She looked at her hands. Months, possibly a year or more. And during that time, I would be a contested person, someone a court was looking at, someone whose reliability and character would be argued over by lawyers. A pause. And you would be the man who harbored her.
He'd thought about that while she was talking. He'd gotten through all the ways that could complicate his life and come out the other side, which was where he usually ended up with things that were already decided. "I have a good relationship with Judge Hartley in Billings," he said. "And there's an attorney in Harlo Creek named Sims who's honest, which is rare than it should be. We should talk to him. " She looked at him like he'd done something unexpected.
"What? " he said. "You said we, did I? " "Yes. " He picked up his coffee, which had gone cold. I meant it. The storm came 3 days later. It came the way the serious ones always came.
Not all at once, but building. The sky going from high white to low gray to a specific flat darkness in the northwest that anyone who'd spent a winter in Montana knew to take seriously. Gideon had been watching it since midm morning, and by early afternoon he had done everything on the list of things you do when a real blizzard is coming. Extra wood inside, water hauled and stored. The cattle moved to the smaller pasture near the barn.
Rope strung from the back door to the barn door in a single continuous line. He showed Vivian the rope. If the visibility goes and you need to get to the barn, keep my hand on it the whole way, she said. I know. He looked at her.
You told me, she said two weeks ago. I listened. He had told her. He'd half expected it to be one of those things that went in one ear as theoretical and didn't stick. Good, he said.
He went out at 4:00 to check the cattle one last time and to put an extra layer of bedding in the barn, and he told her he'd be back in 20 minutes. He was. By the time he came back, the snow had started, and the wind was picking up from the northwest at a speed that suggested it had somewhere to be, and wasn't interested in anything that got in its way. They ate supper with the wind building outside, and he watched Vivien's face while he watched the weather and saw that she was watching it, too. Reading it the way she'd been learning to read things out here, with full attention, and without pretending she knew more than she did.