The Town Hall Fakeout #3
They drove back to the ranch. The valley was wide and gold. The cattle were dark shapes on the hills. Maeve looked at the land, at the fence lines, at the irrigation ditches, at everything she'd saved and everything she'd sold.
"We need to move your things," Cole said.
"I know."
"Not everything. Enough to show residence. Clothes. Boots. The logbook. Something that says you live there."
"I live here."
"You live there too. On paper. In fact."
Maeve looked at her hands. The ring was dull in the truck light. "I'll pack tonight."
"Pack now. I'll help."
"I don't need help."
"I'll help anyway."
They reached Ironwood at noon. The sun was high. The frost had melted. The clay loam showed through in dark patches. Maeve got out of the truck and walked to the house. Cole followed.
Evelyn was in the kitchen, making bread. The dough was on the table, rising in a ceramic bowl.
"You filed," Evelyn said.
"We filed," Maeve said.
"And?"
"And we wait. And we prepare. And we move some things to Cole's cabin."
Evelyn's hands stopped kneading. She looked at Cole. She looked at Maeve.
"You're moving in," Evelyn said.
"On paper," Maeve said. "For the inspection. For the evidence."
"Where will you sleep?"
"She'll sleep in the master bedroom," Cole said. "I'll sleep on the couch."
"The couch is short," Evelyn said.
"I'm shorter than your daughter."
Evelyn almost smiled. She wiped her hands on her apron. "Pack what you need. I'll make stew for dinner. You can eat here or there. But eat together."
Maeve went upstairs. She stood in her room. The bed was narrow. The quilt was folded. The certificate was on the dresser. She looked at her closet. Three pairs of jeans. Four flannel shirts. One dress. One pair of boots without duct tape. The logbook. Her father's brush.
She pulled a duffel bag from under the bed, canvas and green, with a broken zipper. She packed two pairs of jeans, two shirts, underwear, socks, the logbook, the brush. She didn't pack the certificate. She left it on the dresser. It belonged here, in the house where her father had died.
She walked downstairs. The duffel bag was light. She hadn't packed much. She didn't need much. She'd always traveled light. She'd never traveled at all.
Cole took the bag and carried it to his truck. He put it in the bed. Maeve stood on the porch. Evelyn stood in the doorway.
"Come back for dinner," Evelyn said. "Both of you. Or don't come back. But eat."
"We'll eat," Cole said.
Maeve got in the truck. She looked at the house, at the barn, at the valley. She was leaving home to save home. She was moving out to stay. She didn't understand the logic. She didn't need to understand it. She only needed to do it.
They drove south. The Vance property was two miles down the county road, then a mile up a gravel track. The track was narrow. The cottonwoods met overhead. The leaves were yellow and falling. They made a tunnel of gold.
Cole's cabin sat in a clearing. It was small. One story. Log walls. A metal roof. A porch with two chairs. A woodpile stacked against the north wall. The chimney was stone. The windows were small and square.
Maeve had seen the cabin from the road. She'd never been inside. She'd never been invited. She'd never invited herself.
Cole parked and got out. He took her duffel bag and walked to the door. He unlocked it. The key was on a leather thong around his neck.
Maeve stepped inside, and the door clicked shut with a sound that sealed the small space around her.
The room was one breath of pine and smoke, the kitchen running along the left wall while the cold stove sat in the center and the bed with its gray wool blanket pressed against the far wall, close enough to the canvas couch that she could have stretched between them.
A table with two chairs stood beneath a shelf of books, and a hand pump rose from the sink where a lantern rested, its unlit glass catching the dim light.
The air was cool and still, and Maeve read the intimacy of the space press against her, because there was nowhere here to hide from another person's breathing.
"I built it after my father died," Cole said. "I didn't need the big house. The big house was for a family. I had no family."
He set her duffel bag on the bed, where the thin mattress compressed and the gray wool blanket rose rough against the narrow frame.
"I'll take the couch," he said. "You'll take the bed. The bathroom is outside. The pump is cold. The heater is the stove."
Maeve walked to the window. It looked south, toward the Sapphire Mountains. The view was different from Ironwood. Ironwood looked west, toward the Bitterroot range. This looked east. The light was different. The shadows were different. The land was the same.
"I need to check the stove," she said.
"I'll check it."
"I'll check it."
Cole stepped back. Maeve opened the stove door. The ashes were cold. She found kindling in the box beside it and matches on the mantel. She struck a match. The flame caught. She added kindling and a split of pine. The stove popped. The metal expanded. The warmth began.
She stood and looked at the room. The couch was short, maybe six feet, and Cole was six feet, his feet would hang off and he wouldn't sleep well, though he didn't sleep well anyway, she knew this from the light in his window she'd seen burning late for years.
"I'll make dinner," Cole said. "I have venison. I have potatoes. I have coffee."
"I'll help."
"You'll sit. You've moved enough today."
"I don't sit."
"Then stand. But let me cook. It's what I do. It's what I have."
Maeve sat on the couch because he'd told her to sit and her legs were tired and the room was small and she didn't know where else to put herself, the canvas stiff beneath her, the frame creaking under her weight.