Frequently.
He remained too protective.
She remained too willing to investigate danger herself.
Once she rode into town during a flood warning because county records were being moved.
He met her halfway home.
Furious.
“What were you thinking?”
“That documents drown.”
“So do wives.”
“I can swim.”
“Not through a flooded canyon.”
“Stop shouting.”
“Stop nearly dying.”
She became equally angry.
“You do not own my decisions.”
“I know.”
“Then act like it.”
He went silent.
That was worse.
They rode home separately.
That night neither spoke during supper.
At midnight he appeared beside her desk.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked up.
“For shouting?”
“For making fear sound like authority.”
Her anger weakened immediately.
She sighed.
“I’m sorry too.”
“For?”
“Riding during flood warnings.”
“Good.”
“That is not permission to become smug.”
“Understood.”
They kissed.
Problem solved badly but sufficiently.
Her body remained large.
Age changed it.
Children changed it.
Life changed it.
She never became thin.
The world did not reward her with transformation into somebody easier for strangers to approve.
Her husband never seemed to understand why anyone expected it to.
One winter she caught herself criticizing her reflection before a town dinner.
“This dress makes me enormous.”
The cowboy stood behind her.
“You are enormous.”
She turned slowly.
Dangerous.
He immediately realized phrasing had failed.
“Continue carefully.”
He lifted both hands.
“I mean you're a large woman.”
“Yes.”
“You know this.”
“Yes.”
“I know this.”
“Yes.”
“I married you with full access to eyesight.”
She tried not to laugh.
He approached.
“The dress doesn't create anything.”
“It fits you.”
“You look beautiful.”
“Those can all be true together.”
Her expression softened.
“You've improved.”
“Twenty years of training.”
“Slow student.”
“Terrible teacher.”
She kissed him anyway.
The tattoo portrait faded with age.
Ink softened.
The cowboy rider became less sharp.
One evening she suggested having them refreshed.
Her husband refused.
“Why?”
“They're allowed to age.”
“That sounds philosophical.”
“I dislike needles.”
She stared.
The feared Black Ridge Wolf.
“That's the truth?”
“Yes.”
She laughed for several minutes.
At sixty-two, the mountain cowboy finally admitted his shoulder hurt in cold weather.
At sixty-four, his knee.
At sixty-seven, everything if asked honestly.
His wife developed arthritis too.
They complained competitively.
Their children refused to judge.
The ranch passed gradually to the next generation.
The couple kept the original cabin.
They preferred it.
One autumn evening, nearly forty years after the woman first arrived in Black Pine, they lay in the same bed beneath a newer quilt.
The cowboy was still broad.
Less muscular.
Hair mostly gray.
Beard silver.