He's partially right about the means, Clara said, not about the rest. She spread the piece of paper she had been writing on for the past two nights across the table between them. He read it. His expression shifted as he went through it. The letter to the territorial land office requesting a review of the Whitmore transfer before Dunar's claim could advance.
The letter to Edmund Cole at the Durango freight depot asking for a written residency confirmation. The list of witnesses to the cabin construction. Amos, Jesse, Tommy, men who had seen the work in progress and could document continuous settlement. A prior claim requires the land to be unsettled, she said. It has not been unsettled for a single day since I arrived.
He set the paper down. He looked at her with the expression she had been seeing in traces for months. The one past surprise, the one that was a fundamental recalibration of something. And it was fully visible now, not restrained at all. You did this last night, he said.
Young Henry sleeps 4 hours at a stretch, she said. I use two of them. I was quiet for a moment. Then I'll go to Durango myself. The land office moves faster with a personal appearance than with a letter.
He paused. And I'll find Cole's freight depot and talk to them directly. This was different from money. This was his time and his standing. And she understood the distinction and understood that he did too.
That would help, she said. Yes. Tell me about Cole, he said. Edmund Cole, big man, red beard, quiet. He was at the overnight camp on the road north when Henry was filing the transfer.
Henry asked him to witness because he was the only literate person available. Cole had been working that route for 3 years. He's a territorial resident by any standard definition and Perch knows it. She looked at Amos directly. Tell him the whole situation.