"No ma'am. I haven't called anybody."
She looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked past him at her son, who was still standing by the woodpile with the maul hanging from one hand.
"Ray was proud of you," she said, to Wade, unexpectedly. "Did you know that? Before. When you got married, when your dad passed and you kept the place going through '17 when it was so dry. He used to say Wade Hollister was the best cowman on the creek." She laughed, without any pleasure in it. "And then he sat in that truck on the courthouse street and watched you buy his land. He never got out of the truck. He drove home and didn't say a word all night. He was gone to Williston inside a year." She shook her head. "I'm not blaming you. I've had three years to decide who to blame, and mostly I've decided on Ray. But I wanted you to know what that was, from where we sat. Since you're standing on my step."
"I appreciate you telling me," Wade said, and found that he meant it.
He went over to the woodpile. Danny watched him come. The boy had a bruise-colored look under his own eyes, too, and Wade guessed he had not slept either.
"I brought you your shirt," Wade said. "June took it off the hook. She wanted you to have it back." He went to the truck and got it and held it out, the gloves on top, the note on top of the gloves. "She wrote you something."
Danny took it and read the note. He read it twice. Then he folded it very small and put it in the chest pocket of his canvas coat and buttoned the pocket, and he stood holding the flannel shirt against himself with both arms.