Lady Mae stood next to the table and looked down at the kit. Its forgotten presence in itself did not cause Lady Mae alarm—perhaps today her mother was only working on the livestock and the tools she needed, bigger and sharper, were hanging on hooks in the back of the depot by the livestock pen. But if her job that day was an atonement, and her kit was still there in the shack—Lady Mae resolved that she’d bring it to the depot. If her mother had to return to the shack and fetch them, the Deputies might come around. They’d been worse lately, too, or so it seemed. But then another thought crossed her mind. In the seventeen years she’d been alive, Lady Mae had never disobeyed her mother purposefully. Not once, not ever. But that morning as the hot wind blew up against the kitchen window, she pulled out her mother’s rickety chair and sat down. She dragged the kit toward her, saw the cracked and shredded leather by the clasp. It looked like the skin of a fish salted and left to dry, and Lady Mae ran her fingers along the spine. She would leave her shack shortly and make the walk to the depot, but first she wanted to see what was inside.

The clasp was cool on her fingertips. There was no lock and key, no numerical combination to open it up. She simply pressed down on the horseshoe-shaped latch, and it popped open. Lady Mae opened it slowly, and as she did, saw firsthand what she had long known was in there: small tools made of shiny metal and buck-horned handles each in their own sleeve. She lifted out the scalpel. It was heavier than she expected it to be, and though its blade was no bigger than her smallest finger, she was careful. Even without touching it, it was sharp enough to cut through skin and muscle with ease.

Lady Mae went from left to right picking up and examining each tool—the clamp, the saw, the tourniquet, the file, the bone cutter. Each had its own purpose, but there at the table in the midmorning light, they did not seem big or weighty enough to remove a finger or a hand or an entire leg—how could her mother adequately do her job with such rudimentary tools? How would Lady Mae be expected to do so as well in less than a year? She looked at her hands, and though they were dry and cracked they were young still: would they be strong enough when the time came? If she wasn’t strong enough, where would it come from? Maybe she already had it. Maybe she was born with it, bequeathed from mother to daughter like everything else.

Lady Mae closed the kit and secured the clasp. She stood from the table, the chair creaking as it released her weight. It was nearly half past nine, and her lessons with Arbuckle started promptly after lunch. She’d have to be quick if she wished to make it back with enough time to ready herself for his arrival. Moving quickly, she took off her apron and pushed her dark curls up into her bonnet. Then she tucked the old kit underneath her arm and left the shack.