“When I was in the hospital, I kept thinking about what you told me before I married him. That his head was always on a swivel.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?”

“You did. And I should have listened.”

“Oh, you can’t talk to a young girl in love, sweetheart. My mama tried to warn me about Hank Plessman before I married him. Said pretty much the same thing. He’ll leave you, dear, mark my words. Leave you high and dry. And that’s exactly what he did. Thank God my dear old mother, rest her soul, didn’t live to see it. But Jake didn’t leave you. He just made one mistake.”

“Is that what you think? Jake goes out riding every morning early, before first light. Even in cold weather he doesn’t miss many days. He rides down to the creek where he can work a horse in the soft dirt. Tires the horses out a little and they listen better, he says. Anyway, Kitty likes to ride too. I know they ride together. I never thought about it much until I walked into that barn. But there’s an old shack down there where he goes to work the horses, still has a cot in it and a stove. Somebody has kept it clean and tidy. I always wondered who it could be. If Jake and Kitty were looking for a place where nobody would be likely to spot them, that would be perfect, down in a swale in a stand of cottonwoods where you don’t see it until you’re almost right on top of it. Sometimes when he came back from riding I would smell something on him, but I thought it was just my imagination. Now I know better. I think it was her all along, but almost every time he came back, he wanted me. I wish I knew more about what men are like, if they could come fresh off one woman and want another right away. I know I wouldn’t want another fella right after Jake gets done with me.”

“I don’t want to make you more suspicious than you are, girl, but that’s exactly what men are like. They get a sniff of one and they just want more. Like a bull elk with a herd of cows, they level them antlers at any other bull comes around and service the females one by one. That’s what you’re dealin with when you marry a man, unless you find one like poor Stanley Perks, who is off in some world all his own. I could never figure why a beauty like Kitty would marry a wet dishrag like Stanley. Maybe it’s because he’s not enough of a man to question what she does.”