The money was paid on the Thursday out of the bank in Burns because Hammond's own lawyer told him plainly he would rather pay it than have Clark Snider read that book out loud in a courtroom. Catherine bought 320 acres on the Sylvies with water on it and a house that needed a roof. But that was all later. What happened at 20 2 while the yard was still standing there not knowing what to do with itself was that men started coming up to her. The wealthiest horse families in that basin lined up along the outside of a pen to ask a barefoot woman in a torn dress to come and look at their stock.
One of them said, "I laughed this morning and I want you to know I am ashamed." Catherine told him he was not the first. Another asked if she would look at a mare three men had quit on. She said to bring the mayor over in the morning and to walk up on her offside. Then she went and got her bed roll. She shook the sand out of it, put the plate and the cup and the all back in, rolled it, and tied the leather strap.
She did not put her boots back on. She took them off her daughter and carried them in one hand. And she walked that black horse out of the pen on a slack rope, past the auction stand, past the men taking their hats off along the rail and out the front gate. The big one. The one Ada had asked about at 9 that morning when they were told to use the public fence.
She went past Hammond on the way and she did not look at him and she did not say anything to him. She had already said the only thing she came there to say and she had said it at 11:00 in the morning when nobody on that place knew her name. He isn't mean. He's hurt. They went down the county road in the long light.
The child on one side and the horse on the other. 11 Miles back to a wagon with a rock under the axle. About a mile out, Ada asked her mother whether she could say his name now out loud where people could hear and Catherine said yes. She said it was all right now. She said go ahead.
I am glad you rode all the way out to the end of that county road with me. I want to know where you are listening from today. So put your town in the comments. I read them, everyone. And it still surprises me how far these stories travel.
And tell me what you would have done standing at that rail. Would you have said it out loud the way Catherine did, knowing exactly what it was going to cost you, or would you have kept quiet like every other person on that fence? I would honestly like to know if this one got hold of you. Tap the like button because it helps this channel more than you would think.
And subscribe so the next story finds you when it comes. There is another one on the way and I hope you will be here for it. Until then, here is the only thing I want you to carry out of today. The next time somebody tells you that an animal or a person is just plain bad, go and look at the shoulder.