She had been holding the older girl's hand.
A gust blew rain sideways.
The older girl looked toward the courthouse door for less than a second.
The toddler’s little boots lost traction on the stone.
She went down.
Not hard enough to injure her.
But enough to land in a brown puddle beside the lowest step.
The rancher pulled the reins.
His horse stopped.
He waited for the sound that should have followed.
Nothing.
The little girl sat in the mud.
Rain streamed through tangled light-brown hair and down her pale cheeks.
Her dress was already patched at both elbows and now darkened almost black around the skirt.
She looked at her hands.
Then toward the older children.
She did not lift her arms.
Did not call.
Did not ask to be picked up.
The rancher felt something tighten underneath his ribs.
Children cried when they expected someone to answer.
This child seemed to have stopped expecting.
He dismounted before he had fully decided to.
His horse shifted impatiently behind him.
The rancher tied the reins loosely to the hitching rail and crossed the muddy street.
The oldest boy saw him immediately.
His body stiffened.
The rancher stopped several feet from the toddler.
“Hello there.”
The little girl looked up.
Huge gray-blue eyes.
No response.
The rancher crouched.
Before he could extend a hand, the twelve-year-old boy stepped off the courthouse stairs and planted himself between them.
The boy was small compared with the rancher.
He still squared his shoulders.
The rancher looked at him.
The boy looked back.
“You her brother?”
The boy hesitated.
“Yes, sir.”
The answer sounded complicated.
The rancher glanced at the other children.
“All of them?”
“Yes, sir.”
The rancher looked again at the toddler.
Mud ran from her small fingers.
“She fell.”
“I know.”
“You going to pick her up?”
The boy's jaw tightened.
The rancher realized the child had mistaken the question for criticism.
“I wasn't blaming you.”
The boy said nothing.