She reorganized the pantry.
She discovered that Elias had been paying twice the fair price for feed.
She found three unpaid invoices hidden beneath a broken desk drawer.
She taught Abel how to record cattle births properly.
She discovered that the ranch's water consumption was almost twenty percent higher than it should have been.
Then she found something stranger.
Someone had been opening the books.
At first she assumed it was Elias.
Then she realized the handwriting was different.
Someone had been removing small amounts of money.
Five dollars.
Eight dollars.
Twelve dollars.
Never enough to trigger suspicion.
Always enough to matter.
Ita placed the ledger on Elias's desk.
“Someone is stealing from you.”
Elias looked up.
“How much?”
“About seven hundred dollars over the last two years.”
He stared at her.
“That's impossible.”
“Then your ledger is lying.”
“My father kept these books.”
“I know.”
The room became silent.
Elias slowly closed the ledger.
“My father wasn't a thief.”
“I didn't say he was.”
“You implied it.”
“No. I said someone stole money.”
“From his books.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn't mean from him.”
Ita looked at him carefully.
“You defend a dead man very quickly.”
Elias stood.
“You don't know him.”
“No.”
“You don't know anything about this family.”
“No.”
“Then don't judge it.”
“I wasn't judging.”
“You were.”
She picked up the ledger.
“Then perhaps you should ask why your father kept paying a man named Mercer Pike.”
Elias froze.
The name meant nothing to him.
At least, he thought it meant nothing.
“Who?”
“Mercer Pike.”
“I've never heard of him.”
“Your father wrote his name seventeen times.”
Elias took the ledger.
The entries were there.
Pike.
Always followed by a number.
Always followed by the word “supplies.”
But the amounts were too high for supplies.
Elias sat down.
“I don't understand.”
“I don't either.”
“Where did you find this?”
“In the old office.”
“My father locked that room.”
“The lock was broken.”
“By you?”
“No.”
That answer frightened him more than anything else.
That night, Elias searched the office.
Behind an old cabinet, he found a loose floorboard.
Under it was a tin box.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed five men standing beside a river.
One was his father.
Another was a younger version of Mercer Pike.
The other three were strangers.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written:
COLD WATER — FIRST NIGHT.
Elias stared at the words.
He remembered something.
A childhood story.
His father had once told him that seventeen years earlier, a group of Apache families had left the northern valley after a violent dispute over water.
Elias had never questioned the story.
His father had said the land was empty afterward.
The photograph suggested otherwise.
Behind the men in the picture stood several tents.
And people.
Women.
Children.
A camp.
Not empty.
Elias took the photograph to Ita.
She looked at it once.
Then she closed her eyes.
“You know this place.”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“My mother's camp.”
Elias felt the room change.
“What?”
“My mother lived there.”
He stared at her.
She opened the leather case she had carried from the train.
Inside was a small silver medallion.
It was scratched and dark with age.
On its surface was a symbol Elias did not recognize.
But beneath the symbol were three letters.
J.C.
His father's initials.
Elias stepped backward.
“Where did you get that?”
“My grandmother.”
“Why did she give it to you?”
“She didn't.”
Ita held the medallion tightly.