Magdalena took twenty.
Left ten.
Ethan frowned.
“Why?”
“I gave you an idea.”
“Your men did the digging.”
He almost argued.
Then nodded.
“Fine.”
She respected that too.
Two days later, the first cow died.
Magdalena crouched beside it.
No obvious injury.
Thin foam at the mouth.
Eyes wrong.
She opened the feed sack.
Smelled.
Bitter.
Not normal.
She found powder beneath the pen boards.
Gray-white.
Jacob said mineral supplement.
Magdalena disagreed.
Then unfamiliar horse tracks appeared near the fence.
Ethan rode the perimeter.
Found nothing.
Arthur Vale made another purchase offer the next morning.
Higher than before.
That was too convenient.
Still, Magdalena cautioned patience.
“If he thinks you suspect him, he stops making mistakes.”
Ethan looked at her.
“So?”
“Let him think we’re weak.”
Something in his eyes changed.
“You said we.”
Magdalena froze.
He had noticed.
“So?”
She tried.
“So nothing.”
But both remembered.
The weeks after that became relentless.
Magdalena transformed the pantry first.
Castle Ridge had enough food, but no system.
Old sacks mixed with new.
Salt meat stored poorly.
Fruit jars without dates.
Rodents had reached grain.
She reorganized everything.
Jacob complained.
Until she proved spoiled stores had cost them nearly two months of provisions.
He stopped complaining.
She rendered fat.
Smoked meat.
Dried apples.
Turned overripe tomatoes into sauce.
Stored beans.
Made hard biscuits for ranch hands.
Salted lamb.
And kept enough records to know exactly what could feed how many people through winter.
Ethan began appearing in the kitchen more often.
At first with excuses.
Accounts.
Coffee.
Questions about feed.
Then without excuses.
He leaned against the doorframe while she worked.
Magdalena noticed.
Ignored it.
Mostly.
One evening she was lifting a flour sack from the floor.
Ethan entered.
“Wait.”
She stood upright with the fifty-pound sack already against her hip.
“For what?”
“I was going to lift it.”
“You arrived late.”
His eyes moved over her arms.
“Apparently.”
She carried it across the room.
Set it down.
Ethan said:
“You’re stronger than Jacob.”
Magdalena stared.
“Tell him.”
“I enjoy living.”
She laughed.
The sound surprised him.
He smiled.
Really smiled.
Magdalena looked away too late.
After that, everything became more difficult.
Ethan had a good smile.
That was inconvenient.
The evidence from the lamb complicated everything.
They hid the wire.
Magdalena burned that entire batch of meat rather than risk anyone eating it.
Jacob protested the waste.
She told him why.
Not about the tag.
Only possible contamination.
Ethan backed her immediately.
“No one eats it.”