“He put common sense in charge.”
“Then we’re both in trouble.”
He almost smiled.
She sat grudgingly.
He brought coffee.
She accepted.
“That does not mean I forgive you.”
“For coffee?”
“For everything.”
He sat nearby.
“Fair.”
They examined the deed again.
The woman showed him letters from her mother.
Most were ordinary.
Household news.
A sister in Missouri.
A sick aunt.
A passage about “the Montana matter” appeared in one letter but offered no detail.
Another contained a single sentence:
Keep the papers hidden until someone from the Cross family comes with honesty rather than lawyers.
The cowboy read it.
Then looked up.
The woman’s expression had changed.
“You’ve never seen that?”
“I have.”
“You didn’t know what it meant.”
“No.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
The cowboy opened another letter.
This one addressed her mother directly from an unknown man.
It discussed a debt.
Not money.
A promise.
The phrase appeared:
The creek parcel will remain yours no matter what my family says later.
No signature remained.
The bottom had been torn.
The cowboy sat back.
“My father.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
“But I think so.”
The woman studied him.
“Why would your father give land to my mother?”
The cowboy looked toward the wall.
He remembered his father as stern.
Principled.
Difficult.
A man who believed reputation mattered almost as much as property.
There had been years his father disappeared for days claiming business in Helena.
The cowboy had been a child then.
Could there have been something else?
The possibility made him uncomfortable.
The woman saw it.
“You think they were…”
“I don’t know.”
She placed one hand around her belly.
The cowboy noticed.
Then another thought struck him.
Her mother.
His father.
A secret deed.
Thirty-two years.
The woman followed his face.
“No.”
He looked toward her.
“No what?”
“Whatever you’re thinking.”
“I’m not…”
“Yes, you are.”
She glared.
“My father was not your father.”
The cowboy nearly choked on coffee.
“I did not say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“That would make this conversation much worse.”
The woman laughed despite herself.
The tension cracked.
The cowboy smiled.
Then she became serious.
“My father was a bookbinder in St. Louis.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“I remember him.”
“Good.”
The cowboy nodded.
“Good.”
Silence.
The woman looked suspicious.
“Why good?”
He glanced toward her.
Then away.
Her eyebrows rose.
The cowboy realized what he had implied.
“I meant legally.”
“Of course.”
She almost smiled.
The snow stopped on the second morning.
The ranch hands returned north after securing the roof enough for several weeks.
The cowboy should have gone with them.
He did not.
The woman noticed.
“Missing cattle.”
“Found.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Where?”
“Your east timber.”
She frowned.
“So you’re done.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you still here?”
The cowboy looked toward the deed.