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“It means revenue they can distinguish from livestock sales.”

“Same rope. Better label.”

Wyatt looked at me. “Do you have something useful to contribute?”

Usually that would’ve been my opening.

A grin. A bow. An assurance that my presence itself improved property value.

Instead I looked past him through the west window.

The sale barn roof shone red in the low sun. Trucks had flattened the grass along the drive. Beyond the corrals, Carrow Creek caught light between the cottonwoods. We had three thousand acres, a sale barn, pens, parking if we cut and marked the hay meadow right, and a name half Montana’s cattle people recognized.

I’d been staring at the pieces all day.

Maybe longer.

“What date’s the first payment?” I asked.

Wyatt named it.

I counted backward in my head. Promotion. Entries. Stock. Sanctioning, if we could get it. Insurance. Vendors. Panels. Portable toilets. Emergency plan. Arena crew.

My old circuit life came back not as memory but as a list.

“August fifteenth,” I said.

Wyatt stopped writing. “What happens August fifteenth?”

“The Carrow Creek Rodeo.”

Boone looked away from the stove.

Josie stood with one hand on the kettle.

Wyatt stared at me for so long I could practically hear him searching our shared childhood for the exact head injury responsible.

“No,” he said.

“That was fast. You should hear the pitch before crushing my dreams. It makes the crushing more personal.”

“We do not have the capital, labor, insurance, permits, stock, infrastructure, or time to produce a rodeo.”

“We’ve got grounds, pens, an arena we can improve, parking, and me.”

“Yes. I included you under liability.”

“Fair.”

I pulled out the chair and sat again, this time square to the table.

Wyatt noticed.

So did Boone.

I didn’t pitch from chairs. I leaned in doorways and smiled until people volunteered. Sitting down meant I expected to stay through the no.

“I know producers,” I said. “Stock contractors. Pickup men. Announcers. Judges. Bullfighters. Everybody who makes the thing run and half the people who’ll pay to enter. We put on one day. Rough stock, timed events, barrels. Food vendors pay for space. Gate, entries, sponsorships.”