Chapter 10
Curtis gave a humorless smile.
"Friendly already."
Adrien looked at him.
"Mr. Dunore."
"It's Curtis."
Adrien nodded without agreeing to use it.
Oscar ran to Clover.
I was grateful for the distance.
Adrien held out the ledger.
"I wrote down what I'm proposing."
I blinked.
"You wrote it down?"
"I find written agreements prevent people remembering different conversations later."
Curtis laughed.
"She's making contracts now?"
I looked at him.
"Apparently."
Adrien opened the book.
His handwriting was square and plain.
Three days each week.
Milk, butter, cheese, kitchen oversight as needed.
Transportation supplied when ranch wagons passed Kestrel Flat road.
One dollar and fifty cents per working day, with additional payment for cheese and butter above household requirement.
Forty-dollar advance.
I read it twice.
It was more money than I had expected.
"This is too much."
"No."
"I sell butter in town for less."
"I am not buying butter in town. I am paying for somebody to ensure fourteen working men are fed well enough to remain useful."
Curtis leaned over my shoulder.
"One-fifty a day?"
I stepped away from him.
Adrien noticed.
"That's the offer," he said.
Curtis whistled.
"You must be desperate."
"I've eaten the cook's beans."
Oscar giggled.
Adrien looked at him.
"I see you've never suffered them."
Even I smiled.
Curtis did not.
He looked at the ledger.
Then at Adrien.
"You hire many women at your ranch?"
The question was ordinary enough.
The tone was not.
Adrien's expression changed by perhaps half an inch.
"People who can do the work."
"My wife doesn't need to work for another man."
The world stopped.
I turned.
"I am not your wife."
Curtis's face tightened.
"You know what I mean."
"No. I don't."
Oscar had stopped smiling.
I hated that.
I stepped closer to Curtis and lowered my voice.
"You do not come into my yard after three years and tell me what I need."
"I am trying to fix things."
"You are trying to stand where you used to stand and pretend the floor never moved."
His eyes flashed.
"Maybe I made mistakes."
"Mistakes?"
"Yes."
"You left a four-year-old child asleep in the loft and a wife with sixty-two dollars of debt."
"I know."
"You took the good rifle."
"I needed it."
"You took the chestnut gelding."
"It was mine."
"He was bought with my father's money."
Curtis's jaw worked.
Adrien closed the ledger.
"This is between you."