"Shared logistics," Thomas said, almost smiling at the phrase as if it belonged to a different century. "Telegraph to Denver for a handwriting sample from any real letter of mine on file with the assay office. Wire to the county seat for a deputy who doesn't eat Rourke's beef. Check whether your fare was paid through the railroad's company account or a private voucher—vouchers leave names. Keep you visible enough that disappearing you becomes a problem, and quiet enough that we don't hand them a spectacle. And we do not, under any circumstance, pretend we are married to make the story neater."
Evelyn's mouth tightened. "I did not come here to pretend."
"Good. Pretending is how seals get believed."
They went to the telegraph office together while the light still held. The operator was a thin man named Cubb with ink on his cuffs and a mustache that tried to apologize for his face. He glanced at Evelyn's dress, then at Thomas's gun belt, then at the blank form as if the form were the only safe country left.
Thomas wrote two messages in a clear hand—one to the Denver assay office requesting confirmation of his filed signature exemplars, one to the county seat requesting a deputy for suspected claim interference and forged correspondence. Evelyn wrote one—to a Philadelphia solicitor who had once handled her father's small estate—asking whether any correspondence bearing an HR seal had been received in her name or used to authorize travel funds. She paid with a coin from a purse inside the suitcase. Cubb did not ask why a woman in burgundy needed the wire; curiosity in Galena Crossing had learned to invoice itself later.
"Replies may take a day," Cubb said. "Weather takes longer than wires admit."
"We'll wait," Thomas said.
At the sheriff's office, Sheriff Dale Whitcomb listened with his boots on the stove fender and his eyes half-lidded. He was not bought in the simple way. He was tired in the complicated way. He looked at the seal, sniffed, and said Rourke was a citizen. He also said timber failures happened, and letters got forged, and pretty women got lied to, and Reed had a temper that made juries nervous. He offered to "look into it" with the enthusiasm of a man offering to look into weather.
"Put it in the log," Thomas said. "Date. Seal. Her arrival. The riders. If something happens to either of us, I want ink already dry."
Whitcomb wrote, slowly. The pen scratched like a small animal. Ink was a kind of insurance that still required someone alive to read it.
"Names of the riders?" Whitcomb asked.
"Scar through the left eyebrow on one," Thomas said. "Younger one keeps his hat brim low. Both dark coats. Both paid enough not to need names on Main Street."
Whitcomb grunted. "That'll be Cole Brannigan and maybe the Durn boy. Brannigan works odd jobs that end with other men quiet. The Durn boy wants to be feared before he's earned a reason. I'll ask around. Asking around isn't arresting."
"Asking is a start," Evelyn said.