Sheriff Pike dismounted without greeting Mara. He looked first at the broken survey stake in her hand and then at the red notices scattered in the grass. His expression suggested a man who had arrived expecting trouble and was pleased to find evidence of it.
“Miss Ellison,” he said, “Mr. Voss reports interference with a lawful county survey.”
“Mr. Voss is surveying my pasture without permission.”
“The boundary is under review.”
“A review doesn't move a fence.”
Pike rested a hand on his holster. Five riders waited behind him, including a narrow-faced deputy named Orin Vale, whose family had once borrowed seed money from Samuel Ellison. Vale would not meet Mara's eyes.
Elias remained on the far side of the road. The sheriff noticed him immediately. His hand tightened around the reins.
“Reed,” Pike said. “Thought you were dead.”
“Disappointing morning for you, then.”
Pike ignored the remark. He produced a warrant requiring Mara to appear at the county office the following Monday with all documents pertaining to Bellwether's water use. The seal looked genuine, but the date had been written over another date in darker ink. Mara folded it carefully rather than arguing. She had learned that a person could lose a lawsuit simply by giving an opponent a better story to tell.
“Will you be attending, Sheriff?” she asked.
“That's my intention.”
“Then perhaps you can explain why somebody shot through my kitchen window last night.”
Pike glanced at Vale. “Did you see the shooter?”
“No. I have a cartridge.”
“Bring it to the office.”
“Will you investigate?”
“Of course.” His voice was perfectly smooth. “Once I have the evidence.”
He mounted and rode away without asking whether anyone had been hurt. Mara waited until the dust settled before turning toward the schoolhouse.
Miriam Bell was teaching fractions when they arrived. The building smelled of chalk, wet wool, and apples stored in a wooden crate. Twelve children watched Mara through the open doorway. Miriam, a woman with gray at her temples and a plain brown dress, recognized Elias before he spoke. Her chalk broke between her fingers.
“Children,” she said, “take your slates outside and practice the sums on the board.”
The students obeyed with the noisy enthusiasm of children released from confinement. Miriam closed the door. She looked at Elias for a long moment, then struck him across the face.
“You carried their papers,” she said.
“I did.”
“My husband begged you to listen.”
“I know.”
“And now you come here?”
“I came to keep it from happening again.”
Miriam laughed once, bitterly. Mara stepped between them and placed Samuel's ledger on the teacher's desk. She opened it to the final page. Miriam read the sentence about the river that runs backward, and the anger drained from her face, leaving something more difficult to name.
“That was my father's phrase,” she said. “He meant a map that had been turned upside down.”
She opened a cupboard and removed a rolled wall map, then laid it beside the linen survey Mara had brought. On the county's newer map, the river bent west before reaching the settlement. On the older survey, it bent east. The discrepancy seemed small until Miriam traced the contour lines with one finger.
“They reversed the drainage,” she explained. “If the ridge slopes this way, water cannot run where Voss says it runs. Not without climbing a hill.”
Jonah stared. “So anybody who knows the country can see the lie.”
“Anybody willing to look at the ground rather than the seal.”
Miriam told them that her father had helped mark the original public channel when the valley was first settled. He had kept a field journal containing distances, landmarks, and measurements made with a chain. Samuel had borrowed it shortly before his death. She believed he intended to challenge Voss, but he never returned the book.
Mara searched her memory for the journal. She remembered her father carrying a narrow leather satchel on his final ride. The satchel had never come home.
“Where was he found?” Elias asked.
“Near the old quarry road.”
“Who found him?”
“Sheriff Pike.”
Nobody spoke for several seconds. From outside came the bright voices of children arguing over a sum.
Miriam drew a breath. “My son Daniel was there that day. He saw a second horse on the road.”
“Did he tell Pike?” Mara asked.
Samuel Ellison had never been an easy man to mourn. He had left instructions for nearly everything: how deep to bury a fence post, when to turn the cattle onto higher ground, which merchant could be trusted to weigh grain honestly. For two years Mara had followed those instructions while resenting their absence of comfort. He had prepared her to run the ranch but not to live without him.