“Thirty-eight pounds.”
She weighed.
“Beans, fifty-six.”
“Potatoes, perhaps ninety if we cut sprouts.”
“Dried apples.”
“Cornmeal.”
“Smoked beef.”
Reid stood in doorway.
“Lena.”
“Salt?”
“Enough maybe six weeks.”
“Kerosene?”
“Three tins.”
“What are you doing?”
She closed ledger.
“Finding out how long we can survive without them.”
“And then?”
She looked up.
“Then we find out how long they can survive without the ranchers they’ve been cheating.”
Reid went still.
“You have proof?”
“Some.”
“How much?”
“Enough to make them nervous.”
“Not enough to stop winter.”
“No.”
Lena looked toward letter.
“But whoever wrote this just made a mistake.”
“What?”
“They think starving us will make me leave.”
“Yes.”
“They don't understand why I stayed.”
Reid’s expression softened.
Lena continued:
“And they assume we need Prescott more than Prescott needs every ranch west of the river.”
Thomas had entered silently.
He stood behind his father.
“What are you going to do?”
Lena looked at him.
“You boys still betting on me?”
Thomas shook his head.
“No.”
“Good.”
She opened another ledger.
“Then start counting sacks.”
The next forty-eight hours turned the Reid kitchen into an office.
Matthew handled columns.
Thomas rode to Hale ranch.
Samuel to Webb farm.
Peter stayed home because Lena did not trust him with confidential papers.
He objected.
She assigned him flour inventory.
By evening neighbors began arriving.
Jonas Hale.
Eleanor Webb.
Walter Briggs.