Still, her business was obvious. While they were readying the stock and while the rodeo was going on, a fairly steady stream of cowboys came to call on her. She was friendly to all. Someone who had spent all week isolated with only her grandmother and a few mules was unlikely to turn down any company or contact that came her way. And she was a pretty girl, small and comely, who could even look delicate in her dresses and powder.

She welcomed them all and considered them without the appearance of comparing them as they chattered and bantered. But everyone knew she was eyeing her choices for the weekend, comparing them exactly as the men compared horses, with a quick eye and good judgment. All this was done while she worked alongside Tom and the others. If she stopped her work to chat or to look over some new cowboy or some old cowboy with new prospects, Tom would be at her. Lately she had been favoring Kane Wootan, a tough little cowboy who was not unlike her brother Tom.

Tom would watch her talk to Wootan, standing closer than she needed to be for conversation, hunkering down with him next to the fire at night, or wandering off into the brush with him. When there was dancing after the rodeos, she was likely found at the end of Kane Wootan's arm.

“You stay away from him,” Tom would say.

“I'll stay away and go with whoever I please.”

“But not him.”

“Why not him?”

“Because he's nothing but cheap trash.”

“They're cowboys, Tom. They're all cheap trash. We're cheap trash. I'll see who I please.”

“He's shiftless, lazy, and stupid. You don't want him.”

“Shiftless, lazy, and stupid are fine for what I want him for.”

“Yeah. And he'll knock you up because he's too shiftless, lazy, and stupid not to. And then I got me a shiftless, lazy, and stupid brother-in-law that's just another burden I got to attend to. Find you someone better.”

“I don't see you spending a lot of your free time trying to improve the Power bloodlines,” she said.

“It's different.”

“How's it different? You just tell me how.”

“I ain't going to saddle us with a worthless man, that's how it's different. I've known Kane Wootan a long time, and I haven't found one soul more worthless than Kane.”

“But a worthless woman is all right?”

“It's not the same.”

“Because a woman is not worth what a man is? That doesn't seem to be how it is when you take out after some of these gals, limping along with a lump in your pocket. And stay away from Sallie. She's a dead end, and you're going to spend the rest of your life trying to get that lump out of your pocket, because she ain't going to help.”

“And you know this how?”

“I just know. It's free advice, brother man. Think on it.”