Chapter 2
PART 3: The Secret Hidden in His Dead Wife's Book
The following morning, I learned that losing water on a Montana ranch could be more frightening than losing money.
Daniel returned from the upper pasture before breakfast with ice clinging to his beard and anger burning in his eyes.
Blackwood's men had closed the diversion gate on his property, leaving only a trickle in the Diamond M's watering ditch.
The water remaining in the troughs was already freezing.
Daniel and his ranch hands began hauling water from the household well, but there was not enough to sustain the cattle for long.
Rachel tried to carry buckets until I took one from her trembling hands.
“Your father needs help, Rachel, but that doesn't mean he needs you to collapse.”
She looked at the livestock beyond the fence.
“If we lose the ranch, where will we go?”
I wanted to promise that everything would be fine, but I had learned how cruel false promises could become.
“I don't know,” I admitted, “but we haven't lost it yet.”
For the next several days, I worked beside Daniel, preparing food before sunrise and carrying supplies to the barn whenever I could.
Lucas helped by gathering kindling, while Rachel gradually allowed herself to spend an hour each evening reading beside the stove.
One night, I found the little boy sitting outside my bedroom with his knees drawn against his chest.
He looked up when I opened the door.
“Do you miss your husband?”
The question startled me.
“Yes, Lucas, very much.”
He studied the floorboards.
“I miss Mama, but sometimes I can't remember her face.”
I sat beside him.
“That doesn't mean you loved her any less.”
“Will I forget her forever?”
I thought of the photograph inside my carpet bag.
“People can leave us things that stay even when our memories change.”
He leaned against my shoulder.
“Mama used to sing when it snowed.”
I put my arm around him.
“Then perhaps your papa can teach us her song.”
When Daniel found us there, he stood quietly in the hallway for several seconds.
I expected him to be uncomfortable, but his expression held a grief that seemed softened by relief.
After Lucas fell asleep, Daniel and I sat beside the kitchen stove.
“You've done more for those children in a week than I expected anyone could,” he said.
“They make it easy to care about them.”
He looked down at his hands.
“That's what frightens me.”
I turned toward him.
“I don't understand.”
“Rachel has watched people come and go, and Lucas has started following you the way he once followed his mother.”
His voice grew rough.
“I couldn't bear to see them hurt again.”
I understood that warning because I was already beginning to fear the same thing.
“I haven't promised to stay, Daniel.”
“I know.”
He looked at me.
“And I won't use their affection to make you promise.”
Something inside me shifted at the quiet respect in his words.
The next afternoon, I returned to the old account book his wife had kept.
I was searching for entries that might explain how much water the ranch had once received during difficult winters.
The early pages contained ordinary household expenses, but the later sections listed payments for ditch maintenance, fencing, and seasonal water deliveries.
Several entries carried the initials of Harrison Blackwood beside amounts paid for shared repairs.
I read them twice.
Then I found folded receipts tucked between two pages, some bearing Blackwood's signature and referring directly to the Diamond M's use of the upper ditch.
My heart began racing.
I carried the book into Daniel's office, where he sat calculating how long his remaining water could last.
“Did your wife keep these records herself?”
He looked at the familiar cover.
“Every year we were married.”
“Then why haven't you shown them to anyone?”
His expression closed.
“Because I haven't opened that book properly since she died.”
I placed the receipts before him.
“Daniel, these show that your ranch paid for water access and repairs long before Blackwood began demanding a marriage.”
He leaned forward.
As he examined the faded signatures, I saw disbelief give way to something dangerously close to hope.
“He always claimed he merely allowed us to use the ditch as a favor.”
I pointed to a dated entry.
“People don't normally collect regular payments for favors over so many years.”
Daniel stood so abruptly that his chair scraped across the floor.
“These could help us prove our rights at the hearing.”
I felt a surge of triumph unlike anything I had experienced since arriving in Montana.
For the first time, I was helping protect a home instead of begging to be allowed inside one.
That evening, a young woman arrived at the ranch while Daniel was away checking his remaining water supplies.
She introduced herself as Victoria Blackwood.
I recognized her name immediately and braced myself for another cruel encounter.
Instead, she looked exhausted and frightened.
“My father knows Daniel won't marry me,” she said, “but he refuses to stop.”
I invited her into the kitchen.
She explained that she loved another man and had repeatedly begged her father to abandon his plan.
“He says affection has nothing to do with marriage when land and money are involved.”
I felt a bitter familiarity in those words.
“My husband's family believed something similar.”
Victoria glanced at the account book on the table.
“My father told me he could make Daniel surrender the ranch if he wanted.”
Her hands tightened together.
“He also told me that marrying Daniel would make all the trouble disappear.”
I showed her one of the receipts.
“Do you recognize this signature?”
She leaned closer.
“Yes, that's my father's.”
I drew a careful breath.
“Would you be willing to tell the county officials that he offered to abandon the water claim if Daniel agreed to marry you?”
Victoria went pale.
“If I speak against him, he'll never forgive me.”
I understood the terror in her voice.
Losing a family was not an abstract possibility to me.
Before I could answer, the kitchen door opened.
Harrison Blackwood stood on the threshold, his eyes moving from his daughter to the receipts spread across the table.
Victoria rose slowly.
“Father.”
He stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
“So this is where you've been hiding.”
I moved closer to the account book.
Blackwood noticed the signed receipts and understood immediately what we had discovered.
His expression hardened.
“Victoria, you will come home with me, and you will forget every word spoken in this house.”
She shook her head.
“I won't help you destroy Daniel's family.”
Blackwood's face turned cold.
“Then understand something before you say another word against me.”
May you like
He pointed toward the door.
“If you testify for them at that hearing, you will no longer have a father or a home to return to.”
