Cosay Srays
Copyright© 2026 by Komiko Yakamura
Chapter 9
The ride home from Sierra Vista was quiet in the way that meant everyone was thinking and nobody was ready to say what about yet.
Coulter kept the mare at an easy pace. The afternoon was cooling toward evening, the light going long and amber across the scrub, shadows stretching out ahead of them on the road. The girls were unusually subdued in the wagon bed behind, Marie curled against Emmie’s side, Emmie staring at the sky with her jaw set in the expression she got when she was working something through and hadn’t finished yet.
Cosay sat beside him on the bench and looked at the road and did not appear to need anything from him, which he had come to understand was not distance but simply how she was — self-contained in a way that came from years of having no one to lean on, so complete in herself that silence never meant something was wrong.
They were two miles out from the ranch when Emmie spoke.
“Will he come back?”
“Brennan?” Coulter thought about it honestly. “Maybe. Men like him don’t always know when to quit.”
“What do we do if he does?”
“Same thing we did today. Stand our ground.”
Emmie was quiet for a moment. “Is that enough?”
Cosay answered before Coulter could. “It is enough until it isn’t. And when it isn’t, you deal with what is actually in front of you rather than what you imagined might be.” She paused. “Worrying about Brennan tonight gives him something he has not earned.”
“I’m not worried,” Emmie said. “I’m angry.”
“Good. Anger is useful. Worry is not.”
“What’s the difference.”
“Anger tells you something is wrong and makes you want to fix it. Worry just goes in circles and fixes nothing.” Cosay looked back at her over her shoulder. “You can be angry about what happened today. You should be. But do not let it follow you to bed tonight. He does not deserve that much of you.”
Emmie chewed on that for the rest of the ride.
The ranch came into view as the sun touched the tops of the western hills, throwing long shadows across the yard. Coulter pulled the wagon up to the barn and they unloaded in the efficient near-wordless way they’d developed, each of them knowing their part without being assigned it. Cosay unhitched Nah-lin and led her into the corral. The girls carried the lighter supplies inside. Coulter dealt with the feed.
By the time they all came together in the kitchen the day had fully let go of its heat and the air coming through the window was cool and smelled like sage and dry earth.
Cosay built up the fire. Marie set the table. Emmie found the leftover rabbit from two nights ago and looked at Cosay with a question in her eyes.
“With the onions,” Cosay said. “And whatever flour is left.”
“A stew?”
“Close enough.”
They made supper together, the four of them moving around the kitchen in the overlapping way that had stopped requiring negotiation, and ate as the dark came fully down outside and the lamp made the room warm and close.
Afterward Emmie was quiet in a way that was different from her usual thinking quiet. She helped clean up without being asked and then sat at the table with her hands folded and looked at Cosay.
“Can I ask you something.”
“You can ask.”
“Does it ever stop? People treating you like that?”
Cosay sat down across from her. She took her time answering, and Coulter, washing the last of the dishes, stilled his hands so the water wouldn’t cover the words.
“Sometimes it gets quieter,” Cosay said. “People get used to a thing they see often enough. Familiarity doesn’t always produce respect but it can produce tolerance, and tolerance is better than what happened today.” She paused. “But no. It does not stop entirely. There will always be men like Brennan.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No.”
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