She shook her head.
"Nathaniel doesn't own land in Wyoming."
"He owns more than you know."
"No."
Elias crossed toward a narrow cabinet.
He removed a dark leather-bound ledger.
Clara watched him return to the table.
He opened it.
The pages contained names, dates, property descriptions, mortgage transfers, and carefully recorded sums.
Several entries bore Nathaniel's signature.
Others carried the seal of a Chicago investment partnership.
Clara leaned closer.
She recognized the handwriting.
The calculations.
The unusual way Nathaniel formed the number seven.
Her mouth went dry.
"Where did you get this?"
Elias hesitated.
Then answered.
"My brother."
Clara looked up.
"Your brother?"
Elias nodded.
"He worked for the survey company that was supposed to map the new railroad route through Blackcap Pass."
"What happened to him?"
The mountain man's face changed.
He looked toward the snow-covered window.
Then quietly said, "He died before he could tell anyone what he'd found."
The conversation that followed destroyed what little Clara believed she understood about her marriage.
Elias explained that five years earlier, his younger brother Jonah had accepted work as a survey assistant for a development company operating near the northern boundary of Wyoming Territory.
The company claimed to be preparing a railroad spur.
Its investors spoke of timber, mining opportunities, and the future growth of settlements along the proposed route.
At first, the work seemed ordinary.
Jonah mapped streams, recorded elevations, inspected mountain crossings, and marked parcels that might eventually become valuable if the railroad received approval.
Then he discovered something strange.
Several properties had been transferred to the development syndicate through debts the original owners did not recognize.
A rancher lost one hundred and sixty acres after a mortgage suddenly appeared in the county records.
A widow discovered her water rights had been transferred to a company she had never heard of.
A small timber operation was forced into foreclosure after refusing to sell its land.
Every disputed transaction passed through the same network of financial agents.
And somewhere near the center of that network stood Whitcomb Banking House.
Clara listened in growing horror.
"That's impossible."
Elias did not argue.
Instead, he turned the ledger toward her.
She examined the numbers.
Something caught her attention.
A mortgage recorded at four thousand eight hundred dollars had later been valued at eleven thousand six hundred.
The difference appeared beneath a vaguely described service charge.
She pointed.
"That's wrong."
Elias looked at her.
"What is?"