Samuel looked toward Miriam’s letter.
“Certainty is expensive.”
Elena nodded.
They returned to the ranch at dusk.
The Apache families remained.
So did Deputy Price.
Samuel expected tension.
Instead he found Price playing some kind of throwing game with two children who were clearly cheating.
He looked embarrassed when Samuel saw him.
“I’m waiting for the sheriff.”
“Here?”
“I sent a rider.”
Samuel dismounted.
“You trust the sheriff suddenly?”
“No.”
Price nodded toward the ridge.
“I trust witnesses.”
Elena smiled.
The sheriff arrived the following afternoon.
So did Cyrus Vane.
Twenty hired men this time.
Behind them came three neighboring ranchers.
Then five more.
Word had traveled.
Water did that.
So did scandal.
Sheriff Amos Bell was sixty, heavyset, and permanently irritated by problems that required more than one explanation.
He examined Miriam’s maps.
Price’s notes.
The diversion.
The old boundary documents.
Then he looked at Vane.
“You built on public drainage.”
Vane shrugged.
“Everybody builds water works.”
“You changed a creek.”
“I improved irrigation.”
“For yourself.”
“For stock.”
Sheriff Bell looked toward Samuel.
“Can you prove downstream loss?”
Samuel said:
“No.”
Vane smiled.
Then Elena spoke.
“We can.”
Every head turned.
She pointed toward the western trail.
Riders appeared.
Not Apache this time.
Mexican ranch families from south of the valley.
Six wagons.
A dozen mounted men and women.
An elderly rancher named Rafael Ortega dismounted.
Samuel knew him slightly.
Ortega had sold half his land to Vane three years earlier after two wells failed.
He carried a wooden box.
Inside were water measurements.
His daughter had recorded them for years.
Elena had spoken to them before coming to Samuel.
Another rancher arrived.
Then another.
Records.
Dates.
Dry wells.
Vane purchase offers arriving months after water declined.
The story widened.
This was not Apache against ranchers.
Not white against Native.
Not Mexican against white.
It was everyone downstream against a man wealthy enough to assume divided neighbors would never compare notes.
Samuel looked at Elena.
“You planned this.”
“No.”
“You absolutely planned this.”
She smiled.
“I asked questions.”
“Miriam would have loved you.”
Elena’s expression softened.
“I think she did.”
The hearing could not happen in a courtroom.
There were too many people.
So Sheriff Bell stood beneath Samuel’s cottonwood and listened.
Not officially.
But seriously enough.
Cyrus Vane became less calm with every witness.
Finally he pointed toward Samuel.
“This man is harboring hostile Indians and turning half the county against legitimate property rights.”
Elena translated part of the accusation for older relatives.
Her uncle laughed.
Vane snapped:
“What’s funny?”
Elena listened to her uncle.
Then answered: