Chapter 11 - Six Miles in the Other Direction
Samuel Pike was not dead.
That was the first thing they learned.
The second was worse.
He was frightened.
A telegram finally arrived the next afternoon.
DO NOT CONTACT AGAIN. MEMORY UNCERTAIN. WILL NOT TESTIFY.
Marabel read it.
“Someone threatened him.”
Everett nodded.
“Can we prove it?”
“No.”
“Then we need something else.”
Everett looked exhausted.
“We have the original survey.”
“Enough to challenge.”
“Not enough to show intentional alteration.”
“What if intention doesn’t matter?”
He looked at her.
Marabel spread county records across the table.
“If the original legal survey is valid, then the later map can be corrected.”
“Cyrus will argue the newer boundary was accepted for decades.”
“Then we prove it wasn’t knowingly accepted.”
“How?”
She held up Catherine’s ledger.
“She questioned it.”
Everett stared.
“Catherine’s notes.”
“Yes.”
“They’re private.”
“They’re contemporaneous records.”
“Would a judge accept them?”
“I don’t know.”
Marabel smiled faintly.
“But I know someone who might.”
Judge Nathaniel Grant visited Willow Creek district court twice monthly.
His next session was the following day.
Marabel wanted to present a petition.
Everett worried they were unprepared.
She agreed.
Then filed anyway.
“You enjoy terrifying me,” he said.
“I enjoy movement.”
They rode six miles toward Willow Creek together.
The same road Marabel had walked alone weeks earlier.
She recognized the cottonwood where she rested.
The ditch where her shoe finally split.
The hill from which she first saw Hollis Ranch.
Everett noticed her looking.
“This is where you walked?”
“All of it.”
He shook his head.
“What?”
“I should have paid you five dollars from the beginning.”
“Six.”
“Let’s not become unreasonable.”
She laughed.
Near town, Everett became serious.
“If this fails…”
“It hasn’t.”
“If it does.”
Marabel waited.
“I can sell cattle.”
“Yes.”
“Sell west acreage.”
“Yes.”
“Pay Cyrus.”
“Yes.”
“So we survive.”
“We survive.”
Everett nodded.
He needed to hear that.
The ranch mattered.
But it was not his life.
For years, he had treated loss as apocalypse.
Catherine.
Rose.
Now perhaps land.
Marabel had shown him survival could contain beginnings too.
At the courthouse, Judge Grant reviewed the petition.
Cyrus arrived halfway through.
Of course.
“Your Honor,” Cyrus said, “this appears to be a private dispute built on an obsolete document.”
Judge Grant adjusted his spectacles.
“Most land documents become obsolete only when replaced legally.”
Cyrus smiled.
“Precisely.”
Marabel watched.
He was confident.
Too confident.
“What replaced this survey?” the judge asked.
Cyrus produced a county map dated twenty-nine years earlier.
Judge Grant compared.
Different boundary.
“What authority ordered the modification?”
Silence.
Cyrus cleared his throat.
“Historical records are incomplete.”
Marabel spoke.
“Then the original recorded survey remains relevant.”
Cyrus looked at her sharply.
Judge Grant looked too.
“Miss Dawson, are you an attorney?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Surveyor?”
“No.”
“Then why are you speaking?”
Marabel’s cheeks warmed.
Before she could answer, Everett said, “Because she found the discrepancy.”
Judge Grant looked at Everett.
“And you trust her analysis?”
“With my ranch.”
The words settled.
Judge Grant returned to the documents.
“I will order a temporary restriction against transfer of the disputed spring rights until records are examined.”
Cyrus’s face tightened.
A small victory.
Not enough.
Outside, Cyrus approached.
“Everett.”
Everett stopped.
Marabel remained beside him.
Cyrus looked at her.
“Privately.”
Everett shook his head.
“Anything about my ranch can be said in front of Marabel.”
For a moment, Cyrus stared.
Then smiled.
“You’re making an emotional mistake.”
Everett’s expression hardened.
“No.”
He looked briefly at Marabel.
“I made emotional mistakes for five years.”
Then back at Cyrus.
“This isn’t one.”
Cyrus stepped closer.
“You owe my bank money.”
“I know.”
“I can call the note under review provisions.”
“Try.”
“You could lose half your land.”
“Then I lose land.”
Cyrus blinked.
He had expected fear.
Everett no longer gave it to him.
“But you will not take property that isn’t yours.”
Cyrus walked away.
Marabel watched.
“He’s desperate.”
“Yes.”
“That makes him dangerous.”
Everett nodded.
They spent the afternoon interviewing old residents.
Most remembered nothing useful.
Then Reverend Paulson mentioned a retired county clerk living with her daughter outside town.
Mrs. Beatrice Lowe.
Seventy-six.
Sharp mind.
They visited.
When Everett mentioned Jonathan Marsh, Beatrice’s face changed.
“That man.”
“You knew him?” Marabel asked.
“I worked courthouse records twenty-three years.”
“Do you remember the Hollis boundary?”
Beatrice closed her eyes.
For several seconds, nothing.
Then:
“Blue ribbon.”
Marabel and Everett looked at each other.
“What?”
“The Hollis survey. Blue ribbon. Judge Bell always tied water surveys blue.”
Marabel leaned forward.
“Do you remember a change?”
Beatrice’s eyes opened.
“Jonathan came late one evening.”
Her daughter frowned.
“Mother—”
“I remember.”
Beatrice’s voice strengthened.
“He asked for the Dawson-Hollis survey.”
“What happened?”
“I told him Judge Bell had locked originals.”
She frowned.
“Next morning, lock was broken.”
Everett’s pulse jumped.
“Was anything missing?”
“No.”
Marabel’s heart sank.
Then Beatrice continued.
“Not missing.”
She looked at them.
“Different.”
Silence.
“The map?”
Beatrice nodded.
“Fence line shifted.”
Marabel’s hands tightened.
“Did you report it?”
“I told Judge Bell.”
“What did he do?”
“Made a copy from his private notes.”
The blue-ribbon survey.
Everett looked at Marabel.
“Would you testify?”
Beatrice hesitated.
Fear crossed her face.
Thirty years later.
Still fear.
Marabel reached for her hand.
“You don’t owe us anything.”
Beatrice looked surprised.
Marabel continued.
“But other families may lose land the same way.”
Beatrice’s gaze sharpened.
“The Millers?”
“Yes.”
“The Cobbs?”
“Possibly.”
Beatrice looked toward the window.
Then said, “I’ll testify.”
They left near sunset.
For the first time, Everett believed they might win.
Until they reached the ranch.
Smoke rose beyond the barn.
A ranch hand came running.
“Everett!”
“What happened?”
“Hay shed caught!”
They ran.
Flames climbed the small western storage shed.
Men carried buckets.
Marabel grabbed one.
Everett stopped her.
“Keep water on the barn wall!”
She obeyed.
The fire was controlled within an hour.
The main barn survived.
No animals were hurt.
The shed did not.
Everett stood before the smoking remains.
One ranch hand approached.
“Found this.”
A lantern.
Broken.
Everett examined it.
Marabel’s expression tightened.
The night was calm.
Nobody had been using that shed.
Everett looked toward the dark road.
Maybe accident.
Maybe not.
Then Marabel noticed footprints.
One set.
Leading toward the south fence.
May you like
Someone had been there.
And if Cyrus Marsh believed fire would frighten Marabel away, he had learned nothing about the woman who once walked six miles because she refused to surrender.
