“Will he help?”
Nola asked.
“He hated Wren.”
“Why?”
“Called him a traveling bottle salesman.”
“Excellent.”
“Seventy miles.”
“Not excellent.”
Eli said:
“I can take it.”
“No.”
“Stop saying no before I finish.”
“No.”
The boy glared.
Nola smiled.
Garrick said:
“I’ll send one of the hands.”
Nola looked toward the window.
“What hands?”
Silence.
Exactly.
Most ranch workers had left months ago because Garrick could no longer pay wages consistently.
One remained.
Old Amos Reed, sixty-seven, bad knee, loyal beyond reason.
He could ride.
Slowly.
Garrick hesitated.
Nola said:
“Send Amos.”
“He’s old.”
Nola raised an eyebrow.
“You’re going to stop using that word around me.”
“You’re twenty-five.”
“Yes.”
“And somehow already terrifying.”
“Good.”
Amos left before dawn carrying two sealed samples hidden beneath coffee beans in a tin.
Nola watched him disappear east.
Then they waited.
Waiting was harder than fighting.
Three days passed.
Weston improved steadily without the tonic.
By the second day, he complained about broth.
By the third, he stole half a biscuit from Clara.
Nola considered it the finest theft she had ever witnessed.
Garrick began working the ranch again.
Not sixteen hours.
Eight.
Nola forced meals on him.
He complained.
Ate anyway.
The children changed too.
Clara started talking.
Eli stopped sleeping beside Weston’s room.
The house still held grief.
But grief no longer occupied every chair.
Nola cleaned without erasing Mae.
That mattered.
She left the blue ribbon in the box.
The photograph on the mantel.
The sewing basket beside the chair.
When Garrick noticed, he said nothing.
But that evening he repaired the broken hinge on Nola’s bedroom door.
She noticed.
Said nothing.
That was how trust began between stubborn people.
Not declarations.
Repairs.
Crow arrived on the fourth day.
No doctor.
No deputy.
Just Vernon Crow.
He rode a magnificent chestnut gelding and wore a black coat that had never known honest dust.
Garrick met him on the porch.
Nola remained visible through the kitchen window.
Crow smiled.
“Garrick.”
“Vernon.”
“Heard the little one took sick.”
“Getting worse.”
Nola dropped a tin pan inside for effect.
Clara nearly laughed.
Garrick kept his face empty.
Crow removed his hat.
“Damn shame.”
“Yes.”
“Doctor Wren doing what he can?”
Garrick’s hand twitched.
Only once.
Nola saw.
Crow did not.
“I suppose.”
Crow looked across the ranch.
Fences sagging.
Barn roof damaged.
Cattle thinner than they should be.
He smelled weakness.
Nola could almost see greed relaxing inside him.
“About my offer…”
Garrick said nothing.
Crow continued:
“Six thousand.”
“You offered four last month.”
“Feeling generous.”
“My water rights alone are worth more.”