Silas had worked 12 days total at neighboring ranches and brought back wages that he handed to Eloan without being asked, every time. And every time she took a portion and put the rest in the jar on the kitchen shelf that had become the household's operating fund. Silas never complained about any of it. He did sometimes complain about other things, the specific difficulty of certain fence terrain. A particular horse at the apprentice spread that he described as having a personal grievance against him, but not about the work or the wages.
The debt picture was still the hard part. Bram owed money on the land a loan taken in his father's last year, extended twice, currently sitting at an interest rate that was not criminal, but was not friendly either. He'd been servicing it barely. The new income streams changed the calculation, but only just. They needed one more good season or one significant additional income source or both.
He was thinking about that on a Tuesday morning when Mertinandale came by again. Mertin had a habit of appearing at the ranch when he had information. It was because he was a gossip less because he was a gossip and more because he genuinely believed in the value of people knowing things that affected them. He came on horseback, declined coffee, and stood at the fence with the look of a man delivering news he's already organized into points. Ketaridge is moving on the Fairburn water claim.
Mertin said Bram went still. The Fairburn claim is settled was settled. Old Clement Fairburn died in August and his son Wesley doesn't know the territory and Ketarage's man went to the county office last week with a counter filing on the creek access. Merin adjusted his hat. If Ketaridge gets that claim reclassified, he controls the upper creek.
Your water access comes through there. Bram did the math in about 4 seconds and didn't like any of it. The creek that gave Cinder Creek Ranch its name ran from northeast to southwest across the property's upper corner. If Keteridge controlled the upstream claim, he could legally restrict flow, not eliminate it. Water rights law in the territory was specific about downstream access, but restrict it to whatever the legal minimum was, which in a drought year was not enough for cattle and a working ranch.
When was the counter filing made? Bram asked. Last Wednesday. How long to contest it? 30 days from filing.
Merin looked at him. You've got 23 days. Mertin left. Bram stood at the fence for a while, doing the kind of thinking that doesn't look like thinking from the outside, just a man standing still, jaw tight, eyes on the middle distance. He went inside and found Elelo.
She was at her sewing table pinning a sleeve to a bodice, and she looked up when he came in and read his face immediately, the way she'd gotten very good at doing. "What happened? " she said. "Not a question," he told her. She set down the sleeve and the pins very deliberately. She was quiet for a moment.
"Show me the water access on the property. " He found the land plat he kept in the desk drawer, unfolded it on the table. She leaned over it and he pointed out the creek line, the property boundaries, the Fairburn claim upstream. If he gets this reclassified, Bram said, tracing the line and we have a dry year. The ranch fails, she said flatly. Eventually, not immediately, but eventually.
He knows that. She studied the plat. This Wesley Fairburn. Does he know what he signed? Probably not.
He's from Ohio from what I know. His father never brought him out. Then he doesn't know what he's giving away. Eloan straightened up. Someone needs to talk to him before Ketarage's man gets to him again.
I was thinking the same thing. Do you know where he's staying? He'd have gone to Greybend. Only hotel in 40 m. Eloan looked at Bram.
Go today. Don't wait. That was my plan. I know, she said. I just wanted to make sure you knew I thought it was right.
He left within the hour. Greyben's Hotel was a two-story frame building on the main street run by a woman named Kora Hitch, who kept it cleaner than its exterior suggested, and had a memory for guests that made the town register almost redundant. She told Bram that Wesley Fairburn was in room 4, had been there 8 days, and had the slightly lost look of a man who'd inherited something he didn't fully understand. She was not wrong. Wesley Fairburn was 28, soft-handed in a way that spoke to office work rather than outdoor labor, and he had his father's papers spread across the small room's table in a disorganized way that suggested he'd been trying to make sense of them and hadn't gotten far.
He let Bram in after a moment of visible hesitation, and Bram took the chair by the window and didn't waste time on preamble. "I'm Bram Voss," he said. "I own Cinder Creek Ranch downstream from your father's claim. We need to talk about what you signed last Wednesday. Wesley looked uncomfortable.
Mr. Ketarage's representative explained it as a standard. Orson Ketaridge's representative explained it in a way that benefits Orson Keteridge, Bram said. Not unkindly, just clearly. I'm going to explain it in a way that tells you what you actually own and what you gave away.
Wesley was quiet. Bram spent the next 40 minutes going through it. He used the copy of the water rights filing he'd stopped to get from the county office on his way through. And he was as direct and as factual as he could manage. Because Wesley Fairburn was not a stupid man.
He was an uninformed one, which is a very different problem and one that can be fixed. By the end of it, Wesley was sitting differently in his chair. He told me it was a standard upstream easement. Wesley said he sounded less lost and more angry, which Bram took his progress. It's a reclassification that gives him control of flow management, Bram said.
Which in a drought year puts you out of viable water. Wesley rubbed his face with both hands. My father would have known that. Your father knew this land the way I know it. He never would have signed that.
A long pause. What do I do? Wesley said. Go to the county office and withdraw the counter filing. Bram said.
You have the right to do that inside 30 days. I've got 23 days left. Your name is on the filing. Your signature withdraws it. He paused.
After that, if you want to sell the upstream claim outright, I'd be interested in a fair conversation about price. If you want to hold it yourself and manage it through an agent, I can suggest someone trustworthy. But the first step is withdrawing the filing. Wesley looked at the papers on his table. And if Ketaridge comes back, he probably will, Bram said honestly.
But a withdrawn filing is a withdrawn filing. He'd have to start the legal process over, and you'd know what to look for this time. " Wesley nodded slowly. He looked like a man who' just understood that the thing he'd been handed was more complicated than he'd thought, but who'd also just been given a clearer map of it than he'd had before. "All right," Wesley said. "Tomorrow morning, I'll be at the county office at 9:00," Bram said.
"In case you need anything clarified. " He rode home in the early evening with the particular feeling of a man who's managed to stop a bad thing from happening. Not relief exactly, more like the absence of weight he hadn't quite realized how fully he'd picked up. The road back was longer in the dark, but his horse knew it, and he let the horse set the pace and thought about water rights and winter, and the partnership paper on the shelf above the fire. When he came through the gate, Silas was waiting. Not dramatically, Silas didn't do dramatic, but he was sitting on the porch step, which meant he'd been watching for Bram's return.
He stood when Bram rode up. "How'd it go? " Silas said. Bram dismounted. "He'll withdraw it tomorrow. " Silas exhaled. "A short, controlled exhale, but genuine. " "Mama was right then. " "Your mother's usually right about which problem needs addressing first," Bram said.