Part 4
“No.” Nora pushed the figures away from him. “No, Eli. You don’t have to choose.”
He kept looking at the papers.
“I shouldn’t be asking you,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“I do want to stay.” Eli rubbed his face with both hands, then looked at the form. “But I already told the team I’d go. I built the grabber.”
Nora picked up the permission form. She read the date, checked the calendar, and signed where it required a parent. Then she put the fee in an envelope and clipped it to the paper.
“You can go.”
“What if something happens here?”
“I’ll have someone covering chores with me. Same as when I’m working.”
He took the envelope upstairs. Nora remained at the table until she heard him moving things in his room, opening the drawer where he kept his small tools. Only then did she pull the ranch map from beneath the proposals.
The eastern strip ran down one side of it like the handle of an old skillet. Ben had traced that boundary so often that the fold through it was nearly white. Nora laid a ruler along the line and began calculating without using the best year the pasture had ever had.
The next morning she called the lender about a partial sale. She took the district’s yearlong work agreement to the bank with Maren’s figures and her own estimate for a lean year of calf sales. After allowing for the bank’s payment, sale costs, and taxes, she set a minimum price: enough for the well, winter feed, and six months of household expenses.
Two days later, she took the map to Grant.
“The handle,” she said. “One hundred and twenty acres. You get the connection you’ve wanted. I keep the house, the rest of the deeded ground, and the bison.”
He looked at the boundary. “You told me you’d never sell that.”
“I know what I told you.”
“This won’t clear your mortgage.”
“It pays for the water work and winter feed, with a household reserve. The survey contract covers the bills at home. The herd has to cover its own costs.”
Grant studied her figures. He questioned the hay allowance, and she raised it while he watched. The price she had written for the land still left room above her minimum.
“You’d earn more working for me,” he said.
“I know.” Nora put Maren’s placement sheet beside the map. “I want these to go ahead. If Willow Bend has to sell out someday, there’ll be animals from these cows in other herds, with records someone can find.”
Grant looked at the two groups she had marked. “I’ve got the facilities to keep them here.”
“You do.” She slid the ranch map toward him. “But this is the sale I’m offering.”
He tapped the marked strip. “And if it still doesn’t work?”
“Then Maren and I arrange to move more stock while I can still afford the hauling. I won’t use the household reserve to keep every animal here.”
Grant sat back. He wanted a boundary inspection, an appraisal, and time to consider the price. Nora left him a copy, then drove home along the road beside the land she was offering him.
She pulled over where Ben had once parked to check the reseeding. Eli had been seven, dragging his ruler through the grass and announcing measurements that included the dirt below it. Nora could still locate the shallow hollow where Ben had sat to pull a burr from their son’s sock.
She stayed in the truck. When she got home, she told Eli about the proposed sale before taking off her coat.
The closing took six weeks. Grant negotiated the price down, but Nora refused his request for an option on the remaining acreage. After the bank’s payment, sale expenses, tax allowance, the new well, and contracted winter feed, she had eighteen thousand dollars to put away: the six months of household expenses she had required.
At the closing table, her signature came out badly on the first page. She stopped, flexed her fingers, and signed the next. Grant slid her copy across without telling her she had made the right decision.
The following afternoon, Nora met his fencing crew at the eastern boundary. She pointed out a service access that had to remain clear, checked the marked line against the agreed map, and stepped back while they set the first post. From where she stood, she could see grass Ben had planted on both sides of the new division.
She watched until the post was secure. Then she went home to meet Eli’s bus.
On the first cold Saturday in November, almost a year after the auction, six pickups stood outside Willow Bend’s gate. Maren had arranged a small visit for people interested in future placements. Nora had asked her to keep it to the morning because she had somewhere else to be that afternoon.
The new well fed the storage tank from retained ground. Nora had signed the stewardship agreement and started the district schedule, leaving one ranch check each week to Mae. The first selected calves would leave together in their planned groups once health checks and weaning were complete.
Beyond the fence, Sixteen stood with her calf near the ridge. Her hips had filled out, and the white brand was nearly hidden in her winter coat. When she moved toward the grazing cows, the calf followed close enough to brush against her flank.
Nora showed the visitors the rested ground and the worn patch beside the old tank. She answered their questions about feed and water, including the ones that made the season sound less impressive. Maren took the group farther along the outer lane when Eli came from the house carrying his tools in a plastic box.
His ride was waiting near the gate. He had forgotten his gloves, and Nora found them behind the truck seat beside the weather notebook.
“You want this?” she asked, holding up the book.
“Leave it there. We’re inside today.” He took the gloves and tried to close the lid of the box over a screwdriver that did not quite fit.
Nora shifted it for him. When the latch snapped, he started toward the waiting car, then turned back.
“Four o’clock. At school.”
“I’ll be there.”
Mae was coming at three to help with the afternoon check. Nora had written it on the kitchen calendar and paid her ahead of time.
She watched him climb into the car and lift the box onto his knees. Through the open window, he was already explaining something to the boy beside him, holding his hands apart to show its size.
The car pulled away. Nora remained beside the truck until it passed the bend, then walked back toward the visitors. As she crossed the service lane, water began running into the stock tank, splashing against its bright new float.