“Jonas Webb died three winters ago.”
“He had children?”
“No.”
“Then why didn't you buy the ranch?”
Morning Star laughed softly.
“The government does not sell ranches easily to women it refuses to admit exist.”
Nathan looked at the three of them.
A fair point.
Tall Willow continued.
“When Webb died, the deed returned to the bank. We waited.”
“For what?”
“For whoever came next.”
Nathan rubbed his jaw.
“And if some fool bought it?”
Red Fern looked at him.
“That remained possible.”
Nathan smiled.
“I appreciate the confidence.”
She almost smiled back.
A rifle shot echoed far across the valley.
Every expression changed.
Tall Willow turned toward the ridge.
“They are coming.”
The riders reached Widowmaker Hollow before sunset.
There were twenty-four of them.
Nathan counted twice.
They rode in two loose columns and stopped just outside the ranch boundary, their horses carrying extra ammunition, shovels, picks, ropes, and canvas bags. This was no ordinary outlaw gang looking for cattle.
Their leader rode a tall black stallion.
Nathan knew him before the man introduced himself.
Silas Crowe.
For fifteen years, stories about Crowe had drifted through cow camps from Texas to Montana. Some called him an outlaw. Others called him an explorer.
Nathan preferred thief.
Crowe hunted abandoned mines, lost army payrolls, buried trading posts, and forgotten settlements. Wherever legends placed money beneath the earth, Silas Crowe eventually appeared with armed men and enough dynamite to change the landscape.
He stopped twenty yards from Nathan's gate.
“Well.”
Crowe smiled.
“So somebody finally bought the place.”
Nathan leaned against the gate.
“Seems that way.”
Crowe looked toward the cabin.
“You Nathan Cole?”
“Depends who's asking.”
“Silas Crowe.”
“I was hoping you were somebody else.”
A few men laughed.
Crowe did not.
“You know my name.”
“Everybody who sleeps in bunkhouses eventually hears it.”
Crowe looked toward the northern cliffs.
“Then you know I don't waste time.”
“Good.”
Nathan folded his arms.
“Leave.”
Crowe smiled.
“I like you.”
“That makes one of us.”
Crowe pointed toward the valley.
“You bought this ranch for cattle money. I'll give you five times what you paid.”
“Not for sale.”
“Ten.”
“No.”
“You haven't even heard why.”
Nathan looked at him.
“You're standing outside my fence with twenty-three rifles and mining tools. I can guess.”
Crowe's smile faded slightly.
“You don't know what is under this valley.”
Nathan kept his face neutral.
“Gold?”
“Better.”
“Diamonds?”
Crowe laughed.
“Information.”
That surprised Nathan.
Crowe leaned forward in the saddle.
“Old claims. Government survey maps. Native agreements. Spanish grants. French trapping records. Paper that could make a poor man rich if he knew where to sell it.”
Nathan's expression hardened.
“So you do know.”
“I've spent eleven years knowing.”
“Then you've wasted eleven years.”