I took the folder. Didn't shake Webb's hand again. Watched the van pull away, the white paint catching the late-morning sun, the tinted windows reflecting the mountains back at me. The tires left tracks in the gravel that the wind would erase within the hour.
The driver's hand near his hip. The workers' eyes on the ground.
Are they for us? Really?
I stood in the driveway until the van's dust trail dissolved into the distance. Compass pressed her flank against my calf—the gesture she made when thunder approached, or when the coyotes pushed too close, or when her one good ear caught something wrong on the wind.
Danny was still on the porch. He hadn't moved, but his posture had changed—weight forward, arms crossed, the casual lean replaced by something tighter.
"Well?" I climbed the steps.
He was quiet for a beat. Danny didn't rush words. "The driver had a holster under his jacket. Left side, shoulder rig. Saw the print when he leaned against the van."
I nodded. "What else?"
"The workers. They came off that van like prisoners come off a transport bus."
I didn't say anything. Danny didn't need me to.
"You want me to stay close today?" he asked.
"Yeah. Stay close."
I walked back to the bunkhouses and spent the next hour showing the workers around the property. Not supervising from a distance but shoulder to shoulder, my hands in the same soil, my back under the same sun. I showed them the fence lines, the water troughs, the cattle in the south pasture who needed counting and condition checks. Demonstrated the feed schedule. Walked them through the equipment shed, naming every tool in both languages, watching their faces for recognition.
They had skills. All of them. The way Miguel handled a fence post driver—the grip, the stance, the economy of motion—spoke to years of agricultural labor. The older man, who introduced himself as Pedro, evaluated the cattle with the quick, practiced eye of someone who'd worked livestock his entire life. One of the women, small and quiet with calloused palms, moved through the equipment shed identifying tools before I named them. Even the boy—Tomás, whose name came out with a hesitation that lasted a beat too long—knew how to manage a water trough and could identify three species of pasture grass by sight.
Experienced workers. Skilled workers. People who'd command twenty-five dollars an hour in any agricultural market in the western states if they were legally employed and fairly compensated.
So why had they stared at clean beds like they'd never been offered one?
During a water break I didn't call but enforced—I stopped working, sat on the tailgate, and waited until the crew realized they were allowed to do the same—Pedro lowered himself besideme. He moved with the stiffness of a man whose joints had been earning their pain for decades.
"Su rancho es bueno," he offered quietly. His eyes moved across the pasture, the mountains, the sky, taking it in with the hunger of someone who hadn't looked up in a long time. "Los animales están bien cuidados."
Your ranch is good. The animals are well cared for.
"Gracias. ¿Usted ha trabajado con ganado antes?"
Thank you. Have you worked with cattle before?
A nod. "Treinta años. Oaxaca, Sonora, Chihuahua." He paused. His hands, thick and scarred, turned the water bottle between his palms. "Después, aquí. Con la compañía."
Thirty years. Oaxaca, Sonora, Chihuahua. Then here. With the company.
"How long with High Basin?"
The shift to English didn't surprise him, but the question did. His eyes cut sideways—the same quick, weighted glance Miguel had given Webb. "Ocho meses."
Eight months.
I filed it. "And before High Basin?"
Pedro reached for the water bottle on the tailgate. When his arm extended, the sleeve of his work shirt rode up past the wrist for just a second. Long enough. The mark underneath was thin, pale against his brown skin, and it wrapped around the wrist in a line too even to be accidental. He caught me looking and tugged the cuff down with a motion that was practiced. Automatic. The gesture of a man who'd been adjusting that sleeve for a long time.
"Antes fue diferente," he murmured.
Before was different.
