On a Thursday evening in late April, when the air smelled of wet earth and possibility, a blue Ford with Iowa plates and a cracked passenger window turned down the Harlan gravel road. Walt was in the barn checking a hinge. He heard the engine and knew it before he saw it. He walked out into the yard with his Stetson in his hand and his heart performing a complicated two-step of its own.
Ruth climbed out wearing the cropped suede jacket and a tired smile. Brown smoky liner soft around eyes that had seen too many late nights. Glossy terracotta lips. Auburn waves longer, a little wild from the drive. She held the fiddle case in one hand and a paper bag in the other.
"I brought pie," she said. "Mrs. Henshaw's recipe. I cheated and bought it in Kearney. Don't tell her."
"Your secret's safe," Walt said.
She set the case and the bag on the hood and walked into his arms as if she had been practicing the route for months. They stood like that while a meadowlark sang from the fence line and the windmill turned with its old familiar complaint.