“You could turn back,” he told her. “I can find the warehouse.”
“And then you'll return with another story I have to take on faith?”
He gave a rueful smile. “Fair enough.”
The wind moved through the pines. Mara watched him work with the horse, patient and gentle in a way that did not erase his mistakes but made her understand why she had kept him near. She wanted more than gratitude between them, yet she refused to build anything lasting upon a half-told past.
When the mare could walk comfortably, they continued toward the lights of Ash Hollow. At the edge of town, they passed a warehouse behind a high fence. One window glowed on the second floor. Elias stopped so abruptly that Mara's horse nearly struck his.
“That is the place,” he said.
A man emerged from the side door carrying a wooden box. He crossed the yard and lifted it into a wagon. Even at a distance, Mara recognized the shape of the district seal stamped on its lid.
“Are they moving the records?” she whispered.
Elias watched the wagon turn toward the north road. “If they are, we arrived just in time to see where.”
The wagon had no lantern. That alone told Mara more than the district seal on the box. Honest clerks did not move public records through a winter town after midnight with their lamps extinguished. She and Elias waited until the wheels had passed the last house, then followed at a distance through the drifting snow. The roan mare was still favoring one foot, so Elias walked beside her, holding the reins loosely. Mara's horse wanted to hurry. She kept him back, listening to the wagon's iron rims strike the frozen ruts.
At the north bridge the driver turned away from the county road and toward an abandoned milling property. A chimney stood above the trees, though no smoke came from it. Two men opened a gate and hurried the wagon inside. Elias recognized one of them as Walter Bell, a former deputy surveyor who had testified that Samuel Ellison's original map had been lost in the courthouse fire. Bell was supposed to be living in Colorado. Instead he was standing in Ash Hollow, supervising the removal of records that could destroy Crowe's claim.
Mara wanted to confront him. Elias caught her sleeve. “We have seen a box,” he whispered. “We need to know what's inside, and we need someone independent to witness it.”
They returned to town and found the county archivist, Miss Ada Mercer, still awake above her office. She was a narrow woman with gray hair pinned so severely that Mara expected her to object to the hour before hearing the news. Instead Mercer listened without interruption. When Mara mentioned the district seal, she rose, unlocked a cabinet, and brought out a ledger. The receipt number from the Ash Hollow letter matched a transfer entry for twelve survey books and three sealed cases. Only eleven books and two cases had been returned after the fire. The missing case carried the notation WATER RIGHTS—NORTH BASIN.
“Crowe's attorney told the court the case was destroyed,” Mara said.
“Then his attorney gave the court information that the inventory does not support,” Mercer replied. “Those are different statements. I intend to make the difference plain.”
Mercer insisted that they visit Judge Halden, who was staying in town to review winter tax appeals. The judge was not sympathetic at first. He had already heard about the hearing and regarded Mara's group as determined but troublesome. When Mercer placed the ledger before him, however, his expression changed. He signed a narrow order authorizing an inspection of the missing public property. He would not authorize an arrest without stronger evidence. Mara respected the restraint even while it frightened her. Crowe had always been able to turn uncertainty into delay.
By dawn a deputy named Lyle Benton accompanied them to the mill. Benton was young, and he kept touching the badge on his coat as if reassuring himself that it had not vanished. The gate was locked. Mercer read the order aloud. No one answered. Benton broke the chain with the butt of his rifle, and they entered a yard full of frozen weeds. The wagon stood empty beside the stable. Fresh boot prints crossed toward the mill, then disappeared beneath a side door.
Inside, the building smelled of wet grain and old machinery. Sunlight entered through gaps in the roof. On the upper floor they found stacks of paper wrapped in canvas, a stove still warm, and a table covered with twine. One crate bore the county mark but had been pried open. Mercer examined the contents with a care that made the others silent. Survey plats, water measurements, and sworn statements lay in a confusion of bundles. Several had been altered with ink darker than the original writing. A folded map carried Samuel Ellison's signature at the bottom.