“Better than Ruth?”
“Much.”
She laughed.
He kissed her again because she was still smiling.
Nothing more happened that night.
That mattered.
Clara lay in bed later thinking about how desire felt different when it could stop without punishment.
She had not known.
The next morning, a letter arrived from Philadelphia.
The boarding house register still existed.
Mrs. Ames, the owner’s daughter, remembered Clara.
More importantly, she had copied the relevant page.
March 14, 1884:
CLARA WHITMORE — Room 7.
Present.
Payment receipt.
And one note:
Stayed continuously March 9 through March 18 while attending dying aunt.
Clara stared at the page.
Elias smiled for the first time in days.
“Enough?”
“To prove I was in Philadelphia.”
“Not enough to prove I didn't sign something before.”
Clara’s mind worked.
The promissory note claimed execution in Baltimore before a notary.
Name: George Tolland.
The attorney in Denver investigated.
George Tolland had died in 1883.
One year before the document date.
Forgery.
Clear.
Harlan Voss had filed a fraudulent claim.
Clara should have felt relief.
Instead she felt rage.
Not the explosive kind.
Clean.
Sharp.
Useful.
They rode to Leadville to confront him through the county attorney.
Harlan denied knowledge.
Claimed he purchased the note from an eastern broker.
Perhaps he had.
Perhaps not.
But the claim against Clara was dismissed.
Then the county attorney uncovered something else.
Western Consolidated Claims had filed similar debt actions against three widows who acquired property through remarriage.
Two had settled by transferring land.
Harlan’s operation depended on women assuming signatures must be real because dead husbands had handled the money.
Clara sat in the attorney’s office listening.
Her hands went cold.
“How many?”
“Three known.”
“Maybe more.”
She looked at Elias.
He knew what she was thinking.
“No.”
“What?”
“You cannot personally investigate every widow from here to Baltimore.”
“I can write letters.”
Elias sighed.
The county attorney smiled.
“I like her.”
“You do not live with her.”
Clara elbowed him.
The spring-rights scheme collapsed.
Harlan Voss disappeared from Leadville before charges could be served.
Some said Denver.
Others Kansas City.
Clara did not care.
The important thing was simpler.
Her name was clear.
Her property remained hers.
The next morning, she stood beside the spring at the edge of the lower meadow.
Snow had begun melting.
Water moved black beneath thin ice.
Elias approached.
“You're going to fall in.”
“I am standing.”
“Near water.”
“An astonishing observation.”
He stood beside her.
For a while neither spoke.