Bowen’s eyes remained on her. “I’d like to know why you’re doing this.”

“I’m not sure why myself,” Karla answered quietly. She said then, “If you’re caught, they’ll make it hard for you.”

“Like what, working on a road?”

Karla hesitated. “Did you really steal cattle?”

“Now how would you know that?”

“That doesn’t matter now. Just tell me.”

“Why would you think I didn’t?”

Karla’s shoulders moved, her dark eyes still watching him. “I just have a feeling you didn’t.”

“You can sure simplify things,” Bowen said.

“But did you?” Karla asked again.

“I got to go.”

“Tell me!”

Bowen swung up to the saddle, then looked down at her.

“That man with the beard this morning-Earl Manring-he hired me in Prescott to help him drive a herd, even showed me a bill of sale for the stock. But the second day out we were arrested to stand trial for rustling. The man who’d sold Earl the stock said he never did such a thing and that the bill of sale Earl had was no good, and he said he could prove it because there wasn’t any copy of the transaction in his books.”

Karla said, “Didn’t you have a lawyer?”

“The court appointed one. We didn’t have any money for our own.”

Karla frowned. “But the man who sold you the stock-”

“Sold Earl the stock-Earl already had the bill of sale when I met him. The man’s name was McLaughlin. He took an oath that he’d never seen the bill of sale Earl had before in his life.

“Earl told me he should’ve known better than to deal with a man he didn’t know, and no wonder the stock was offered at such a good price. He said McLaughlin took advantage of him-got his money for the stock, then didn’t register it in his books, called out the law, then even got his stock back. We were arrested one day, tried the next, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it. The fastest trial I ever heard of.”