Cosay Srays
Copyright© 2026 by Komiko Yakamura
Chapter 3
He waited four days before he went back to town alone.
That was how long it took him to stop arguing with himself about whether it was a reasonable thing to do. The argument went in circles and arrived nowhere useful, which was how he knew he’d already decided and was just waiting for his better judgment to get tired enough to stop objecting.
He told the girls he needed to see about a part for the plow. Emmie looked at him with her third face, which he was apparently developing one of his own. Marie just nodded and went back to feeding the chickens. Neither of them asked to come along, which meant they’d already discussed it between themselves and agreed to let him go without interference.
He wasn’t sure if that was encouraging or alarming.
Sierra Vista was quiet on a Wednesday morning. A couple of horses at the rail outside the saloon, a wagon being loaded in front of the dry goods annex, a dog asleep in the middle of the street with the absolute confidence of an animal that had never once been hurried. Coulter tied his mare and stood for a moment looking at Holman’s trading post before he went inside.
Holman was behind the counter sorting through a crate of canned goods, stacking them with the methodical patience of a man who had learned to make inventory feel like purpose. He looked up when Coulter came in.
“Twice in one week. You feeling all right?”
“Need a part for the plow. Bolt fitting on the share came loose.”
“I’ll check the back.” Holman didn’t move immediately. He set down the can in his hand and studied Coulter with the particular expression of a man who had known him long enough to read the difference between what he said and what he meant. “That all you came for?”
“What else would I come for.”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Coulter put his hands on the counter. “The woman who was in here the other day. Cosay. She come through regular?”
Holman was quiet for a moment. Then he picked up another can and stacked it with great deliberation. “Sometimes.”
“How often.”
“Every couple of weeks maybe. Trades furs, buys what she needs, keeps to herself.” He paused. “Doesn’t cause trouble. Doesn’t look for it either. I’ll say that much.”
“She got people around here?”
“Not that I know of. She’s been coming in for about two years. Always alone.” Holman set down the can and crossed his arms, which meant the careful part of the conversation was over and the direct part was starting. “I heard what your girls said to her.”
“Most of the territory heard what my girls said to her.”
“Coulter.” Holman’s voice was not unkind. “You’ve got two little girls and a ranch to run and a reputation that’s kept people from giving you trouble since Sarah passed. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know when I say that whatever you’re thinking about, you ought to think about it twice.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Do you.”
“I said I do.”
Holman looked at him for a long moment, then sighed the sigh of a man who had learned that saying the sensible thing and being listened to were not the same activity. He disappeared into the back room. Coulter heard him moving around among shelves, the clink of metal, a muttered word at something that wasn’t where it should be.
He came back with a bolt fitting that looked about right and set it on the counter.
Coulter turned it over in his hands. It would do. He set some coins down.
“She lives up in the hills,” Holman said, as if continuing a conversation that had never officially started. “Got a small place up there, from what I understand. Hunts, traps, trades what she gets. Doesn’t bother anyone.” He picked up the coins. “Whatever else she is, she’s capable. I’ll give her that.”
“Whatever else she is,” Coulter repeated.
Holman met his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” Coulter picked up the fitting and put it in his pocket. “I just don’t happen to agree with it.”
He left before Holman could find anything useful to say to that.
Outside he stood by his mare for a moment, turning the bolt fitting in his fingers. The dog in the street had relocated to the shade without anyone noticing the transition. The morning was heating up the way mornings did out here, quickly and without apology.
He thought about what Holman had said. Whatever else she is.
He thought about Cosay standing at that window with a rope in her hands and a room full of people deciding what she was, and the absolute indifference with which she’d declined to help them do it.
He rode home.
The girls were at the kitchen table when he came in, Emmie working through her sums on a piece of chalk board, Marie drawing something with a stub of pencil that might have been a horse or might have been the barn. They looked up when he walked in.
“Did you see her?” Emmie asked.
Coulter stopped. “See who.”
“You know who.”
He pulled out a chair and sat down, because this conversation was going to require it. “I didn’t see her. I asked about her.”
Emmie sat up straight. Marie set down her pencil.
“Holman says she comes in every couple of weeks to trade. Lives up in the hills.” He paused. “Alone.”
The girls absorbed this.
“She doesn’t have anyone,” Marie said. It wasn’t a question.
“Apparently not.”
Marie looked at Emmie. Emmie looked at Marie. Coulter recognized the look and headed it off before it could become a plan.
“I went to ask some questions. That’s all. I’m not promising anything.”
“But you went,” Emmie said.
“I went.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“No,” Coulter agreed. “I didn’t.”
Emmie smiled, small and careful, the kind of smile she’d learned to keep quiet since Sarah died, like she didn’t quite trust good things yet. “Okay, Papa.”
“Okay Papa nothing. I went to ask questions. End of story.”
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