Whitmore needs a reason. He needs it to look like your father couldn't manage like the ranch is genuinely failing. She paused. Hence the rumors. Jacob's hands had gone flat on the table on either side of the ledger.
He was very still in the way that people are still when everything is reorganizing itself in their understanding. He's been setting P up, Jacob said. I think so, Clare said. I think he's been building a picture and I think he plans to use it. Jacob looked up at her.
What do we do? The question landed in Clare's chest with a weight she felt clearly. Not because she didn't know what to do, but because a 12-year-old boy should not be sitting across from her at 6:00 in the morning asking what to do about a predatory banker threatening his family's home. But he was asking and she was going to answer first. She said, "We build a counter picture.
Everything that shows this ranch is viable. Livestock health records, crop yields, the school records showing the children are attending and doing well, letters from neighbors, receipts showing improvements being made to the property. She looked at him steadily. Evidence not just for Whitmore. Evidence for anyone who might need to see it.
Why would anyone else need to see it? Jacob said. Clare was quiet for a moment. Let's hope they don't, she said. But let's have it ready anyway.
Jacob looked at the ledger, then at her. Then he pulled the ledger toward him and opened to a fresh page. "What do we list first?" He said. Thomas found out what they were doing on a Wednesday.
Not because Clare told him, and not because Jacob did, but because Thomas Walker paid attention to his house more than people gave him credit for. And he noticed the stack of organized documents growing in the wooden box Clare had placed on the shelf in the kitchen. And he noticed Jacob's handwriting on things that should not have required Jacob's handwriting and he put it together. He came into the kitchen after supper when the children were upstairs and he said, "What's in the box, Clare?" She had been expecting this.
She turned from the stove and looked at him directly. "Documentation," she said. "Of what?" "Of this house, this family, the state of this ranch." She paused.
"I read your note with Whitmore's Bank, Thomas. The sound of his name. She rarely used it. It landed differently. His face went still.
"How Jacob showed me the ledger," she said. "He didn't do anything wrong. I asked to look at it. I needed to understand the situation." Thomas's jaw worked.