Dad Chose Three Husbands, but His Best Friend Crossed Them Out novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Forty Head

Amos tells Karin why, then Brent Colby arrives at the ranch with forty cows and a lease, and Karin turns him back in front of his hands; in the kitchen Amos cleans her cut hand and she dares him to veto her.

Amos drove with one wrist hooked over the top of the wheel, and for six miles of River Road he said nothing.

I watched the cottonwoods go by with their buds just breaking.

"You asked why," he said at last.

"I did."

"None of them is a man your father would have picked if he'd known him the way I do."

I turned in the seat to face him.

"Brent, I'll give you. The vet from Hamilton, you don't know him."

"He's a good vet."

He kept his eyes on the road.

"Then why cross him out?"

"Because you didn't pick him."

"Neither did Dad," I said. "He wrote that list in December, on morphine."

Amos's jaw moved.

"And that's why you're trustee. I get it. Until June twentieth, you decide who I marry."

"Until June twentieth I decide who signs. On the day you turn twenty-five you don't need any man's pen on your page."

That didn't make me any less angry.

"Then why make me the one who needs it now?"

"I didn't write the will."

I gripped the door handle.

"You did cross out the names."

He took his eyes off the road and looked at me.

It lasted a moment, and I felt it in my stomach.

"I did," he said. "I'd do it again."

We turned in at the gate with the Arvidson name welded over it in iron.

A Colby stock trailer stood in the yard with its engine running.

Behind it, bawling in the slats, were forty Colby cows.

Two hired men leaned on the fence.

Brent's white truck was parked across my father's front porch steps.

Brent was already out and walking toward us with a folded paper in his hand.

He must have driven here faster than we had, with Janet's blessing.

"Afternoon," he said, and tipped his hat at me.

"You're on my land," I said.

"A lease for the river pasture." He held up the paper. "Signed by your father last October. My mother had it witnessed."

"My father couldn't lift a coffee cup in October."

"He lifted a pen," Brent said.

Amos had gotten out of the truck behind me.

"Nils never signed that," he said.

"Mr. Tuck." Brent's voice went mild. "With respect, you've been in a cabin on the creek since January."

He nodded at me.

"Karin's the one this land is going to."

Amos didn't raise his voice.

"In June."

"By then she'll be Mrs. Colby, ask your boss."

He said it loud enough for his hired men to hear.

One of them looked at his boots.

I took the paper out of Brent's hand.

I didn't read it.

I folded it in half and put it in my back pocket, and I walked straight past him toward the river pasture gate.

It was a big pipe gate on a chain, and I'd opened it a thousand times.

I had my father's brass padlock in my pocket, because I'd carried it since he got sick.

I swung the gate closed.

I threaded the chain through twice, with Brent's hired men watching, and I snapped the lock shut.

The chain loop caught the heel of my hand and opened it.

I didn't make a sound.

"That's my cattle you're locking out," Brent said.

"They're not my cattle," I said. "Load them."

"Karin."

"Talk to my lawyer. Turn the trailer around."

Nobody moved.

Then the older of the two hired men said, "Boss, I think we ought to go," and he got in the truck.

Brent stood a long second looking at me, and the smile came back in pieces.

"You'll want somebody to hold your hand, honey," he said. "It looks like you're bleeding."

"Get off my land."

He glanced over my shoulder at Amos, who had not moved or said a word since Brent said "Mrs. Colby."

Amos only stood there with his thumbs in his belt.

I had needed him to stay out of it, and he had known that.

Brent got into his truck and left, and the dust settled over the yard.

In the kitchen the light was going yellow.

Amos had me at the sink with the tap running, my hand held under it in both of his.

The cut was ragged, across the heel of my palm, and it stung.

"You locked a gate on a Colby in front of his own men," he said.

"I did."

"That was well done."

I turned my head to look at him.

"You didn't help."

"You didn't want me to."

He was right, and I hated how little time it took him to see it.

He dried my hand with a clean dish towel and held it open, studying the cut.

His thumb lay against the inside of my wrist, where the pulse was, and I felt it speed up under his skin.

He felt it too.

His eyes came up.

The kitchen was very quiet.

There was a window over the sink, and the late sun was in his eyes and made them gold at the edges.

I could smell horse and woodsmoke and soap on him.

I had known this man all my life, and I had never once looked at him like this.

I looked at his mouth, and he looked at mine, and his breath changed.

He let go of my hand.

"Go to bed, Arvidson," he said. "You've had a long day, and you're hurt."

"It's four in the afternoon."

"Then sit down and I'll make you tea."

I stared at him.

"You'll make me tea."

"Yes."

He reached for the kettle.

"You crossed three men out today and you want to make me tea."

I took one step toward him.

He didn't step back, and that was the answer I wanted.

"Go on," I said. "Veto me."

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