Ruth returned to the Bellamy property three days after Harland Crewe’s arrest.
Silas rode with her.
Neither talked much during the trip.
The sky was painfully blue after several days of snow, and sunlight turned the drifts almost white enough to hurt the eyes.
Mercy moved steadily beneath Ruth.
The mare had regained weight at Kane Ranch.
So had Clara.
The child now had color in her cheeks again.
Ruth had noticed the same change in herself when she looked in a mirror that morning.
Food could do that.
Sleep could do that.
Safety could do that.
She had almost forgotten.
When the burned cabin came into view, Clara stopped talking.
Mrs. Walsh had wanted to keep her at the ranch.
Clara refused.
“It was my house too,” she had said.
So she rode with Ben in the wagon behind Ruth and Silas.
They stopped at the edge of the yard.
Only the stone chimney remained upright.
Ruth dismounted.
She expected grief to crush her again.
Instead she felt something quieter.
The house was gone.
Thomas was not.
That distinction had taken her weeks to understand.
Clara walked through the snow.
She found a piece of blue porcelain near the foundation.
“My doll?”
Ruth crouched.
Part of the doll’s face remained.
One painted eye.
Half a cheek.
Clara held it carefully.
“Can we keep it?”
“Yes.”
Silas and Ben unloaded tools.
Ruth frowned.
“What are those for?”
Silas answered without looking at her.
“Roof.”
“What roof?”
“The barn.”
She looked.
Half of the Bellamy barn still stood.
“Why?”
“Because Mercy needs shelter if you’re moving back.”
Ruth stared at him.
“You don’t have to fix my barn.”
“I know.”
“I can pay someone.”
“Eventually.”
“I can pay you.”
Silas finally looked at her.
“You planning to?”
“Yes.”
“Then twenty cents an hour.”
“That’s too little.”
“It’s what I pay Ben for repair work.”
Ben called from the wagon.
“He’s lying.”
Silas glared at him.
Ben grinned.
Ruth crossed her arms.
“How much?”
“Thirty-five,” Ben admitted.
“Thirty-five it is.”
Silas muttered something.
Ruth smiled.
The smile disappeared when she looked at the foundation.
She had won her land back.
But there was no house.
No money to build one.
No livestock except Mercy.
No seed for spring.
Winning in court had not magically restored the life Crewe nearly stole.
Ruth felt exhaustion settle over her again.
Silas seemed to read her thoughts.
“You don’t have to rebuild this week.”
“I know.”
“Or this month.”
“I know.”
“You can stay at Kane Ranch as long as—”
“No.”
The word came too quickly.
Silas’s face closed.
Ruth regretted it.
“I mean…”
She struggled.
“Kane Ranch isn’t mine.”
“No.”
“And if I stay too long, I may forget I have somewhere else to stand.”
Silas looked toward the burned house.
“Thomas wrote that line.”
“What line?”
“About helping you stand.”
Ruth nodded.
Silas pushed his hands into his coat pockets.
“He was right.”
“He usually was.”
“Annoying habit.”
Ruth laughed.
Silas smiled.
Then Clara shouted.
“Mama!”
They turned.
Clara was standing near the cottonwood hill.
Thomas’s grave.
Ruth walked toward her.
Silas remained behind.
Clara brushed snow from the wooden marker.
“Papa’s name is fading.”
Ruth touched the letters.
Thomas Bellamy.
Beloved Husband and Father.
The carving was weathered.
“We’ll repaint it in spring.”
“Can Mr. Kane help?”
Ruth glanced down the hill.
Silas and Ben were repairing the barn.
“If he wants.”
Clara was quiet.
Then: “Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Do you like Mr. Kane?”
Ruth nearly dropped her glove.
“He is our friend.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Ruth stared at her six-year-old daughter.
“Where did you learn to talk like that?”
“Mrs. Walsh.”
Of course.
Ruth sat beside the grave.
“Mr. Kane has been very kind.”
“Papa was kind.”
“Yes.”
“Is it bad if somebody else is kind?”
The innocent question landed harder than accusation.
“No.”
“Then why do you look sad when Mr. Kane smiles at you?”
Ruth could not answer.
That evening everyone returned to Kane Ranch.
Ruth told herself it was temporary.
The court case was not finished.
Crewe remained in jail awaiting trial.
Loren Tate had turned over records showing at least fourteen families had been defrauded.
Three widows.
Two elderly ranchers.
Several immigrant families who spoke limited English.
A war veteran with an injured leg.
Silas found Ruth studying the records one evening.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking.”
“At what?”
“These debts.”
“They’re evidence.”
“They’re also families.”
Silas pulled out a chair.
Ruth pointed to one name.
“The Carsons lost eighty acres last year.”
“I remember.”
“Crewe claimed they owed sixty dollars.”
“Probably false.”
“What happens now?”
“Court decides.”
“And until then?”
Silas understood.
“You want to help them.”
“I know what it feels like.”
“How?”
Ruth looked at his messy account books.
Then smiled slowly.
“I can read numbers.”
Within two weeks Ruth had organized copies of Crewe’s seized ledgers.
She worked with Judge Mercer, the bank manager, and a newly appointed investigator.
Her talent for accounts became unexpectedly valuable.
She found duplicate charges.
Impossible interest calculations.
Payments deliberately omitted.
Property transfers based on forged signatures.
Word spread.
People began coming to Kane Ranch.
Not because of Silas.
Because of Ruth.
A widow arrived carrying a box of receipts.
Then a farmer.
Then a blacksmith.
Ruth sat with each of them at the big kitchen table.
She explained what they owed.
What they had actually paid.
Where Crewe had cheated them.
Silas watched from the doorway one afternoon as Ruth spoke to an elderly couple.
When they left, the old woman hugged Ruth.
“You gave us our farm back.”
Ruth shook her head.
“The court did.”
“No.”
The woman took Ruth’s hands.
“You showed us we were allowed to fight.”
After they left, Ruth stood quietly.
Silas approached.
“You all right?”
She nodded.
Then tears appeared anyway.
“Thomas would have liked this.”
“He would.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
She looked at Silas.
“Sometimes I still want to tell him things.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“I still talk to my brother.”
Ruth blinked.
“You had a brother?”
“Ethan.”
“What happened?”
“Horse accident. Fifteen years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Silas nodded.
“He was twenty-three.”
Ruth suddenly understood some of his loneliness.
“Is that why you never married?”
Silas leaned against the table.
“No.”
“Why then?”
He smiled faintly.
“You ask direct questions.”
“I’m tired of wasting time.”
“Fair.”
He looked toward the window.
“I nearly married once.”
Ruth had not expected that.
“What happened?”
“She wanted to live in Boston.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Did you love her?”
“I thought I did.”
“And?”
“I realized I wanted the idea of being married more than I wanted the life she wanted.”
Ruth considered that.
“That’s unusually sensible.”
“It didn’t feel sensible at the time.”
“What did it feel like?”
“Like failure.”
Ruth looked at him.
“And now?”
“Like avoiding a larger one.”
They smiled.
Silence followed.
Comfortable.
Then Silas said, “Your month ends Thursday.”
Ruth’s stomach tightened.
She had forgotten.
Or perhaps deliberately stopped counting.
“Yes.”
“What are you planning?”
“Return to my property.”
“You don’t have a house.”
“I can stay in the barn once the roof is finished.”
“No.”
Ruth raised an eyebrow.
Silas corrected himself.
“That sounds cold.”
“It will be spring soon.”
“Wyoming doesn’t know that.”
“I can manage.”
“I know.”
That answer irritated her more than argument.
“What?”
Silas looked down.
“Nothing.”
“Say it.”
“You can always manage.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t mean you should always have to.”
Ruth’s defenses rose.
“I will not become dependent on you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You want me to stay.”
“Yes.”
The word hung between them.
Ruth stared.
Silas did not look away.
“Why?”
He inhaled.
“Do you need me to answer?”
“Yes.”
He stepped closer.
“Because this house was quiet before you came.”
Ruth’s heartbeat increased.
“Mrs. Walsh lives here.”
“She doesn’t argue with my accounting.”
“Someone should.”
“Clara laughs in rooms that haven’t had children in them since my nieces visited eight years ago.”
Ruth swallowed.
Silas continued.
“And because every morning I walk downstairs wondering whether you’re already at the desk.”
“Silas…”
“I’m not Thomas.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be.”
The words surprised her.
“I would never ask you to forget him.”
“I know.”
“I would never ask Clara to stop loving her father.”
“I know.”
“But I…”
Silas stopped.
Ruth could hear the clock in the hall.
“What?”
He shook his head.
“It’s too soon.”
“For what?”
“For what I was about to say.”
He walked away.
Ruth stood alone in the kitchen.
She should have been relieved.
Instead she was angry.
At him.
At herself.
At Thomas for dying.
At the terrifying possibility that loving Thomas had not used up every part of her heart.
Thursday came.
Ruth packed.
Clara sat on the bed watching.
“I don’t want to go.”
“We have to.”
“Why?”
“Because we have our own place.”
“No house.”
“We’ll build one.”
“With what?”
Ruth stopped folding.
Children had no mercy.
“With work.”
“Mr. Kane has a house.”
“Yes.”
“He said we can stay.”
“Yes.”
“Then why can’t we?”
Ruth sat beside her.
“Because…”
No answer sounded right.
Because I’m afraid?
Because your father has been dead thirteen months and I feel guilty every time another man makes me laugh?
Because staying would mean admitting Kane Ranch feels more like home than the ashes we own?
Clara looked at her.
“Does Papa get mad in heaven?”
Ruth’s breath caught.
“About what?”
“If we’re happy without him.”
Ruth’s eyes filled.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
Because Thomas had written a letter making sure they survived him.
Because his last act had been to open a door rather than close one.
“Because your father loved us.”
Clara leaned against her.
Ruth held her.
A knock sounded.
Mrs. Walsh entered.
“Ruth.”
Something in the woman’s face made her stand.
“What happened?”
“Silas is in the barn.”
“So?”
“He’s hurt.”
Ruth ran.
She found three ranch hands gathered near a stall.
Silas sat against a post.
Blood covered his shirt.
Ruth’s world narrowed.
“What happened?”
Ben answered.
“Stallion kicked him.”
Silas tried to stand.
Ruth shoved him back.
“Don’t.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I noticed.”
“Someone get Whitmore.”
“Already sent.”
Silas’s face was pale.
Ruth pressed cloth against the wound beneath his ribs.
He hissed.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
The next hour became a blur.
Dr. Whitmore arrived.
Two cracked ribs.
Deep laceration.
No internal bleeding, as far as he could tell.
Silas would recover.
But when Ruth heard those words, her legs nearly failed.
That frightened her more than the blood.
That night she sat beside Silas’s bed.
He slept.
Ruth watched his chest rise.
Fall.
Rise.
She had watched another man breathe like this once.
Thomas.
Toward the end.
Every breath had been a question.
Would another follow?
Ruth could not endure it again.
She stood.
Silas woke.
“Ruth?”
“I’m here.”
“You were leaving.”
The words were slurred from laudanum.
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
Something in his voice broke her.
She sat again.
Silas’s eyes closed.
“Stay until morning.”
Ruth took his hand.
“Until morning.”
He fell asleep.
She remained.
At dawn, Clara found them that way.
Ruth asleep in the chair.
Her hand still holding Silas’s.
The packed bags remained upstairs.
And for the first time, Ruth Bellamy began to wonder whether independence required leaving every place where somebody loved her.
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