Page 14

She keeps up.

Through the north pasture, along the fence line, she walks where I walk. Doesn't complain about the mud. Doesn't ask me to wait. Shoots while I work, moving around me with an awareness of angles that tells me she's done this before. Photographed people at work. Stayed out of the way while staying close.

The cattle don't care about her. They care about the feed I'm checking, the water level in the trough, the one heifer who's been favoring her right front leg for two days. I crouch next to her, run my hand along the leg, feel for heat.

"Is she okay?" Poppy asks.

"Probably a stone bruise. She'll be fine."

"You touch them gently."

"They're cattle, not punching bags."

"Some ranchers aren't as careful."

That makes me look up. She's got the camera lowered, watching me with the heifer, an expression on her face I don't want to interpret. It's too warm. Too open.

I stand. Move to the next section of fence. A post has come loose where the ground froze and thawed last week, and I grab the posthole digger from the truck bed.

"Hold this," I say, gesturing to the post. She sets her camera on the tailgate and takes the post with both hands. Holds it straight while I pack gravel around the base and tamp it down.

We're face to face across the post. Her hands above mine. Close enough to see the flecks in her eyes, the way her bottom lip is slightly fuller than the top, the small scar near her hairline I didn't notice before.

"What happened here?" My thumb brushes the scar before the thought finishes forming. Her skin is warm. Smooth.

Her breath catches. "Hit my head on a boat cleat when I was twelve. Fell off a dock in Oakland."

"You fall off things a lot."

"I climb things a lot. Falling is just climbing gone wrong."

My thumb is still on her skin. I pull it back. Turn to the truck. Grab the wire cutters because I need a tool in my hand or my hand is going to end up on her face again.

By noon, we've done the fence, checked the herd, and hauled two loads of squash from the far rows. She carries crates without being asked, stacking them in the barn with a system that actually makes sense. When I tell her the delicata goes separate from the butternut, she nods like she already knew.

Lunch is in the kitchen. She made sandwiches from whatever she found at Hilda's. Good bread, roasted turkey, some kind of herbed mayo she whipped up in Carol's kitchen and brought in a jar. We eat at the table. Same chairs as Wednesday. Same light through the window.

Different air. Thicker. Charged in a way I'm choosing to ignore.

"Can I ask you something personal?" she says.

"Probably shouldn't."

"What happened with your wife?"

The sandwich stops halfway to my mouth. "Hilda told you."

"Hilda told me her name is Beth. That's all."

Setting the sandwich down, I lean back. Beth. Haven't said her name out loud in this kitchen since the day she loaded her car.

"We got married too young. She thought the farm was romantic until she lived on it. Three years of trying to make each other into people we weren't." Simple facts. No bitterness left. Haven't had bitterness about Beth in years. "She wanted restaurants and weekends away. I wanted to get up at five and work the land. Neither of us was wrong. We just weren't right together."

Poppy doesn't say she's sorry. Doesn't tilt her head with sympathy. She nods once. Takes a bite of her sandwich. Lets it sit.

"Your turn," I say, because fair is fair. "Anyone back in Portland? Boise? Whatever city you blew through last?"

"There was a guy in Portland. Lasted a year."