Her husband watched from beside the doorway, saying little. The woman in blue sensed his pride, but she needed him to understand she was not doing this to earn it.
The first wife eventually asked him a question. “Did you ever receive the petition I filed before the fire?”
He stared. “What petition?”
She closed her eyes. “I asked for a legal separation. We had been arguing for months about the office and my refusal to abandon the records. I still cared for you, but our marriage was failing. I gave the papers to the county clerk. He promised to file them.”
Her husband sank onto a bench. “Nobody told me.”
“I know that now.” Her voice was gentle but firm. “I don't want to return to our old marriage. I want it settled honestly. And I want the men who stole those years from us to answer for what they did.”
The woman in blue felt a complicated release. The first wife was not an enemy who had come to reclaim a husband. She was a survivor who wanted control of her own life. Yet that truth did not make the legal uncertainty disappear.
They departed the relay station in the early afternoon, the first wife wrapped securely against the cold. On the return road, the guide spotted riders following a distant ridge. The sheriff ordered the party to remain on the lower track and sent his deputy ahead to the freight camp, where additional witnesses and horses waited.
At a narrow crossing, three mounted men emerged from the trees. The leader wore a good wool coat and carried a leather document case. He had the manner of someone accustomed to making officials do his bidding.
“The clerk is wanted for theft of company records,” he announced. “We'll take her and be on our way.”
The sheriff held up his hand. “Not without an order I can verify.”
The man produced a paper with a bright seal. The woman in blue examined it from the sled. A parcel number stood at the center of the document: one hundred and forty acres.
“That isn't an arrest authority,” she said. “It's a claim notice copied onto a different form.”
The leader looked at her with sudden contempt. “And who might you be?”