Nathan nodded.
“Then we should go.”
He picked up her suitcase before she could object.
Clara immediately grabbed the handle too.
He stopped.
“I can carry my own things.”
“I know.”
“Then let go.”
Nathan released it.
Ethan looked from his father to Clara.
Something like interest flickered behind his suspicion.
Clara picked up the suitcase.
It was heavier than dignity preferred.
She carried it anyway.
Nathan gestured toward a wagon beyond the station.
“Ranch is twelve miles.”
Clara looked at the five children.
“Did all of you come because your father thought greeting a stranger required an audience?”
Nathan opened his mouth.
Ethan answered.
“We wanted to see if you looked like the others.”
Clara raised an eyebrow.
“And?”
The twelve-year-old boy muttered:
“She argues more.”
The older girl whispered:
“That’s not bad.”
Ethan glared at both.
Clara almost smiled.
Almost.
They walked toward the wagon.
She did not yet know whether she had arrived at the beginning of her life or the edge of a terrible mistake.
But she knew one thing.
She would read the dead woman’s letter before she allowed anyone—Nathan Cole, her parents, the agency, or even five frightened children—to decide what happened next.
The ride to the ranch took nearly an hour and a half.
Red Creek disappeared within the first fifteen minutes.
The town was barely a town at all.
A mercantile.
Blacksmith.
Church.
Saloon.
Two rows of weathered houses.
One unfinished building Nathan said would become a school if the territorial council ever stopped arguing over money.
Beyond that came open land.
So much of it Clara felt as though the world had been stripped of walls.
Yellow grass rolled toward distant mountains.
Cottonwoods gathered near creeks.
Fence posts leaned against endless sky.
Clara sat on the front bench beside Nathan because there was no room elsewhere.
The children packed themselves behind them beneath wool blankets.
Nathan handled the team quietly.
For the first mile, neither adult spoke.
Clara finally asked:
“Who were the other women?”
Nathan’s shoulders stiffened.
“I knew you’d return to that.”
“I have very few hobbies.”
Behind them the twelve-year-old boy made a muffled laugh.
Nathan glanced backward.
“Samuel.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Clara filed away the name.
Samuel.
She knew Ethan.
Five children.
Three unnamed.
Nathan sighed.
“There were two.”
“Ethan said others.”
“He exaggerates when angry.”