I straightened, my chest tight. "What year did things really go south?"
"Best I can tell? Around 1914. That's when the entries stop mentioning both families together. After that, it's all separate. Hollisters are on one side, Kincaids on the other. No crossover."
That was two years after the missing file Claire had found. Two years after whatever Lois had been cross-referencing.
"Have you ever seen anything in the records about land transfers?" I asked.
Dawson's eyes narrowed. "No. Why?"
"Claire found a gap in her aunt's files around 1912.” I trusted Dawson to keep whatever we discussed to himself but didn’t want to give him more information than he needed.
He went still. "That’s the same year as the breeding overlap."
"Yeah."
We stood there in silence, the weight of it settling between us. The ledger showed cooperation. Claire's missing file pointed to something that happened the same year. Whatever went down in 1912 hadn't just been about horses or land. It had been about both. And someone had made sure the proof disappeared.
"Does Claire know about the ledger?" Dawson asked.
"Not yet."
"Are you going to tell her?"
I looked down at the ledger again, at the careful notations that proved the feud wasn't as simple as everyone believed. "She needs to see it for herself."
Dawson nodded. "Be careful. If someone pulled that file from Lois's records, they're not going to be happy if Claire starts asking questions."
"I know."
"And if this gets out before the rodeo?—"
"It won't. Not until we know what we're dealing with. Do you mind if I take a picture of this page to show her?"
“As long as this is off the record, go ahead.” Dawson waited until I’d snapped an image with my phone, then closed the ledger and locked it back in the cabinet. "You let me know if you need anything."
I clapped him on the shoulder and headed back to my truck. The sun had started to dip behind the ridge, casting long shadows across the valley. I should have been heading home. Should have been ending my shift and letting someone else handle the night patrol.
Instead, I turned toward Claire's house.
She needed to see the ledger and needed to understand that whatever her aunt had been researching wasn't just about land ownership. It was bigger than that. It might be connected to bloodlines and breeding records and a feud that had never been as clean as the town wanted to believe.
I gripped the steering wheel, my mind running through the possibilities. If the families had been cooperating in 1912, something must have broken that cooperation apart. Something bad enough that it got buried and stayed buried for a century. And if Lois had found proof of what really happened, someone had made sure it disappeared.
I'd spent my whole life keeping the peace in Mustang Mountain. Holding the lines. Making sure things didn't crack open and spill their guts all over the valley. But now I was driving toward Claire's place with information that could shake everything loose.
Maybe I should have been more careful or should have thought it through. But all I could think about was the way she'd looked at that empty divider tab, like she could already feel the shape of what was missing. She wasn't going to let this go, and I wasn't going to let her dig alone.
The snow crunched under my tires as I pulled up to the Hollister house, but before I'd even cut the engine, I heard noises coming from inside.
Something crashed. A muffled curse followed.
I was out of the truck and through the front door before I could think twice, my hand automatically going to my belt.
"Claire?"
"Don't come in here!" Her voice came from the kitchen, loud and a little out of breath. "I've got it under control."
I rounded the corner anyway and stopped. She was crouched next to the pantry, her hair falling loose from whatever she'd tied it back with, holding a glass jar in one hand and a dish towel in the other. The flour canister sat on its side on the counter with a trail of white leading to the baseboard.
