Chapter 15

Three weeks passed.

Good weeks. The kind that didn’t announce themselves as significant while they were happening but that you understood later had been exactly that. The weather held cool and clear, the kind of fall weather the territory occasionally offered as apology for what summer had done. The ranch work settled into its seasonal rhythm — bringing the cattle closer in, laying up feed, winterizing what needed it before the cold arrived in earnest.

Cosay moved through all of it as if she had always been here. Not performing belonging, not trying to fit herself into a space — just present, fully and without reservation, her hands finding the work and her eyes finding what needed seeing and her voice in the kitchen in the mornings making the house sound like itself again.

Coulter watched her and thought about timing.

He had told her it was coming. She had said all right. And now the days were passing and he was waiting for the right moment and beginning to understand that waiting for the right moment was another way of being afraid, which was something Emmie had identified in him months ago and which he had apparently not entirely resolved.

On a Tuesday morning he rode into Sierra Vista alone.

Not for supplies. He went to see Pastor Harris, who had come to Sierra Vista six months ago from somewhere in Texas and who had the advantage, as far as Coulter was concerned, of not having known Sarah and therefore not carrying any of the particular weight that the older residents carried around the subject of Coulter Vane’s life and choices.

Pastor Harris was behind the church stacking wood when Coulter rode up, a lean man in his forties with a direct manner and the unhurried quality of someone who had learned that most things worth doing didn’t benefit from rushing.

He looked up when Coulter dismounted.

“Mr. Vane,” he said. “Something I can do for you?”

“I hope so.” Coulter tied his mare and came around to where the pastor was working. “I need to ask you something.”

“All right.” Harris set down his armload of wood and gave him his full attention.

“There’s a woman,” Coulter said. “She’s been living at my place since summer. Helping with the ranch, helping with my girls.” He paused. “I intend to ask her to marry me. I wanted to know if you’d be willing to perform the ceremony.”

Harris looked at him steadily. “Tell me about her.”

“Her name is Cosay. She’s Chiricahua Apache. She’s been in this territory for years, living on her own in the hills, hunting and trapping. She’s — “ He stopped, because the things he wanted to say didn’t reduce easily to a description. “She’s the best person I know,” he said finally. “And my daughters chose her before I had the sense to.”