But it was less the work and the boredom that went at her than the loneliness. Granny Jane had been Ola May's constant companion since the death of her mother when she was still an infant. Most of what she knew about the world she knew from Granny Jane, and though the old woman's ways had grated on her more and more as she got older, she missed her dearly. She was twenty-four and had been out of school for over twelve years. Granny Jane had been the center of her life, the tether, and now Ola had come free.

Most of the girls her own age down in the valley were long married and burdened with children. She was past prime marrying age, though she had no real desire to marry. Her whole life, it seemed, had been spent in the service of men—father and brothers. She was often enough glad to be away from them with their quarrelsome, demanding, and self-righteous ways. And younger men were no better. They thought themselves emperors and acted like squalling, demanding babies. And the attention required to keep their little pricks taut grew irksome. She was less fascinated than irritated by the things. Married girls, she thought, lived a burdened life, constantly attending to the needs of children and husband. It wasn't for her.

She craved company, seeing only her father, brothers, and Tom Sisson when she ventured up to the mine or when they came down to the Garden for some rest or supplies. She thought often of the rodeo days and the dancing. She thought often of Kane Wootan and the other cowboys, and she would give a lot to have those days back. And she thought about the girls who attended the rodeos and dances and laughed and whispered funny things.

She craved the company of women.

She took to leaving the Garden on occasion, right after she had delivered the men's food. She would turn her horse around, head back toward the cabin but past it, and ride down the road through the canyon, past Klondyke and toward Safford.

It was a three-hour ride, and it brought her to the small Richards ranch at the base of the Pinaleno Mountains, some ten miles southeast of Safford. There she met Sallie Richards, a woman she had known when they went to school together and, later, at the rodeos.

Sallie was a big-boned girl, solid and hearty, a girl who, like Ola, had worked her whole life. The Richards ranch had a small acreage at the base of the mountains, but it extended up into the foothills, where they had planted apple trees. They harvested them in the fall, storing them in a stone cellar at the foot of the mountain. Then they opened the orchards up to the public, who came through in the fall, picking bushels of apples that built the Richardses' cash reserves for the year.