Normally, he'd go to the bunk house and stood at the basin that washing his hands with an urgency that was purely mechanical. The way men wash their hands when they're thinking about something else. How bad? She asked. He looked at her.
Lost three head overnight. North fence has a weak section ice got under the post base. We've got cattle pushing against it. How many men do you have out there? All of them.
Plus Matteo. He dried his hands. His knuckles were cracked from the cold, red along the joints. We need to move the herd south before the temperature drops further tonight. If it goes below what they're saying, it might.
What are they saying? 20 below. Maybe worse by midnight. 20 below. She ran the numbers automatically.
How long an animal could stand that without shelter. How long a man could work in it before his hands stopped being useful. She turned back to the stove. I'll have food ready to carry out at noon, she said. hot enough for everyone. He stopped.
That you don't need to do that. The men have been working in this since before dawn. They need something hot by midday or their bodies are going to start making poor decisions. She pulled the large pot from its hook. How far south are they moving the herd, he told her.
She calculated the distance, the time, what she could make that would stay hot long enough in a sealed kettle. Noon, she said again. Have Matteo send someone back for it. He watched her for a moment. That look, the one she'd stopped trying to decode, and then he put his hat back on and went out.
She worked through the morning with a focus that didn't leave room for anything else, which was exactly what she needed. Bean and beef soup, thick enough to stay warm. Biscuits packed in cloth inside a wooden box that would hold some heat. Coffee in every sealed container she could find. She worked fast, and she worked well.