Neither tried to hide their tears.
When Gideon finally lifted his head, his expression was exhausted.
But something had changed.
He no longer looked like a man preparing to punish himself.
He looked like a man preparing to search.
He gathered the letters and placed them beside the ledger.
“We need to find Matthew.”
Elena nodded.
“Yes.”
“And we need to know why Rusk kept him away.”
She looked toward the account entries.
“I think the answer may be in these.”
They worked into the evening.
Elena examined the invoices.
Gideon compared dates with the old ranch records he remembered.
Rose prepared supper and occasionally brought more documents from Lydia's storage boxes.
Slowly, a troubling pattern appeared.
During the winter Matthew disappeared, Rusk's company had reported substantial losses of cattle from several ranching operations.
Those losses were used to justify emergency loans and new claims against properties whose owners were struggling financially.
At the same time, the company's private freight records suggested that significant numbers of cattle were being transported north through routes omitted from the ordinary local accounts.
Elena recognized the discrepancy immediately.
“Look here.”
She pointed toward a December entry.
A large feed delivery to Crow's Landing.
Then a January delivery.
Then another.
The amounts were consistent with supporting a substantial livestock holding operation during winter, not merely a few freight workers.
Gideon frowned.
“Our ranch lost sixty-three head that year.”
Elena looked up.
He continued.
“Rusk said the storm scattered them into the north country.”
She glanced toward the ledger.
“What if they weren't lost?”
Gideon became very still.
She continued.
“What if somebody moved them?”
For several seconds, he stared at her.
Then he looked toward the inverted horseshoe brand in Matthew's sketch.
He knew that mark.
It wasn't an ordinary registered brand used openly in Cedar Hollow.
It had appeared on a few cattle he encountered years earlier near the northern freight road.
At the time, he assumed it belonged to some distant ranch.
Now he wasn't certain.
“Rusk ran a holding operation beyond Crow's Landing,” Gideon said slowly.
Elena looked toward him.
“Could cattle from your ranch have been taken there?”
“Possibly.”
She studied another invoice.
“And if he recorded them as lost?”
Gideon finished the thought.
“He could move them into his own business and claim they never existed.”
Elena nodded.