Bo felt his jaw tighten. This was not going according to plan. He'd expected tears, pleas for mercy, maybe an offer of, well, the kinds of offers desperate widows sometimes made. He hadn't expected defiance. "Mrs. Bishop, I sympathize with your situation."
"No, you don't." Kelly stepped down from the porch, moving toward him with surprising speed. She was tiny, barely reaching his shoulder, but she moved like a wildcat. "If you sympathized, you wouldn't be here. If you sympathized, you'd remember that Samuel died trying to save two of your calves that broke through the ice on Bitter Creek."
"Remember that? Because I do. I remember watching my husband ride out in a blizzard to help his neighbor, and I remember them bringing his body back frozen stiff on the back of a wagon." Bo did remember. He'd sent Jack with $50 for the funeral expenses, an anonymous donation, of course. He hadn't attended the service himself.
"Your husband's heroism doesn't change the facts of the contract, ma'am. The loan was due in full by August 15th. Today is August 20th. I'm already showing considerable patience by—" "Patience?" Kelly's laugh was sharp and bitter.
"You call five days patience? The wheat won't be ready for harvest for another month. One month, Mr. Callahan, and I could pay you every penny with interest." Bo shook his head. He'd heard versions of this story a dozen times before.
Next month turned into next season. Next season turned into next year, and debts became bad memories that nobody wanted to honor. "I've learned not to believe in next month, Mrs. Bishop." "Then you've learned to be a hard man," Kelly said quietly, and something in her voice made Bo look up sharply.
There was no judgment in her eyes, only a kind of sad recognition, as if she'd seen this coming all along. "The world made me hard, ma'am. I'm just trying to survive in it." "We all are, Mr. Callahan." Kelly gestured toward the house where those five small faces still watched.
"But some of us don't have the luxury of becoming hard. Some of us have to stay soft enough to love the people who depend on us." For just a moment, Bo felt something crack in the careful armor he'd built around his heart. Then he forced it back down, buried it deep where it couldn't touch him. "I'll give you three days to vacate the property," he said, his voice as cold as January wind.
"Take whatever personal belongings you can carry. The land, the house, and all fixtures revert to me. I'll see that you get transportation to Laramie, where you might find work." "Work?" Kelly's voice rose. "What kind of work do you imagine a widow with five children can find, Mr. Callahan?"
"Should I leave them at the church door like unwanted kittens while I scrub floors at the hotel? Or maybe I should take the job at Miller's Saloon, serving drinks to the same men who egged my husband on while he drank away our future?" Bo's hands clenched. "That's not my concern." "Not your concern?" Kelly repeated the words slowly, as if tasting poison.
"My children starving in the street is not your concern? My eldest daughter, Sarah, who's eight years old and hasn't had a new dress in two years, not your concern? My son, Thomas, who's six and still wakes up crying for his papa, not your concern? The twins, Mary and Martha, barely four years old, who don't even understand why there's never enough food, not your concern?"
"And baby James, not yet one year old, who never even met the father who died saving your property, not your concern?" She said each child's name like a bullet, and Bo felt every one of them hit home. He'd deliberately avoided learning their names, avoided thinking of them as individual souls with faces and futures. It was easier that way. "Mrs. Bishop—"
"Seven days." Bo blinked. "What?" Kelly moved closer, close enough that he could see the flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, close enough to see the set of her jaw and the desperate determination in every line of her face. "Give me seven days, Mr. Callahan."