Rachel shook her head. “By spring we’ll have let almost a year go by. Especially when you add the time it might take to run our investigation. When these legal matters have dragged on that long, a judge might consider them settled and not overrule it. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and the ownership will have stood for a decent amount of time. I don’t think we should let this go on that long. Falcon, do you think we can track down the date of your mother’s death?”

He nodded. “The circuit rider wrote down things like births and deaths. He’d have the exact dates, in the church in Chickahoochi Cove. And I know the parson came out. It’s hard to say how he’d heard about Ma passin’, but word seemed to spread up and down the holler like it was carried on the wind. He didn’t make it for the buryin’, but he came along soon after and prayed over Ma’s grave and talked to me about coming out with him. He offered to let me live with him.”

“And you didn’t go?” Cheyenne asked. “You were so young, and you chose to live alone?”

Falcon shrugged. “The parson was a fine man, but he was married and had six kids, in a one-bedroom cabin not much bigger’n mine. I should’ve probably offered to take some of his young’uns in with me. He sure enough didn’t need another.”

Cheyenne patted him on the shoulder but didn’t comment.

“I probably knew enough to say, ‘Ma died last week,’ or, ‘Ma’s been gone three days.’ Something that’d give him a decent guess at the date. He’d’ve written it down. Send someone to Chickahoochi Cove to look at the church papers.”

“I’ll ride out tonight.” Rachel stood from the table. “I’ll gather a few things to take. Are you sure the town on past Casper is far enough?”

“It’s White Rock Station. It’s off the train route, but it has a telegraph office,” Cheyenne said.

“Cheyenne and I will ride along,” Falcon added.

Kevin and Win didn’t argue. No one liked it, but Rachel was determined and had said so loud and clear. She’d planned to go alone.

“The whole idea is for no one to notice anything going on. No one even knows I’m here, so they won’t miss me. No one knows me in any town around here, so no reason my wire will draw attention. If I’m with a group, it changes everything.”

“You can’t ride in the night alone. It ain’t safe,” Falcon said.

“I rode out here alone.”

Narrowing his eyes, Falcon said, “That don’t mean you should’ve.”