I know.
Not I owe you.
Not Father sent me.
Not my sister asked.
I know.
She removed the wet coat.
The Cowboy saw the canvas sack more clearly.
“What’s that?”
“Medicine from the livestock doctor’s assistant. He said the doctor forgot it.”
The Cowboy took it.
“He gave this to you?”
“I rode past his place.”
“You rode through town first?”
“Yes.”
“And then walked two miles.”
“Yes.”
He shook his head.
“You are either extremely kind or completely insane.”
“Those may overlap.”
That was the first time he laughed in three days.
The Younger Sister smiled.
Then she saw how exhausted he looked.
The smile disappeared.
“When did you eat?”
“This morning.”
“It is morning.”
“Yesterday morning.”
She stared.
The Cowboy immediately understood he had answered incorrectly.
“Sit.”
“I have cattle dying.”
“You also have a chair.”
“I’m fine.”
“You look like death learned ranching.”
He almost laughed again.
She pointed.
“Sit.”
The wealthy cowboy whose foremen obeyed him without argument sat.
The Younger Sister opened cabinets.
She knew the kitchen better than he expected.
Of course she did.
She had been here often while helping prepare engagement dinners.
Within fifteen minutes, bacon hissed in a pan.
Coffee boiled.
Biscuits warmed near the stove.
The Cowboy ate standing despite her instruction.
She did not waste time arguing.
“Tell me what needs doing.”
“Nothing.”
She looked at him.
He corrected himself.
“Everything.”
“Better.”
They began with the sick cattle.
The Younger Sister was not delicate.
That surprised him only because he had been foolish enough to confuse quietness with softness.
She carried feed buckets heavy enough to exhaust younger ranch hands.
Her large body moved slowly through deep snow, but steadily. Where thinner people slipped in frozen mud, she planted her boots and continued.
When an injured calf refused to drink, she sat in straw beside it for forty minutes until it accepted warm milk from a bottle.
When the Cowboy told her she did not need to stay there, she answered without looking up.
“I know.”
That answer again.
By evening, the Cowboy began expecting it.
On the second day, they discovered a horse trapped beneath broken timber in the north barn.
The animal thrashed wildly.
The Cowboy tried lifting the beam.
It barely moved.
“Get rope.”
The Younger Sister disappeared.
She returned with two lengths.
Together they rigged a crude pulley around an intact support post.
“On three.”
They pulled.
The Younger Sister’s massive arms strained beneath her sleeves.
The beam lifted inches.
Enough.
The Cowboy dragged the horse free.
The animal scrambled away.
The beam crashed down.
Both of them fell backward into straw.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then the Younger Sister started laughing.
The Cowboy stared.
“What?”
She pointed.
His hair was full of hay.
“So is yours.”
“That is different.”
“How?”