Clara laughed once.
“You have a strange sense of humor.”
“Thirty.”
“No.”
“Forty.”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“You had nothing before those eggs.”
“That is true.”
“I provided the stock.”
“You provided trash.”
“Clara.”
“You stood behind your hatchery and told me the eggs were mine because you did not want them brought back.”
“I was joking.”
“I wasn’t.”
Harold’s face changed slightly.
Not anger yet.
Calculation.
“No written bill of sale exists.”
Clara looked at him carefully.
“You’re saying you didn’t give them to me?”
“I’m saying ownership could be complicated.”
“Was it complicated when you dumped them?”
He said nothing.
Clara crossed her arms.
“You came here thinking I’d be frightened because there was no paper.”
“I came here offering money.”
“For birds you claim belong to you?”
That trapped him.
He knew it.
Harold turned toward the pasture.
“Think about my offer.”
“I have.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“No. I made several mistakes this year. Saving your eggs wasn’t one.”
He climbed into his wagon.
Before leaving, he looked back.
“Business gets harder when people don’t know their place.”
Clara’s eyes narrowed.
“So does stealing.”
Harold drove away.
That evening, Clara opened her tin box.
Tax receipts.
Feed receipts.
A contract with Samuel Pike.
Notes from buyers.
Nothing concerning the eggs.
She thought back to the morning behind Briggs Hatchery.
Workers had heard Harold.
At least two.
Maybe three.
One was a thin young man named Eli Mercer.
Another was older, named Tom Vance.
She did not know the third.
Mrs. Carter had seen Clara arrive home with the eggs.
Half the town knew Harold had laughed about giving them away.
But gossip was not proof.
Clara slept badly.
The next morning she rode into town.
At the general store, men fell quiet when she entered.
That told her enough.
“What has Harold been saying?”
The storekeeper pretended confusion.
Clara waited.
Finally he sighed.
“He says some breeding stock was removed from his property after the wagon accident.”
“Removed?”
“That’s the word.”
“He gave it to me.”
“I know.”
“Does everyone?”
The storekeeper looked uncomfortable.