He looked toward her.
“So can interpreters.”
“My father did not live where powerful men usually looked.”
The sentence carried more than strategy.
The cowboy understood enough not to pretend he understood all of it.
They rode another mile.
Then he asked:
“Why did your father keep the documents instead of filing them?”
The woman answered:
“Some were filed.”
“Some were not meant to be.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
“I hate when people say that.”
“I know.”
“You barely know me.”
“Your mother described you.”
The cowboy’s expression changed.
“What did she say?”
The woman smiled slightly.
“That you hate being told something will make sense later.”
He stared.
Then looked ahead.
“She really wrote about me?”
“Frequently.”
“What else?”
“No.”
He turned.
“No?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because you are already distracted.”
“By what?”
“Me.”
The cowboy nearly pulled his horse to a stop.
She continued riding.
He stared after her for a second.
Then urged his horse forward.
“That is a very confident thing to say.”
She looked toward him.
“Was I wrong?”
He had no useful answer.
She smiled faintly.
“Thought so.”
The cowboy decided he disliked her.
That lasted approximately six minutes.
Then they reached the edge of the northern pasture.
The woman slowed.
“What?”
he asked.
She looked toward the low ridge.
“That fence.”
“Yes?”
“When was it built?”
“Five years ago.”
“By your family?”
“Yes.”
She looked toward a line of weathered cottonwoods farther down.
“The spring is beyond those?”
“Quarter mile.”
The woman’s expression became thoughtful.
“My father’s map is accurate.”
The cowboy stared.
“Your father was here?”
“Many times.”
“I never met him.”
“You may have.”
“How?”
“You were young.”
The woman looked toward him.
“He remembered a boy who fell into the spring trying to catch a frog.”
The cowboy closed his eyes.
“Oh no.”
She smiled.
“You remember?”
“I was eight.”
“My father pulled you out.”
The cowboy turned toward her.
“That was him?”
“Yes.”
“I thought it was one of my mother’s ranch hands.”
“He worked for her that season.”
The cowboy tried to remember.
A man with weathered hands.
A soft voice.
Lifting him from freezing water by the back of his shirt.
His mother laughing before realizing he had cut his knee.
Memory returned in fragments.
He looked toward the woman.
“I remember him.”
Her expression softened.
“He remembered you too.”
That changed the air between them.
The cowboy said:
“Is he alive?”
“No.”