THE COW HE CAME TO BUY

by

Chapter 16

THEME:
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And though my hands shook afterward, I did not regret a word.

PART 3: WHAT A MAN IS WORTH

For the next four weeks, my life divided itself into pieces.

There were Brandt days.

Home days.

School mornings.

Butter Thursdays.

Curtis days.

And days when Curtis was supposed to come but did not.

He improved.

Not quickly.

Not cleanly.

But enough that I could not dismiss him without lying.

After the night he arrived smelling of whiskey, he stayed away for three days.

Then he returned at six in the morning carrying a sack of nails.

"The barn roof leaks on the east side," he said.

I looked at him.

"I know."

"I can fix it."

"I don't have money to pay you."

"I'm not asking."

Oscar appeared in the doorway.

Curtis looked at him.

"I'm sorry I missed the other day."

Oscar said nothing.

Curtis swallowed.

"I was wrong."

That was better than an excuse.

Oscar looked at me.

I nodded.

Curtis fixed the roof.

He worked until noon.

He did not complain.

When he finished, Oscar brought him water.

That afternoon they repaired a broken section of fence together.

I watched from the garden.

Every time I saw Curtis lift Oscar so the boy could set a post cap, my heart hurt in two directions.

This was what I had wanted once.

That did not mean I wanted it now.

At the Brandt Ranch, things changed too.

Harlan stopped pretending he hated me.

The ranch hands began appearing at the kitchen door five minutes before meals.

I taught Harlan sourdough biscuits.

He taught me how fourteen hungry men could make four pies vanish before I found a clean knife.

We set up a cool shelf in the springhouse.

Adrien purchased two dairy cows from a ranch south of Bozeman.

When he told me, I laughed.

"You finally bought cows."

"Apparently."

"What changed?"

"I hired someone who knows what to do with them."

"You planned that."

"Yes."

"So the job was not simply an excuse to save Clover."

Adrien looked offended.

"I don't make expensive employment decisions out of sentiment."

"No?"

"No."

"How reassuring."

He glanced at me.

"Sentiment was only part of it."

I looked away before he saw my smile.

Working beside Adrien was different from speaking to him at my kitchen table.

At my house he seemed large.

At his ranch he seemed everywhere.

He checked fences before breakfast.

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