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“You obviously didn’t look hard enough.”
“I didn’t look under rocks if that’s your meaning.”
Nelson added, “I paid for that land fair and square, as did everyone else that day. If you’re willing to believe Ketchum over the banker who conducted the sale, you truly are ignorant.”
“And you’ll be eating crow when he wins.”
Randolph laughed. “Bring your suit and I’ll tie you up in court so long my grandsons will be representing my estate before it’s over.”
Although the matter was a serious one, Spring thought this was better entertainment than the traveling stage shows that came through town every now and again. She glanced at Odell. He whispered, “They should’ve sold tickets.”
She agreed.
As the squabbling continued, Nelson told Jarvis, “If I were you, I’d go back to New York. There’s been nothing but trouble since you and this piece of offal—” and he glared directly at Matt “—came to town. First, McCray gets backshot, and then the mill burns down. Coincidence? Maybe. Either way, you need to leave.”
Jarvis snapped, “Are you threatening me?”
“No. I’m telling you to go sell your snake oil somewhere else. We’ll build our own mill without your help.” And with that, he exited.
Cale said, “Your meeting’s over, Jarvis. Get the hell out of my bank.”
“I’ll see you in court.”
“I can’t wait.”
Jarvis glanced around at all the angry faces and apparently realized he had no support. Grim, he and Swan packed up the easel andmap along with the stack of brochures, and he and his party left.
Arnold Cale was still fuming when Spring, Odell, and everyone who’d remained exited. Outside, Jarvis and his group could be seen walking swiftly back to Dovie’s. Randolph Nelson, watching the retreat angrily, asked Odell and Spring, “Do you believe this?”
“I do,” Odell said. “But only because Spring told me Jarvis approached her about selling her land.”
“He did?” Randolph asked, sounding surprised. “When was this?”
Spring told him about the visit.
Randolph replied, “So he tried pressuring you first. Did he think you’d quake because you’re a woman?”
“I got that impression.”
“Then he doesn’t know you, does he?”
“No.” He wasn’t the first man to think her gender was synonymous with weakness.
Nelson asked, “Matt doesn’t actually believe that land was stolen from him, does he?”
Spring shrugged.
By then some of the others who’d been at the meeting drifted over and gave their opinions on what had transpired. Spring listened to a bit of it, but McCray, alone in her cabin, was on hermind and she wondered how he was faring. Needing to find out, she offered her goodbyes and rode for home.
In light of the attack on McCray, she kept an eye out as best she could for ambush. That Ketchum had turned what was once an uneventful ride into one that might cost her her life made her curse him inwardly. With any luck, the guilty would be found, tried, and jailed, and things would go back to being slow and peaceful again, but she didn’t count on it being anytime soon.
McCray was in bed reading. His smile at her entrance touched her heart in a way that had become familiar as of late. Rather than question or ignore it, she chose to enjoy how it made her feel. He’d come into her life in the middle of a blizzard and proceeded to quietly challenge many things she thought she knew about herself. “Glad to find you in one piece.”
“Welcome back. I told you I’d be fine.” He set the book aside as she settled into the chair by the bed.
“What are you reading?” she asked. Other than Colt, she knew very few men who read sheerly for pleasure.
“The third installment of Fred Douglass’s autobiography. How’d the meeting go?”
