What time did you find them? " Harlan's expression said he was deciding whether to answer a woman who hadn't been spoken to. He decided. "This morning, just after sunup. " "And the ground was frozen soft. " "Soft. " he said. "We had rain two nights ago. " "Then the tracks would be clear, she said. Not just the direction, the depth, the stride length.
Could you tell if the cattle were driven or if they wandered? A pause. Harlan looked at Jacob. Jacob was watching Emily with an expression she couldn't read. Driven, Harlan said slowly.
Tight together, deliberate. Whose cattle? She said. Mine, he said. What I'm saying is I understand what you're saying, she said.
I'm asking if someone deliberately drove your cattle through a cut fence on Walker land. Whose problem is that yours for losing cattle or Walker's for having a fence someone else cut? Silence. Harlan's jaw worked. That's a convenient interpretation.
It's the only interpretation that fits your own description, she said. She kept her voice level, not challenging, just clear. A man driving cattle through the dark doesn't use a fence he owns. He uses a fence he can blame. Harlan looked at her for a long moment, then back at Jacob.
I want this settled, he said. I want my cattle found and I want to know whose hand cut that wire. So do I, Jacob said. Harlan wheeled his horse and left the way he'd come. Jacob stood in the yard and looked at the gate after him.
His hands were at his sides open. Emily had learned in nine days that his hands went still like that when he was working through something that required patience he wasn't sure he had. That wasn't the first time someone's pointed at this ranch, he said. He wasn't saying it to her, he was saying it to the air, to the problem. No, she said.
He looked at her. You knew that. I didn't know it, she said. I guessed it. The way he rode in that was practiced.
A man riding in with a first accusation rides careful. A man who's done it before rides like he already owns the answer. Jacob was quiet for a moment. "This has been happening for 6 weeks," he said, "before you came. Cattle missing from three different ranches.
Always something pointing back here. I haven't said anything to anyone because I don't have proof of anything, and talking without proof in a valley like this just makes it worse. " "Have you lost cattle? " she asked. He looked at her. "Yes. " "How many? " "11. " "And you didn't report it? To whom? " The edge in his voice was not anger at her.
It was a harder thing, the fatigue of a man who'd tried every available avenue and found them insufficient. "The county sheriff is 3 hours ride and has jurisdiction over six valleys. The marshal comes through twice a year. There's no one to report to except the neighbors, and the neighbors are already being told it's me. " She picked up the empty wash basket. "Someone is working very hard to isolate you," she said.
He stared at her. "Think about it," she said. "Your cattle disappear. Your fence line gets cut. Your neighbors come to your gate angry.
You become the suspect. You stop talking to the neighbors because there's no point. The neighbors stop trusting you. You're alone. " She paused. "Isolated people can't defend themselves.
Isolated people can be pushed off their land and nobody makes a fuss because nobody's close enough to see clearly what happened. " Jacob Walker looked at his wife of 9 days. "Emily," he said, and then stopped because there wasn't an immediate follow-up to what she'd said that was useful. "I'm not saying I'm right," she said. "I'm saying it's a possibility worth considering before you spend your energy defending yourself against Harlan, when Harlan might be a victim of the same thing you are. She went inside.
She was at the kitchen table that evening with a piece of paper doing what she'd been doing since the conversation with Harlan, thinking in the way she knew how to think, which was to lay out what was known and what was inferred and what was unknown and see what shape they made together. Known cattle disappearing from multiple ranches for 6 weeks. Known the sign consistently pointed to Walker property. Known Jacob had also lost cattle and said nothing. Known fence line cut on Walker's side, which meant access to Walker land by someone else.
Which meant someone knew the property well enough to move across it in the dark. She was staring at the paper when Ethan came in from the barn. He stopped when he saw her at the table with the paper. "What's that? " he said. "Thinking," she said.
"Come sit. " He came and sat still in his barn coat smelling of hay and cold air. He looked at the paper. "Is that about Harlan coming today? " "Yes. " "Ethan, the cut fence. " "Where exactly on the eastern pasture? " He looked at her carefully. "Down by the creek crossing. Why? " "Is that a place someone could move cattle through without being seen from the road? " A pause.
His eyes sharpened. "Yes," he said slowly. "It's low ground. The tree line runs all the way to the creek there. You'd need to know the terrain to use it in the dark though.
It's rough country down by that crossing. " "So someone who knows this land," she said, "someone who knows this land well. " He was quiet for a moment. "Then there's an old route through the hills south of the creek. It used to be a trade path before the railroad came through. Not on any current map. The ranchers all know about it, but nobody uses it anymore. " He stopped.
"Or nobody's supposed to. " Emily looked at him. "You think someone's using it? " She said. He put both hands flat on the table. "Three weeks ago," he said, "I found boot prints near the South Creek crossing. Multiple horses.
I thought it was drifters cutting through. I told papa, he said watch it but don't engage. There's no law to call and picking a fight with drifters causes more trouble than it solves. " "Did you watch it? " "Yes, for two weeks. Nothing. I figured they'd moved on. " He paused.
"But if they're moving cattle at night through that route using our fence line as the staging point to throw suspicion. " He stopped. "That's not drifters. " "No? " Emily said. "It's not. " The silence in the kitchen was a working silence, both of them thinking hard. And then from outside came the sound of a horse coming fast up the road and both of them were on their feet before the hoof beat stopped. It was their neighbor from the north, a man named Pruitt, 40-odd, normally even-tempered in the way of men who'd ranched long enough to know that panic solved nothing.
He was not even-tempered now. He came through the door that Jacob opened without waiting to be asked, breathing hard hat in his hand, and he looked around the room until he found Jacob and said, "They hit the Caldwell place last night, 40 head, and this time they left something behind. " "What did they leave? " Jacob said. Pruitt reached into his coat pocket and put something on the table. It was a piece of leather, cut from a saddle or a bridle, roughly rectangular, burned with a mark. Not a brand Emily recognized, but Ethan standing beside her made a sound low in his chest.
"Ethan," Jacob said, "I've seen that mark before. " Ethan said. He looked at his father. "On the gear of one of the men who came through looking for ranch work two months ago. You turned him away. You said something about him didn't sit right.
The room held that information for a moment. "You remember what he looked like? " Emily said. "Tall. " Ethan said. "Pale. Had a scar across his left hand like a rope burn gone bad. " He was polite to your face, but his horse was mistreated.
I noticed because the animal was head-shy, and he didn't seem to care. Jacob looked at Pruitt. "Who else did he go to? " "I don't know. " Pruitt said. "I'm going to ride to Harlans, then the Caldwells. See if anyone else remembers him. " He paused.
"There's a meeting at the Caldwell barn tomorrow evening. Every rancher in the valley. People are scared, Walker, and some of them are still pointing at you. " "I know. " Jacob said. After Pruitt left, the house was quiet in a way that pressed down. Then Jacob said, "I need to ride the south fence line tonight. " "I'll come. " Ethan said immediately.