“You know about tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because the same people who want your spring have been buying water rights south of our community for three years.”
That changed everything.
The cowboy looked down the street.
Suddenly every face seemed more interested.
“Get on your horse.”
The woman nodded.
No argument.
They rode out of town without buying the lamp oil.
The cowboy remembered halfway home.
He swore.
The woman riding beside him looked over.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You sound angry.”
“I forgot coffee.”
She stared.
“You may lose your ranch tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“And coffee is what troubles you?”
“You don’t know my mornings.”
For the first time, she laughed.
Not politely.
A full laugh.
It surprised him.
It also made him notice her differently.
He immediately disliked that.
This woman carried a document from his dead mother, knew something about his land, had been deliberately delayed in town, and he was noticing the sound of her laugh.
Idiotic.
He focused on the trail.
They rode north through open land where the late-afternoon sun stretched across red earth and dry grass. Pine-covered ridges rose farther west.
The cowboy kept glancing toward the envelope inside his jacket.
Finally:
“What is in it?”
The woman answered:
“Proof.”
“That’s vague.”
“It is safer unopened until we reach your ranch.”
“Why?”
“Because if somebody stops us, I would rather they not know exactly what they are looking for.”
He studied her.
“You’ve done this before?”
“Carried papers men wanted?”
“Yes.”
She looked ahead.
“More often than I should have.”
“Why?”
“My father worked as an interpreter and survey assistant.”
“For whom?”
“Anyone who paid honestly.”
He smiled.
“That narrows Arizona considerably.”
She almost smiled.
“He worked with territorial survey crews.”
“Ranchers.”
“Mining claims.”
“Water disputes.”
“And your mother.”
The cowboy looked over.
“How did they meet?”
The woman took a moment.
“Your mother caught him being cheated.”
He laughed.
“That sounds like her.”
“They were measuring a boundary east of your ranch.”
“My father was supposed to be paid five dollars for three days.”
“The surveyor gave him two.”
“What did my mother do?”
“She made the surveyor pay the other three.”
“Also sounds like her.”
The woman continued:
“My father never forgot.”
“Years later, when your mother needed someone she could trust with papers nobody else should know existed, she came to him.”
The cowboy frowned.
“Why not an attorney?”
“Because attorneys can be searched.”