Page 84 of Inventions of the Heart

Michelle set her potato and paring knife down and darted out of the room, frantic to get her ideas down on paper before they slid away.

Yes, all inventions started with an idea. Maybe she didn’t need a four-stroke cycle engine to change the world. Maybe she needed a really small waterwheel.

A knock at the door drew her out of her frantic note-taking and sketching. She lifted her head to see Zane.

“What time is it?” The office where she worked had north-facing windows, and she could see by the slant of the sunlight that time had passed. She looked down to see pages and pages of writing.

“Annie sent me to call you to dinner. Can you get away from your work?”

Work.

Peeling potatoes.

Learning the skills a woman needed to run a ranch house.

She’d failed again. Sheepishly, she rose from the desk. Zane’s desk. She’d taken it over. She followed him to the kitchen to be waited on by two women who were bright enough, but Michelle realized she harbored inside her thefirm notion that she was much smarter. But all the smart in the world wouldn’t feed this family. And these two seemed to have more common sense than she did.

MICHELLE, THRILLED TOBE WORKINGin her new laboratory that Jilly had built, finished the small waterwheel and faced the moment of truth.

She had a long morning ahead of her to get the water flowing, make sure it hit the paddles just right, had enough force to turn the axle at a high enough speed to give the waterwheel power. She’d studied Archimedes. She knew about the physics and mechanics of torque and how it brought force to rotation. She needed force, torque, linear momentum, and angular momentum. By adjusting all those factors, she could get a stronger force or a milder one as needed.

It worked with large waterwheels. Of course it would work with a smaller one.

About ten jobs in all, and everything had to be done and work just right. She was so excited she was giddy. Surely someone else was using the power of water for little jobs, but she’d never heard of it, and if she was copying other work, she didn’t know it. This was all her own.

She looked forward to a long quiet morning that might lead her exactly where she wanted to be.

Then Zane stopped in to see if she wanted to get out of the shed and ride out to check the cattle with him.

After she politely but firmly said no, Rick came to see if she needed help. Michelle thanked him and sent him away.

Beth Ellen came to see if she wanted to come in to coffee and cake.

Knowing she should be learning how tomakecoffee and cake, Michelle urged the sweet young woman along.

She was almost afraid to try to focus on her work. It was as if she wereinvitinginterruptions.

Finally, silence reigned.

Silence. Blessed silence.

ZANEKNEW HE’D LEFT PLENTYof people around the place. He and his men mostly rode out every day. But Neb, the cowhand cook, was in the bunkhouse, and Rick was around. Besides all the women. And anyway, no one would bother them in the middle of the day.

And Zane hoped there was no one left to bother them.

Jarvis would spend years in prison. Marshal Irving had written them that there was an intensive search for Horace Benteen, now officially wanted for murder. The man hadn’t been seen by anyone in the places he regularly frequented.

Irving wanted him but admitted in the letter that it was possible the man had left the state.

The marshal’s office had made up wanted posters and offered a reward. Either they’d catch him, or he’d be on the run. Either way, he should be out of the area, and it was safe for Annie to go home.

Which Annie seemed to have no interest in doing.

“Something’s moving up there, Zane.” Shad pointed to a rugged stretch that the cows usually avoided.

Zane studied the rough, steep stretch. It wasn’t bad to getin there from the north, but the cattle were to the south. He could see a patch of fur and some motion through the heavily forested hillside. “We get calves up there once in a while.”

“They might’ve gotten to running or been spooked by a wolf.”

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