A woman appeared from between the nearest structures, older, maybe 60, with a composed face and sharp eyes, and the kind of authority that doesn't announce itself because it doesn't need to. She spoke to Boon in English that was considerably more fluent than the older man's. "My husband asks if you are hungry." Boon thought about the $3 in his pocket and the fact that he had eaten the last of his jerky that morning. "Yes, ma'am," he said.
She nodded. "Then come down from your horse." His name was Grey Elk, and he was the man the camp looked to for most things that mattered. His wife's name was Yuma, and she was the person Grey Elk looked to for most things that mattered, which was a dynamic boon recognized and understood within about 4 hours of sitting with them. The young man who had assessed the cattle was Natan, Grey Elks nephew, who spoke enough English to translate the things Yuma's more formal speech didn't cover, and who watched Boon with an expression that was not hostile, but was absolutely precise, taking in information without committing to a conclusion, which was, Boon thought, a very sensible way to approach a stranger.
They fed him and they watered his horse and they told him when enough time had passed for the first careful layer of formality to soften slightly what had happened to the cattle. A section of fence on the southern boundary had come down in a storm 8 days before. A bad storm, the kind that came through this country in late summer and left things broken in ways that took time to find. The cattle had drifted south through the gap over several days before anyone realized how many were missing. Two men had been sent to track them, but had come back without the herd after 3 days, unable to cover enough ground alone.
The loss of 200 head was not a small thing. It was the kind of loss that changes the shape of a year. Boon listened and ate the food they gave him and didn't say much. When Yuma asked him where he was going, he said he wasn't sure. When she asked what his work was, he said he was between things.
When she asked more directly than he might have expected, whether he was in some kind of trouble, he said no, which was the truth. And she looked at him for a moment as if checking the weight of it, and then nodded and seemed satisfied. He spent the night in the valley in a space they cleared for him near the horses where August could rest properly. He slept better than he had in two days and woke to the sound of the camp moving into the morning with the same purposeful rhythm he had noticed the day before. He was preparing to saddle August and take his leave when Grey Elk appeared and stood near him in the early light in that particular way.
That means a person has something to say and is deciding how to say it. "You will stay," Grey Elk said. It was not quite a command and not quite an invitation. It was the kind of sentence that functions as both and lets the other person decide which one to hear. Boon thought about the road south and the $3 and the absence of anywhere specific to be.