The third had split along the grain, which told her what she had already known when she said it. The cedar in the upper west courses had been greener than she wanted, and green cedar in an August storm was a liability she had talked herself into accepting, because she had no better option. She tossed the split one onto the kindling pile, set the two good ones against the wall, and climbed up to assess the damage in daylight. It was less than she had feared. Amos had worked fast and in bad conditions, and the top three courses were solid.
The fourth course had gaps and one section near the west edge had gone slightly wrong under the pressure of the wind and the rain. The alignment shifting maybe half an inch, which was enough to let water track sideways under the overlap. She spent the morning on it, working carefully with the remaining cedar stock, renailing loose courses and replacing the worst of the fourth. By midday she had done what she could and came down the ladder and stood looking at the roof with the particular focused dissatisfaction of a person who knows exactly where their own work is deficient. The west slope would hold through the fall.
She was reasonably certain of that whether it would hold through a Colorado winter at altitude was a different question and she was already calculating what she would need to do differently in September before the temperatures dropped in earnest. She would need more cedar stock. She would need to source it before the first hard frost. She had a list of things she needed before the first hard frost that was longer than she had materials to address. And she was running the list in the back of her mind while she was doing the forward- facing work of getting through the day.
She was still looking at the roof when she heard hoof beatats from the south and turned to find Tommy riding up alone with a canvas sack tied to his saddle. Looking slightly sheepish in the way that young men look when they have been sent on an errand that may have already been rendered unnecessary. "Mr. Caldwell sent supplies," he said, pulling up and swinging down with the easy dismount of someone who had been on horseback since he was old enough to stay there. "Flour, salt pork, some canned goods," he said after a storm.
Tommy stopped. He looked at the roof. He looked at the west slope specifically. "You already fixed it. Most of it," Clara said.
"He thought you might not have had a chance yet." Tommy looked at the canvas sack, then back at the roof, with the expression of a man whose errand had been subtly undermined by the person the errand was for. "Do you still want the food?" "Yes," she said. "I still need to eat." Tommy grinned. He had a good grin, the uncomplicated kind. Nothing performed in it.
He untied the sack and brought it over. How bad was it last night? Bad enough, she said. S said he came and fixed the top courses. Tommy went still.
He looked at her sideways with the expression of a person fitting a new piece of information into a picture they had been assembling for some time, and finding it changes the picture more than they expected. Mr. Caldwell came himself. He did. Tommy was quiet for a moment in a way that was not his default because his default was not quiet.