Boon felt the weight of his own failure. He had been so busy counting his dwindling cattle and lamenting the “dying” of his ranch that he had forgotten the land itself was a witness to something older than poverty. The Silas gang—men who operated like locusts, taking land, livestock, and lives with a cold, corporate efficiency—had been eyeing his valley for months. He had thought their silence meant he was invisible. Now, he realized he had been under surveillance.
“How many?” Boon asked, his jaw tight.
“Three riders,” she said. “They’re tracking us. They think I have the ledger. The proof of the land titles they forged.”
The Choice in the Straw
Boon looked down at the children—four orphans of the trail, witnesses to a greed that sought to erase entire homesteads. He thought of his ledger, those pathetic little columns of red ink. For months, he had been trying to shrink his life to fit into those pages, to make himself small enough to survive the famine of his resources. But looking at these children, he realized he hadn’t been surviving; he had been fading.
“They’ll be here before sunrise,” Boon said, more to himself than to her.
“I’ll take them,” Elara said, scrambling to gather the children. “I didn’t mean to bring this to your door. I just thought—”
