The steer checks.
Turns.
Folds back into the herd with a huff of protest like it was always meant to be there.
Chace lets out a low whistle before he can stop himself.
I glance toward Eli without meaning to, waiting for something. Anything.
He's already looking back.
Our eyes hold for a beat—long enough for me to see the slight nod. Brief. Almost invisible to anyone else watching. But there. Deliberate.
Then he adjusts the line and turns forward, and the work continues as if nothing happened.
Heat rises in my chest. Not satisfaction exactly. Something deeper. Something that settles warm and solid beneath my ribs.
He saw it.
And he let me know.
We move on as the sun finally breaches the horizon, light spilling thin and gold across the land. The ranch stretches wideand familiar, cattle flowing forward under steady pressure, the work reclaiming its rhythm.
I breathe it in. The sound. The movement. The way my body and Blaze and the land all seem to speak the same language again.
No one speaks. We don't need to.
The work continues through the morning, clean and steady. The cattle settle into their new rhythm, following the natural flow of the land as we guide them south. My muscles remember everything—the give and take, the way to read a hesitation before it becomes a problem, the patience required to let momentum do most of the work.
Later, when someone passes around water, I drink slowly and let my body catch up to itself.
Eli rides past close enough that our horses nearly brush.
"Good work today," he says without looking at me. Voice low, like it's easier to say if he doesn't have to meet my eyes.
Then he’s ridden past me, heading to check the fence line before I can respond.
By the time we reach the lower pasture, sweat has soaked through my shirt beneath the jacket. My legs ache in the good way, the kind that says I've earned my place here today.
We finish the move mid-morning.
The cattle settle into the new pasture with minimal protest, spreading out to graze like they've been there all along. Dust hangs briefly in the air before the breeze carries it off, leaving the land quiet again. Too quiet.
Eli reins in near the fence line, scanning the spread with the same focused attention he's carried all morning. No smile. No nod. Just assessment. The work never really ends for him. It just shifts shape.
The crew begins to peel off naturally, riders drifting toward water troughs and shade, horses blowing out long breaths as tension drains from muscle and bone. Someone cracks a joke I don't quite hear. Another laughs.
I dismount near the gate and run a hand down Blaze's neck, loosening the cinch slowly. My legs feel solid beneath me. Used. Earned.
Eli rides past me once without slowing.
My chest dips, sharp and stupid.
Then he circles back.
He stops a few feet away, not crowding me, his eyes still on the pasture as if the conversation is an afterthought. As if the words he's about to say matter less than the land in front of us.
"Tomorrow," he says, voice level, "we'll start earlier. Push 'em further south before the heat comes up."
