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The horse barn door stands open, and I can hear her in there telling Sadie she's spoiled rotten.

Beckett is sitting on my back steps, with two longnecks beside him and his bad arm held tight against his ribs.

I sit down beside him and take one.

"I drove past the fight barn," he says. "Saw the chain."

"It stays on."

He drinks. Out in the pasture, the cattle drift toward the stock tank in the last of the light.

"I was going to leave," he says. "Get off this place and away from everything Bo did on it. With the ring shut, there's nothing left on Devil's Acre I'd be ashamed of. Somebody has to run these cattle like a real outfit. I'm staying, and I'm running them."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure." He looks at me. "Every calf I sell goes on paper."

"Then you'll need somewhere to put winter hay," I tell him. "The fight barn loft already takes square bales, and the floor will hold a lot more once the ring posts come out. I'll pull them this week. It's yours."

He studies me a while. Then he knocks his bottle against mine.

We drink and watch the cattle until it's too dark to see them.

Delilah goes back to work Saturday. She walks into Main Street Feed & Supply in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and doesn't stop on the threshold.

I stay in the truck across the street. She told me to.

Through the plate glass window, I watch the old man who owns the place come out from behind the counter. He stops in front of her. His mouth works, and nothing comes out. He goes back, lifts the hinged end of the counter, and steps aside for her.

She goes behind it like she never left.

Before the morning's out, half the ranchers in the county have found a reason to buy fly spray. Through the glass I watch a few of them look at the floor and a few of them look her in the face.

One old cowman in a sweat-stained hat leans on the counter and talks to her through a whole cup of coffee. She writes something on a receipt and tucks it in her shirt pocket.

Two men come out of the store with a sack of mineral between them and stop at their truck at the curb to load it. The younger one jerks his chin back at the window.

"Preacher's girl," he says, and grins at his buddy. "Back from wherever she went."

My window's down, and I hear every word.

I'm out of the truck and across the street before he gets the tailgate shut. I don't say a word. I stand on the curb with my hands at my sides and look at him.

His grin goes away. He climbs into his cab, and his buddy gets in the other side. They drive off without looking back at the window.

I'm in the truck again when she comes out at noon. She climbs in and pulls the receipt out of her pocket.

"That old cowman has a pair of two-year-olds nobody can get a saddle on," she says. "I told him to haul them out to Devil's Acre in a few weeks, when my hand can take a rope. I can still ride anything he puts under me."

"That's two colts I'll have to stand at the rail and watch throw you."

"They won't."

She looks at me sideways. "Who was that on the sidewalk?"

"A man who called you the preacher's girl," I say. "He won't call you that again."

She looks out her window, and she leaves it at that.