Briggs was the one she was going to have to deal with eventually. She'd known it since the first morning. He wasn't cruel exactly. He was the kind of man who organized the world around clear categories.
And she'd arrived failing to fit any of the ones he used for women, and that made him uneasy in a way he'd converted into obstruction because obstruction was more comfortable than unease. He didn't give her outright trouble after the foal incident, but he worked around her in ways that created friction. Talking to Nathan about things she'd already handled, re-giving instructions she'd given, positioning himself as the authoritative source of information about the ranch in conversations where she was present, as if she were not there. She let it go for 2 weeks.
Then, on a Thursday afternoon, she didn't. She'd been in the yard assessing the state of the kitchen garden, which had gone to seed and needed significant attention if it was going to produce anything useful before the fall. And Briggs had come out and told Dolan right in front of her to move the fence post she'd asked Dolan to move 2 hours ago, making it sound like it was his idea. She waited until Dolan had gone.
Then she said, "Hank." Briggs turned around. He didn't like her using his first name. She knew that.
She used it deliberately because calling him Briggs placed him in a different category than calling him Hank, and she needed them to be on the same flat ground for this conversation. If you have a problem with the way I'm managing the household, take it to Nathan," she said. "If you have a problem with me personally, say it to my face, but don't give my instructions over as your own. It wastes everyone's time."
He stared at her. "You don't give me instructions. I gave Dolan instructions that fell within my area of responsibility, and you gave them over as yours. That's what I'm saying."
She kept her voice level. "I'm not trying to run the ranch. I'm not interested in your job, but I do have work to do, and it goes better when it isn't being undone. You've been here 3 weeks, he said.
You don't know this ranch. I know it better than I did 3 weeks ago, and I'll know it better still in another three. That's how work goes. She looked at him steadily.
I'm not your enemy, Hank. I don't have any reason to be, but I will do the job I'm here to do, and I'll do it with or without you making it harder. He left without answering, which she expected. Men like Briggs didn't capitulate in the moment.
They went away and thought about it and came back with a different posture that didn't quite acknowledge they'd changed anything. He came back the next day with a slightly different posture. Not warm, not an apology, but the obstruction stopped and she counted that, too. Caleb took his first crawling steps, not real crawling, more of a determined dragging and lunging motion on a Tuesday morning in early October in the middle of the kitchen floor while Evelyn was cutting bread and Nathan was finishing his coffee before heading out.
And the two of them watched it happen in the particular arrested silence of people seeing something small and significant. And Nathan laughed. It was the first time she'd heard him laugh. It was a short sound, surprised out of him, genuine, the kind of laugh that happened before a person could decide whether to have it.