Chapter 3 - The Snows of Vance Ridge
The ride down to Vance Ridge took two days through melting slush and treacherous mountain runoff. Reed had insisted on outfitting two horses with heavy cinches and extra rations, refusing Nora’s initial insistence that she could manage the journey alone on foot or with a single pack animal.
“If we’re going into disputed territory, we go together,” Reed had told her that morning while tightening the saddle girth on her bay mare. It wasn't an order; it was a statement of fact that left no room for argument.
By late afternoon of the second day, the timberline gave way to a windswept plateau where a solitary stone-and-timber homestead sat protected against a jagged slate cliff. Arthur Vance’s place looked less like a ranch and more like an observatory—tall, narrow, with small shuttered windows facing every direction to catch the approach of any rider for miles around.
As they rode up to the hitching post, the heavy oak door of the cabin swung open immediately. An elderly man with a shock of white hair and wire-rimmed spectacles stepped out onto the porch, a double-barrel shotgun resting easily in the crook of his arm.
“State your business,” Vance called out, his voice sharp and carrying across the crisp mountain air. “If you’re selling railroad bonds or looking for work, the crew’s full and I don't buy what you’re peddling.”
“We aren't selling anything, Mr. Vance,” Reed said, dismounting and keeping his hands well away from his sidearm. “Name’s Reed Callaway. This is Nora Aldridge. We’re coming from Callaway Flats.”
Vance squinted through his spectacles, his eyes moving from Reed’s weather-beaten face to Nora, who had dismounted smoothly beside her horse. Recognition flickered in the old man's eyes, followed quickly by a sharp, defensive wariness.
“The schoolteacher from Sweetwater,” Vance muttered, lowering the gun slightly but not releasing it. “The one the sheriff’s been whispering about. Word is, you’ve got half the territorial marshals looking for you.”
“They were looking for the wrong person,” Nora said, stepping up the wooden steps of the porch. Her voice was calm, carrying the quiet authority she used to command a room full of unruly children during her first winter in the territory. “And now the federal marshal in Cheyenne is looking for Dylan Marsh. But Marsh didn't invent the Continental Basin scheme by himself, Mr. Vance. He needed someone who understood the old railroad surveys. Someone who knew where the real boundaries were drawn before the 1873 adjustments.”
Vance stared at her for a long, uncomfortable moment. The wind whistled through the eaves of the stone cabin, rattling the dry sagebrush in the courtyard.
Then, slowly, a dry, humorless chuckle escaped his throat.
“Come inside before you freeze your ears off,” Vance said, stepping back and pushing the heavy door wide. “I’ve got coffee on the stove, and if you know as much as you think you do, we’re going to need a stiff drink to wash it down.”
The interior of the cabin was cluttered with rolled maps, surveying instruments, and stacks of leather-bound ledgers piled nearly to the ceiling. It smelled of old paper, pipe tobacco, and tallow candles.
Once they were seated around a small iron stove, Vance poured three tin cups of black coffee. He didn't offer pleasantries. He sat down opposite Nora, resting his gnarled hands on the edge of the table.
“Marsh is a fool,” Vance said flatly. “Greedy, clumsy, and too arrogant to realize that when you alter a land patent, the mathematical discrepancy always shows up downstream. I saw what he was doing two years ago. I tried to warn the district office in Cheyenne, but my letters were intercepted before they ever crossed the county line.”
“By whom?” Reed asked.
“By the man who actually owns the controlling shares of Continental Basin,” Vance said, leaning forward. “A man who doesn't live in Wyoming, but whose money built half the rail spurs between here and Omaha. His name is Julian Vance—my estranged nephew.”
Nora caught her breath. “Julian Vance? The railroad investor?”
May you like
“The very same,” the old man said bitterly. “He used my name, my old survey notes, and Marsh’s office to systematically carve up forty-seven thousand acres of homestead claims. And if you think a federal audit in Cheyenne is going to stop him, you don't understand how many judges and politicians he’s got in his pocket.”
---
