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The clerk from Harmon's Feed had come with three vaccine coolers and stayed to discuss a bulk mineral order with Wyatt. Two neighboring ranchers had asked Cash about boarding young horses. Doc had booked six herd checks while sitting under the awning, and four were close enough to Carrow Creek that the clinic could stage supplies here instead of hauling them from town.

A woman whose mare needed spring shots asked whether I could meet her at the ranch next week.

A cattleman asked Boone if Carrow Creek still took outside calves for backgrounding.

"Some," Boone said.

"How many?"

Boone looked toward Wyatt.

Wyatt, who heard money through walls, looked up from the gate sheet.

They talked.

Not solved.

Nothing was solved.

The mortgage still existed. The due date still sat on Wyatt's calendar in red. Every improvement made room for the next expense. Fences needed replacing. Diesel remained expensive. Calves had a talent for becoming sick on weekends.

But visitors came now.

People bought things. Asked things. Offered work. Saw a ranch instead of a haunted place occupied by three difficult brothers and a frightening man.

Hope did not arrive like weather.

It came as six herd checks, a mineral order, two boarded horses, and a baby placed without fear into Boone's hands.

I could work with that.

***

By lunch, the trestle table held eight pies, three coffee thermoses, Wyatt's refinancing papers, and Cash's plan to become a livestock tycoon.

Marnie had sent the pies with strict instructions that the empty tins be returned.

Four apple. Two cherry. One chocolate cream. One lemon meringue that had suffered during transport and leaned slightly east.

Cash pointed at it with his fork.

"That pie understands innovation. It refuses confinement."

"That pie hit a pothole," Wyatt said.

He sat at the end of the table in his cleanest dirty shirt, reading glasses low on his nose. Numbers covered the papers in front of him. His hat rested beside his elbow, protecting one stack from the wind.

The figure at the bottom was better than it had been in March.

I knew because Wyatt no longer looked like it had personally insulted his mother.

It still was not good enough.

I knew that because he kept doing the calculation.

Cash leaned across the table. "Picture it. Carrow Creek stock at every rodeo from here to Billings."

"No," Wyatt said.