She gave him 10 minutes. Then she went and knocked on the door frame of the small room he and Noah shared upstairs. Jacob was sitting on the edge of his bed with his hands between his knees and the school bag on the floor at his feet and an expression on his face that was fighting very hard to be 16 rather than 12. What happened? Clare said nothing.
Jacob. He looked at the floor. His jaw did the Thomas Walker thing. Robert Emory said something at school. What did he say?
A long pause. He said his father said our ranch is going to go to the bank, that Whitmore is going to call our note before spring. He said everybody knows it that we're just that we're just waiting for it to fall. He said the last words with a flatness that was worse than anger. He said my paws a fool for thinking he can hold on.
Clare came into the room and sat on the edge of Noah's bed across from Jacob. How old is Robert Emory? She said 13. And how old is his father? Jacob blinked.
I don't know, 40, maybe. So, a 13-year-old is repeating something his 40-year-old father said, Clare said steadily. About your family's finances, which he knows about only because he's either got business with Whitmore's bank or he's been talking to people who do. Does that sound like the kind of information you'd stake much on? Jacob's jaw tightened differently.
Less fighting the hurt, more thinking. His father does business with Whitmore, Jacob said slowly. Does he now? Clare said he's got a grain operation. He sells through Whitmore's buyers.
Jacob's brow furrowed. Why would Whitmore be talking about our note to the Emory family? That Clare said is exactly the question. Jacob looked at her, the 12-year-old with the ledger and the two old eyes. You think Whitmore is doing something?
He said, "I think powerful men who want something usually have a reason to make the thing they want look inevitable." Clare said, "I think if people in town believe your ranch is going under, it's easier for someone to step in and buy it cheaply when the note comes due because nobody thinks to question it." Jacob stared at her. "That's not right," he said. "No." Clare agreed.
"It isn't." He was quiet for a moment. Then does P know. I don't know what your father knows about Whitmore's intentions, Clare said. But I think you and I should look at those ledger numbers together tomorrow morning before school just to understand exactly where things stand.
Jacob looking at her. You understand ledgers? He said, I ran the accounts at the Clearwater boarding house for 4 years. Clare said, I understand them well enough. Something shifted in Jacob's face.