"Identifies a water access corridor 14 ft wide running from the spring outlet to the established livestock trough positions." That corridor was surveyed, witnessed, and recorded in the original property transfer. When the prior landowner sold to the railroads predecessor company, he set down the rule. The railroad's new survey line from what I can see in your records of those stakes runs directly across that corridor 7 to 9 ft into it. So the boundary is wrong. Nia said the boundary is inconsistent with the recorded corridor.
Elijah said carefully. Whether it's wrong depends on what happened when the railroad purchased rights in this area and whether the corridor was explicitly preserved in that transaction. He looked at her, which is exactly the question the county land office should have resolved before accepting the railroads new survey provisionally. They accepted it provisionally, Nia said. Because no one filed a formal challenge in time because no one knew to Gideon said from the door.
The formal challenge process, Elijah said, leaning back. Requires certified survey copies, a petition, and a fee. You've got 23 days left on your notice. I have, she said. Fee is $12.
She kept her face still. She had $4.30 in the business account. She had $11.80 and 80 cents in the tin behind the dry goods cabinet that nobody knew about. A sum she had been building for 2 years toward a different kind of security, a kind that couldn't be taken by a legal notice. $15.50 in total. A $12 fee left her with $3 and change to run a food operation for the next 3 weeks.
I can prepare the certified copies. Elijah said he was watching her the way old men watch when they've read a face and decided to be straightforward. I'll charge you standard rate for the copies, $2. And I'll prepare a supporting statement at no additional cost because frankly the railroad surveyor was either incompetent or dishonest and I don't appreciate either quality in my profession. Nia looked at him.
Thank you, she said. Don't thank me, he said. Get me your measurements of those stakes in writing before end of week. Precise. Done.
She said. They rode back mostly in silence. The kind of silence that isn't empty. It's full of two people thinking the same hard thoughts in different directions. You turned down the contract, she said.
Not a question. About 3 mi from home. He didn't flinch before the grain wagon. before I went to Elijah. Yes, she kept her eyes on the road. Saurin told you about the spring because he was trying to warn you off to make you understand the railroad was going to win and you were tying yourself to the losing side.
That's about right. And you still turned it down. Nia, how much was the contract worth? She said. He told her.
She closed her eyes for half a second. A year's income, more than she'd made in her best two years combined. You don't have the right to do that, she said. And her voice was tight in a way she hadn't meant it to be because it wasn't anger exactly. It was something that felt like anger because it was easier to carry than what it actually was.
You don't have the right to make a sacrifice like that on my account without asking me. I didn't make it on your account, he said. I made it on my own. That's a convenient distinction. It's an accurate one.
He kept his voice level, which somehow made it worse. I turned down work from a man who was using the money to help displace you. That's a choice about my own business, Nia, not yours. And when you regret it, she said, "When this is done, whatever way it's done and you're back on a mountain trail with less money than you started, you'll regret it and you'll think about this station. Maybe," he said.
"I won't have that," she said. I won't be the reason. You keep telling me what I deserve, he said. Quiet, but suddenly direct, like a hand on a door that's been swinging in the wind. Why don't you let me decide what I want?
The horses moved. The desert was wide and still around them. She didn't have an answer for that. Not one she was willing to say out loud yet, so she rode the rest of the way in silence. And when they got back to the station, she walked straight to the kitchen and didn't stop until she had the ladle in her hand and the fire going and something to do with herself.
She heard him unsaddle the horse behind her. She heard him start stacking wood she hadn't asked him to stack. She didn't tell him to stop. 4 days before her deadline, the heat broke everything. Not metaphorically. Literally, the wooden stave tank the railroad had installed at serve the work animals cracked along the bottom seam in the late afternoon, and 40 gallons of water ran into the sand in 20 minutes.
And by evening, the railroads, mules, and freight horses had been standing without water for 6 hours in 155° heat. Three of the mules were showing it, standing wrong, not moving right. Gideon took one look at them and turned to find Nia already walking toward the spring outlet with both hands free. Merritt was behind her before she'd gone 10 steps. Miss Ash Creek, he said, I know you've got no reason to help us right now.
I've got 60 reasons. She said they're standing in your yard losing water weight. She didn't slow down. Get your men. I'll show them how to open the south channel.
We can run water to the main trough in 40 minutes if everyone moves. Voss Voss isn't here, she said. And his mules are going to be in serious distress before he gets back if we don't move now. She looked over her shoulder at him. I'll help, but the channel stays under my management.
Nobody touches the spring outlet controls without my direction. Clear. Clear. Merritt said she worked for 3 hours straight. The railroads laborers worked beside her men who had been eating her food for months.
Who knew without needing to be told that she was saving animals that belong to the company trying to remove her? Nobody made a speech about it. They just worked. She directed, explained, corrected, repositioned. Gideon handled the animals, moving them in rotation, keeping the worst off ones at the front, watching the ones too far gone to drink safely.