You're careful. There's a difference and you know it. She was quiet for a moment, Nathaniel. She said, "Yes, I need to ask you something and I need you to answer it without managing me." Without the careful version. All right.
If Franklin follows through, she said, "If the grazing committee votes against the agreement and you lose that land, what happens to the ranch?" He was quiet for a moment. Really quiet. The thinking kind we survas us. It costs us significantly. It changes what we can run on the north pasture and it means expanding further south which has its own complications.
My father will have more to say about it than I want to hear. He paused. It does not break us. We are not standing at the edge of a cliff. I want to be clear about that.
But it hurts. She said yes. He said it hurts. She turned this over. Then I want to help fix it.
She said he stopped walking. She stopped too and turned to face him. I know the grazing network in this county. She said I learned it through your books. I know which ranchers share resources, which arrangements are interdependent, which ones Franklin can pressure, and which ones he can't because they have interests that run counter to his.
There are three men on that committee who have their own reasons not to do Franklin Harrington a political favor. I know who they are because the evidence is in the records. She paused. Let me help. He looked at her for a long moment.
You're going to go to bat for my grazing agreement. He said, I'm going to apply the information I have to a problem I can actually solve, she said. Yes, Amelia. His voice had that quality in it. She'd heard a handful of times.
The one that meant he was trying to keep something very large in a manageable container. You understand that you don't have to. I know I don't have to. She said want to. There's a difference and you know it.