Chapter 6: Terms

Emmett put a mug of coffee in front of me and sat down across the kitchen table without a word.

Dutch sat on my left.

Nels came in last, with the rain on his shoulders, and took the chair by the door.

Nobody looked at anybody for a moment.

"I'll say it plain," Emmett said.

"I'm the foreman, and this is my crew, and what happened last night happened to all three of us.

"I'm not going to pretend it didn't."

"I'm not asking you to," I said.

"Good. Here's how it goes."

He turned his mug a quarter turn on the oilcloth.

"Nobody here is going to hurt you. Nobody here is going to make you do anything.

"If you say no, to any of us, any time, it's no."

"Understood," I said.

"If you say yes, it's yes to who you say it to, and nobody sulks."

Nels made a small noise.

"That includes you," Emmett told him.

"I'm not sulking."

"You're sulking now."

Dutch smiled into his coffee.

"One more thing," Emmett said, and he looked at me, and I saw how hard it was for him.

"Till the bridge is back. That's the term.

"When the grader gets through, you drive out, and none of us follow you. We don't write, and we don't call."

I felt something twist under my ribs.

"Why?"

"Because the day that road opens, a man from a bank or a lawyer is going to come up it with a pen," Emmett said.

"August Rasmussen died in May. His heir is some stranger the lawyer in Billings won't name.

"By fall that person will have sold, and we'll be out. I don't want you caught in the middle of it."

"Or in love with us," Nels said, drily.

"Or that."

Nobody laughed.

"Till the bridge," I said.

"Till the bridge. That's the deal."

"Fine," I said.

I said it quickly, because I could not say anything else.

I wanted to tell them then.

The words were in my mouth.

I thought of Dutch's hand on my hair, and of Nels's rope, and of Emmett's ring on its chain.

I thought they would hate me.

So I said fine, and drank my coffee, and told myself I would tell them tonight.

The day ran long and wet.

Dutch and Emmett went out to the hay meadow to check the ditches.

Nels took the flatbed down the creek road to see what the water had left of my car.

I stayed in the house.

I washed my hair in the kitchen sink and wore Emmett's flannel shirt, which came to my knees.

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