Chapter 8
Oscar nodded solemnly.
"I will."
Adrien rode away.
Curtis watched until he disappeared beyond the cottonwoods.
Then he turned back to me.
"I've been gone a long time."
"Yes."
"I know you're angry."
"Anger is what I had the first year."
"What do you have now?"
I looked at him.
"Work."
That answer wounded him more than anger would have.
Good.
He glanced toward the barn.
"My horse needs water."
"The trough is there."
"And I need somewhere to sleep."
"There is a hotel in Kestrel Flat."
His eyes widened.
"Rosalie."
"You are not sleeping in this house."
"I'm Oscar's father."
"Yes."
"I am not some drifter."
I looked at the dust on his coat, the worn saddle, the bedroll behind his cantle.
For the first time, I noticed how thin the black gelding was.
"You look very much like one."
His face flushed.
Oscar watched us.
That brought me back to myself.
I lowered my voice.
"You may speak to Oscar in the yard. You may water your horse. Then you will leave before supper."
"And tomorrow?"
"We will decide tomorrow."
"We?"
"I will."
Curtis stared at me.
I watched him understand that the woman he had left was gone.
He did not like her replacement.
Neither had I, at first.
But she had kept us alive.
And I would not apologize for her.
That night, after Curtis rode toward town and Oscar finally slept, I sat at the kitchen table beneath the oil lamp.
Adrien's two twenty-dollar bills still lay where he had placed them.
I had not touched them.
Beside them sat the biscuit tin.
Inside were my father's deed and the divorce decree.
I took both out.
The deed had my father's name.
Then mine.
The decree had Curtis's.
I read the final line twice.
The bonds of matrimony between Curtis Dunore and Rosalie Dunore are hereby dissolved.
Outside, Clover shifted in the barn.
I heard Oscar murmur in his sleep from the loft.
I should have been thinking about the bank.
Instead I heard Curtis say:
I came home.
I looked at the forty dollars.
Then at the decree.
And for the first time since he appeared on the road, I understood the danger.
Curtis did not believe home was a place he had abandoned.
He believed it was a place that had been waiting for him.
PART 2 - THE COW HE CAME TO BUY t1
PART 2: THE MAN WHO CAME BACK