“No.”
He paused.
She continued.
“I’ll choose my lawyer.”
Dawson nodded immediately.
“Good.”
The clerk gave three names.
Lena chose Margaret Bell.
Not because Dawson recommended her.
Because the clerk said:
“She scares banks.”
That seemed useful.
Margaret Bell was forty-six, widowed, and one of only a handful of women practicing law in the territory.
She wore a plain black dress and looked at Dawson as though wealthy ranchers were particularly inconvenient weather.
“You can wait outside.”
Dawson almost smiled.
“This is why I recommended—”
Lena turned.
“You recommended her?”
“To the clerk once.”
Margaret pointed toward door.
“Out.”
Dawson went.
Eliza stayed only after Lena asked.
For two hours Margaret reviewed records.
Then Ruth’s letter.
Then the blue shawl for no legal reason except Lena had brought it and needed it nearby.
Margaret finally removed her spectacles.
“Your uncle has a problem.”
“How large?”
“Potentially enormous.”
Lena did not feel satisfaction.
Only exhaustion.
Margaret continued.
“He may argue the transfer was necessary to preserve the estate.”
“But absent court authorization, transferring minor property into an entity he controlled is self-dealing.”
“Particularly at nominal consideration.”
“Can I get it back?”
“Possibly.”
“All?”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t promise much.”
“Promises are expensive.”
“Evidence is cheaper.”
Lena liked her immediately.
Margaret continued.
“More important, we should seek an injunction before he sells, mortgages, or transfers anything.”
Lena stiffened.
“You think he will?”
“I think people facing loss sometimes do foolish things.”
Eliza whispered:
“He might.”
Lena looked at her.
Eliza’s face was pale.
“He’s been negotiating cattle sales.”
“When?”
“Last month.”
“To who?”
“A buyer in Wyoming.”
Lena closed her eyes.
Margaret began writing.
“We move today.”
The legal notice reached Harold two days later.
He exploded.
According to the hired boy who carried a message from Evelyn, Harold threw a chair through the office door.
Lena was staying temporarily in a small boardinghouse room in Helena.
Dawson offered a guest cottage on his ranch.
She refused.
Not because she mistrusted him.
Because she needed one thing in her life that belonged to neither Hail nor Reed.
She paid for her room using wages she had secretly saved over years from egg sales and sewing.
The amount was small.
Still hers.
Dawson came every second day.
Never unannounced.
Never late.
He brought news.
Sometimes flowers.
The first flowers annoyed her.
“Why?”
“Because people bring women flowers.”
“I am aware.”
“I don’t know what to do with them.”
“Put them in water.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
He smiled.
She eventually accepted.
Eliza stayed with a cousin in town after refusing to return home immediately.
For the first time in her life she had to wash her own dresses.
Lena found this satisfying.