"He told me to copy figures because he believed I was too ignorant to understand them."
A faint smile touched her mouth.
"He was careless about that."
Elias sat opposite her.
"Seems to me he underestimated you."
Clara considered.
Then nodded.
"He did."
For a while, they worked in silence.
The wind pressed softly against the shelter.
Copper shifted in the stable.
The stove crackled.
And as Clara compared two columns of figures, she noticed something strange.
A property listed in a September transaction appeared again under a different name.
The first entry described two hundred and forty acres near Alder Spring.
The second called the same land Parcel Seventeen-B.
Both transactions referred to a previous owner.
Eleanor Avery.
Clara's hand stopped moving.
She stared at the name.
Her mother's name.
Elias noticed.
"What is it?"
She did not answer.
Instead, she turned the page.
The name appeared again.
This time beside a mortgage supposedly executed in Chicago six months earlier.
Eleanor Avery.
Clara felt a chill.
"That can't be right."
Elias leaned forward.
"What?"
"My mother."
He looked at the ledger.
Clara pointed toward the entry.
"She died nine years ago."
Elias frowned.
The transaction was dated May 1888.
He looked back at her.
"Are you sure it's the same woman?"
Clara gave him an incredulous look.
"My mother's full name was Eleanor Margaret Avery. She used her maiden name professionally, even after marrying my father."
She pointed.
"Eleanor M. Avery."
Elias read the entry carefully.
Then turned back several pages.
Another reference appeared.
Estate of Eleanor M. Avery.
Beneath it was a notation describing a transfer of inherited property.
Clara stared.
"Why would my mother own land in Wyoming?"
Elias looked toward the map hanging beside the stove.
"Did she ever live here?"
"No."
Clara stopped.
A memory returned.
Her mother standing beside a window in their Chicago home.
A faded photograph in her hand.
A mountain stream.
A low wooden bridge.
And a small house beneath enormous trees.
Clara had been perhaps ten years old.
She remembered asking where the picture was taken.
Her mother smiled.
"Where the water runs cold even in summer."
Clara had asked whether they could visit.
"One day," her mother promised.
They never did.
Clara looked toward Elias.
"Perhaps she did."
He leaned closer.
"What do you remember?"
Clara told him.
The photograph.
The bridge.
The phrase about cold water.
The way her mother became quiet whenever anyone mentioned the West.
Elias listened carefully.