October may change your mind. Silence settled over the yard. Get off my land, Rhett said. Bootsteps crossed the hardpacked ground. A moment later, the sound of a horse faded down the road.
Nia dried the last plate and looked through the window. Red stood alone before the burned out storehouse, both hands clenched at his sides. The drought was killing Holt Ranch. But Nia was beginning to believe the drought had help. She remained by the window until the dust thrown up by Rafe Crow's horse disappeared beyond the ridge.
Rhett still had not moved from the blackened ruins. The afternoon sun beat down on him without mercy, deepening the shadows beneath his eyes and exposing the exhaustion carried across his shoulders. He looked like a man holding up a collapsing roof no one else could see. That afternoon, Nia carried a cup of coffee out to the porch. "Rhett once again had the ranch ledger spread across his knees.
"You don't have to wait on me outside the kitchen," he said. "The coffee was already made. Nia set the cup beside him and turned away. Nia, she stopped. It was the first time Rhett had spoken her name.
Not girl, not the new woman, not some clipped order tossed over his shoulder. Her name? Where were you working before you came here? A kitchen near Harding. Before that, a wash house.
And before that, Nia met his eyes. My family's land. Where was it? East of here. Rhett waited, but she offered nothing more.
He partly closed the ledger. What happened? Drought? Debt? Then men came carrying papers and told us the land didn't belong to us anymore.
There was no bitterness in her voice, only an old truth she had learned to live with. "My father died without ever getting it back," she continued. That taught me something. Land can start dying long before anyone drives a for sale sign into the ground. Red looked out across the yellow fields.
I wasn't asking whether you knew what ruin looked like. But I do. The silence between them did not feel uncomfortable. A dry breeze loosened a strand of Nia's black hair and moved it across her cheek. The food was good, Rhett finally said.
Best meal that kitchen had turned out in weeks. It was a small compliment, almost awkward. For Nia, it was enough. The next morning, she rose before sunrise. She lit the cook stove, started coffee, and stood in the rear doorway while the water heated.
Holt Ranch stretched before her beneath a pale gray dawn. The land looked worn down to the bone. The corrals held no trace of green. The creek lay motionless like a dark ribbon across the earth. Farther out, thin cattle nosed among dry roots in search of something worth eating.
Nia stopped watching the animals. Instead, she began reading the land. Taza had taught her that eyes could deceive a person when they searched only for what was obvious. A plane could look dead and still hide water underneath. A hillside could hold the memory of every storm that had crossed it in a hundred years.