Nola remembered what the one-eyed traveler had said.
Crow wanted the ranch cheap.
She looked toward the valley below.
“Does he own land past yours?”
“South.”
“Any route to the rail line?”
Garrick turned.
“How do you know about that?”
“I listen.”
He almost smiled.
She continued:
“If Crow controls Hollow Creek’s water and his land south, what does he gain?”
Garrick thought.
Then his face changed.
“Cattle corridor.”
Nola nodded.
“He could drive herds from three valleys through his own land without paying water access.”
Garrick stared toward Crow’s house.
“Mae knew.”
Nola looked at him.
“What?”
“My wife handled our accounts.”
“Before she got sick, she found survey papers.”
“Crow wanted a right-of-way.”
“She refused.”
“When?”
“Two months before Wren first came.”
The pieces began locking together.
Too neatly.
Nola hated neat crimes.
Real life rarely behaved that way.
She whispered:
“We need proof.”
Garrick’s hand moved toward his revolver.
“We have enough.”
“No.”
“We have Wren inside Crow’s house.”
“That proves a doctor visits a rancher.”
“Deputy too.”
“Still not murder.”
Garrick glared.
Nola looked at him.
“If you shoot Crow today, he becomes a respected rancher murdered by an unstable widower.”
“And you lose your children.”
That landed.
She continued:
“If Crow did this, we make him lose everything.”
“Legally.”
“Publicly.”
“With enough proof that nobody can call Mae’s death grief talking.”
Garrick looked toward the house.
His entire body vibrated with rage.
Finally he whispered:
“How?”
Nola smiled without humor.
“We let greedy men believe they’ve nearly won.”
They returned home before dusk.
Weston was sitting upright.
Weak.
Pale.
Alive.
Garrick crossed the room and lifted him carefully.
The little boy buried his face against his father’s neck.
Nola looked away.
Something about fathers holding sick children hurt too much.
Eli appeared.
“Where did Wren go?”
Garrick looked toward Nola.
She answered:
“Crow.”
Eli’s face hardened with a maturity that did not belong on a ten-year-old.
“I knew he was bad.”
“No,” Nola said.
“You suspected.”
“Difference matters.”
Eli rolled his eyes.
Garrick almost smiled.
Nola was beginning to infect the house with argument.
It felt healthier than silence.
That evening, they formed the first part of the plan.
Garrick would tell Crow he was finally willing to discuss selling Hollow Creek.
Not because of Mae.
Not because of Weston.
Because the ranch was failing.
Nola would make sure word spread that Weston’s illness had worsened.
The medicine would remain visibly in use.
And they would find someone who could analyze the liquid.
Garrick knew only one person.
A retired army surgeon named Dr. Abel Merritt who lived nearly seventy miles east.