Instead she said:
“Because your letters were kind.”
Gideon froze.
“You never once asked what I looked like,” she continued. “You never asked my weight. You never asked whether I could dance or play piano. You asked whether I preferred coffee or tea. You told me your wife’s name was Rebecca and that you still visited her grave because pretending she never existed would be dishonorable.”
Her voice trembled.
“You told me you needed someone capable. Not beautiful. Not obedient. Capable.”
Gideon couldn’t speak.
“I chose you because I believed you were a good man.”
“And Taggart?”
“I knew he was hurting your ranch before I came. I intended to help if I could.”
“So you used me.”
Martha absorbed the sentence like a blow.
“Yes.”
Gideon regretted it immediately.
But he was angry.
Frightened.
Humiliated by how quickly he’d begun trusting her.
Martha folded the telegrams.
“Tomorrow I’ll leave.”
Something in him reacted.
“No.”
She looked up.
Gideon didn’t know why he’d said it.
He corrected himself.
“I mean… it’s night.”
“I’ve traveled at night before.”
“You’re my wife.”
“A wife you cannot trust.”
He had no answer.
Martha nodded.
“I’ll leave at sunrise.”
She closed the door.
Gideon stood outside for a long time.
At dawn, Red Canyon woke to gunfire.
A rider came racing through the gate.
Elias.
Blood covered his sleeve.
“They hit the north herd!”
Gideon ran.
“How many?”
“Twenty riders. Maybe more.”
“Taggart?”
“Couldn’t see.”
Then Elias grabbed him.
“They’re driving the cattle toward Canyon Pass.”
Gideon called the men.
Within minutes saddles were thrown over horses.
Martha emerged onto the porch wearing yesterday’s dress.
Gideon looked at her once.
Neither spoke.
Then the cowboys rode.
They reached Canyon Pass too late.
Two hundred cattle were gone.
The thieves had crossed onto railroad land.
Pursuing them risked arrest for trespass and theft.
It was brilliant.
Legal walls used like fences.
Gideon sat on his horse staring at dust.
Elias swore.
“We’re finished.”
Nobody contradicted him.
Then hoofbeats sounded behind them.
Martha rode up.
Gideon stared.
She sat badly but stubbornly on a chestnut mare.
“What are you doing here?”
“Counting.”
She looked toward the tracks.
“Two hundred twelve cattle.”
Elias blinked.
“How’d you know?”
“I counted yesterday.”
Martha dismounted.
She inspected hoofprints.
Then wagon tracks.
Then the cut fence.
She stood.
“Josiah didn’t do this.”
Gideon frowned.
“Of course he did.”
“No.”
“How can you know?”
“He doesn’t steal cattle like this.”
Elias barked a laugh.
“Lady, stealing’s stealing.”
“No. My brother prefers debt. Legal ownership. Paper. He wouldn’t risk twenty riders and witnesses for cattle he expects to own through foreclosure.”
Gideon stared at the trail.
“Then who?”
Martha looked toward him.
“You fired him last night.”
Jebediah.
They found him at noon.
Dead.
He lay near the river, shot through the back.
Beside him was a Red Canyon branding iron.
In his coat was an envelope containing five hundred dollars.
