The house was quiet. Everett's hat hung on its peg inside the back door. Rebecca stopped when she saw it. One step down the hall and she could wake him. She could tell him what Mercer had said.
Everett would look at her with that steady gaze and say the rumors did not matter. And she was afraid she would believe him. More afraid that she would stay because she wanted to. Rebecca placed a folded note on the kitchen table. Everett.
I need some distance from Hail Creek while this is being decided. This choice is mine. Please let it be mine. Rebecca, she read it twice, then left. Her horse carried her back toward Copper Ridge beneath a colorless morning sky.
Rebecca never looked behind her, but when Hail Creek disappeared beyond the cottonwoods, she had to loosen her grip on the rains because her fingers had begun to ache. By sunrise, she was back inside her food shed. She set the recipe box beneath the counter, put on her apron, lit both burners, and started making breakfast as though she had not just walked away from the one place in Wyoming where someone had asked her not to become smaller. At Hail Creek, Everett found the note at 6:10. Franklin had already sent two riders toward the eastern pasture.
Owen was splitting kindling beside the bunk house, and somebody had put coffee on in the ranch kitchen. Everything looked ordinary. That was what made the empty chair so noticeable. Rebecca usually sat there for 5 minutes before breakfast when she worked at Hail Creek, checking what needed doing while the first pot warmed. Everett had grown used to seeing her ledger beside the coffee tin, her pencil resting across the page.
This morning, there was only the folded paper. He read it standing up, then read it again. Franklin came through the door carrying a pair of wet gloves. She gone. Everett folded the note.
Yes. Town. I expect so. Franklin looked toward the stove. Owen had attempted biscuits.
They were flat and pale. Want me to send somebody? No. Franklin studied him. Everett placed Rebecca's note in his shirt pocket.
She asked me to let the choice be hers. That ended the discussion. They ate. Nobody complained about the biscuits. Nobody praised them either.
Coffee was hot. Bacon was cooked. There was enough food. But the kitchen had lost its rhythm. Owen reached automatically toward the empty chair when asking whether more flour should be ordered, then stopped.
Everett finished half his breakfast. Franklin noticed. He said nothing. By 9, Everett was riding toward Copper Ridge. He told himself he needed to speak with the commissioner.
That was true. He told himself he needed fencing staples. That was not. He saw Rebecca's shed before he reached Harvey's forge. Smoke rose from the stove pipe.
Her door stood open. Rebecca was inside. Everett slowed his horse. She was serving two frighters at the counter, her sleeves rolled up, flower on one cheek, alive, working, exactly where she had chosen to be. Everett's horse stopped.
Rebecca looked up. Their eyes met across the street. Neither moved. Everett could have crossed 20 yards. He could have demanded an explanation.