Jacob looked from one to the other.
“You two keeping secrets?”
“Yes,” Magdalena said.
Ethan almost choked.
Jacob frowned.
She continued:
“Food-preservation secrets.”
“That sounded convincing,” Ethan murmured after Jacob left.
“You would have done better?”
“No.”
That evening they examined the tag in Ethan’s office.
Arthur Vale Supply sold fencing materials, veterinary compounds, oil, wire, tools, and freight equipment throughout the county.
Half the ranch probably contained items from his warehouses.
The tag did not prove much.
Then Magdalena remembered the oily smell.
They checked veterinary records.
Castle Ridge had purchased injectable cattle tonic once, eighteen months earlier.
Not from Vale.
Jacob knew a veterinarian in town.
Magdalena proposed sending a sample quietly.
Ethan did.
Three days later, the answer arrived.
Concentrated arsenic compound.
Enough injected into an animal could cause weakness, vomiting, collapse, death.
Magdalena sat with the letter.
Ethan stood by the window.
“Arthur.”
“Still not enough.”
His fist struck the frame.
“Damn it, Magdalena.”
She looked up.
“You want justice or somebody to hit?”
His face snapped toward hers.
“If you accuse the wrong person now, whoever is actually doing it learns what we know.”
Silence.
Ethan exhaled.
Slowly.
“You’re right.”
“I know.”
He almost smiled.
She continued.
“We watch supplies.”
“Animals.”
“Who enters pens.”
“Who knows schedules.”
“And we tell nobody about the poison.”
“Except Jacinto.”
“Why him?”
“He noticed the last cow before anyone.”
“He sleeps near the south pens.”
“And he hates Arthur Vale.”
“Everyone hates Arthur.”
“Exactly.”
They brought Jacinto in.
Thirty.
Fast talker.
Loyal to Castle Ridge for eleven years.
He listened.
Then swore so creatively Magdalena learned three new expressions.
They created a trap.
Moved the vulnerable animals.
Marked fresh feed sacks.
Placed fine ash near the gate to capture tracks.
Waited.
Nothing happened.
For five days.
Then someone cut a section of fence.
No cattle escaped because Jacinto had tied an interior line.
But boot prints remained.
Large.
Square heel.
Common.
Beside them, wagon tracks.
Too narrow for Castle Ridge wagons.
Ethan followed them.
They disappeared onto public road.
Another dead end.
Meanwhile the reopened water line improved.
Magdalena and Ethan walked North Hill repeatedly.
The channel carried more water after clearing.
But not enough to explain the lush green line.
Magdalena knelt near an old stone junction.
“There should be another branch.”
Ethan studied the map.
“None shown.”
“Maps can be incomplete.”
“My grandfather had these drawn.”
“Your grandfather was a man.”
“I noticed.”
“Men make incomplete maps.”
He looked offended on behalf of his grandfather.
Magdalena smiled.
They dug near the junction.
Found another capped channel.
Unlike the first, this cap was metal.
Stamped.
V.S. 1881.
Vale Supply.
Ethan stared.
Magdalena touched the stamp.
“That is better evidence.”
“Arthur's father.”
“Maybe.”
“You enjoy ruining my certainty.”