The lawyer paused. You want to talk about why this hearing is really happening. Eleanor turned back to the judge. Mr. Whitaker would have you believe he filed this notice out of concern for a poor, grieving rancher being taken advantage of.
That's the story. But Charles Whitaker has never in his life done a thing out of concern for Nathaniel Carter. He spent years trying to buy this ranch and years before that trying to marry his own daughter into it. And every one of those years my husband said no. And do you know why Mr.
Whitaker wants it so badly? Not the land, the water. The murmur that went through the room this time was different. Sharper. There's a creek runs through the Carter North pasture.
Eleanor pressed on quick now before anyone could stop her. And half the families in this valley draw their water from it. The Hendersons, the Aldridge store, the Coopers, the Vances, every small spread from here to the county line. They've drunk from that creek free for 30 years because the Carter family gave their word it' stay free. A handshake.
Nathaniel's grandfather's promise kept by his father, kept by him. She looked out at the room and now she was not speaking to the judge at all. How many of you draw off that creek? How many of your children drink from it right now? A silence and then slowly a hand near the back went up.
Then another. Then several. Charles Whitaker doesn't want that water because he needs it. Eleanor said he's got water of his own. He wants it because whoever holds that creek holds every one of you by the throat.
And the day he takes this ranch, he takes the creek and the free water in this valley ends. Ask yourselves why a man would go to all this trouble, drag a widow's grief across 1,500 milesiles, turn a whole county out to watch all to break up one small marriage. He wouldn't. Not for a marriage. He'd do it for the water.
He is doing it for the water. And every family in this room that stayed quiet because Charles Whitaker holds their debts. You're not just letting him break my family. You're handing him the creek your own children drink from. The room erupted.