"I wouldn't either." Ruth gave a sound that wasn't quite agreement and wasn't quite dismissal. Clara went to find the roast. Eli came in at sundown with mud on his boots and something tired in his eyes that was deeper than physical tired.
He washed up at the back door, came into the kitchen, and stood for a moment just taking in the smell of something cooking, the sound of his sons arguing happily in the next room, and the sight of Clara at the stove. He sat down at the table. Clara poured coffee without being asked and set it in front of him. "Lose any more cattle?" Ruth asked.
"Not today. We got the herd moved." He wrapped his hands around the cup. "Ground's freezing harder than I expected."
"If this keeps up another week, we're going to have trouble with the water supply to the barn." "Tom know what to do about that?" "Tom's got ideas. I've got different ideas."
He drank the coffee. "We'll figure it out." Jesse came running in from the other room with Cole behind him. "Dad, Clara fixed Cole's knife."
Eli went still. He looked at Clara's back. Then at Cole, who was standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. "That right?"
Cole nodded. "The pin had worked loose," Clara said without turning around. "It was a straightforward fix." Eli was quiet for a moment.
"Cole," he said. Cole looked at his father. "You take care of that knife." "I know, Dad."
"All right." Eli drank his coffee. Jesse launched into a full account of Clara's technique with the hammer and finishing nail, which was detailed, largely accurate, and lasted until supper was on the table. That night, after the boys were in bed, Ruth had gone to her room, and the house had gone quiet, Clara stood at the kitchen window with a cup of tea and looked out at the dark.
The snow was still falling. The bunkhouse light was on across the yard. Somewhere out in the darkness, the cattle were moving. She heard Eli come in from checking the barn and heard him stop in the kitchen doorway behind her.
"Lamp still on?" he said. "Thought you'd be asleep." "Couldn't." He crossed to the stove and poured himself the last of the coffee.
He stood on the other side of the kitchen, not close, not intrusive, just present in the way of a man who understood that company and conversation were two different things. After a while, he said, "Cole talked to you today?" "A little."
"He hasn't talked to a woman he didn't already know since his mother died." Eli said it plainly, without any particular weight on it, just as a fact being delivered. "I thought you should know that." Clara kept looking at the window.