Silas spent the night in a cell behind the Dry Creek sheriff's office.
He had slept in worse places.
What troubled him was May.
He imagined her asking where he was.
He imagined Clara sitting beside her.
And for the first time since Sarah's death, Silas understood that he feared losing more than his daughter.
He feared losing the blue-dressed woman who had stood with her arms crossed on a porch and offered him an impossible bargain.
At seven the next morning, the sheriff entered.
"Your wife is terrifying."
Silas sat up.
"What happened?"
Sheriff Dalton unlocked the cell.
"You're leaving."
Silas stared.
"That was quick."
"Don't look so pleased. Clara Higgins—Thorne, I suppose—arrived before dawn carrying enough account books to bury a banker."
Silas smiled.
"Sounds like her."
The sheriff opened the door.
"She also found Henry Latham."
Silas knew the name.
Henry's ranch had been foreclosed by Gideon Pike six months earlier.
"Where?"
"Sleeping behind the livery."
Silas emerged.
"What does he know?"
"Enough."
In the front office, Clara stood beside a gaunt older man.
Gideon Pike stood across from them.
For once, he was not smiling.
Clara turned when Silas entered.
For one second her relief was obvious.
Then she regained control.
"You're late."
"I was incarcerated."
"Excuses."
Silas nearly laughed.
Henry Latham pointed at photographs of the cattle brands.
"Those were mine."
Gideon's face reddened.
"They became my property after foreclosure."
"Cattle didn't," Henry said. "Agreement covered land and structures. Herd was pledged separately to the territorial bank."
Sheriff Dalton looked at Gideon.
"That true?"
Gideon shrugged.
"Legal details."
"Sounds like theft."
"Sounds like a bookkeeping disagreement."
Clara stepped closer.
"And you accused my husband of stealing cattle you may not legally own."
Gideon's eyes turned cold.
"Your husband."
"Yes."
"You've known him a month."
"And somehow I trust him more than I've trusted you in ten years."
The room went silent.
Gideon picked up his hat.
"This isn't over."
Clara's answer was immediate.
"It is for today."
Silas and Clara left together.
Outside, May flew across the street from Mrs. Fletcher's arms.
"Papa!"
Silas caught her.
"Hey, bug."
She squeezed his neck.
"I knew you didn't steal cows."
"Good."
"Mama Clara said Mr. Pike lies so much his own tongue probably gets confused."
Silas looked at Clara.
She cleared her throat.
"I was upset."
Mrs. Fletcher laughed.
The accusation collapsed, but Gideon did not.
Over the next two months, small disasters began striking the Thorne ranch.
A fence was cut.
Twenty head wandered three miles before Silas found them.
Then the creek diversion gate mysteriously broke.
A week later, salt stored in the barn was contaminated with something that sickened two calves.
None of it was enough to prove sabotage.
All of it cost money.
Clara's savings diminished.
"They're bleeding us slowly," Silas said.
Clara sat at the kitchen table surrounded by account pages.
"We can survive until spring."
"If winter's mild."
Neither said what both remembered.
The great die-up had taught Wyoming never to trust winter.
Silas studied the figures.
"Sell my horse."
Clara looked up.
"No."
"It's worth forty dollars."
"No."
"I can work without—"
"Absolutely not."
"It gets us seed."
Clara closed the ledger.
"You walked three states with your daughter on your back. You are not losing the first good horse you've had because Gideon Pike behaves like a criminal."
"Then what?"
"We adapt."
Silas leaned back.
"How?"
Clara pointed at the cattle records.
"Thomas believed the future out here wasn't giant herds."
"Smaller herds."
"Hardier animals. Better hay storage. Less dependence on open range."
Silas nodded slowly.
"Sell half before winter."
"The weakest half."
"Buy feed."
"Build windbreaks."
Silas smiled.
Clara raised a brow.
"What?"
"I like watching you declare war with a pencil."
"I've always considered arithmetic more reliable than bullets."
They began immediately.
Dry Creek laughed.
Ranchers were accustomed to measuring success by herd size.
When Silas sold nearly half their cattle in September, Gideon called it proof that the ranch was collapsing.
"Thorne's running Clara into the ground," he told anyone listening.
Silas ignored him.
He bought hay.
Lots of it.
He repaired an abandoned sod barn and converted it into winter shelter.
Clara calculated feed requirements so carefully that every bale had a purpose.
They dug trenches for windbreak fencing.
Jonah Pierce helped.
So did Amos Bell.
Soon three neighboring ranchers asked what Silas was doing.
He told them.
Two laughed.
One copied him.
At home, something else changed.
The distance between Silas and Clara narrowed.
He moved the cot closer to the bed when autumn nights grew colder.
Neither mentioned it.
One night, rain hammered the roof.
May slept in her room.
Clara woke from a nightmare.
Silas heard her gasp.
He sat up.
"Clara?"
She was trembling.
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
He lit the lamp.
Her face was wet with tears.
"Thomas?"
She shook her head.
"The babies."
Silas sat on the edge of her bed.
Clara whispered, "Sometimes I dream I hear them."
He took her hand.
"I used to wake thinking Sarah was cooking breakfast."
Clara looked at him.
"Does it stop?"
"No."
Her face fell.
"It changes."
"How?"
Silas considered.
"At first remembering them feels like dying."
His thumb moved across her hand.
"Then one day, remembering them feels like proof they lived."
Clara began crying again.
Silas opened his arms.
She entered them without hesitation.
They sat together while rain covered the silence.
Eventually Clara lifted her face.
Their eyes met.
This kiss was not part of a bargain.
It was slow.
Uncertain.
When they separated, Silas rested his forehead against hers.
"Tell me to stop."
"I don't want you to."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
He kissed her again.
Outside, rain swept across the Wyoming plains.
Inside, two people who believed love belonged only to the lives they had buried discovered that the heart could grieve and begin again at the same time.
Morning brought embarrassment.
May solved it.
She walked into the bedroom without knocking, looked at the empty cot, then at Silas lying beside Clara.
Her eyes widened.
"Oh."
Clara turned bright red.
Silas stared at the ceiling.
May grinned.
"Are you really married now?"
"Go eat breakfast," Clara said.
May ran from the room laughing.
Silas covered his face.
"I'm moving back to Nebraska."
"Without boots?"
"Good point."
The happiness lasted three days.
Then Amos Bell arrived at a gallop.
"Storm's coming."
Silas looked at the clear western sky.
"How bad?"
"Telegraph from Cheyenne. Temperature dropping forty degrees. Snow behind it."
Clara stepped onto the porch.
"When?"
"Tomorrow night, maybe sooner."
Silas's expression changed.
They had prepared.
But not enough.
No ranch ever was.
By afternoon, the sky darkened.
The wind shifted north.
Animals became restless.
Silas and Clara worked until their hands went numb.
They moved cattle into protected fields.
Stocked water.
Filled the sod barn.
Carried wood.
May helped Clara pack blankets.
At dusk, Silas saw riders on the northern ridge.
Three men.
They disappeared moments later.
He said nothing.
But that night he slept with his rifle beside him.
The storm arrived before dawn.
Snow slammed against the house.
Wind screamed through every crack.
Visibility fell to several yards.
At breakfast, Clara counted the cattle visible from the window.
Then counted again.
Her face went white.
"Silas."
"What?"
"The south herd."
He looked.
The gate stood open.
Forty-two cattle were gone.
Silas ran for his coat.
Clara grabbed his arm.
"You can't go out there."
"If they drift toward the ravine, we'll lose every one."
"You'll die."
He looked at her.
"Everything we have is in that herd."
"No."
Clara's grip tightened.
"Everything I have is standing in this kitchen."
Silas stopped.
May watched from the table.
Fear filled her eyes.
Silas knelt in front of her.
"Papa has to bring the cows home."
"Don't."
"I know this weather."
"You said Wyoming weather lies."
He smiled faintly.
"I did say that."
May threw her arms around him.
Silas stood.
Clara's face was pale with anger and terror.
"If you're not back in two hours—"
"You stay here."
"Absolutely not."
"Clara."
"You do not get to marry me and then order me to become a widow."
Despite everything, he almost smiled.
She shoved a scarf against his chest.
"Two hours."
Silas kissed her.
Then May.
And walked into the blizzard.
An hour later, Clara heard a gunshot somewhere beyond the storm.
Then another.
And she understood.
The gate had not opened by accident.
Someone was out there with Silas.