Page 65

"One more thing." Brody didn't look up from the can. "Earl's got a new line on that slate of his."

"I don't read the slate."

"Edna told me you read it in February, put ten dollars on it for her."

"That was hers."

"It's got your name on it now. O. Royston says it before the sign comes down. Five to one no." He shook the can and levelled it off. "I'd have took the other side once."

Owen put his hat on and walked away.

He hauled the last of the sorted pairs east Saturday morning, and she was at the trap gate for the second load with her cap on.

"That's all of them," he said.

"That's all of them." She latched it. "Mama wants your sheet."

"She's got my sheet. She's had it since Thursday."

"She wants the one you didn't give her. The one where you say what you think of the number."

"It's a fair number."

"That's what she said you'd say." She kept her hand on the gate. "Where are you going now? You've got the look."

"West. The line camp." He said it to the trap. "There's an old well out there, nearest the seam. If the water's dropping on this road it'll show there first. I've been meaning to drop a line down it."

"How far?"

"Nine miles past my place."

"I'm coming."

"Liv, it's a well."

"It's Liv today." She let go of the gate and started for his truck. "Two weeks of Olivia and a hat brim, and today it's Liv."

"Liv—"

"It's my water. You said so. If it's going to show first, I want to see it show."

She was in his truck before he'd got an answer together, so he got in and drove.

The road gave out at his gate. After that it was two ruts through grass, then less, and then grass with the ruts only where a man knew to look. The works stood over the rise to the north. There was a draw with mesquite in the bottom of it and the line camp on the far side.

It was one room with a porch the width of it, a stove and a bunk and a table with two chairs inside, a windmill and a steel tank out back. He'd put the roof on at twenty-four. Tin, over rafters he'd cut himself, up in a week in August, and he'd told his father it was for the winter hands when the weather came. His father had said good. There hadn't been a winter hand out here since before Owen could drive. She'd been seventeen, riding out with Mick to look at the far water, and she'd stood on this porch in her daddy's old coat and said it was the prettiest place in the county. He'd been seventeen too, in the yard, and said nothing. Six years later he built her a roof and never told a soul why.

She got out and stood in the yard and looked at it.

"You kept it up."

"It's not much to keep."

"You put that roof on. Daddy said. He said Clay's boy put a roof on the old camp and nobody could figure what for."

"Winter hands."

"There's no winter hands."