He stabs at his catfish. Puts down his fork. “I may not get another opportunity. I have two wagons full of goods. Plenty of money from liquidating the store. But it doesn’t seem to matter. Only one company will have me along, and I have to go.”

I mash the fish on my plate with my fork, my appetite gone. I guess I don’t blame Free Jim—Jim—one bit for wanting to head off with a big outfit. It’s what I’d do, if not for Jefferson.

“Well, good luck, Jim,” I say wistfully. “I hope you find mountains of gold.”

His eyes flash. “I hope so too.”

Everyone gets the fever. Even rich men. “Jim, you said something in the store. About Hiram.”

Jim dabs his mouth with his kerchief and twists to face me. “How much do you know about him?”

I shrug. “Not much. That he’s Daddy’s older brother, a college-educated man. He came south from Boston with my mama and daddy; they were all great friends. But when Daddy won a parcel in the land lottery and he didn’t, Hiram left for the big city to practice law. We didn’t see him much, not for years at a time.”

“Did you know that Hiram and Elizabeth were going together?”

I nearly choke. “No, Mama never said.”

“They were planning to marry.”

I gape at him.

“She was running away from something in Boston, something awful. So when the Westfall brothers decided to head south during the gold rush, she asked to come along. She and Hiram fell in love. They were going to get married when they reached Georgia.”

My meal rolls around in my belly. “But she married my daddy.”

Jim nods. “She changed her mind at the very last moment. That’s about the time your daddy and I were getting on as friends. Reuben comes to me one day and says, ‘Jim, I’m going to marry Elizabeth, and my brother is going to be heaping mad, and I don’t know if she’ll ever love me or if Hiram will ever forgive me, but it’s something I got to do.’”

I stare down at my plate, trying to take in his words. Conversation hums around us, like buzzing insects. A breeze gusts through the dining area, flapping the awning.

“He never told me why,” Jim adds. “But he was wrong about one thing and right about the other: Yes, Elizabeth did love him, and no, Hiram didn’t forgive him. Especially after the lottery, when your daddy got a nice piece of acreage and he came up with nothing. And a few years later, when Reuben and Elizabeth had a daughter, a beautiful baby girl they named Leah, Hiram left Dahlonega for good, and I only saw him but once or twice after that.”

“So he murdered them out of revenge?”