Chapter 20: Consider Yourself Served

Friday came, and Lottie's truck did not leave the county.

The deputy drove out to the Haskell place at noon, and he told me afterward that the boxes were still on the porch.

She wasn't running, I realized.

She was getting paid first.

The Cattlemen's Association dinner was held in the Grange hall every year on the last Friday of the month.

Every rancher in Sweetgrass County came, with a wife or a daughter, and a casserole for the long tables.

Jesse and I walked in together at six.

I wore my good green dress, and he wore a clean shirt with his sleeves rolled.

His hand sat at the small of my back the entire time, and I let it.

His mother had saved us two seats at the front.

She was a small, sharp woman in a pressed blouse, and she hadn't looked at her son in ten days.

She squeezed my hand without a word.

The speeches had just begun when the double doors opened.

Lottie came in alone, in a red dress.

She had Birdie by the hand in a matching little red one, and a thick envelope under her arm.

The chatter at the long tables dropped off.

She walked straight down the center aisle, and she did not hurry.

She stopped in front of our table and laid the envelope on Jesse's plate, in the gravy.

"Consider yourself served," she said, loud enough for the back rows.

Jesse did not look down.

"What is it?"

"A petition. Four years of back support for your daughter, and a fair share from here on."

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