“Funny,” I said.
“What?”
“I’ve never known Judge Creed to move this quickly for a poor child.”
Lomax stepped forward.
“Carver—”
Pike raised a hand.
Then looked at Rose.
“Come here, sweetheart.”
She shrank behind me.
“Don’t call her that.”
Pike’s jaw moved.
“Elias, I don’t want trouble.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then comply.”
“No.”
Silence spread across the yard.
Behind me, Samuel made a small cry.
It was weak.
But it was a cry.
I had never heard a sweeter sound.
Pike looked past my shoulder.
Something changed in his face.
Not concern.
Fear.
Just for a second.
Then it disappeared.
That was the moment I knew this wasn’t about two hungry children.
“Why does Judge Creed want them?” I asked.
“He doesn’t.”
“Then why is his name on the order?”
“Procedure.”
“Why was Martha arrested?”
“Fraud.”
“What fraud?”
“County funds.”
“How much?”
Pike said nothing.
I smiled without humor.
“You don’t know.”
Lomax reached for his holster.
I rested my hand on the doorframe.
“You draw on me in my own doorway with a six-year-old behind me, Virgil, and half this county will hear about it before sundown.”
Lomax’s hand froze.
Pike studied me.
Then nodded.
“All right.”
He put his hat on.
“You want law?”
“I want truth.”
Pike mounted.
“Be in town before noon.”
“Why?”
“Judge Creed wants to see you.”
“I’d rather chew horseshoe nails.”
“He’ll issue a warrant.”
“For feeding children?”
“For obstruction.”
Pike turned his horse.
Then looked back.
“Elias.”
Something almost human appeared in his eyes.
“Don’t go looking through Martha Baines’s house.”
He rode away.
I watched the dust settle.
Rose whispered behind me.
“Are you going?”
“To town?”
“No.”
Her voice became smaller.
“To Martha’s house.”
I turned.
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
“Then look under the floor.”
Martha Baines lived behind an abandoned cooper’s shop at the edge of town.
By ten that morning Samuel was resting safely with Hannah Morrow and Dr. Whitcomb.
Rose refused to remain behind.
So she rode with me.
The Baines house had been searched.
Not casually.
Drawers lay broken across the floor.
Mattresses had been cut open.
Dishes shattered.
A cabinet door hung from one hinge.
Rose stood beside me.
“They were looking for the papers.”
“What papers?”
“Martha called them proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Show me the floor.”
Rose went to the kitchen.
Near the stove, one plank had two nailheads darker than the others.
I pried it up.
Beneath it sat a narrow tin box wrapped in oilcloth.
My hands began trembling before I even opened it.
I did not know why.
Inside were newspaper clippings.
Old land records.
A packet of letters.
A child’s silver hair ribbon.
And one photograph.
I picked it up.
The room vanished.
I had taken that photograph seventeen years earlier.
Catherine sat in a wooden chair wearing her Sunday dress.
Our daughter Lucy stood beside her.
Lucy had one hand resting on Catherine’s shoulder and the stubborn half-smile she always gave photographers because she hated being told not to move.
