She read the letter twice, folded it, set it on the table. Mattis was outside when she came to find him. He knew what the letter had said from the way she was standing. "How long do you need? " he said. She looked at the mountains to the east for a moment.
"Two weeks, maybe three. " "Then go. " he said. "I'll be here. " She packed her medicines that afternoon with the same careful order she always used. The clay pots wrapped and nested. The dried herbs in their paper wrappings. The bone tool secured.
She left the ledger on the table open to the page where she'd marked what still needed doing in the garden. She left the prickly pear poultice she'd made the previous week with a note beside it explaining its use in her clear, slightly formal hand. A note for him in case someone came while she was gone. She was back in 18 days. The elder had recovered.
The medicine had held. She came through the ranch gate in the late afternoon with the paint mare's hooves ringing on the ground. And Mattis was at the corral and he didn't say anything for a moment. Just looked at her the way you look at something you're glad to see. "The elder. " he finally said, "recovering well. " "She sends you something. " Sadie reached into her saddlebag and held out a small bundle wrapped in cloth.
Dried herbs carefully selected. The kind of gift that costs real work to give. "She says a man who tends a physic garden through winter deserves to know what grows in it. " He took the bundle carefully and looked at it. "What is it? " "Open it slowly. Some of it will scatter. " He opened it.
Inside were seeds. A dozen different varieties carefully labeled in small script he couldn't read. He looked at her. "She wrote what each one is. " Sadie I said. "I'll translate. " He stood there holding the bundle and the feeling in his chest was something he would have had difficulty naming exactly.