She looked.
“You don’t want percentage?”
“No.”
“My brother offered.”
“I know.”
“Why not?”
“I want horses and stalls.”
He shrugged.
“Not your life.”
The words landed strangely.
She looked away.
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
She climbed stairs.
Halfway, he called:
“One thing.”
She turned.
“Your father talked about you.”
Her chest tightened.
“What?”
“He said if he ever left stable to anybody, it would be person who knew which horse hated thunder.”
She swallowed.
The bay mare.
The woman had been the only one who could calm her.
The mountain man continued:
“He knew.”
She went upstairs before he saw tears.
The next morning they rode toward county seat.
The older brother was gone before dawn.
His room empty.
A note on table:
You’ll destroy us both.
The stable woman read once.
Burned it in stove.
The mountain man did not ask.
The road took most of a day in good weather.
It was not good weather.
Clouds hung low.
Snow threatened.
The stable woman rode a chestnut mare.
The mountain man rode black gelding.
He kept enough distance not to crowd.
That detail mattered more than she expected.
Men often rode slightly ahead of women by habit.
He rode beside when path allowed.
Behind when narrow.
Never assumed front.
Near noon, a fallen pine blocked road.
The mountain man dismounted.
“Could cut.”
The stable woman looked.
“Take an hour.”
“Go around?”
“Creek bank.”
“Soft.”
She pointed to slope.
“There’s old logging track above.”
He looked.
“You know?”
“My father hauled timber.”
He followed.
No argument.
The mountain man was stronger.
The stable woman knew mountains.
Competence shifted by terrain.
Good partnership, she realized, might be less about who led and more about knowing when.
She immediately became annoyed by thought.
This was business trip.
Not courtship.
He had not asked to court.
Good.
Town talk had already made marriage a humiliation.
She wanted nothing to do with thinking about him that way.
At county seat, they went to recorder’s office.
The clerk examined deed.
Older man.
Wire spectacles.
Suspicious.
He read seal.
Witnesses.
Signature.
“Could be authentic.”
The stable woman hated could.
“What do I need?”
“Proof execution.”
“One witness alive?”
The mountain man raised hand.
The clerk looked at him.
“You’re witness?”
“Yes.”
“You’re interested party?”
“I have proposed lease.”
“That complicates.”
The stable woman exhaled.
“What else?”