Flour. Coffee. Salt. Pork.
Canned tomatoes. Rice. Nutmeg they did not need. Nobody could explain the nutmeg.
Matthew came in once near nine. "You should sleep."
"So should you."
"I wasn't sorting receipts."
"I wasn't checking cattle in weather cold enough to crack a bucket."
He leaned against the doorway. "Fair."
Rachel looked back down. He remained there another moment. Then he left. Near ten, she found the first unpaid invoice.
It had been tucked beneath the back cover of the ranch ledger. Cold Water Freight and Supply. Past due. Then another.
Then another. Rachel spread them across the table. Some were marked 30 days, some 60. The total was larger than she expected.
Much larger. She opened the ledger and followed the columns with her finger. Cattle numbers looked strong. Hay sufficient.
Horse expenses ordinary. The ranch should have been healthy, but the cash entries did not match the picture outside. Rachel pulled the latest receipt from her coat pocket and placed it beside the old September invoice.
Same flour. Different freight. Nearly twice the price. She sat very still.
The cookhouse around her felt warmer than it had an hour before. Not from the stove. From the sense that a door had opened onto a room she had not known was there. Matthew had 36 men, hundreds of cattle, land stretching across a mountain basin, and unpaid bills hidden beneath his ledger.
Rachel gathered the invoices into one stack. She did not wake him. Not yet. She wanted the numbers right before she said anything.
Outside, the ranch slept beneath a clear December sky. Inside, the sourdough starter rose quietly in its crock. The pantry shelves were orderly. The smokehouse door shut tight.
For the first time since Rachel arrived, Holloway Basin smelled less like a place waiting out winter and more like somewhere people expected to remain. But on the table in front of her, six unpaid freight invoices said the same thing in six different amounts. The ranch was running out of something no amount of cattle could replace. Cash.
Rachel did not mention it at breakfast. She poured coffee. Cut cornbread. Watched 36 men eat while the December light came gray through the cookhouse windows.
Matthew sat in his usual place with the blue-rimmed mug near one hand and a folded work list near the other. He looked up once. Rachel was looking at him. Not long.
Just long enough for him to notice. "What?"
"Nothing."
He held her gaze another second, then went back to the list. Rachel waited until the men had gone. By 8:30, the cookhouse was quiet except for water heating in the wash boiler and the scrape of her pencil across paper.
She had sorted the freight bills by date. September. October. November.
December. The pattern was worse in sequence. Freight on flour had nearly doubled. Coffee cost more.
Salt pork was up. Dried fruit had become ridiculous. There were smaller increases too, the kind a person might overlook if each purchase were considered by itself. Rachel did not consider things one at a time.
She added them. Then added them again. At 9:15, Matthew entered carrying a broken bridle strap. He stopped when he saw the papers spread across the worktable.
"What is all that?"
"Your money disappearing."
He set the strap down. "That sounds encouraging."
"It isn't."
Rachel moved the ledger toward him. "Sit."
Matthew looked at the chair. Then at her. "Was that an order?"
"Yes."
He sat. Rachel put the September freight receipt beside December's. Same supplier.
Same route. Similar weight. He read both, his brow tightening.
"Road conditions."
"Some."