Chapter 8
Kate watched him go until the horse and rider were nothing more than a black speck against the gray expanse of the lower prairie.
Then she turned back toward her barn.
She walked into the cool, dark interior, where her two draft horses stood in their stalls, their breath rising like white smoke in the morning chill. She picked up the pitchfork with her left hand, bracing the handle against her hip, and went back to spreading the clean, dry straw across the floor.
Outside, down by the creek, a small brown bird landed on a fence post, sang three sharp notes into the cold air, and took flight toward the mountains.
The land was quiet again.
And for the first time in fifteen years, it belonged entirely to the woman who had bled into its soil.
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