Eli winced. She could see that stung him. Well, let it. Her right arm was bent and broken, crippled for life by a heavy pot of boiling soup that had fallen on her as she scrubbed a kitchen floor in the orphanage. All because Eli had turned Velma out of the house for breaking the First Commandment that he laid down for his daughters. Thou shalt not fornicate with the hired hands. Emaline thought she might forgive him someday, but that day was a long way off.

He tried one more time. “I came as soon as I found out she was real sick.”

“It was too late.”

“I know that, honey. A doggone bellhop at the hotel in Evanston mislaid the telegram. If I knew she was that sick, I would have been here a week ago.”

He started to say more and thought better of it. He could see how it would look to this young woman. He had always thought he was doing the right thing, setting an example for his other children. That was not the way she would see it. He found the Lindquist farm without help, drove the quarter mile along the lane, stopped at the small white farmhouse down in a swale surrounded by tall elm and pine and cottonwood trees. He tipped his hat.

“If you don’t mind, you might tell Bobby that he’s more than welcome to come up to Wyoming, spend the summer on the ranch. Might do him good to be with his brother for a while.”

“It would do him good. Tell him yourself. He’s out back doing chores. He’s old enough to make up his mind whether he wants to come or not.” She reached up and touched him with her fingertips, like a blind woman trying to learn his face.

“Good-bye, Grandpa.”

Eli thought she was about to say more, but she turned and opened the door, climbed out, did not look back. He watched her walk into the house, her back straight as an arrow. Closed to him, like a book in a language he couldn’t read. She looked like his mother, Cora. The same black hair, the same dark, penetrating eyes, the same high cheekbones. Not much Indian blood in her, but it came through. If she was like Cora, she was stubborn as a Missouri mule. He wanted to call her back, to say something that would make her see him in a different light. But what, you old fool? What are you going to say? Not a damned thing that is going to make a whit of difference to her.