Before Ana could ask why she asked, a commotion at the far end of the yard drew them both around. Duncan Pryce, the manager of Bar Seven, stood beside a railroad man in a dark suit, and he was talking loudly enough for half the yard to hear, in the hearty voice of a man announcing good news that is not yet quite true.
"The waterhole question will be settled soon," Duncan was saying, clapping the railroad man on the shoulder. "Mrs. Carmichael understands business. Cottonwood Waterhole will go to the railroad before winter, and every man here will benefit from the price. It is only a matter of the papers."
Ana saw Rosalind's jaw tighten. She saw the cattle baroness turn toward Duncan with an expression Ana had never seen on her face before — not anger, exactly, but something colder and more controlled, the look of a woman who has just heard her own name used as a promise she never made.
"Mr. Pryce," Rosalind said, crossing the yard with a speed that surprised Ana. "You will not speak for me, and you will not speak for Bar Seven, until I have signed a paper with my own hand. Is that understood?"
Duncan's smile did not falter, but something in his eyes went flat. "Of course, Rosalind. I was only —"
"You were only telling a railroad man what you wish were true," Rosalind said. "I have told you before. The tally comes first. I will not sign anything while the tally is in question."
The yard had gone quiet around them. Ana stood with her plate in her hands, feeling like an intruder in a conversation between two people who had known each other for a very long time. She noticed, because she had trained herself to notice, the way Duncan's hands curled at his sides, and the way Rosalind did not step back from him, and the way the railroad man looked from one to the other with the sharp interest of a man who has just learned something useful.
Later, after the feast, when the tables were being cleared and the children were chasing each other through the cottonwoods in the long evening light, Rosalind came to the schoolhouse. She did not knock. She stood in the doorway while Ana stacked the children's slates, and she looked around the room as if she were seeing a schoolroom for the first time.
"You teach them well," Rosalind said. "I have heard the parents say so."
"I try," Ana said. "They are good children."
Rosalind was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Miss Zubizarreta, I have a question, and I would like an honest answer. The wool of your shawl — you said it was dyed by your mother's people. If I showed you a piece of yellow wool, could you tell me whether it was made by the same hands? By the same dye, the same pattern?"
Ana stared at her. "I could try," she said slowly. "Wool keeps its secrets and tells them, too. The dye, the twist of the yarn, the border pattern — a woman who knows wool can read those things the way other people read handwriting. Why do you ask?"
"Because I have come into possession of a piece of yellow wool," Rosalind said, "and I need to know whose hands made it. That is all I can tell you for now. Will you look at it, when I bring it?"
Ana nodded, though her heart was beating faster than she liked. "Yes," she said. "Bring it."
Rosalind thanked her and left, and Ana stood alone in the schoolroom as the light faded, with the children's slates stacked on her desk and the smell of chalk in the air, and she thought about the way Rosalind Carmichael had looked at her shawl at the feast, and about the way Duncan Pryce had spoken of a sale that had not happened, and about the small, cold feeling that had settled in her chest and would not leave.
That evening, at her aunt's house, Ana told Miren about the visit. Miren was sitting by the fire mending a shepherd's coat, her hands moving with the steady rhythm of a woman who has mended things for sixty years. She did not look up when Ana spoke of the shawl, or of Rosalind's questions, or of the piece of yellow wool. Her hands kept moving, stitch after stitch, and it was not until Ana had finished that Miren set the coat aside and looked at her niece with eyes that were suddenly very old.