Eleanor examined the paper.
The handwriting was careful.
Too careful.
She smelled it.
Lamp oil.
Mine dust.
Then noticed a brown smear near the corner.
Printing ink.
“Who delivered it?”
“Boy from town.”
“Who paid him?”
“He didn't know.”
Eleanor thought.
“Old silver mine.”
“Vane wants you somewhere isolated.”
“Meanwhile?”
Caleb understood.
“The homestead.”
“Exactly.”
They prepared.
Caleb rode visibly toward the mine at noon.
Halfway there he doubled back through timber.
Eleanor and the children remained inside.
A marshal hid in the barn.
Two ranchers watched the lower road.
At dusk, three riders approached.
One was Mrs. Cromwell.
Eleanor almost laughed.
Cromwell entered the yard carrying papers.
“I have a territorial transfer order.”
Eleanor opened the door.
“You've become predictable.”
Cromwell’s face changed.
Two armed men moved behind her.
Eleanor stepped back.
One man shoved through the doorway.
Then Caleb appeared behind them.
The second man reached for his pistol.
Thomas threw a bucket of ash directly into his face.
The man screamed.
Caleb slammed him against the wall and kicked the weapon away.
Sarah pulled the younger children behind the table.
Cromwell grabbed Eleanor’s arm.
A mistake.
Eleanor was extremely heavy, and while her knees were weak, her upper body had been strengthened by years of lifting children, laundry tubs, flour sacks, and factory bundles.
She caught Cromwell’s wrist.
“Let go.”
Cromwell tried pulling.
Eleanor did not move.
Then Eleanor shoved.
Cromwell stumbled backward into a chair.
The marshal emerged.
“Enough!”
Everything stopped.
Cromwell stared around.
Witnesses.
Again.
Eleanor looked down at her.
“You keep mistaking size for helplessness.”
Cromwell said nothing.
The marshal seized her papers.
The transfer order was forged.
Judge Vane’s signature appeared on the bottom.
That night, Cromwell finally began talking.
Silas Vane had paid her for years.
Settlement widows arrived already indebted.
If a widow possessed useful property claims, Vane manipulated placement records.
Children separated.
Widows remarried under contracts favorable to local sponsors.
Property transferred quietly through guardianship proceedings.
Jonathan Hayes had been different because his title connected directly to land now wanted by a railroad consortium.
Vane knew Eleanor was coming west months before she arrived.
His Philadelphia partner had alerted him.
The plan was simple.
No bidder.
Children separated.
Eleanor placed as household labor somewhere far from Covenant Creek.
Jonathan’s heirs became difficult to locate.
The abandonment petition succeeded.
Caleb became sole claimant.
Then Vane intended to revive old charges against Caleb and seize his interest too.
Entire valley acquired for almost nothing.
Three hundred dollars had destroyed the first part.
Eleanor’s bookkeeping had destroyed the second.
Now Cromwell was frightened enough to destroy the rest.
She gave the marshal ledgers.
Names.
Payment records.
Copies of placement agreements.
Dozens of children.
Not seven.
Dozens.