Claire suggested going there.
Elias shook his head.
“They’ll intercept you.”
“You mean us.”
Elias looked at her.
“Yes.”
Us.
The word sat between them.
They spent the afternoon preparing.
Elias moved the documents into different hiding places.
Some beneath floorboards.
Some sealed inside grain sacks.
Some copied by hand.
Claire watched him.
“You don’t trust one hiding place.”
“I trust fire less.”
That evening, a rider appeared on the ridge.
Not approaching.
Watching.
Elias saw him through field glasses.
“Colson?”
Claire asked.
“Probably.”
She stood beside him on the porch.
Wind moved through her hair.
“What now?”
Elias said, “Now they wait for us to make a mistake.”
Claire looked at him.
“And if we don’t?”
“They make one for us.”
The first attempt came that night.
Someone cut the pasture fence.
Thirty cattle scattered toward the ravine.
Elias woke to barking dogs.
He and Claire spent two hours driving animals away from the drop.
At dawn, Elias found the cut.
Clean.
Deliberate.
Claire stood beside him.
“They’re warning us.”
Elias looked toward the hills.
“No.”
“What?”
“They’re checking whether I leave the house.”
Claire understood.
“Documents.”
Elias nodded.
They rode back fast.
Nothing missing.
But a window latch had been scratched.
Colson’s men had tried.
Elias reinforced the house.
Then sent a message to a neighbor he trusted.
A widowed rancher named Ruth Calder lived five miles south.
She arrived before noon carrying a shotgun and an attitude.
She looked Claire up and down.
“So this is the wife.”
Claire flushed.
Elias stared at Ruth.
Ruth smiled.
“Word travels faster than weather.”
Elias said, “It was temporary.”
Claire looked at him.
“Was?”
Ruth’s eyebrows rose.
Elias glared at both women.
“Focus.”
Ruth laughed.
Claire liked her immediately.
Ruth had her own story.
Colson had tried buying her creek access two years earlier.
When she refused, a tax lien appeared.
She fought it and won because her brother worked in the clerk’s office.
She had always suspected fraud.
Now Elias showed her copies.
Ruth went silent.
“My God.”
Claire said, “How many families?”
Ruth looked at the map.
“Enough to start a war.”
Elias answered:
“Or a case.”
Ruth laughed bitterly.
“With what judge?”
Claire said:
“Territorial office.”
Ruth looked at her.
“You’ll never get there carrying originals.”
Elias said:
“Then we don’t carry them.”
He had a plan.
Three copies.
Three routes.