He looked at her.
“How?”
“Your letters.”
“What about them?”
“Men who are truly cruel don't write the way you do.”
Silas looked away.
She smiled faintly.
“You hide kindness badly.”
He turned back.
“You're dangerous.”
“I've been told that too.”
The following morning, Silas took Eleanor to the western boundary.
They rode together.
She wore a simpler traveling dress beneath a wool coat, but she had kept the sapphire hat.
Silas found himself watching it whenever the wind moved the ribbon.
He hated that too.
They followed the creek through a narrow valley.
Snow remained in the shadows beneath the pines.
The air smelled of wet earth.
Eleanor dismounted.
She studied the ground.
“What are you looking for?”
“Survey stakes.”
“There aren't any.”
“There were.”
“How do you know?”
“My father taught me to read land.”
She crouched.
Silas watched.
She touched the soil.
“Someone removed them.”
“How many?”
“At least three.”
Silas dismounted.
He looked around.
“Shaw?”
“Probably.”
“Why?”
“To make the boundary appear farther east.”
He looked toward the ridge.
“If he's moving markers, he wants to claim this whole valley.”
“And he has been moving cattle through it.”
Silas's expression hardened.
“That explains the missing herd.”
“What missing herd?”
“Forty-seven head.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“When?”
“Last month.”
“You thought they were stolen.”
“They were.”
“Perhaps.”
She looked toward the western ridge.
“Or transferred.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
She pointed.
“Look.”
A cattle trail crossed the creek.
Silas followed it.
There were fresh hoofprints.
Too many.
He crouched.
“Two days.”
Eleanor nodded.
“They've been moving cattle through here.”
Silas stood.
“And selling them under my brand.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your brand is trusted.”
Silas looked at her.
“And because no one would suspect a man stealing cattle from himself.”
“Exactly.”
They returned to the ranch before dark.
Silas called every ranch hand into the main room.
Eleanor stood beside the fireplace.
Silas laid the map on the table.
“This is what we know.”
The men listened.
For two hours they studied records, brands, cattle counts, trail marks, and shipment dates.
By midnight, they had found something.
A series of cattle shipments from three different ranches all passed through a stockyard in Cheyenne.
All carried the same brand.
Creed's.
But Silas had never sold those cattle.
Someone had forged his sale records.
“Gideon Shaw,” Amos said.
Silas nodded.
“Likely.”
“What do we do?”
Silas looked at Eleanor.
She answered before he could.
“We find the original records.”
Silas looked at her.