“I can.”
He stopped.
Martha touched Anna’s stone.
“She chose this place?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
Elias looked toward the aspens.
“When Ben was born, Anna said if she ever had to stay anywhere forever, she wanted water nearby.”
His voice broke slightly.
“Didn’t know she’d mean it.”
Martha looked down.
After a moment she said:
“You don’t have to choose between loving them and living.”
Elias’s face tightened.
“I know.”
“No.”
She stood with effort.
“You understand the sentence.”
“I’m not sure you believe it.”
He stared at her.
Martha stepped closer.
“If this land is taken, you will think you failed them.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know land can be stolen.”
“I know people die.”
“I know neither one becomes proof that the person left behind failed.”
Elias looked away.
Martha touched his arm.
“That is grief talking like law.”
He almost smiled.
“Grief talks a lot.”
“Yes.”
“So does fear.”
He looked at her.
She knew he heard the second meaning.
Her fear too.
Fear of being chosen.
Fear of believing his attention.
Fear of stepping into a dead woman’s house and imagining a future.
Martha released him.
“We fight for the land.”
Elias frowned.
“We?”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t your fight.”
Her face changed.
“You want me gone?”
“No.”
“Then don’t tell me what is mine to care about.”
He stared.
Martha crossed her arms.
It was an impressive gesture given the size of them.
Elias laughed.
She glared.
“What?”
“You look terrifying.”
“Good.”
He stopped laughing.
Mostly.
They began with records.
Halbrook returned carrying copies.
Martha surprised both men.
She understood accounts.
Deeds.
Tax receipts.
Survey measurements.
Her father had owned a mercantile business in Missouri.
She had kept the books for eleven years.
Men assumed because she was enormous and unmarried that she had lived passively.
In reality, Martha had run inventory, payroll, credit ledgers, supplier contracts, and estate accounts while her father drank himself toward an early grave.
She spread documents across Elias’s kitchen table.
“Here.”
Halbrook leaned closer.
“What?”
“Tax description changes in seventy-two.”
Elias looked confused.
Martha pointed.
“Old receipt says north boundary follows Mill Creek.”
“Later receipt says boundary follows surveyed ridge.”
Halbrook nodded.
“Correct.”
“Who requested the change?”
Silence.
Halbrook picked up another sheet.
“Should be amendment filing.”
They searched.
Nothing.
Martha looked up.
“So the territory collected taxes using a boundary description that was never legally certified?”
Halbrook’s face slowly changed.
“Yes.”