She looked at him admiringly. It had taken her some time to accustom herself to his puffy body, the paunch lapping in folds over his thighs; to his bald redness; to the tobacco stains down the shirts she tried to keep washed and ironed; to the unwashed smell of him. She had come to accept it along with his rages and his closeness about money. He was old man Milford, with money in the bank and a word in the county like a whip. No candidate went to the legislature without the cattle vote, and the cattle vote was Milford’s. The storekeeper’s wife had once asked her what the old man paid his son for riding herd on his cattle. With no thought of betrayal, she had told the truth. He paid six dollars a week, and out of that Tom must buy half of the family rations, and pay for the feed of the mare. His father gave him one calf out of every ten for his own.

The storekeeper’s wife said, “He couldn’t hire him a nigger for that. And you doing for him, cooking for him, cleaning up his old man’s dirtiness. How long since you had a new dress or a pair of shoes?”

Doney had withdrawn into silence. She was sorry she had answered. She and Tom lived rent free, as Milford reminded them. In time, Tom would have a herd of his own. She decided not to tattle again about the family business. A new dress was nothing. What were shoes to a girl who had Tom for her true love? Nothing was of importance but Tom, coming home from the range, eating food she had cooked, washing his feet in the basin of water she brought, lying beside her, holding her in his lean hard arms until she fell asleep.

Milford said, “The man ain’t come to this county can interfere with my stock.”

Above the thumping of the chinaberry bough she heard the hoofs of the mare. Milford heard, too, and sat straight. Tom rode into the yard and dismounted. His face had the one look she dreaded; the look for which she did not exist, being concerned with a man’s worldly business.

He said, “Well, the pond’s dry. The cattle’s licking the mud. All the herds is bunched up there, against Dixon’s fence.”

Old Milford rose from his rocker. “Fetch me my horse,” he said.

“What you fixin’ to do?”

“Fixin’ to do a plenty. And fetch me the wire cutters.”

“Pa, there belongs to be a way to settle this without such as that.”

“You heerd me.”

Tom turned away.

Milford said to Doney, “Fetch me my rifle and the box of cartridges.”

She dared not question him as Tom had done. She brought the gun. He loaded it and slipped the extra cartridges in the pocket of his shirt. Tom brought the horse, saddled, to the porch.

Milford mounted. He said, “All right. Let’s go.”

Tom said, “I ain’t goin’.”