From the window of my cabin, through the gap in the curtains, I have a clear line of sight to the backyard of the main house. It’s been a spectacle of destruction. Saramaria has been moving like a woman possessed, dragging heavy logs from the woodpile with a frantic energy that worries me. She built a fire in the stone pit an hour ago, a massive, roaring thing that sends sparks spiraling up toward the gray sky.
And she’s been feeding it.
Not just wood. She’s clearing out the house. I watched her carry out a stack of old magazines—vintages ofWestern Horsemanthat Anthony used to hoard—and toss them onto the flames. Then came a rug, a faded, threadbare Persian thing that used to sit in the foyer. She balled it up and threw it in.
The smoke is thick, drifting across the yard and smelling of burning wool and paper. It stings the nose.
Every time I’ve tried to go over there, she shuts me down. I went out an hour ago, intending to ask if she needed help with the heavy lifting. She was on the porch, wrestling with a wooden chair. I took two steps toward her, and she practically growled at me.
“I’ve got it,” she snapped. Her eyes were wild, rimmed with red. She didn’t look at me like she usually does, with anger or coldness. She looked at me like I was a stranger intruding on a private ritual.
I retreated.
I don’t understand it. Rhett dropped off the documents this morning. The box with every lease, every tax return, every scrap of paper that proves she owns this place lock, stock, and barrel. That should be the end of it. She wanted proof that she could sell? She has it. She wanted the power? She holds it all in her hands now.
I thought she would be happy. I thought she would be on the phone with her real estate agent in Denver, plotting her escape. Instead, she’s acting like she’s burning the place to the ground before she leaves.
I check my watch. It’s almost four o’clock. The sun is already dipping behind the ridge. The temperature is dropping fast.
I can’t stand here watching the flames anymore. It makes my chest hurt. I need to work. I need to do something that makes sense.
I grab my coat and head out to the barn. The air is biting, carrying the scent of snow. The clouds are low and heavy, a blanket of iron-gray that promises a storm before morning.
Midnight is in his stall. He nickers when he sees me, pushing his soft nose over the door. I stroke his face, running my thumb over the white star on his forehead.
“Hey, old man,” I murmur.
I can feel his age in the way he leans into my touch, seeking the warmth of my hand. His coat is still shiny, black as ink, but there are white hairs sprinkled through his mane now. His joints stiffen up when the weather turns cold like this. He’s twenty-one. He’s earned his retirement, but he hates being left behind.
I saddle him up, taking extra care with the girth, making sure it’s not too tight. He sighs, a long, shuddering breath that puffs out in a cloud of steam.
“Just a quick trip,” I tell him. “Down to the creek and back. Then you get a mash and a good rubdown.”
Blue appears from the hay barn, his tail wagging. He knows the routine. He knows what the saddle means.
I swing into the saddle. Midnight steps out eagerly, glad to be moving. His gait is a little stiffer than it used to be, a little shorter, but there’s still power in his hindquarters.
I open the gate and Blue herds them through, barking with that high-pitched, authoritative yip that cuts through the wind. We move them down the trail that leads to the creek. The ground is hard, frost crunching under the hooves.
We head out to the south pasture. The herd is clustered near the fence line, waiting for me. They know the schedule better than I do. They’re thirsty.
It’s a quiet job. One I’ve done a thousand times. Usually, I let my mind go blank. I focus on the cattle, on the placement of my feet, on the pressure of the reins. But today, my mind won’t shut off.
I look at the land stretching out around us. The rolling hills, the stands of pine, the creek cutting through the valley like a silver ribbon. This is all I know. I came here when I was seventeen, a kid with a rap sheet and an attitude problem, angry at the world and everyone in it.
Anthony gave me a chance. He gave me a job. He gave me a roof over my head. He taught me that the land doesn’t care who you are or where you came from. It only cares that you work it. That you respect it.
I became part of this place. The dirt is under my fingernails, the hay dust in my lungs. My history is written in the fence lines I’ve fixed and the calves I’ve pulled.
If she sells... what happens to me?
It’s not just about losing a job. I could find work as a foreman on another ranch. Maybe. I’m good with horses. I know cattle. But it wouldn’t bethis.
This is my home. The cabin I built with my own hands. The ridge where I go to think when the pressure gets too much. The spot by the creek where I scattered Anthony’s ashes.
I have nowhere else to go. My parents are dead. I have no siblings. The few relatives I have back East are people I haven’t spoken to in twenty years. I’m not a city person. I don’t belong in offices. I don’t belong in traffic.
I belong here. In the wind. In the saddle.
