Not all survived.
Some never emerged.
Others were too weak.
But more than two hundred lived.
More than two hundred broken eggs had become blinking, peeping, staggering proof that Rowan Mercer had not been a fool after all.
And Caldwell Flats came running.
Children crowded her fence.
Farmers stood openmouthed.
Women who had laughed now asked questions.
Even Elias Boone removed his hat.
“Well,” he muttered, “I’ll be damned.”
Rowan crouched among the goslings, exhausted and glowing.
“That’s one possible reaction.”
Yet while everyone stared at the miracle, Rowan noticed something strange.
The goslings did not all look alike.
Some were gray.
Some nearly black.
Others carried unusual white bands around their heads.
A dozen were larger than the rest.
Their bills were darker.
Their feet broader.
Rowan had seen common farm geese.
These were different.
She thought of the wagon driver.
Bad shipment.
Nobody will buy them.
Then she thought of the crates.
She had dragged them into the barn after gathering the eggs.
Now, for the first time, she inspected them closely.
Most had no markings.
But on the underside of one broken crate, hidden beneath mud, Rowan found a burned brand.
Three letters:
H.B.C.
Underneath them, almost scraped away, was a second mark.
BREEDING STOCK — DO NOT DISCARD.
Rowan’s stomach tightened.
Someone had lied.
That evening, after the last neighbor left, Rowan locked the barn.
She sat at her kitchen table with Silas’s old notebooks piled around her.
H.B.C.
The initials meant nothing.
She searched until midnight.
Rain began striking the windows.
Finally, inside a notebook dated 1884, she found a sentence written in her uncle’s tight handwriting.
Hawthorne Breeding Company purchased wetland stock from Elias Voss. Unusual birds. Dangerous men. Refused their offer.
Rowan read it twice.
Elias Voss?
She knew that name.
Everyone did.
Voss owned half the grain warehouses in the county.
He financed ranches.
Held mortgages.
Controlled the freight line running through Caldwell Flats.
He had been trying to buy The Sink since before Silas died.
Rowan remembered his last offer.
Five hundred dollars.
Ridiculously high for ten flooded acres.
She had refused.
His agent had smiled.
“Miss Mercer, nobody else will ever offer that much.”
“Then I guess nobody else needs it.”
Now she stared at Silas’s words.
Unusual birds. Dangerous men.
A floorboard creaked outside.
Rowan looked toward the window.
Nothing.
Then came the smell.
Smoke.
Her chair crashed backward.
She ran.
The barn roof was burning.
“NO!”
Rowan sprinted barefoot through the rain.
Flames crawled along the dry hay stacked beneath the western eave.
The goslings screamed inside.
She threw open the door.
Smoke rolled over her.
She grabbed baskets, kicked open the side gate, and began driving the birds into the muddy paddock.
“Out! Come on!”
The goslings scattered.
A burning beam fell behind her.
Rowan screamed but kept moving.
Then another figure burst through the smoke.
A man.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
He wrapped his coat around his hands and shoved the flaming beam aside.
“Get the rest!”
Rowan recognized him.
Caleb Shaw.
He rented twenty acres north of town and rarely spoke to anyone.
People said he had served in the cavalry.
Others said he had spent three years in prison.
Rowan had never asked.
Together they cleared the barn.
Rain helped extinguish the flames.
By the time neighbors arrived, half the western roof was gone, but every gosling was alive.
Rowan stood shivering in the mud.
