"Not his," Nora said at once. "Not anyone's. Money set down to stop a sale is not a bill of sale. Remember that."
Bess turned. Her voice was thin. "Crowe will not forget. And the drifter—Callum—why did he have that much? Men who ride alone with two pouches either stole them or are running from the reason they earned them."
Nora had no answer that would soothe. She had seen Drake's face when he said I know. It had not been the face of a man buying stock. It had been the face of a man who had watched something like this before and hated the watching. That did not mean he was safe. It only meant he was not Crowe.
Downstairs, in the sheriff's office, the warrant lay open under a lamp. Elias Pike's ledger sat beside it, pages marked with ribbon. Callum Drake sat on a bench with his hat on his knee and his spurs quiet for once. Harlan Crowe stood because sitting would have looked like yielding. Sheriff Yates rubbed his temples.
"Say it plain, Pike," Yates said.
Pike opened the ledger to a page dated four years back. "Jonah Pell's store credit. His mark—here—is an X with a short crossbar. Every year the same. The warrant Crowe holds shows a full signature, Jonah spelled out, with a loop on the J that Jonah never made. Someone forged a name onto a debt schedule, attached three young women as labor collateral, and tried to auction the attachment before anyone compared ink."
Crowe's voice stayed even. "The land tax is real. The burial debt is real. The store ran long. Somebody has to pay."
"Somebody," Pike said, "not three girls sold like mules. And not on a paper that pretends my bank endorsed a lien we never saw."
Drake spoke for the first time since they sat him down. "Where did the warrant come from?"
Crowe looked at him as if measuring distance to a gun. "Filed at the county seat. Clerk named Meachem. Seal is county seal."
"Then Meachem is either careless or paid," Drake said. "Or both."