She did not wait for the household to move. Survival, she had learned during her months in Hutchins’s compound and the stockades before it, was largely a matter of anticipating what people expected of you so they had no cause to put hands upon you. In white households, a woman without family was expected to attend to the hearth, carry water, and sweep away the dust that the desert wind blew into every crevice. If those chores were left undone, men found an excuse to come looking; if they were done in silence before anyone could speak an order, a woman could keep herself invisible inside the routine.
Tala stood up and stepped into her worn leather slippers. Her hands moved over the oak bar. The wood was cold and smooth. She lifted it with a measured effort, tilting it so the iron keepers would not rattle, and eased it back into its cradle beside the jamb. She lifted the latch and pulled the door open half an inch.
The veranda was empty. The chill morning air smelled of cold stone, pump grease, and the faint, sweet decay of damp clover beneath the water tank. Across the yard, the kitchen chimney was completely cold; no smoke rose against the pale ridge. The barn door stood ajar just as Jonah had left it the night before, its dark interior smelling of clover hay and horse dung.
She stepped out onto the porch, closing the pine door behind her until the latch clicked. Her bare arms broke into gooseflesh beneath her thin calico sleeves, but she ignored the cold. She took three deep breaths of the dawn air, letting the sharp mountain scent clear the sour taste of trail dust from her throat.
Beside the kitchen door stood two empty wooden buckets bound with iron hoops. Their staves were dry and grey, but the cedar handles were polished smooth by years of use. Tala picked them up. The iron bail felt icy against her calloused fingers. She walked with light, soundless steps across the gravel toward the windmill.
The overflow pool from the galvanized stock tank was ringed with frost. Tala set the buckets down on the wooden platform beneath the brass tap, hooked her thumbs into the iron valve, and twisted it until the leather packing squeaked. A heavy, clear stream of water gushed into the first bucket, cold enough to send up a faint mist in the freezing air. When both pails were filled near to the brim, she shut the valve, dried her hands on her skirt, and lifted them.
The weight was thirty pounds to each side. It was a familiar burden; her shoulders settled into the strain, her back straightening, her knees bending slightly to absorb the rhythm of her stride so the surface of the water did not break over the wooden rims.
She carried the water to the veranda, setting one bucket beside the kitchen door and carrying the other toward the wash bench on the side porch where the ceramic basin rested. As she placed the second pail on the bench, she paused.
Jonah was standing in the open doorway of the barn. He had an iron rasp in his hand and wore a greasy leather farrier’s apron over his trousers, his shirt sleeves rolled past the elbow despite the frost on the ground. He had clearly been up before the light, working on the bay gelding’s damaged hoof by lantern light inside the stall.
Tala did not freeze, but she drew her hands back against her sides, watching him with that unblinking, guarded stillness she had developed on the reservation. She waited for him to speak—to ask why she had touched the buckets, to tell her where to place the wood, or to demand breakfast.
Jonah wiped his thumb across the teeth of the farrier’s rasp. He did not step out of the barn door. He did not come toward her.
“The dry mesquite behind the blacksmith shed is the best for the stove,” he said, his voice carrying flat and quiet across the seventy yards of gravel between them. “The ironwood burns too hot; it warps the firebox if you don’t watch the damper. There is a short-handled axe stuck in the chopping block.”
He turned back into the shadowed interior of the barn before she could nod or reply. The dull, rasping sound of steel filing horse horn resumed, rhythmic and steady.
Tala stood by the wash bench for a breath, the cold water sitting still in the cedar bucket beside her. She let out her breath through her nose, feeling the tightness ease slightly from her jaw. He had not told her she must cut wood; he had simply stated the nature of the wood. It was the manner of a man who dealt with another adult rather than an indentured servant whose hours were counted against a ledger.