“I had help. I knew the carts were there because I helped repair their wheels last month.”
“I’m beginning to understand why your father listens to you.”
“My father listens because he has learned that I am often right. It took him longer than I would have liked.”
Jack smiled, then grew serious.
“You could have been hurt.”
“So could you. I did not ask you to stay out of danger. I asked you to listen before deciding what I could endure.”
He accepted the correction.
“You’re right.”
She looked surprised that he said it without defending himself. The veil hung loose at her neck, and the morning light fell across her face. Jack wanted to touch the cut on her cheek, but he waited for her to invite the gesture. Instead, he asked, “Are you all right?”
“I will be.” She folded the cloth and held it against the cut.
“What matters is that the company failed tonight. But they will not stop. Rourke will call this a riot and say the defenders attacked lawful officers.”
“Then we make sure the captured men testify.”
“And we find the original agreement.”
“Daniel said the company planned to use your past against you. We need to know what Rourke has.”
Isabel’s expression closed.
“I have spent years being told that my past belongs to other people. I will not let him use it to decide my future.”
“Then we find the truth before he can twist it.”
She studied him, weighing whether he meant it.
“When you first arrived, you were looking for your brother. Now you are risking your life for people you met yesterday. Why?”
Jack looked toward the valley, where smoke drifted away from the gardens and families were returning to their homes.
“Because yesterday I met people who had been treated as if their lives mattered less than a line on a map. I know what it is to lose a home, even if I’ve never lost one this way. And because you asked me to see you as a person, not a bargain. I’m trying.”
For once, Isabel had no quick answer. She tied the veil loosely over her hair, leaving her face uncovered.
“Then keep trying,” she said.
“That is more than most men offer.”
As the sun climbed above the cliffs, a rider arrived from Red Hollow carrying a sealed notice from Judge Voss. The hearing had been moved forward to the following afternoon. Meridian intended to claim the night’s violence proved the valley was dangerous and needed immediate control. The chief gathered the elders. Jack read the notice twice, then looked at the charred grain store and the people beginning to rebuild. They had less than a day to turn evidence into protection. The next fight would not be won with a rifle. It would be won in a room where a man in a clean coat could decide whether truth was worth more than money.
The courthouse in Red Hollow had once been a stagecoach station, and it still looked as if the law had arrived there by accident. Its walls were rough pine, its windows too narrow for the afternoon heat, and its benches polished by years of anxious people shifting beneath decisions they could not control. By the time Chief Samuel’s delegation arrived, the room was crowded with ranchers, merchants, company employees, and curious townspeople. Some had come to witness justice. Others had come to watch the chief be humiliated.
Judge Harlan Voss sat behind a desk raised on a platform. He was a heavy man with a neatly trimmed beard and a gold watch chain across his vest. He looked at the chief as if the valley were a nuisance he had been asked to remove from his boot. Silas Rourke sat at the judge’s right hand, wearing the compass-rose pin and an expression of patient concern. Deputy Hask, released on bail through a friend of the judge, stood near the door with his arm in a sling.
Jack sat with Daniel, Owen Price, Ruth Bell, and Isabel. The latter had chosen not to wear her veil. The room noticed. Whispers rose, and one woman covered her mouth as though Isabel’s face had proved a rumor. Isabel held her gaze until the woman looked away.
The hearing began with Rourke presenting Meridian’s claim. He described the valley as a dangerous settlement occupying land required for railroad expansion. He said the company had purchased the spring and surrounding acreage from a lawful owner, and that its workers had been attacked by a group led by Chief Samuel. He showed the altered map, the same one Jack had found in the mission ruin, and called it an official survey.
Judge Voss listened with practiced boredom.
“Chief Black, do you deny that your people occupy land claimed by Meridian?”
“We occupy the land our families have cared for longer than Meridian has existed,” the chief replied.
“And the spring is protected by an agreement your office has chosen not to acknowledge.”
“Do you possess this agreement?”
“We are seeking it.”
The judge leaned back.
“Then you ask this court to ignore a signed deed because you believe another document may exist.”
Jack felt the trap closing. The judge had arranged the question so that a missing paper outweighed living testimony. He rose when called and explained that Daniel had discovered the boundary alteration. Rourke’s attorney objected, saying Jack was a biased relative and a known trespasser. Voss allowed the objection to stand, then permitted Daniel to speak only after warning him that false testimony could lead to imprisonment.
Daniel described the survey office, the altered measurements, and the cellar where Rourke’s men had held him. Rourke’s lawyer suggested that Daniel had forged the notes to excuse stealing company property. Daniel’s hands shook, but his voice did not.
“If I wanted to forge a map, I would have made the numbers agree,” he said.
“The company’s own measurements contradict its boundary. The original line follows the ridge. The new line cuts through the spring because that is where Meridian wants to build its reservoir.”