They loaded the wire and nails onto the pack horse, and Mara settled the account in her own name, in her own hand, and Elias watched her write it and felt a fierce, quiet admiration for a woman who kept her own books and paid her own debts and refused to be pitied for either. On the ride home the light went long and amber over the grassland, and June sang a little, off-key and unembarrassed, and Mara rode with her shoulders a fraction less set than they had been that morning, and Elias thought that the world was not all hostile, and that a town that knew your name and kept your account straight was not nothing, and that a half-built fence and a storekeeper's sharp eyes and a blacksmith's nod were, together, something like a beginning.
Royce Kline rode into the valley two days after the town trip, and he rode in the way a man rides when he wants you to know he is not afraid of your ground — slow, straight up the trail between the rocky hills, his horse's hooves loud on the hard earth, his men left behind at the fence line as if to prove he did not need them to say what he had come to say. He was forty-four, broad through the shoulders, his face weathered and clean-shaven, his coat good but worn at the cuffs, and he smiled the way men smile when they have practiced smiling at people they intend to ruin.
Elias was on the fence line when Kline came, driving a nail with his back to the trail, and he knew who it was before he turned around, because the valley went quiet in a particular way — the hens stopped their scratching, the horses lifted their heads in the corral — and because Mara, who had been carrying water from the creek, set her bucket down with a care that told him she was bracing herself.
Miss Ellison, Kline said, touching his hat, his voice smooth as creek water over stone. "I hope I'm not interrupting your work. I came to talk, neighbor to neighbor, the way reasonable people do."
You are interrupting, Mara said. She did not touch her hat, because she was not wearing one, and she did not smile, because she had no reason to. "Say what you came to say."
Kline looked past her, at the half-built fence, at the cabin, at the garden, at the creek — the slow, appraising look of a man pricing a property — and then his gaze settled on June, who had come out of the barn with a curry comb in her hand, and it lingered a fraction too long, and Elias felt his own hands go still on the hammer, and felt something cold and watchful settle behind his eyes that he recognized as the feeling he got before trouble, when he was deciding how much of it he was willing to take.
I've come with a new offer, Kline said, turning back to Mara. "A better one than before. Your father was a good man, but he left you a hard piece of ground to hold, and winter is coming, and winter does not care how proud a person is. I'll buy the valley, the creek, the pass, all of it, for a fair price, and you and your sister can go to town and live comfortable, without the worry of fences and stock and men coming through your gate at night."
There is no price, Mara said, "that makes this valley yours."
Kline's smile did not falter, but something behind it did, a small tightening around his eyes. "That's a brave thing to say in September," he said. "Brave things sound different in January, when the snow is deep and the woodpile is low and the nearest help is fourteen miles away. I'm offering you a way out before you need one. That's kindness, Miss Ellison, whether you call it that or not."
It isn't kindness, June said, stepping forward, her voice sharp and clear. "It's a threat with good manners. We've heard it before, and we heard it plain the first time."
Kline looked at her again, and this time his smile had a different edge to it, a kind of indulgence that made Elias's jaw tighten. "Young ladies," he said, "don't always see the whole of a situation. That's why older heads are useful. There's no shame in accepting help when it's offered."
Elias set his hammer down, slowly, and walked to where Mara stood, and he did not raise his voice, and he did not touch his revolver, and he did not need to. He simply stood beside her, in the open, where Kline could see him, and he said, "She's seen the whole of it. She's said no. A man who keeps offering after a plain no isn't offering anymore."
For a moment Kline studied him, the way a man studies a stranger he has underestimated, and Elias let himself be studied, because there was nothing in him to hide — a drifter with scarred hands and a worn coat and a horse that stood quiet at the rail — and nothing in him that would back down, either. Kline nodded, once, as if filing the information away.
Well, Kline said, mounting his horse with an ease that spoke of long practice. "I've said my piece. The offer stands until the first frost. After that, the valley decides for itself what it wants, and valleys have a way of choosing the man who can hold them." He touched his hat again, to Mara and not to Elias, and rode out the way he had come, slow and unhurried, and the dust settled behind him, and the valley's sounds came back one by one, as if the place itself were exhaling.