“He made me promise something.”
Her expression hardened slightly.
“What?”
“Not marriage.”
The cowboy almost smiled.
“He knew better.”
The woman said nothing.
“He made me promise that if he died, I would bring you the letter.”
“And the evidence.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Then why did you come here wounded instead of simply mailing it?”
“Because the men hunting me know where the evidence leads.”
“The cabin?”
“Maybe.”
“And because…”
He hesitated.
The woman waited.
“I wanted to see you.”
Her chest tightened.
“You didn’t know me.”
“No.”
“You knew stories.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t knowing me.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
The cowboy looked down at his hand.
“When your brother was dying, he wasn’t afraid for himself.”
“He kept talking about whether you had enough wood.”
The woman laughed once through tears.
“He would.”
“He made me angry.”
“Why?”
“Because he was bleeding out and worrying whether his sister had winter wood.”
The cowboy swallowed.
“And I remember thinking…”
He stopped.
“What?”
“That whoever this woman was, somebody should worry about her for once.”
The woman looked away.
He continued.
“Then I spent two years carrying his letter.”
“At first because I owed him.”
“Then because every time I almost came here without proof, I thought I’d only bring you pain.”
“So I kept searching.”
“And somewhere along the way, the woman in his stories stopped feeling like an obligation.”
The woman looked back.
“You fell in love with stories?”
“No.”
“I became curious.”
“That’s different.”
“Then I saw you.”
“When?”
“Before I collapsed.”
“No.”
“Before that.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I watched your cabin from the ridge for nearly an hour.”
“That is unsettling.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“I thought men might be here.”
“I needed to know it was safe.”
“And what did you see?”
The cowboy’s mouth moved faintly.
“You splitting wood.”
The woman groaned.
“Of course.”
“You were arguing with a goat.”
Her eyes widened.
“You saw that?”
“Yes.”
“That animal had eaten my laundry.”
“I gathered.”
“You laughed?”
“A little.”
She stared.
He smiled weakly.
The smile changed his entire face.
Less dangerous.
Younger.
The woman noticed and immediately resented herself for noticing.
The cowboy continued.
“Then you carried two buckets at once even though one handle was breaking.”
“And you stopped three times to fix a fence post.”
“You cursed at the weather.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“I may have criticized it.”
He smiled again.
“And I thought…”
The woman waited.
“What?”
“That your brother had not described you well at all.”
Her chest tightened.
“Better?”
“Different.”
“Which?”