"He wants the lower pasture."
Rachel shook her head. "No."
Matthew glanced at her.
"He wants you to believe selling the lower pasture is the only way to keep everything else."
That landed differently. She could see it. Matthew looked out toward the dark yard.
The barn lantern burned yellow in the distance. "Then what do we do?"
Rachel looked at him. It was the first time he had asked the question that way.
Not, What should I do?
What do we do?
She gathered the receipts into one stack. "We stop letting him decide what we need."
Matthew's eyes met hers. Outside, somewhere beyond the south ridge, Victor Langley was probably sitting beside a warm fire convinced Holloway Basin had begun to close around itself. Inside the ranch office, Rachel Foster laid a hand over the freight bills and started looking for the first place to cut him out.
She began with flour. By the first week of March, the snow had started pulling back from the lower slopes, leaving long strips of brown earth beneath the cottonwoods. Mornings were still hard with frost, but by afternoon the yard turned soft enough to hold deep bootprints.
Spring roundup was close. That meant more men. Neighboring riders would come in to help gather cattle from the upper pastures. Some would stay three days.
Some a week. All of them would eat. Rachel counted 48 mouths on the working list, possibly 52 if weather slowed the crews. She stood in the pantry with a pencil tucked behind one ear and stared at the flour bin.
It was nearly empty. Not dangerously empty for the ranch as it stood that morning. Dangerously empty for what was coming. Eli appeared behind her carrying a sack of onions.
"Where do you want these?"
"Lower shelf."
He set them down. Rachel did not move. Eli followed her gaze.
"That bad?"
"We've got enough wheat for two days if roundup starts on schedule. And the wagon was supposed to be here yesterday."
"Road could have washed out."
Rachel shook her head. "Andrew Sloan came through Miller's Crossing this morning. Road's passable."
Eli scratched his mustache. "Want me to tell Matthew?"
"He already knows."
As if summoned by his name, Matthew entered through the back door. He held a folded paper. Rachel looked at it.
"What's that?"
"An offer."
She knew before he handed it over. George Baines's handwriting ran across the page. Emergency flour available.
Cash only. Priced nearly three times normal. Rachel read it twice, then set it on the table.
"He's not even pretending anymore."
Matthew took off his gloves. "Neither am I."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I buy it."
Rachel looked at him. "No."
His head lifted. "Rachel."
"No."
"Roundup starts in four days."