Ben raised an eyebrow.
Then handed them over.
Ruth studied the columns.
“You lost four after the feed wagon came on the ninth.”
Ben frowned.
“And three after the wagon on the sixteenth.”
She pointed.
“Another four two days ago.”
“That could be chance.”
“It could.”
Jonah entered behind him.
Ruth tapped the delivery weights.
“But these cannot.”
Jonah leaned over the paper.
“What?”
“The wagon supposedly delivered twelve hundred pounds of feed here.”
“Then returned to Red Willow empty.”
“That is what it says.”
Ruth pointed toward another figure.
“Samuel ran freight.”
“I kept his books.”
“A wagon hauling that load over this road would require a certain team, and a certain amount of feed for the return.”
“These numbers were copied.”
“Whoever wrote them did not calculate the trip.”
Ben stared.
“You can tell that from three columns?”
“I can tell somebody wanted the figures to look ordinary.”
One of the younger hands had stopped in the doorway.
“Thought Mrs. Alden was hired to cook.”
Before Ruth could answer, Jonah turned.
“She was.”
The hand shifted awkwardly.
Jonah looked back at Ruth.
“What do you need to check the rest?”
Not whether she was sure.
Not whether Ben could check for her.
What did she need?
That night, Jonah carried every ranch tally book from the previous six months to the dining table.
Ruth worked until the lamps burned low.
Two days later, Jonah added bookkeeping wages to her envelope.
She tried to hand the extra money back.
“You hired me for the kitchen.”
“I am paying you for work you did.”
“It was only a few hours.”
“Then it is a few hours of wages.”
Ruth stared at the envelope.
Samuel had called her bookkeeping “helping.”
Never work.
Never wages.
Jonah pushed the envelope back toward her.
“Do not thank me for money you earned.”
That sentence stayed with her.
Late September brought cold rain.
One afternoon Ruth opened her trunk looking for Tom’s heavier socks.
She found Samuel’s canvas freight ledger beneath a folded shawl.
She nearly closed the trunk.
Instead, she sat on the bed.
Samuel’s handwriting filled the first pages.
Most of the later entries were hers.
Load numbers.
Weights.
Delivery dates.
Merchants.
Routes.
She turned pages slowly until a folded receipt slipped into her lap.
Ruth picked it up.
Then stopped.
The receipt carried Vernon Pike’s signature.
Dated four months before Samuel died.
Payment received for use of Willow Ford crossing.
Ruth read it twice.
Then again.
The amount was small.
The wording was not.
Samuel had not owed Vernon three hundred dollars.
At least not according to this page.
Vernon had owed Samuel.
Ruth opened the ledger again.
She searched dates.
Numbers.
Freight loads.
Several entries had been crossed out.
Not Samuel’s hand.