“That would empty your winter reserve.”
“Our reserve.”
“The ranch may lose half the herd.”
“It may.”
“You cannot risk everything.”
“I thought partnership meant both people remained in the danger.”
She recognized her own argument.
“That was unfair.”
“It was accurate.”
Miriam watched them.
“I dislike interrupting marital philosophy, but there may be another solution. The original compact map shows an abandoned emergency channel north of Coyote Narrows.”
Elias examined it.
“That route crosses Rusk’s lower pasture.”
“Does he own the water right?” Clara asked.
“No. Only the land.”
“Can he stop us from repairing the channel?”
“He can try.”
By sunrise, forty-three townspeople had gathered with shovels, picks, wagons, and teams of horses.
Otis Crane arrived last.
He stood before Clara, ashamed.
“I spoke badly yesterday.”
“You spoke while afraid.”
“That does not make it right.”
“No.”
He lifted his shovel.
“Where do you need me?”
They worked beneath the desert sun.
Rusk’s foremen appeared before noon and ordered them off the pasture. Sheriff Vale produced the compact map and informed them that obstruction of an emergency water route carried a territorial prison sentence.
The foremen left.
By evening, the old channel was open.
Water flowed across Rusk’s land toward the farms he had tried to starve.
Children ran beside it.
Farmers cheered.
Clara stood ankle-deep in the muddy current while Elias watched from the bank.
She splashed water toward him.
It struck his boots.
“You did that intentionally.”
“Yes.”
He stepped into the channel.
“Elias.”
He splashed her with both hands.
The front of her dress became soaked.
For one shocked second, Clara stared at him.
Then she laughed.
It was not the polite laugh she used with guests or the dry laugh she gave when correcting his paperwork.
It was loud, breathless, and free.
Elias smiled.
The expression changed his entire face.
Clara forgot the people around them.
She forgot the court case, the false debts, and Gideon Rusk.
She saw only the man standing in the water with sunlight behind him.
Then Noah Bell shouted that married people should behave with dignity, and the entire work crew began laughing.
The moment passed.
But not entirely.
Chapter Nine
Fire at the Copper Bell
The territorial hearing was scheduled for November 18.
Two nights before it, Clara woke to the smell of smoke.
She opened her bedroom door and found the hallway filled with black air.
“Fire!”
The flames had begun in the office.
They climbed the curtains, crossed the ceiling, and spread toward the stairs. Guests stumbled from their rooms. Lenora appeared in her nightdress carrying the inn’s cashbox.
Elias ran from the rear room.
“Everyone outside!”
“The records!” Clara shouted.
“Miriam moved them to the jail.”
“My father’s letters are in the desk.”
“Leave them.”
She ran toward the office.
Elias caught her around the waist.
“Clara!”
“The blue box!”
Flames rolled across the doorway.
Elias covered his mouth with his sleeve, forced her toward the courtyard, then turned back.
“No!”
He disappeared into the smoke.
Clara tried to follow, but Sheriff Vale dragged her outside.
The roof above the office cracked.
A second later, Elias emerged through the kitchen window carrying the blue document box beneath one arm.
His sleeve was burning.
Clara threw a blanket around him and forced him to the ground.
Townspeople formed a line from the well. Buckets passed from hand to hand. Men broke windows. Women carried furniture into the street. Children led frightened horses away from the stable.
The fire burned for three hours.
At dawn, the eastern half of the inn remained standing. The office and kitchen had been destroyed. The roof above Clara’s room had collapsed.
No one had died.
Elias sat on an overturned water trough while Clara wrapped his burned forearm.
“You went back,” she said.
“You tried first.”
“That does not answer me.”
“You said the box mattered.”
“Not more than you.”
He looked at her.
The street around them seemed to fade.
Clara tied the bandage too tightly.
He winced.
“Sorry.”
“You are angry.”
“Yes.”
“At the person who set the fire?”
“At you.”
“That seems misdirected.”
“You could have died.”
“So could you.”
“I was frightened.”
“So was I.”
She stared at him.
Elias’s voice softened.
“I saw you run toward the office, and for one second I understood what my life would become if that ceiling fell.”
Clara stopped breathing.
He looked down at the bandage.
“I did not like it.”
“That is a remarkably poor declaration.”
“I have had little practice.”
“With declarations or feelings?”
“Both.”
She touched the unburned side of his face.
“You should practice.”
His hand covered hers.