CHAPTER 2
Colt
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Colt Duvane kept both hands steady on the wheel until the feed store fell behind them and the last light laid itself thin across the county road.
Beau sat buckled in the back seat with her knees up, one boot tapping the booster seat. Junie had sent her out with a paper sack of leftover sandwich halves, two star stickers stuck to the back of her hand, and a warning that she had asked forty questions about the lady at Sudie's fence.
Colt had thanked Junie, kept his hat low, and not looked toward the account desk where gossip liked to gather even when no one was speaking.
He had done all right until Beau said, "Daddy?"
"Yeah, bug."
"Was that Wren?"
The name landed harder than it ought to have. Beau had not existed when Wren Calloway left Dusthallow, yet there it was in his daughter's voice, small and bright and impossible to dodge.
Colt checked the mirror. Beau had her chin tipped toward the window, watching cedar and fence posts slide by. One ponytail had already lost most of its fight.
"That was Wren," he said.
"The pretty lady from the fence?"
His grip tightened once, then eased. A child did not need the weight of old hurt tucked under an ordinary question.
"Same one."
"She knows you?"
Outside, a black calf lifted its head from a strip of shade. Colt let the moment pass long enough to set his answer in the right place.
"She used to."
"Did she forget?"
He almost laughed, but there was no humor in him to spend. Wren had not forgotten. She had looked at him across Sudie's fence like memory had teeth.
"No," he said. "I don't reckon she forgot."
Beau considered that. Her boot tap went still for three fence posts, then started again. "I'm five."
"I know it."
"That's big."
"Big enough to help me remember we have water to check before bath."
Beau made the small huff that meant she had hoped for a different evening. Colt let it stand. Routine mattered more than indulgence. Supper, feed, water, a look at the heifer in the close lot, bath, milk, story, star quilt, light out by 8:00 p.m. If he kept the order, Beau's world stayed level.
His could do what it wanted after she was asleep.
The Duvane ranch house came into view between two live oaks, low-roofed and weather-faded, with the barn beyond it throwing a long red shadow across the packed yard.
Colt stopped at the gate, leaned out, and latched it behind them before driving on.
Leave a gate how you found it, unless you meant to answer for what got through.
By the time he killed the engine, Beau was already unbuckling herself.
"Wait," he said.
She froze with one arm through the belt. "Seat belt, boots on the ground, wait for you."
"That's right."
He came around and lifted her down even though she could climb fine by herself. Some nights he wanted the brief weight of her in his hands before the work took him again.
She smelled like playground dust and the sweet shampoo Junie used when preschool glue got into her hair. Colt set her on the ground. She ran three steps, remembered the rule, and stopped at the porch post until he caught up.
Inside, the house held the late-day heat.
He opened two windows, started supper, and set Beau at the table with the solemn duty of putting napkins beside the plates.
Supper was beans, the sandwich halves from Junie's sack, and the last of yesterday's cornbread.
He had stretched enough into plenty more times than he could count.
The bill basket sat on the counter by the phone, its top envelope stamped with the feed supplier's red overdue line.
A vet invoice waited beneath it, then a parts receipt for the trough valve that had cracked and wasted water before dawn.
He turned the basket facedown before Beau climbed into her chair.
"Can we have the star cup?" she asked.
"Milk or water?"
"Milk for supper and water for my bed cup."
"Good plan."
"Mama liked stars."
Colt opened the refrigerator and let the cool air hit his face for one breath longer than necessary. Harlow had liked stars. She had liked weather reports, fresh biscuits, clean windows, and Beau's wild baby laugh. She had liked plain truth and steady mornings. She had deserved more of them.
"She did," he said, and poured the milk.
Beau swung her legs while she ate and told him about a preschool picture made with too much glue.
Colt answered when answers were required, nodded when they were not, and kept his face easy.
A man could have a storm breaking open behind his ribs and still needed to notice when the beans were too hot.
"Daddy," Beau said after two bites of cornbread.
"Yeah."
"Is Wren coming to Della's wedding?"
He set his fork down to reach for his water, buying himself the half second. "I expect so."
"Is Della her family?"
"Her sister."
"Will Wren have flowers?"
"Probably. Weddings usually do."
"Can I have a flower crown?"
"That's up to Della and whoever is handling flowers."
"I would be careful."
"I believe you."
Beau smiled into her milk. Colt looked away because the smile had a piece of Harlow in it, the quick lift at one corner, the faith that careful wanting might be enough to sway the world. It had failed to save Harlow or keep Wren; for a child at a kitchen table, it still deserved room to breathe.
After supper, Beau carried her plate to the sink with both hands and left a bean on the floor. Colt picked it up before she saw and made a fuss of it. Then he changed from the shirt he had worn to Sudie's fence into one that already had hay caught in the cuffs.
"Barn?" Beau asked, standing in the kitchen doorway.
"Barn."
"Then bath?"
"Then bath."
"Then two stories?"
"One story if we want 8:00 p.m."
"A little one and a big one?"
"One."
"A medium one?"
He pointed toward the mudroom with two fingers. "Boots."
She grinned because negotiation was not over; it had only been postponed.
The evening had cooled by a few degrees, though the ground still breathed up heat. Cedar dust lifted around their boots as they crossed the yard. The barn aisle held saddle soap, leather, dry hay, and the faint metallic tang from the mineral tubs stacked near the office wall.
Tuck had left the feed bins latched and a note on the whiteboard in blocky print: close lot heifer restless, ligaments soft, eating light.
Colt read it twice, though he had understood it the first time. A heifer near calving did not care that a woman from his past had stepped back into town. Cattle lived or died by what a man checked, not by what he felt.
"Can I scoop?" Beau asked.
"Half scoop for the chickens. Then you stand by the tack room door while I do the rest."
"I can do a whole scoop."
"Half. The scoop is heavy."
"When I'm six?"
"We'll discuss it."
She liked that answer because it sounded official. Colt measured out feed and watched her carry the lighter scoop to the chicken pen. The birds fussed around her boots. She laughed, bright and loud, and one of the horses in the side pen lifted its head.
"Soft feet," Colt reminded.
"I know."
She softened her steps so dramatically that dust puffed anyway.
He moved through the chores with practiced economy.
Feed in the right tubs. Latches checked with a pull, not a glance.
Hose run into the trough by the east panel while he scraped algae from the float with a pocketknife.
The cracked valve had cost half a morning, two trips for parts, and money that should have stayed in the bank until the auction check cleared.
The bank account had room enough if nothing else broke. Something always broke.
From the tack room door, Beau was humming to herself. She had found a scrap of baling twine and was looping it around her wrist like a bracelet.
"Not around your neck," Colt said without looking up.
"It's a bracelet."
"Good."
"Can Wren make bracelets?"
He shut off the hose and felt the question travel across the aisle. "I don't know."
"Junie said she makes pretty things."
Junie said too much, but he kept that off his face. "She used to draw."
"Pictures?"
"Signs. Flowers. Things for parties. " He straightened and coiled the hose. "She was good at seeing how things ought to look."
There. More than he meant to say.
Beau wound the twine around her fingers. "You saw her like when I find my lost purple crayon."
Colt stilled with the hose in his hand.
Five years old did not mean blind. Beau noticed changes in voices and the missing beat before an answer. Colt had built his life around being steady for her, and still she saw the board flex.
"I knew Wren a long time ago," he said. "Sometimes seeing somebody from a long time ago surprises you."
"Was it a good surprise?"
The honest answer had too many corners. Wren at the fence had been older and still Wren, with city polish worn thin by something he had not had the right to ask about.
Her hair had been pinned up like she meant to work, and a loose piece had stuck to the damp at her neck.
He had noticed. God help him, after eight years, after marriage and burial clothes and preschool forms, he had never stopped noticing her.
"It was a surprise," he said.
Beau accepted the boundary because he said it gently. Colt hung the hose, checked the mineral tubs, then took her hand before walking to the close lot.
The heifer stood near the far panel, tail loose, head turned toward her flank. Colt rested his forearms on the top rail and watched. She shifted, lowed once, and went back to nosing a poor patch of hay. No hard labor yet. No water bag. Worth checking again before midnight.
Beau climbed onto the bottom rail. Colt put one hand behind her back.
"Is she having a baby tonight?" she whispered.
"Maybe. Maybe tomorrow."
"Will it be slimy?"
"Yes."
"Was I slimy?"
"You were perfect."
"That's not an answer."
"You were perfect and also slimy."
She giggled, satisfied. "Did Mama say ew?"