Colum looked toward the door.
“Close it.”
Martha did.
Then waited.
Colum reached beneath the mattress.
He removed a folded cloth packet.
Inside was a blood-stained paper.
Martha recognized it.
The same document he had pulled from inside his vest when Amos abandoned him, though in the chaos she had not read it.
Colum unfolded only part.
An official seal showed near the bottom.
Martha frowned.
“What is that?”
“A copy of a land filing.”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
Silence.
Martha laughed nervously.
“You’ve got my deed?”
“Not exactly.”
“What exactly?”
Colum looked straight at her.
“A forged transfer.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“What?”
“Someone filed paperwork claiming Elias transferred your east pasture and water rights to Amos six weeks before he died.”
Martha stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because I surveyed that boundary the year before Elias died.”
Colum pointed toward the document.
“And the coordinates on this transfer were copied from my survey.”
Martha took the paper.
Elias Higgins’s name appeared at the bottom.
The signature looked almost right.
Almost.
She knew immediately.
“That isn’t his.”
“No.”
“He crossed the H like this.”
Her finger traced an invisible motion.
“And Elias always made the last S open.”
Colum nodded.
“Exactly.”
Martha looked up.
“You found this?”
“In the county record office.”
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“And Amos knew?”
“He knows now.”
Her stomach dropped.
“The bear.”
Colum’s expression became cold.
“There was no bear.”
Martha stopped breathing.
He continued.
“I confronted Amos near Black Ridge.”
“What happened?”
“He had two men with him.”
Colum looked at his legs.
“They hit me from behind.”
Martha’s face changed.
“They did this?”
“Maybe.”
“What does maybe mean?”
“The doctor says the spinal injury came from the fall.”
“What fall?”
“They dragged me to the ridge road.”
Martha’s hand covered her mouth.
“Then pushed me down the slope.”
Silence.
Colum’s voice remained controlled.
“They intended me to die.”
Martha sat.
The paper trembled in her hand.
“But you didn’t.”
“A logging crew found me.”
“And Amos?”
“He told people I was mauled by a bear.”
Martha looked toward the road.
“Why dump you here?”
Colum laughed once.
Without humor.
“That bothered me too.”
Martha suddenly remembered the wagon.
The jokes.
The deliberate cruelty.
Colum pulled another paper from the packet.
“Then I realized.”
“What?”
“Your house.”
Martha’s eyes narrowed.