Part 2
Orpha did not move. She opened the book.
"Tuesday, July eighth," she read aloud. Her voice came out thin, so she started again, louder, as she used to call her boys in from the river. "Six-twenty in the evening. Garvey freight in from Benton, two wagons, eight mules. D. Shea, boy, with them. Supper, twenty-five cents."
The two men on foot slowed.
"What's that got to do with anything?" one of them said.
"Your bay was taken at moonrise," Orpha said to Kittredge. "When was moonrise last night, Mr. Kittredge?"
Kittredge frowned. "Eleven. Near enough."
"Thirty miles west of here."
"That's right."
She turned the book around and held it out to him, open, with her thumb on the line.
"Twelve-ten in the morning," she said. "Night coach in from Benton. Larrabee driving. Team changed. D. Shea helped, held leaders." She tapped the page. "That's Pete Larrabee's own hand, signing it. You know his hand. He's carried your mail for six years."
Kittredge did not take the book. He looked at it.
"Unless you've got a horse that can carry a boy thirty miles in an hour and ten minutes, in the dark," Orpha said, "then at moonrise last night Danny Shea was here. Standing in my yard in his stocking feet, holding Pete Larrabee's leaders while my hostler unhitched them."
"She's lying for him," said a man at the back. "Wrote it in this morning, like as not."
There was a growl of agreement. Somebody shoved forward on a horse.
"Then send to Benton for Pete Larrabee," Orpha said, "and ask him. He'll be back through on Friday's coach. You can hold the boy in my root cellar till then. I'll even feed him."
"We're not waiting till Friday," the man at the back said.
The sun had touched the ridge. Half the yard was in shadow now. Orpha could feel her heart going so hard it shook the book in her hands.
She made herself turn the page back.
"Then here's one you can see for yourselves," she said. "Shea's sorrel, shoe all round, Wednesday. Two dollars." She looked up at Kittredge. "You tracked a rider here from your pasture. Was the horse shod?"
"Shod," he said. "All four. Clear prints in the creek mud."
"That boy's sorrel mare is in my barn," Orpha said. "My hostler meant to shoe her this morning, and then he had to go to the hay meadow, so he hasn't. Go and look at her feet, Mr. Kittredge. I won't stop you."
Kittredge set his jaw. Then he turned and walked to the barn himself.
The yard waited. Nobody spoke. Under the tree, the rope end turned slowly in the still air. Danny Shea stood with his eyes shut and his lips moving.
Kittredge came back leading the little sorrel mare by her halter. He stopped in the middle of the yard where everyone could see, bent, and picked up her near forefoot. Then the off fore. Then both hind feet, one after the other, holding each one up to the low red light.
Bare. Every hoof chipped and worn and bare.
He set the last foot down. He stood with his hand on the mare's shoulder, looking at nothing.
"I've lost forty head since spring," he said at last, to nobody in particular. "The nearest judge is in Helena. What is a man supposed to do?"
"Not this," Orpha said.
Kittredge looked at the rope. Then he walked over to the cottonwood, reached up, and pulled the rope down off the limb. He coiled it slowly over his arm, the way a man coils a rope he means to use for something else.
He took out his pocketknife and cut the cord on Danny Shea's wrists himself.
The riders went away in twos and threes, not looking at each other. A few touched their hats to Orpha as they passed. Most did not.
Kittredge was the last. He stood by his horse with the coiled rope hanging from the saddle horn and his hat in his hand.
"Son," he said to Danny, who was sitting on the edge of the water trough with his head in his hands. "I said things to you today a man shouldn't say. I'd hit any man who said them to my boy." He turned the hat in his hands. "If the freighter can spare you, I need a hand at the Rafter K who knows how to hold a fractious team. Thirty a month and found."
Danny lifted his head and stared at him. His mouth opened, but nothing came out of it.
"Think on it," Kittredge said. He put his hat on, and nodded to Orpha, and rode west toward the ridge, alone.
Ike came in from the hay meadow at dark, with his pitchfork over his shoulder, and wanted to know why there were so many horse tracks in the yard. Then he saw the cut cord lying in the dirt under the cottonwood, and he took off his hat and did not ask anything else.
Orpha told him to shoe the sorrel mare first thing in the morning. Then she went in, lit the lamp, and sat down at the kitchen table with the green book.
She dipped her pen.
Wednesday, July 9. Twelve riders from the Rafter K, about 5 p.m. Inquiry about a stolen horse. Settled.
Then she added one more line, smaller.
No harm done.