Page 39 of Follow the Lonesome Trail
It was such a little thing, and yet it felt like the world, being in the barn her husband had worked many a late night in, smelling the food, and hearing the familiar sounds of someone eating.
She should go. But this moment—her heart had been longing for a moment like this, and it was going to be over the moment she walked out.
Behind her, she could hear the slow scrape as he poured out beans onto his plate.
“Ma’am?”
She turned to face him, hoped the tears in her eyes didn’t show in the dim light.
“It ain’t really my place, and I ain’t no good with words, but times gonna be better for you. I know it. You got backbone, more’n they do. You’ll outlast them.”
It took her a moment for the words to get out, and when they did, they were soft and dry.
“Thank you.”
Morning came. Bright, as it often did after a storm. Snow lay in drifts against all the buildings, like cobwebs in the corners of an abandoned room. It was melting off the sides of the cattle bunched together in the corrals. There were over a hundred now, by her reckoning, and that was enough to give her hope. They looked good.
She pulled her coat collar higher on her neck. The day was warming, but vestiges of the bitter wind came in fitful bursts.
As she passed the corrals, she saw hoof tracks in the snow outside the barn, leading away. He’d left.
She opened the door anyway. No sign of his being here, except the coffee pot and the empty bean pot. Even the medicine cupboard was closed.
Last night could almost have been a dream, and yet she felt the difference. She knew what she had to do next, and now she had the courage to do it.
Teller and Hughes arrived later that day, bringing in a meager seven head. She met them down at the west corral, pulling down the poles for them to drive the cattle in.
Nothing seemed off about them, save the lack of cows for the time they’d been gone.
“I hate to say it, this might be all we have,” said Teller, taking off his hat to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
“You looked in the valley?”
“Sure did.”
“What about the storm?”
“We holed up in the Braggs cabin down on the riverbend. The cattle did fine.”
“I’m glad. The wind was fierce.”
Hughes nodded in wry agreement.
“Well, go put the horses up,” she said. “They look done in.”
She walked with them as they rode up past the corrals and noticed how they took in the extra head in the south one.
“Where’d these come from?” asked Teller, looking over the new cattle.
“They made their way home,” she said. They didn’t need to hear, and she wasn’t about to put her benefactor at any more risk than he probably was already.
“That’s a lot of cattle to come back themselves,” muttered Hughes.
“On that note,” she began, “I must let you know that I will no longer need your help here.”
Teller stopped his horse. “What?”
“I can’t afford to pay you beyond what you’re owed this week. I expect you to gather your gear and be gone within the hour.”
