Abigail’s hands began shaking.
“I left him alone that morning.”
Caleb turned her toward him.
“No.”
“I went to collect flour.”
“No.”
“If I’d stayed—”
“No.”
His voice sharpened.
Abigail looked up.
Caleb’s scarred face was fierce.
“Do not take Bell’s choices and make them yours.”
She stared.
“He did this.”
“Not you.”
Abigail began crying.
Caleb held her in the alley behind the doctor’s office while wagons passed at the end of the street.
For once she did not care who saw.
That afternoon, Bell filed foreclosure papers against Black Ridge Ranch.
Abigail laughed when Caleb told her.
He looked concerned.
“That reaction seems unhealthy.”
“He is frightened.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Bell claimed Caleb had missed two payments.
He had receipts for both.
Abigail found the discrepancy in five minutes.
Caleb watched.
“You enjoy this.”
“What?”
“Being right.”
“Immensely.”
He smiled.
The hearing was set for Friday.
Bell’s attorney assumed it would concern one ranch note.
Abigail intended otherwise.
The night before the hearing, somebody came to Black Ridge.
Three riders.
Caleb heard them first.
He reached for his rifle.
Abigail dressed quickly.
“Stay inside.”
She looked at him.
He immediately corrected himself.
“Would you prefer to stay inside?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He went outside.
Abigail locked the door.
Then retrieved the ledger from beneath a loose kitchen plank.
She had moved it there that morning.
Not because Caleb suggested it.
Because she had learned something from her father.
Never keep the only truth where a thief expects truth to be.
Voices sounded outside.
One rider shouted:
“Mercer!”
Caleb answered from the porch.
“What?”
“We’re here for Bell’s property.”
“This is mine.”
“Not after tomorrow.”
Abigail moved toward the window.
Three men.
Faces partly covered.
One carried a torch.
Caleb saw it too.
“You set that down.”
The man laughed.
“Or?”
Caleb raised the rifle.
Silence.
A second rider circled toward the barn.
Abigail opened the back door.
Grabbed the large dinner bell Caleb used to call ranch hands.
She rang.
Hard.
The clang rolled across the valley.
Again.
Again.
Caleb looked back.
Then understood.
Neighboring ranches lay far, but sound carried.
The riders had expected an isolated man.
Not a woman willing to summon half the ridge.
The torch rider cursed.
He threw the torch toward the porch.