Epilogue
Colton's case turned out to be the kind that was televised.
Not every play by play, but highlights came up on the news, and Jo discovered there were podcasters who covered court cases the same way other people covered video games or movies.
It was remarkably comforting to listen in on the case while she worked on the ranch; hearing Colton's voice made him seem closer, and they talked every night, catching each other up on their days.
Hers were incredibly busy in ways Jo had never expected: talking to National Park Service people, to news outlets, to anthropologists and archaeologists.
Several of those last were actually staying at the ranch house and driving out to the cave site every morning.
Jo went with them as often as she could, exploring where she was allowed.
The cave she and Colton had fallen into was the first of five, leading deeper underground and then back up to a startlingly large hollow within 'her' butte.
"Within my butte," she'd said when Colton started laughing at her phrasing. "Not within my butt! Within my butte!"
They were, in fact, calling it Talbott Butte, at least unofficially.
Jo expected it would be renamed for the ancient peoples who had once lived and painted there, but identifying exactly who they'd been was a work in progress.
Probably the ancestors of the modern-day Blackfeet or Chippewa tribes that still peopled this part of Montana, but an official announcement would wait on the studies currently being conducted.
Over the past few months, she'd learned far more about designating archaeological sites and national park areas than she'd ever thought there was to know.
The fact that a new site had been discovered was barely even news yet: they had so much cataloguing and exploration to do that it had been announced in a few academic publications, but the rest of the world hadn't really been informed.
It reminded Jo of reading stories about dinosaur fossil excavations where the news cycle suddenly got very excited about what turned out to be a discovery from years earlier.
It was just that the whole process was so slow that by the time it got to the part where ordinary people might be interested, it was old news in its field.
She'd had no idea, previous to this. But every minute of it had been fascinating, in its way—and never mind that it had literally saved the ranch, although to be fair…
Jo still hadn't quite recovered from the Drew family as a whole.
There were so many of them, but even more than that, it was as if they'd all sat down as children and discussed how they could be the most help to the largest number of people.
It seemed like every single one of them was an expert in something or other.
One of the in-laws, a tax accountant, had sat down with her parents and gone over the books and called in an expert in ranching and stabilized their finances.
One of his sisters freelanced as an architect and upon hearing the Talbotts wanted to pivot toward sightseeing, started to draw up plans that 'they could pay her for later,' and got in contact with an investor who worked with what they called 'American safaris' who was prepared to make long-term investments with little early payoff.
And it had gone on like that, over and over.
The Drews liked to help, and they were good at it.
Jo's parents had balked once or twice, but the truth was they were all grateful for the help, and although Colton was stuck in New York until the case was over, there was almost always a Drew visiting, which made Jo feel closer to him, too.
They flew to see each other on long weekends or when the court was closed for some other reason, and that helped, but nothing actually prepared Jo for the moment when her phone rang in the middle of the morning, long before Colton was supposed to be out of court, and his exultant face appeared on her screen. "We won."
"What?" Jo nearly dropped her phone as her heart leaped with excitement. "What?"
Colton's brown eyes shone so much that tears rose in her own.
"We won," he said again. "Corpus has to pay out literal billions for their environmental damages and provide an in-depth corporate plan to follow in order to reverse as much of what they've done as possible.
They'll appeal it, obviously, but we were arguing this at the state level already, so they're going to have to go to the circuit courts or the Supreme Court, and in the meantime the judge has declared them in contempt and liable for massive fines if they don't begin their payouts within thirty days and their new mitigation and reparation plans within ninety. "
Jo had to sit down, her knees weakening with astonishment. "But…fines. Fines aren't enough to keep huge corporations from doing what they want. A fine is just how much it costs to do business for them."
"The judge knows that," Colton said gleefully.
"He's set the fines at ninety percent of their profit margin, averaged over the past ten years.
Even if they cook the books like crazy going forward that's years of meaningful fines.
Their stockholders are already screaming.
It's the greatest thing I've ever heard. "
"You're incredible," Jo whispered.
He beamed at her. "Elle and Marci did a lot of the heavy lifting, but we made a good team. But Jo, this means I can come home. Jerry's happy enough for me to work out of Montana. I'll have to fly back—"
Jo shrieked and hugged her phone. Colton's laughter rose up from her chest. "This is nice, but I'd rather have my face right here for real."
She pulled the phone back again so she could see him, her grin threatening to split her face. "Me too. Are you sure, though? You don't need to be on hand?"
"I'm under strict orders not to leave until the celebration party tonight, and we'll probably be doing interviews and providing a kind of firewall for the plaintiffs because some of them are really literally still kids, so it may be a few days, but yeah, I'm done in New York, Jo. I'm coming home to you."
"That's the best thing I've ever heard. Ever.
I can't wait to show you what they've excavated in the caves since you were here last. And it's finally thawed, so we're breaking ground for cabins next week, and your sister knows everybody in the construction industry across the entire country, as far as I can tell, so we've got this supply chain that's crazy-good set up, and—" Jo caught her breath, suddenly trying not to cry. "And I can't wait to see you again."
"I can't wait, either. I—" He glanced off-camera, then came back to her with an apologetic smile. "I'm supposed to go talk to the news cameras. I'll see you as soon as I can, all right? I love you."
"I love you too," Jo whispered, overwhelmed, and when he hung up she shrieked loudly enough to annoy the bison, then ran to the house to share the news.
THREE MONTHS LATER
The only problem with having a heritage site on the property, Jo had discovered, was it meant she had to get permission to do more paintings on 'her' butte.
It had actually caused quite a discussion: the most important part of the site was inside the butte, but the U-shaped curve where Jo had done her paintings turned out to have been a camp site, too.
She'd known there were arrowheads and things scattered around, but a real archaeology team had plotted it all out and done a couple of digs, and there were quite a lot of artifacts and materials beneath the surface that helped tell the story of the people who had once lived there.
On the other hand, she was told that her own paintings had become part of that story.
They weren't prehistoric, no, but they weren't graffiti, either: they were meant to tell the story of the people who lived there now.
After listening to a long debate amongst anthropologists and archaeologists, Jo drove out to speak to the local tribal elders.
Their peoples had been the original settlers of the land; she felt that if they thought her own paintings didn't belong, or shouldn't be added to, then that was the answer she should heed.
A handful of indigenous artists from both reservations came to look at her old work, and with a certain sense of joy, offered a solution: they would paint the butte walls, so the story of discovering the caves could be told where people could see it.
The paintings would fade much more quickly out there where they were exposed to the elements than they would inside the caves, but Jo felt like that was as it should be.
After all, she'd started with chalk drawings that had almost entirely disappeared before she repainted them with ocher, and even those had been done eight or ten years ago and were greatly faded.
She liked the idea of paintings that highlighted the moment but ultimately passed into time; it was the prehistoric art of the ancient peoples that had lasted, and should last, while everything else moved through.
The project was cleared—secretly, without Colton's knowledge—by various heritage and preservation teams, and it was nearly September when Jo finally brought him down to the site to show him their story, rendered in red and yellow paint against the rough butte walls.
Mountains, and a plane; an X to mark the spot, and an absolutely hysterical painting of a human figure falling into a hole, arms up, eyes wide, mouth round in distress.
Jo giggled every time she saw that one, even after weeks of seeing it in progress.
Then, in an image representing the caves themselves, a large creature, heavily stylized, spread its wings around copies of the paintings in the caves below, while the human who'd fallen gazed in astonishment at the paintings.
Jo bit her lip, watching Colton 'read' the story, and then watching his gaze go back to the winged creature in the painting.
It didn't look like a chimera, honestly.
It was, Jo thought, closer to a thunderbird, or even to an abstract creator spirit, protecting the paintings.
But Colton could see it for what it also was, and he turned to her with shining eyes.
"You put me into the paintings," he whispered hoarsely.
"You made me part of the story. You made my chimera part of the story.
Jo, this is astonishing. How did you explain it… ?"
Somehow she was nearly crying, too, though her smile was so wide it hurt her cheeks.
"I told the truth. I said that for our whole journey we were protected by a magical presence that helped us survive.
I said that it felt like we were enfolded in its wings, and I said that without it, we never would have found the caves.
I asked if we could honor that magical being, because it had kept us safe, and shown us how to bring these paintings back to the world.
I believe that, Colton," she said raspily. "I believe it with all my heart."
"You're the most astonishing woman I've ever met," he said, sounding dazed. "Thank you, Jo. I can't repay you for this. I don't even know what to say."
"Well." Jo smiled nervously, and knelt as she put her hand into her jeans pocket to take out a simple gold band with a single diamond embedded in it. "You could say yes when I ask you to marry me. Will you?"
Colton Drew's mouth fell open and for a few seconds he just gaped at Jo and the ring. Then he said, "Oh my God. Yes!" and laughed incredulously as Jo, her hands shaking, slid the ring on his finger before standing up so he could crush her in a hug. "Jo! How long have you been planning this?"
She mumbled, "Months," into his chest. "Definitely since the day you won your case and I had a timeline on getting you back to me. I love you, Colton. I love my world with you in it. I want to start forever with you as soon as possible."
"Me too. I want that too. Even if we already have."
"Officially," Jo said, amused. "I want to start it officially as soon as possible. By the way, your entire family will be here this weekend."
"What!"
"Labor Day weekend." Jo tilted her head back, eyes sparkling as she looked up at Colton. "I invited them all. In case you wanted to just go ahead and get married then."
"There are twenty-six of them, Jo! No, twenty-seven, Elsie and Jack had a baby in June. You organized twenty-seven people without any of them leaking it to me?"
"And your office, and my family," Jo said happily. "Although most of your coworkers are going to be attending online. If that's okay."
"Of course it's okay, you incredible woman! My God! Come on! Let's go back to the house and tell everybody the wedding is on! But what am I going to wear? I don't have a tux."
"Yes, you do."
"Yes, I do," Colton echoed, then laughed aloud pulled Jo in for a kiss.
They made it back to the house eventually, for first their wedding, and then for their happily ever after.