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Her brothers left her beside a mountain road with two trunks. But the giant rancher who found her noticed something about those trunks that made him stop asking questions.
The wagon wheels were already fading when Hannah tightened both hands around the leather handle. Cold mud soaked through her boots. Then hoofbeats struck the road behind her.
A towering cowboy reined in, studied the tracks leading away, and reached for her trunk. Hannah pulled it back.
"Not this one."
What was inside that made her guard it so fiercely?
The wagon stopped so suddenly that Hannah Whitaker had to catch the wooden rail to keep from pitching forward.
"Get down."
Samuel did not look at her when he said it. For a moment, Hannah thought she had misunderstood him.
The road into Pine Hollow was little more than two muddy wheel tracks winding between dark pines, and the nearest building she could see was an abandoned line shack leaning into the wind nearly half a mile away.
Samuel climbed down and went around to the back of the wagon.
"Here is as good as anywhere."
The afternoon sky had turned the dull gray that came before an early mountain snow.
Hannah pulled her brown wool coat tighter around herself and watched her older brother loosen the ropes around her trunks.
Peter sat on the driver's bench holding the reins. He had not spoken for nearly an hour.
Samuel dragged the first trunk toward the tailgate.
"You said we were going into Pine Hollow."
"We are."
He dropped the trunk. It struck the road with a wet thud and sank an inch into the mud.
Hannah stared at it. Samuel reached for the second.
"You aren't."
That was when she understood.
Their father had been buried 11 days. Eleven days since Hannah had stood beside Samuel and Peter in a hard October rain while dirt struck the pine boards of Elijah Whitaker's coffin.
Eight days since the papers had been read. The ranch belonged to the sons. The cattle belonged to the sons. The house belonged to the sons.
Hannah, who had lived there since birth, belonged nowhere at all.
Still, some foolish piece of her had believed blood would count for something.
She climbed carefully down.
At 32, Hannah knew what people saw first. She had a broad, full figure that had invited whispers since girlhood, and she had learned not to hurry when strangers watched her.
Hurrying suggested shame, so she planted both boots in the mud, straightened her skirt, and looked at Samuel.
"What exactly do you expect me to do here?"
"There are women in Pine Hollow who take laundry. Mrs. Garner lost her hired girl last summer. You can cook, so keep house."
"I can keep cattle accounts."
Samuel gave a tired laugh.
"I know. I handled father's books for 12 years."
"I know that, too. I negotiated the grain contract last February when you were ready to pay Haskins $14 more a ton."
His mouth tightened.
Peter finally looked around.
"Hannah."
She turned toward him. Whatever he had meant to say died there.
Peter looked back at the reins.
Samuel pulled down her second trunk.
"We can't keep doing this."
"Doing what?"
"Carrying you."
The words were quiet.
That made them worse.
Hannah glanced toward the wagon, the team, the Winchester beneath the seat, the sack of coffee she had purchased herself 3 weeks earlier.
"Carrying me."
"You know what I mean."
"No. I'd like to hear you explain it."
Samuel shoved his gloves into his coat pocket.
"You've got no husband, no land. Father's gone. Peter and I have families to think about."
"Someday."
"Neither of you is married."
"We will be, and apparently I won't."
Samuel's eyes flicked over her before he could stop himself. It lasted perhaps half a second.
It was enough.
Hannah felt the old heat climb her neck. She had seen that look at church socials, at dances where men asked every woman except her, in stores when a dressmaker held fabric against her waist and sighed as though Hannah's body were a personal inconvenience.
She looked at Samuel until he glanced away.
"There it is," she said. "Hannah, don't—at least have enough backbone to say it."
Peter whispered her name again.
She ignored him.
Samuel's temper finally broke.
"You eat as much as a ranch hand. You take up the room of two. And what exactly are we supposed to do? Keep you there until you're 50?"
The horses shifted. Leather creaked.
Somewhere in the timber, a raven called once.
Hannah's fingers tightened around the handle of her handbag, but her voice stayed level.
"You could have told me at the house."
"You'd have made a scene."
She almost laughed.
Instead, she looked at Peter. He was studying the reins as if they contained scripture.
"You agree with him?"
Peter rubbed his thumb along the worn leather.
"Hannah, it ain't like that."
"Then tell me what it's like."
Silence.
That answered her.
Samuel climbed onto the wagon.
"There should be a stage office in Pine Hollow. Maybe they know somebody needing help."
Hannah looked at the trunks sitting in the mud.
One contained clothes, two quilts, her mother's sewing basket, and the few personal things her brothers had allowed her to take.
The other was heavier.