"Paid the back rent on the trailer. We were two months behind and the man said he'd put us out. Paid the propane. Paid the light bill. Bought my sisters shoes. Kaylee's were taped up. I paid the clinic in Grass Range for when Rose had pneumonia in March. We still owe the hospital in Lewistown, but they let you make payments." He said it all in a flat, reporting voice, like a boy giving a book report he had memorized. "I didn't buy anything for myself. I want you to know that. I know it doesn't matter. But I didn't."
"Where's your dad?"
Something closed in Danny Ferris's face. "Williston. Last I heard. He went up to the oil patch a year ago February. He was going to send money. He did, for a while."
"And your mother?"
"She works nights at the nursing home in Lewistown. She didn't know. She still doesn't. She thinks Mrs. Hollister is paying me for chores." He looked at Claire, then back at Wade. "Please don't tell her it was the calves. I'll tell her. I just—I want to be the one."
Wade turned back to Claire. "And you made a deal."
"I made a deal." She pushed her hair back from her face with the heel of her hand. "I sat down in the grass with him in that draw for an hour, Wade. I told him he was going to pay back every dime of what those calves would have brought. Not what that man in Roundup paid him. What they were worth to us. I told him he was going to work it off, fifteen dollars an hour, on this place, until it was done. I'd keep the book and he'd sign it every day, and if he missed a day without telling me or if I ever caught him near anybody's cattle but ours, I'd call Tom myself and drive him to the sheriff's office in Lewistown and sit in the waiting room while they booked him."