Chapter 6 #3
The ride back felt longer than the ride out had, the way return trips always did once the purpose of the day was behind them and there was nothing left to do but cover the miles.
Grace caught herself running through tomorrow's problems before they'd even reached the Hollow — which field got the plow first once it arrived, who could spare a day to help Russ with the mule trip, what exactly Cal would need from them once his own ground was ready to turn.
"Think Cal'll hold up his end?" she asked, mostly to hear Russ's read on it rather than because she doubted it herself.
"Man built a farm out of nothing and kept fourteen people fed through a winter most folks wouldn't have survived," Russ said. "He'll hold up his end. Question's whether the weather lets either of us hold up ours."
"Optimistic."
"I'm always optimistic. Just also honest about mud."
Grace laughed at that, tired enough that it came out lower than she meant it to. The light was starting to go long and gold across the fields on either side of the road, the kind of late-day color that made even tired ground look better than it had any right to.
"You're working," Russ said, watching her face.
"I'm riding."
"You're doing both."
She didn't argue the point, because he wasn't wrong.
"Madam Mayor," Russ added, mostly to see what she'd do with it.
Grace gave him a long look. "You're twenty miles from anybody who could save you if I decided that was worth responding to."
Russ laughed, and they rode the rest of the way with the light going gold and then gray around them.
Luke heard the horses before he saw them, out past the Cabin where the road came down toward the house, and he'd been checking that stretch of road more often than he wanted Billy Jean to notice for the better part of an hour.
She noticed anyway.
"They're back," she said.
"I know."
"You were looking."
"I heard them."
"You've been hearing them for an hour."
He didn't have a good comeback for that either, so he didn't try one, and went to meet the horses instead.
Grace and Russ came in tired, both of them moving like people who'd spent the whole day in a saddle and knew it.
Luke had Ben and Matthew accounted for — filthy from the creek and the chicken chase and whatever else the day had involved, but neither of them hurt, both of them fed, and Billy Jean still standing there when Grace swung down, which told Grace everything she needed to know about how the day had gone.
"Thank you," Grace said to her.
"He needed supervision," Billy Jean said.
"She means them," Luke said.
"Do I?" Billy Jean said, and Grace enjoyed that answer more than she probably should have.
Russ gave Walter the short version once everyone had gathered near the barn — the schedule settled, mules and wagon going out in a couple of days to bring back the plow and cultivator, then Russ returning later to work Cal's ground in trade, with cultivation to follow once things were up.
"Fair trade?" Grace asked him, once Walter had gone to see to the horses.
"Fair," Russ said, and that mattered to her more than the equipment itself did. Neither side had taken advantage of the other. Two places with different shortages had found a way to make those shortages fit together instead of fighting over what neither one had enough of.
"When can you get the plow?" Walter called back over his shoulder.
"Soon as I convince my backside to get back on a wagon seat," Russ said, and even Walter laughed at that, tired as everyone was.
Inside, Ben and Matthew gave Grace two entirely different versions of the day before she'd even gotten her boots off — one insisting Luke had bossed them mercilessly, the other insisting Billy Jean had been worse, both talking over each other until neither story made much sense at all.
Luke denied everything on principle.
"Everybody stay close?" Grace asked him.
"Yes."
She looked at Billy Jean.
"Mostly," Billy Jean said.
"What does mostly mean?" Luke asked.
"It means I'm not your witness."
Grace smiled at that and didn't push it further. Whatever mostly meant, both boys were fed, neither one was hurt, and the day had ended better than plenty of days had these last eight months.
She noticed, without making anything of it, how easily Billy Jean stood among her sons — not a guest, not quite family either, just someone who fit there without needing to be told how.
It was full dark by the time Billy Jean said she should get home, and Luke offered to walk her, which Grace allowed without much ceremony.
"Straight there and back," she said.
"I know."
"I'm saying it anyway."
Luke and Billy Jean headed off down the dark road together, and Grace watched them for exactly as long as it took Matthew to need something from inside the house, which wasn't very long at all.
Tomorrow Russ would start arranging the mule trip. Soon there'd be a second plow working Hollow ground, and eventually Cal would get the draft power his own farm needed. For once, a problem had produced a trade instead of a fight, and Grace intended to enjoy that while it lasted.
She went inside before somebody found another job for the mayor.