SMOKE OVER MERCY

Elias Cord, 62, has ranched alone for six years on the ground where the town of Mercy once stood. When journalist Wade Fuller arrives with letters of introduction and a notebook, Cord agrees to the interview, releasing the account of the Harrow Company and its planned attack on three settlements in measured sessions that never quite reach the reason for the fire. Wade discovers, halfway through, that his father died in Mercy and that his father's name appears in Cord's ledger under the heading COMPLICIT. The full disclosure, when it comes, includes everything: the forty armed men, the three settlements with three hundred lives, the four innocent residents Cord moved to safety, and the twelve who died in the fire, including Hollis Fuller, livery operator. Wade writes the account overnight. He hands it to Cord. Cord burns it, and explains why. Wade leaves with his notebook. The story belongs to him now, and so does the question he cannot answer.