Matteo's face was snowcaked and very still. Miss Hartwell, where is Gideon? One of the ranch hands she thought his name was Puit was already talking fast. Words running together. North fence gave all the way.
Cattle started running for the ravine. Gideon went after the lead group. His horse slipped on the ice went down. We couldn't get to him for there was too much. Where is he now?
She said. Still up there, Mateo said. The horse came back without him. We got the cattle turned, but by then visibility's gone to nothing up there, Miss Hartwell. We turned back because we couldn't see 10 ft in front of us.
The cold was going through her house shoes and up her legs. She stood in it and looked at Matteo's face and ran through the same calculation she had been running in the back of her head all day. Except this time, the variable she was calculating was a man. 20 below by midnight, Gideon had said. It was 3:00 in the afternoon.
How long has he been out there? She asked. Mateo looked at his hands. Two hours, maybe more. Two hours in this without the horse.
She didn't say what she was thinking, which was that two more hours would be a significantly different calculation than 2 hours already gone. Which direction? She said, Miss Hartwell, which direction is the North Ravine? You can't go out there, Puit said. I mean, no disrespect, ma'am, but you can't.
The visibility is I've been feeding this ranch for 3 weeks, she said. I know which provisions came from which direction, and how long it took Gideon to ride for each one. I know this land from 3 weeks of listening to every man at this table describe it. Which direction is the North Ravine, and how far? Silence.
Emmett's voice from behind Matteo. I'll show her. You will not, Matteo said. He<unk>ll stay here, Rosalie said. Mateo, you know this land better than anyone.
I'm not asking you to take me for a pleasure ride. I'm asking you to help me bring him back before the temperature makes it a different kind of trip. Matteo looked at her for a long moment. He was the kind of man who weighed things properly before he agreed to them, which she respected even right now when she needed him to weigh it faster. She went back inside.