Margaret looked confused.
“What brown book?”
Mara answered.
“Elias carried it when he came to Bluewater in 1881.”
Anna’s heartbeat quickened.
“My father surveyed Bluewater again?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“July.”
One month before his death.
Anna looked at Margaret.
Her mother shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Mara continued:
“He came because the stone had moved.”
The words changed the air.
Silas’s voice sharpened.
“Moved?”
Jacob answered in English:
“Pulled.”
Everyone looked at him.
His eyes stayed on Silas.
Anna looked toward the stone again.
“Where did you find it?”
Mara pointed east.
“Dry wash below Vane’s north pasture.”
Silas laughed.
“There are miles of wash.”
“Inside your fence.”
The crowd murmured.
Silas’s men shifted near their horses.
Marshal Brigg noticed.
“Still no guns.”
Silas glared at him.
Brigg did not care.
Mara continued:
“The stone disappeared before the winter of 1880.”
“Our families complained.”
“To who?”
Anna asked.
“Agency.”
“County.”
“Land office.”
“What happened?”
“Papers.”
Mara’s voice became bitter.
“Always papers.”
“Then no papers.”
Anna understood.
Petitions filed.
Lost.
Indexed incorrectly.
Returned for missing seals.
Sent to offices that never answered.
Mara had learned the bureaucracy almost as thoroughly as anyone in town because she had spent years watching it swallow complaints.
“Your father came himself,” Mara said.
“He measured.”
“He found the line was wrong.”
Anna’s throat tightened.
“He told you?”
“He told Thomas.”
“Did he write it?”
Mara nodded.
“In brown book.”
Margaret whispered:
“Elias had dozens of notebooks.”
Anna turned toward her.
“Where?”
“Some in the attic.”
“Some went to the recorder’s office.”
“Some…”
She stopped.
“What?”
Margaret’s face changed.
“Silas bought a trunk.”
Anna stared.
“What?”
“After your father died.”
“When?”
“The estate sale.”
Anna almost laughed from disbelief.
“My father’s survey trunk?”
“No.”
“Not his main case.”
“An old trunk from the shed.”
“I didn't know what was in it.”
Silas spoke before Anna could.
“Your mother sold dozens of items.”
Margaret turned.
“You remember.”
The accusation surprised everyone.