Page 9 of The Fire Line

Jay watched him for a second, then moved on without tugging at the answer until it said something Harris had not meant. That should have made him easier to tolerate. It did not.

“What’s changed most in ten years?”

“The water.”

“How?”

“Less snow that stays. Earlier runoff.”

“What does that change here?”

Harris looked toward the window. The lodge lawn remained green because they paid to keep it green; beyond it, the pasture had already started turning.

“We move cattle sooner. Rest ground longer. Buy hay farther out. Haul water where we didn’t used to.”

“What happens if that keeps going?”

“We change.”

Jay’s attention narrowed. “You don’t sound like you mean that as a neutral word.”

Harris looked at him. Jay left the silence where it was instead of rushing to fill it.

“Change costs,” Harris said.

“Money?”

“Everything costs money.”

Jay waited without pushing and without rescuing him from the quiet.

Harris could have stopped. “Not just money.”

There. Enough.

That was how Navarro did it. He did not pull until people gave him something. He left room, and apparently they filled it for him. Disturbing method. Effective, though.

The creek project was easier: fence placement, willow, erosion, cattle access. Years of work reduced to things Harris could point at and explain.

“Eleanor Shaw is listed as the original project lead.”

Hearing her full name aloud stopped the interview cold.

“Yup.”

“Your sister, right?”

Harris nodded.

“Older?”

“One year.”

“What does Eleanor think the ranch needs to become?”

Nell had once asked him almost the same thing beside the horse barn. What do you actually want this place to become, Harris? He had answered in fence lines and feed costs because those were easier.

“She died last year.”