The place looked different now, scarred. The blackened bones of the old barn still sat at the edge of the yard, waiting to be cleared. But new lumber had already started rising in its place, pale and raw against the burned ground, rebuilding, because that was what people like Jed Callaway did. They rebuilt. Desa was on the porch when Wit rode in, thinner than she'd been, paler, but upright, standing on her own two feet with a blanket around her shoulders and something steady back in her eyes that hadn't fully returned until just the past day or so.
Wit, she said, "You look like a man carrying bad news." " Not bad," he said, swinging down slow joints, protesting the way they did more every year. Overdue, which might be worse. Jed came around from the half-built barn frame, hammer still in hand, sawdust clinging to his shirt. Wit got something, the old man said.
Been sitting on it over two years without knowing what it was worth. Come inside, both of you. This needs sitting down for. Inside the cabin at the small table Jed had built with his own hands the winter after burying Adeline and Grace, Wit laid the envelope down like it might bite him. " Your father gave me this," he said to Desa, "A little over two years back.
told me to keep it safe. Told me if anything ever happened to him, it needed to find the right hands. He pushed it toward her. Reckon those hands are yours. Desa's fingers trembled as she broke the seal.
But because inside sat a singlefolded document, the paper gone soft and yellow with age. Ink faded, but still legible. a will. Her father's will dated a full two years before his death, naming her as sole heir to the 40 acres near the Marias Crossing witnessed and notarized by a territorial clerk whose signature Wit recognized immediately. That's Judge Als Pratt's mark, Wit said, tapping the corner.
The man's retired now, moved east, but he's still alive, still able to swear to that signature if it ever comes to a courtroom. This proves it, Jed said slowly, reading over Desaa's shoulder. proves the land is legally filed and witnessed years before Thorne ever came sniffing around. Proves more than that, Wit said grimly. Your father wrote a private letter alongside it.
Sealed separate said if this will ever needed using something had gone wrong enough to warrant suspicion. He met Desa's eye. Man doesn't write a letter like that unless he already fears somebody wants him dead. Desa's hands had gone very still around the paper. He knew, she whispered.
He knew Thorne might come for him even before he did. Suspected, Wit corrected gently. That didn't stop him standing his ground anyway. Refused every offer Thorne made right up until the end. Some men just aren't built to bend, even when bending might have saved their own life.
Sounds familiar. Desa said and her eyes flicked briefly toward Jed. Jed didn't say anything. Didn't need to. The look passing between them said enough.
Marshall Tate arrived that same afternoon, summoned by a rider Wit had sent ahead the moment they'd read the letter through. He listened to the whole account without interrupting, weathered face, growing harder with every detail, until Wit finally set the will and the sealed letter both down on the table in front of him. Tate read them twice through, slow, careful. The way a man reads something he knows is about to change the whole direction of an investigation he'd nearly given up hope of closing. This is enough, he said finally.
Combined with what I've already gathered these past weeks. Enough to bring formal charges. But charges for what? Jed asked. Poisoning is near impossible to prove months after the fact.
Poisoning maybe? Tate agreed. But frauds a different animal entirely. He tapped the will. I've spent 3 weeks quietly tracing Thorne's paper trail.
Man's been filing false claims on Lair land since before the funeral was even cold, banking on nobody surfacing to contest it. This will dated and witnessed years prior blows every single one of those claims clean out of the water. And the men he hired, Desa said. Cyrus, the others. Cyrus Vain still out there, Tate said grimly.
Been keeping low since the fire, but he'll surface eventually. Men like him always do, and when he does, I intend to have questions waiting for him. He looked between Jed and Desa. But the fraud alone, that's enough to bring Thorne in front of a territorial judge. enough to end whatever he's been building out here.
Then do it, Jed said. I intend to. Tate folded the documents carefully back into their envelope. But a man like Thorne doesn't go down quiet. Not once he understands the walls are closing in.
He met their eyes one after the other. Wait settling behind his words. Which means you two should expect one more visit before this is finished. He was right. Thorne came 4 days later.
Not with hired men this time. not with whips or torches or midnight fireins. He came alone in broad daylight riding a horse too fine for frontier work, dressed in a coat that had never once seen dust until that very afternoon. Jed spotted him first, coming up the eastern road at an unhurried walk. The confidence of a man who'd never once in his life believed the world might say no to him and mean it.
Desa Jed called low company. She came out onto the porch beside him, rifle already in hand, though she kept it lowered, watching, waiting. The Malcolm Thorne reined in at the edge of the yard. Close enough to talk, but not close enough to seem threatening. A calculated distance that told Jed exactly what kind of man he was dealing with.
The kind who measured everything, even his own arrogance. " Mr. Callaway," Thorne said, tipping his hat with theatrical politeness. " Miss Lair, I do hope I'm not intruding." " You are," Jed said flatly. But go on and say your peace anyway.
Thorne smiled. It didn't reach anywhere near his eyes. I understand. There's been some unfortunate confusion. He said regarding a certain parcel of land near the Marias Crossing.