It left no visible mark. That was how sorrow moved inside someone who had learned to keep walking even when part of the soul had been left behind. Nia had discipline enough for that. Clay suspected she had learned it long before she was old enough to understand why she would need it. But one morning early in the second week, she did not come out of her room at the usual hour.
Clay Ror lit the stove himself, made the coffee, and waited. 20 minutes passed. Then he walked to her door and knocked softly. There was no answer, but he could hear her breathing on the other side. Slow and measured.
The careful breathing of someone trying not to make enough sound for another person to worry. Clay said nothing. He placed a cup of coffee on the floor beside her door and walked away. An hour later, Nia came out. Her face was composed, her sleeves straight, every part of her appearance carefully put in order.
She picked up the cup. The coffee had gone cold. She drank it anyway. Clay said nothing. Neither did she.
They went on with the day's work as though nothing had happened. But Clay understood. Nia had been mourning her father in silence, alone as her people did. Among the Mescalero Apache, morning followed certain remembered observances after death, with particular days carrying their own meaning. Nia was far from her band, so she held on to whatever parts of those traditions she could keep by herself.
Klay knew he had no right to force his way into that grief, so he did not try. He simply made sure another cup of coffee was waiting outside her door the next morning. And the morning after that and the mornings that followed. Nia noticed. She never mentioned it.
Clay began to think that her silence might be its own kind of gratitude. On his second trip into Crestfield for supplies, Ezreel did not bother circling around the question. Is it true you've got an Apache woman living out at your ranch? News traveled through the high country the way it always did, riding the wind and gathering a little more decoration with every mile. Clay answered evenly.
She's working the ranch through the winter, helping with repairs. Ezra studied him with the look of a man who already had an opinion and was only waiting for something to confirm it. People are going to talk, Clay. People talk about everything. Clay paid for his supplies and left. Sometime during that second week, he began learning words.
He could not have said exactly when the idea first took hold. One evening after supper, Nia murmured something in Apache while washing the skillet. It was a short phrase sounding like the end of a longer thought. Clay looked over at her. What does that mean?