleaner than the wood around it.
Something had rested there recently.
Something the size of a book.
He heard Mary Jane come behind him.
“The register case,” she said.
“Another book.”
“Possibly.”
He looked at the empty patch.
Shaw’s register was in Mercy.
Its fitting had been disconnected.
Yet Jonah had been given a page to sign.
Outside, the young man asked Anna whether Samuel would be angry about his missing check.
Anna told him no.
Eddie pressed both palms against the desk.
They had spent the morning trying to understand a machine they had already stopped.
Someone else was still working.
***
They made room for Jonah in the wagon.
Hollis rode Anna’s place beside the seat while she sat in the bed with the boy, keeping his injured leg steady against the folded blankets.
The table lay tied along the opposite side.
Before they left, Eddie checked the office once more.
On the underside of the desk, beneath the clean rectangular patch, a pale line showed against the dark wood.
He crouched.
Chalk.
One number.
**12**
Fresh enough to come away on his thumb.
He stood slowly.
Mary Jane waited in the doorway.
“What is it?”
He showed her.
From the wagon, Jonah called to them.
“Mr. Bone?”
Eddie went outside.
The boy had lifted his head.
“How did you know my name?”
“We found something Mr. Vale wrote.”
Jonah considered that.
Then relief spread across his face.
“He kept it?”
“Yes.”
“I told the man he would.”
Eddie stopped beside the wheel.
“What man?”
“The one with the paper.”
“What did he say?”
Jonah looked toward the office.
“He said nobody had written me down.”
A faint breeze moved through the abandoned camp.
Then Jonah added, “He said if you found proof, I was to come with you.”
Mary Jane’s hand closed around the wagon rail.
Eddie looked back at the empty office.
For the first time that morning, he understood why the receipt had been left where Hollis could find it.
They had been given enough to keep looking.
And someone had waited for them to find the twelfth name.
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