Second green.
Third brown.
She touched it.
Did not open.
Mara stood beside her.
“You wanted this.”
“Yes.”
Anna looked toward Silas.
“Why didn't you destroy it?”
He seemed genuinely puzzled.
“I never read it.”
She almost laughed.
All these years.
The most dangerous evidence in his own storage because arrogance had been more reliable than secrecy.
Brigg said:
“Maybe don’t congratulate ourselves until we know what it says.”
Good.
Anna opened.
July 1881.
Bluewater.
Measurements.
Thomas Kase named repeatedly.
Stone 187 absent from expected position.
False replacement point west.
Then a page:
July 31.
Met S. Vane and O. Price at spring. Informed both I will not attest correction. Original federal bearings sound. Thomas’s memory corresponds. Need retrieve 1877 field sheet from Creel.
Anna’s hands shook.
Next page:
August 2.
Silas angry. Says water cannot remain “ownerless.” Told him reserved use is not ownerless.
Mara looked at Anna.
No one spoke.
Next:
August 5.
Signed measurement sheet only. Not boundary correction.
There.
Elias’s real signature.
The sheet Creel later repurposed.
Brigg exhaled.
“Jesus.”
Silas stood behind them.
Anna looked up.
“You knew he refused.”
Silas stared at the notebook.
He did not answer.
“Your name is here.”
“Yes.”
“You heard him.”
“Yes.”
“Then you knew the patent was false.”
Silas’s face tightened.
“I knew Elias disagreed.”
“He says he would not attest.”
“I thought Price’s survey would prevail.”
“Then why use my father’s signature?”
“I did not.”
“Your application did.”
“Creel handled that.”
Anna stood.
“You paid Creel.”
“Yes.”
“For speed?”
Silas looked away.
Mara spoke.
“Say true thing.”
He turned toward her.
She repeated:
“Say true thing.”
Silas’s voice dropped.
“I paid him because Elias was dead.”
Anna felt the sentence like heat.
Margaret made a small sound.
Silas looked toward her.
“Not because I wanted Elias dead.”
Margaret stared.
“I never thought you killed him.”
Silas seemed relieved.
She continued:
“I thought you used his death.”
His face changed.
Worse.
Because that was true.
Silas sat on a crate.
For the first time, the powerful cattleman looked tired enough to be old.
“Price told me the federal survey was wrong.”
“I wanted to believe him.”
Anna said nothing.
“He said if Bluewater remained communal, every drought would become a fight.”
“I believed private control would improve it.”
Mara looked toward the irrigation ditch.