He looked back at the sky, said nothing, because some things should just be received, not built on, not responded to, just received and held and kept. It was a Wednesday when Pruitt came back. Cole had been vaguely expecting it, the way you wait for weather you've been warned about. Three months since the 72 hours, three months since Tucson and provisional and pending. Pruitt rode up mid-afternoon, alone.
Hat off before he reached the porch. Kaya was in the garden. She'd seen him coming, she saw everything coming. It was a fact of how she existed, and she hadn't moved. Still working.
Back three quarters to the road, Cole met Pruitt at the fence. The sheriff looked different, less armored, the posture of a man who's come because he has to, not because he wants to cause trouble. Cole had in his hands, "I'm not here officially." Cole waited, "Decker's in custody, Tucson, made his statement last week." Pruitt looked at his hat.
"In his account, the person who incapacitated him was, quote, a very large man, possibly two men." A pause. "He's sticking to that story." Cole looked at Pruitt. Pruitt looked at the garden, where Kaya was weeding.
5'4, braids over her shoulders. In no way a very large man or possibly two men. Hmm, Cole said. Yeah, Pruitt put his hat on. The provisional registration came through from Tucson, by the way.
Official now. No outstanding questions. Something released in Cole's chest that he hadn't fully realized was still held. Appreciate that. The county recorder said, quoting, it was the most thoroughly documented tribal marriage he'd ever processed.
And whoever assembled it clearly had a legal mind. Pruitt looked at him with something that might have been amusement. That you? That was mostly the letter from Chief Gray Elk translated by River Wolf. Who has a very precise sense of what county officials need to hear.
Hmm. Pruitt looked at Kaya again. She hadn't acknowledged his presence. Pulling weeds with the focus of a woman who has decided this conversation belongs to Cole, and she has plants to see to. She know?
I'll tell her. Pruitt nodded, squared his hat. For what it's worth, Hargrove, I was wrong about how this was going to go, said the way you say things you've rehearsed privately, with the effort of someone for whom admissions of error are physically uncomfortable. That's all. He rode away.
Cole stood at the fence watching him go. Then turned around. Kaya was already standing up from the garden, looking at him. She'd been listening. She always listened.
"Official," Cole said. She held his gaze. "No one's taking anything," he said. "It's done." She looked at the plant in her hands, then back at him.
And what happened on her face then, he'd been watching her face for 3 months, with the close attention of a man who understood that most of what she communicated didn't come through words. Was not simple relief. It was older and deeper. The release that happens when something you've been braced against for so long you forgot you were bracing simply stops. She looked back at the garden, went back to work.