“No.”
He stopped complaining.
Anna was appointed county recorder in 1890 after her predecessor retired.
Some said she received the office because of the Bluewater scandal.
Perhaps partly.
She worked hard enough afterward that eventually people stopped saying it.
She never married Silas Vane’s rival.
No dramatic romance emerged from land law.
She married a pharmacist named Henry Cole at thirty-two.
He cared very little about surveys.
This was one of his greatest qualities.
They had two daughters.
Anna taught both to read deeds.
Henry apologized to them.
Mara never married.
Not because of tragedy.
She simply did not.
She managed a cattle herd with Jacob’s eldest son after Jacob’s health declined.
She traveled to agency meetings.
Argued over school access.
Learned enough written legal English to stop needing Anna for most documents.
The first time Mara corrected Anna’s reading of a federal clause, she smiled for three days.
Anna complained.
Mara enjoyed it more.
The recovered Line 187 stone returned to Bluewater.
That decision caused another argument.
San Aurelio wanted it displayed outside the courthouse.
Reverend Locke wanted the mission courtyard.
A territorial official suggested Tucson.
Mara listened.
Then asked:
“Why?”
People began explaining historical significance.
Evidence.
Public memory.
She waited.
Then:
“It is boundary stone.”
“Yes.”
“So put at boundary.”
Simple.
The federal surveyor agreed.
A wagon carried it east.
Jacob rode beside it.
Anna came.
So did Margaret.
Silas was still incarcerated and did not.
They reset the stone at the reconstructed original point.
This time deeper.
A small iron pin placed beneath it.
Measurements recorded from three permanent landmarks.
Copies made.
Photographs taken with a cumbersome camera.
Anna stood beside Mara afterward.
The spring ran twenty yards away.
Not much.
A clear ribbon through grass.
Children filled buckets.
Horses drank downstream.
Anna touched the stone.
“My father should have finished this.”
Mara shook her head.
“No.”
Anna looked at her.
“He tried.”
“Yes.”
“Then he died.”
“Yes.”
Mara stared toward the water.
“Work still finished.”
Anna thought.
“Different people.”
Mara nodded.
“Most work.”
Margaret died in 1898.
Before her death, she gave Anna Elias’s brown notebook.
Anna had kept it in the recorder’s safe for years.
“Take it home,” Margaret said.
Anna shook her head.
“It belongs in public record.”
“Copy belongs public.”
“Book belongs you.”
Anna took it.
Not because blood made her owner of truth.
Because the book also contained grocery calculations, notes about Anna’s school marks, and a sketch of Margaret sleeping beside a campfire.
History and family occupied the same pages.
Not everything belonged in a courthouse.
Silas Vane returned to San Aurelio after his sentence.
People expected him to leave.
He did not.
His legitimate ranch still existed.