The house was a scarred skull. The front porch was a pile of charcoal. The windows were gaping holes boarded up with scrap wood. The herd was scattered, and the fences were cut in a dozen places. It looked like a ruin.
But as Eli pulled the horses to a stop, Maggie looked at it and felt a fierce, burning pride. It was burnt. Yes, but it was standing. "We have work to do," Eli said, his voice heavy with fatigue. Maggie reached over and covered his hand with hers.
Her fingers were rough now, calloused from the rains and the rope. But her touch was gentle. "Then let us get to work," she said. The rebuilding of the Mercer ranch took the rest of the summer and well into the autumn. It was a season of blisters and backaches.
Gus and the remaining hands worked from dawn until dusk, and Eli worked harder than any of them. He seemed driven by a need to erase the mark of Silas Crane from his land. They tore down the burnt porch and built a new one, wider and stronger. Using cedar logs hauled down from the high country, they scraped the char from the logs of the main house and sealed them with fresh oil until the wood gleamed honey gold in the sun. They dug the well deeper, hitting a vein of water so cold and sweet it made Maggie's teeth ache.
Maggie was not relegated to the kitchen. She worked alongside the men. She learned to mix mortar for the new chimney. She learned to stretch wire so tight it hummed in the wind. She wore men's trousers under her skirt for the heavy work, scandalizing the occasional peddler, but earning the silent nod of Gus and the hands.
One afternoon late in August, she was on the roof nailing shingles. The sun was beating down. The smell of heated pine tar thick in the air. She stopped to wipe the sweat from her eyes and looked out. The valley was greening up after a late summer rain.
The sagebrush was a sea of silver rolling in waves under the wind. The distant mountains were sharp and purple against the blue sky. For the first time since she had stepped off the stagecoach, the size of the landscape did not make her feel small. It made her feel free. She saw the beauty of it now.
She saw the way the light changed the color of the cliffs from red to gold as the sun moved. She heard the song of the meadowlark, a piercing sweetness that cut through the constant wind. She saw the cattle grazing in the distance, not as dumb beasts, but as life, as wealth, as the future. Eli climbed the ladder to join her. Carrying a canteen of water, he sat beside her on the slope of the roof.
Looking out at the same view. You should come down, he said. The sun is fierce. I am fine, she said, taking the canteen. Eli watched her drink.
He looked at the freckles that had bloomed on her nose, at the strength in her arms, at the confident way she sat on the high roof, the ghost of his dead wife, the spectre that had haunted him for so long had faded. In her place was this woman, this warrior who smelled of sawdust and sweat. "You are good at this," he said. "I have to be. " She smiled, handing the water back. "I have a very demanding foreman. " Eli chuckled, a sound that was becoming more frequent in the house.