She continued:
“But it should make you read slower.”
Anna nearly smiled.
Locke did not.
He absorbed it.
“You are right.”
He returned the donation that afternoon.
Silas sent it back.
Locke returned it again.
The third time, Silas stopped trying.
The telegraph from Tucson arrived at 4:10.
Federal supplemental patent dated October 3, 1881, existed.
That was bad.
Anna read the message twice.
Mara watched her face.
“What?”
“It’s in the federal index.”
Silas had not simply invented a local paper.
Something had actually entered the Land Office system.
The telegram continued:
Original application references corrected survey approved by Acting Clerk Samuel Creel. Supporting field sheet not presently located. Elias Mercer attestation appears in abstract.
Anna’s hands tightened.
Creel.
Again.
“Where is he?”
Mara asked.
“Tucson.”
“Still?”
“Last address.”
Marshal Brigg arranged travel.
Not official extradition.
Not yet.
Just questions.
Anna, Mara, Reverend Locke, and Brigg took the morning stage south two days later.
Jacob remained at Bluewater.
Silas remained in San Aurelio.
Watching.
Waiting.
He posted notices at the spring anyway.
PRIVATE WATER CLAIM.
NO STOCK ACCESS WITHOUT PERMISSION.
Jacob tore one down.
Not angrily.
He folded it and handed it to one of Brigg’s deputies.
“For evidence.”
The deputy almost laughed.
Silas’s foreman replaced it.
Jacob left that one.
The territorial attorney advised everyone not to escalate.
For once, everyone listened.
Tucson was louder than San Aurelio and smelled of horses, wood smoke, and sewage baking in heat.
Samuel Creel lived above a hardware store near Congress Street.
He was fifty-eight now.
Thinner than Anna remembered.
Gray beard.
One eye cloudy.
He opened the door and went pale when he saw Mara.
Then Anna.
“Mercer.”
“Yes.”
He started closing the door.
Marshal Brigg put one boot forward.
“Don’t.”
Creel stared at him.
“Warrant?”
“No.”
“Then move.”
Brigg did.
To Anna’s surprise.
The door shut.
She stared.
“That’s it?”
Brigg shrugged.
“I said questions.”
“He said no.”
Mara looked at the closed door.
“Then ask paper.”
Anna understood.
They went to the Land Office.
The federal clerk on duty was named Harold Weaver.
He had worked there only since 1885.
No loyalty to Creel.
Useful.
He brought out the 1881 abstract.
Anna read.
Supplemental boundary correction.
Requested by Silas Vane.
Reviewed by Samuel Creel.
Field attestation: Elias Mercer.
Approval forwarded after Mercer’s death.
The date problem was explained by a marginal note.