Chapter 7 - Four Days to Save the Broken Spur
The storm erased tracks.
That was the first problem.
The second was darkness.
The third was Josiah.
He saddled a horse before the ranch hand finished speaking.
Clementine grabbed the bridle.
"You cannot see the road."
"I know the road."
"You know the road in daylight."
"My son is out there."
"I know."
"Then let go."
"No."
He turned.
Rain streamed from his hat.
Something wild had entered his expression.
Clementine understood.
She also knew allowing a frightened man to ride blind into a storm could produce two missing people.
"We wait until the lightning passes."
"Absolutely not."
"Josiah—"
"He is fourteen!"
"And needs his father alive."
That reached him.
Barely.
They compromised.
Josiah and the ranch hand rode as far as Miller Farm, where people knew the area and lanterns could search nearby crossings.
Clementine remained with the younger children.
No one slept.
By three in the morning, the storm weakened.
At first light, Clementine left Sadi in charge and rode out.
She found Josiah three miles beyond Miller's.
No Wyatt.
But tracks.
A horse had left the road near a washed-out creek.
They followed.
Two hundred yards downstream, they found Wyatt's hat.
Josiah dismounted so quickly he nearly fell.
"Wyatt!"
Nothing.
Again.
"Wyatt!"
A faint answer came from beyond the trees.
"Pa!"
Josiah ran.
Wyatt stood beneath a rock ledge, soaked and furious.
The bay gelding stood beside him with a cut on one foreleg but otherwise healthy.
Josiah grabbed his son.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Josiah pushed him back.
"What were you thinking?"
Wyatt blinked.
"What?"
"You left the road!"
"Bridge washed."
"You should've turned back!"
"I couldn't!"
"Why?"
Wyatt reached inside his coat.
A leather pouch.
"I got the register."
Everyone became quiet.
Josiah stared.
"You reached Laramie?"
"Before the storm."
"How?"
"I rode faster."
Clementine almost laughed from sheer relief.
Wyatt handed over papers.
The Eagle House hotel register.
March seventeenth.
Josiah Caldwell.
Room twelve.
Payment recorded.
More importantly, a written statement from the innkeeper confirming Josiah had arrived before sunset and left the following morning.
Virgil's amendment had supposedly been signed and notarized in Cheyenne that same evening.
Impossible.
"How did you get this?" Clementine asked.
"Told him why."
"Just like that?"
"Mostly."
Wyatt looked slightly guilty.
"What else?"
"I said you would send him cinnamon rolls."
Clementine stared.
Wyatt shrugged.
"He liked cinnamon rolls."
She started laughing.
Josiah joined.
Then the ranch hand.
Soon even Wyatt smiled.
Relief made fools of all of them for a minute.
Then Clementine noticed something else in the pouch.
A newspaper clipping.
"What is this?"
"The hotel man gave it to me."
Old article.
March twentieth.
Banker Harlan Webb hospitalized after a stroke.
Clementine read.
"He was ill."
Wyatt nodded.
"In Laramie hospital."
"When?"
"Since March fifteenth."
Now the forged amendment had two impossible elements.
Josiah was not in Cheyenne.
And the banker who supposedly filed the document was not in Cheyenne either.
Clementine's pulse quickened.
"Wyatt."
"What?"
"You may have saved the ranch."
The boy looked toward his father.
Josiah's eyes filled.
He pulled him close again.
This time Wyatt did not resist.
They returned to Broken Spur by midmorning Thursday.
One day remained.
The family gathered around the table.
Clementine laid out everything.
Loan agreement.
Amendment.
Auction receipt.
Hotel register.
Innkeeper statement.
Newspaper clipping.
Josiah looked at the pile.
"So Friday means nothing."
"It means something."
Everyone groaned.
Clementine continued.
"Virgil still holds a recorded amendment. We must prevent enforcement."
"How?" Sadi asked.
"Lawyer."
"Money?" Jasper asked.
"Lawyer agreed to help."
"Why?"
Clementine smiled.
"Because Mr. Belling dislikes Virgil."
That was not the full reason.
Belling also remembered Harlan Webb.
They had played cards together for twenty years.
When Clementine showed him the newspaper clipping, Belling's expression changed.
"Harlan could barely speak after that stroke," he said.
"And you're certain of the date?"
"I visited him March sixteenth."
"Can you testify?"
"Gladly."
Now they had a witness.
But Virgil still controlled much of the town.
The sheriff owed him money.
Several council members did too.
Clementine understood something from Chicago: evidence mattered, but evidence hidden in a drawer could disappear.
So she made copies.
One went to Belling.
One to the newspaper editor.
One to the railroad office.
One to Clementine's trunk.
"Why railroad?" Josiah asked.
"Because powerful men fear other powerful men."
He looked uneasy.
"You know too much about this."
"Yes."
By Thursday afternoon, they had earned another sixty-four dollars.
Total cash: two hundred fifty-one.
Not enough.
Clementine no longer intended to pay eight hundred.
Still, cash mattered.
If the court ruled the original debt legitimate, they needed leverage.
Then something unexpected happened.
The railroad foreman arrived.
He had tasted Clementine's cooking for four days and watched Josiah repair equipment.
"We got a crew coming through next month."
Clementine waited.
"Forty men."
"How long?"
"Six weeks."
"You need meals."
"And boarding if possible."
Josiah laughed.
"Our house barely holds us."
"Railroad can build bunk tents."
The foreman named a number.
Clementine blinked.
Six-week food contract.
Advance: three hundred dollars.
If they signed.
Today.
Josiah looked at Clementine.
She looked at him.
"Take it," he whispered.
She did.
Total available cash: five hundred fifty-one dollars.
The foreman left.
For the first time, saving the Broken Spur seemed possible even if they had to negotiate payment.
The children celebrated.
Clementine did not.
Not yet.
She had learned that desperate men were most dangerous when losing.
As sunset approached, she checked doors.
Windows.
Barn.
Smokehouse.
Everything.
Josiah noticed.
"You think he'll come here?"
"I think Virgil knows his document is failing."
"He wouldn't hurt children."
Clementine looked at him.
"Do you believe that?"
Josiah did not answer.
That night, after supper, the family sat together in the kitchen.
No one wanted to go upstairs.
Pearl fell asleep against Sadi.
Emmett slept in Clementine's lap.
Josiah watched her.
She had one arm around his youngest child and the other resting beside a pile of legal papers.
A strange thought struck him.
The house looked right.
Not because Abigail was replaced.
She never could be.
But because life had returned.
Different.
Unexpected.
Real.
Clementine noticed him staring.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You're terrible at nothing."
He smiled.
"Thank you."
"For?"
"Staying."
Her expression softened.
"I said I would."
"People say things."
"I don't."
Their eyes held.
Then a crash sounded outside.
Everyone jumped.
Wyatt stood immediately.
Josiah grabbed a lantern.
Clementine handed Emmett to Sadi.
Another crash.
Barn side.
Josiah opened the door.
They smelled smoke.
Clementine's stomach dropped.
Flames glowed orange behind the smokehouse.
"Fire!"
The household exploded into motion.
Buckets.
Well.
Blankets.
Josiah and Wyatt ran toward the flames.
Clementine organized the children into a water chain.
No panic.
Move.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The fire climbed one wall.
A barrel ignited.
Sparks blew toward the barn.
If the barn caught, the horses would be trapped.
"Josiah!"
"I see it!"
He and Wyatt dragged burning debris away.
Clementine soaked blankets and slapped flames.
The twins carried buckets until their arms shook.
Sadi protected the youngest children while hauling water.
After twenty terrible minutes, the fire weakened.
After forty, it was out.
The smokehouse roof had collapsed.
Two hams were ruined.
Part of their food stock burned.
But the barn remained.
The house remained.
The family remained.
Josiah stood in blackened mud.
"Lantern?"
Clementine looked at the ground.
"No lantern."
She found footprints.
Boots.
Two sets.
Leading toward the road.
Then she found something caught on a nail.
A torn piece of red cloth.
Wyatt recognized it.
"So did Clementine.
Virgil's rider.
Josiah's face changed.
"We go to the sheriff."
Clementine picked up the cloth.
"Yes."
Then she looked toward the eastern sky.
Dawn was beginning.
Friday.
The day Virgil planned to take the ranch.
May you like
And before they could defend their home in court, they would first have to prove that someone had tried to burn it down.
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