Her pulse quickened.
She dug until a rusted handle became visible, and the moment she saw its curved shape, a childhood memory returned so sharply that she stopped breathing.
Adelaide had owned a small tin chest with the same handle.
Sarah remembered seeing it on a high shelf inside her grandmother’s cabin.
Whenever she asked what was inside, Adelaide gave the same answer.
“Nothing worth stealing.”
Sarah had believed her.
Until then.
The buried chest took nearly fifteen minutes to free. It was heavier than Sarah expected, and a faded symbol scratched into the lid showed three leaves surrounding a circle. She stared at it for several seconds before running one thumb across the mark.
Then gravel shifted uphill.
Sarah turned.
A man stood between two scrub pines about thirty yards away.
He was perhaps fifty-five, narrow through the shoulders, dressed in a dust-covered riding coat, with gray running through his dark hair. Sarah did not recognize him immediately. What frightened her was the way he was looking at the box.
“Who are you?” she called.
The man said nothing.
His gaze remained fixed on the chest.
Sarah grabbed the handle.
He started down the slope.
She ran.
The box was too heavy to carry easily, but fear gave her enough strength to drag it toward the narrow trail. Behind her, the man shouted for her to stop, and Sarah heard boots sliding across loose stone.
She abandoned the basket.
Wild greens spilled behind her.
Sarah lifted the chest against her body and forced herself through the cut between two rocks. The trail dropped sharply beyond it, and her boot caught beneath a root.
She fell.
The box struck stone.
The rusted latch snapped.
Papers spilled across the dirt.
Sarah scrambled toward them.
The man reached the upper edge of the trail and stopped.
He seemed less interested in catching her now than in what the broken box had revealed.
Inside were no coins.
No jewelry.
No hidden family fortune.
Only oilcloth packets filled with maps, deeds, handwritten statements, and engineering drawings.
Sarah grabbed the first page.
A map showed Sun Hollow Valley from the northern mountains to the southern farms.
Beneath the familiar roads and property lines ran another system.
Springs.
Underground channels.
Water routes.
Several converged beneath farms whose wells were now failing.
Sarah found Adelaide’s handwriting near one corner.
The springs beneath these hills belong to the valley families.
Sarah read it twice.
Then looked at the stranger.
“What is this?”
He removed his hat.
“My name is Jonah Mercer.”
Sarah knew the surname.
Everybody did.
Jonah Mercer handled land acquisitions for Basin Crown Land & Water.
The company buying dying farms.
Sarah backed away from him.
“You work for Conrad Vale.”
“Yes.”
“You followed me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Jonah looked toward the ridge behind them.
“Because somebody else followed me.”
A rifle cracked in the distance.
Stone exploded above Sarah’s shoulder.
Jonah threw himself down.
“Move!”
A second shot struck the trail.
Sarah did not argue after that.
They reached the Whitcomb farm shortly before sunset.
Daniel was standing outside the cabin with his shotgun when Sarah appeared without her basket and with a stranger walking beside her. The sight of Jonah Mercer did not improve his mood.