“I Heard You Want a Wife — We Are Perfect for You.” Identical Chinese Twins Said to the Lone Rancher

Chapter 6

But the past was not finished with us.

The merchant did not forget.

Silas Chen arrived on a gray afternoon, when the snow had retreated to the shadow of the pines and the first green shoots were pushing through the mud. He came with four men, all of them armed, all of them wearing the hard expressions of men who had been paid to be cruel and had no qualms about earning their wages.

I saw them from the ridge. I rode down fast.

By the time I reached the cabin, they were already there. Mai and Leanne were standing on the porch, their faces pale, their hands empty, their chins raised in defiance. Chen sat on his horse, looking down at them like a man examining goods that had been damaged in transit.

“Mr. Thorne,” he said, not turning around. “I was wondering when you would join us.”

“Get off my land.”

“I will, as soon as I have what is mine.” He pulled a folded document from his coat. “I have papers. Signed by their father. Witnessed by a magistrate in San Francisco. They belong to me.”

I dismounted slowly, keeping my hand on my rifle. “Their father is dead.”

“The debt passes to the family.”

“The debt was paid. In full. In blood and suffering and a journey across an ocean in the hold of a ship.”

Chen’s smile was thin as a blade, cold as the winter that had just passed. “Blood does not clear a ledger, Mr. Thorne. Coin does. And I have not been paid.”

I stepped forward. “You will not take them.”

“Will you shoot me?” Chen asked. “In front of witnesses? In broad daylight?” He gestured to his men. “There are four of them. They will swear you drew first. They will swear you threatened me. And you will hang before the week is out.”

I looked at his men. City men. Hired muscle. Their hands rested easy on their holsters, and their eyes were flat and empty. They would not hesitate.

Mai stepped off the porch.

“Mr. Chen,” she said. “You are a businessman. So let us make a business proposition.”

Chen raised an eyebrow.

“This land sits at the crossroads of three passes,” Mai continued. “In five years, when the railroad comes through, it will be worth ten times what it is now. Maybe more. You want access to those passes. You want a foothold in Wyoming, a base for your trading operations.”

Chen’s expression did not change. But he was listening.

“Leave us here,” Mai said. “We will develop the land. Build the trade routes. Establish relationships with the wagon trains and the settlements. We will grow this ranch into something that makes money for everyone involved. You will receive a percentage—a fair percentage—of everything we earn. In exchange, you sign a release. We are free. The debt is cleared.”

“And why would I agree to this?”

“Because if you do not,” Leanne said, stepping up beside her sister, her voice steady and cold, “we will write letters. To every trader in San Francisco, every merchant in the Oregon Territory, every man who has ever done business with you. We know your routes, your partners, your prices, the bribes you pay. We will tell them how you treat your partners. How you buy women like cattle and sell them to men who are even crueler than you.”

“And,” Mai added, “we will tell them that you lost two valuable assets to a blizzard because you were too cheap to hire proper transport. That you sent a wagon with a cracked axle into a winter crossing. That you valued your coin more than human lives.”

Chen’s face hardened. “That is a lie.”

“Is it?” Leanne smiled—a thin, knowing expression. “I wonder what the men in the wagon would say, if someone asked them the right questions. I wonder if they would remember that the wheel broke because the axle had been damaged for months. I wonder if they would remember that you told them to keep going, even though the storm was coming, even though they said it was too dangerous.”

The silence stretched.

Chen looked at them. Then at me.

“You have taught them well,” he said.

“I did not teach them anything. They taught themselves. They have been teaching themselves their whole lives. You just never bothered to notice.”

Chen studied me for a long moment. The wind picked up, carrying the scent of melting snow and pine.

Then he laughed—a sharp, surprised sound that seemed to cost him something.

“Fine,” he said. “I will take your offer. Five years. Thirty percent of the profits. And if I do not see returns, I will come back. And I will not be civil.”

He pulled out a pen.

The document was written on the hood of his wagon, the ink blotting in the cold air. Mai and Leanne signed their names, their hands steady.

Chen folded the paper and tucked it into his coat.

“One piece of advice, Mr. Thorne,” he said, mounting his horse. “Keep them close. The West is full of men like me. And not all of them can be bluffed.”

He rode away.

His men followed.

I stood in the yard, watching until they disappeared over the ridge, until the sound of hooves faded into the distance, until I was sure they were not coming back.

Then I turned to Mai and Leanne.

“That was—”

“Calculated,” Mai said.

“Courageous,” Leanne finished.

“Insane,” I said.

They laughed. It was the first time I had heard them laugh, really laugh—a bright, unfettered sound that cut through the gray afternoon like a blade of light. The sound was so unexpected, so full of life, that it stopped my heart for half a beat.

“We have been insane since the day we ran into a blizzard,” Mai said. “Why stop now?”