Elias looked toward Emma.
There it was.
Confirmation.
Not full.
Enough.
Amos laughed.
“He wanted Hart lonely.”
“Why?” Jonah demanded.
“Because lonely men sell cheaper.”
Sheriff Pike stared at his brother.
“You tampered with federal mail for Harlan Bell?”
Amos’s bravado faded.
“Jonah…”
“How much?”
No answer.
“How much did he pay you?”
“Two hundred.”
Sheriff Pike looked physically sick.
“Two hundred dollars.”
“I owed him.”
“You owed him, so you dragged a woman halfway across Kansas to humiliate her?”
“That wasn’t Bell.”
Amos looked toward Emma.
“The laughing was mine.”
At least he admitted it.
Emma stared.
“Why?”
Amos shrugged weakly.
“Sounded funny.”
She stepped closer.
He seemed smaller now.
Not less cruel.
Smaller.
“That’s all?”
He looked away.
Emma had imagined that if she discovered the reason, it would somehow match the scale of what it did to her.
It did not.
A grown man thought it sounded funny.
That was all cruelty sometimes was.
Boredom with an audience.
Sheriff Pike cuffed his brother.
Amos shouted:
“You can’t lock me up over a letter!”
Jonah’s voice cracked.
“Watch me.”
Harlan Bell’s attorney had Amos released by sunset pending hearing.
But the town had changed.
Not morally.
Not yet.
People simply realized the joke might become evidence.
Laughter became dangerous.
Men who had pointed at Emma began claiming they had barely watched.
Bell denied everything.
He issued a statement through the newspaper claiming Amos acted alone.
Then Bell accelerated Elias’s foreclosure.
The notice arrived two days later.
PAYMENT IN FULL DUE WITHIN TEN DAYS.
Emma read it.
“He can’t do this.”
“The note has an acceleration clause.”
“Only after default.”
“I missed last quarter.”
“Because his statement included fraudulent charges.”
“He’ll still file.”
Elias sat at the kitchen table.
For the first time since Emma arrived, he looked tired enough to break.
Ten days.
The ranch.
Spring.
Home.
Everything he had built.
Emma sat opposite him.
“How much cash?”
“Three thousand.”
“Cattle you can sell?”
“Maybe four thousand if I dump them quickly.”
“You owe what he claims is eight.”
“Yes.”
“If our calculations are right?”
Elias looked at her.
“Maybe three thousand.”
Emma nodded.
“Then we prove it before auction.”
“How?”
“County court.”
“Bell owns half the men who drink with the judge.”
“Then we bring evidence large enough to sober them.”
Elias smiled weakly.
“Romantic.”
“Wait until I calculate penalties.”
He laughed.
Emma reached across the table.
Took his hand.
Neither spoke for a while.
Then Elias said:
“Marry me.”
Emma froze.
The kitchen clock ticked.
Elias’s eyes widened slightly.
“That came out wrong.”
“A little.”