Gideon passed through twice that morning on his way in and out, and each time the kitchen looked less like a place where men had been surviving and more like a place where someone actually intended to cook.
The third time he passed through, Clara was on her knees in front of the lower cabinet, pulling out supplies and sorting them into two piles.
One pile he recognized.
The other pile he'd apparently had and forgotten about.
"You have three tins of preserved peaches," she said without looking up.
"I didn't know that."
"I know you didn't know that. That's why I'm telling you."
She set a tin aside.
"You also have a bag of dried apples that's been pushed so far to the back it's practically historical."
"Are they still good?"
She looked up at him over her shoulder.
"Remarkably, yes."
He leaned against the doorframe.
"You don't need to do the whole pantry today."
"I'm aware of what I need to do."
She turned back to the cabinet.
"I'm choosing to do it today because if I don't establish a system in the first week, it won't get done, and then I'll be managing chaos instead of a kitchen for the rest of the winter."
He considered pointing out that the rest of the winter was still a temporary arrangement.
That they were still going to write to the agency.
That nothing was settled.
He decided against it.
"I'll have Dermit check the flue this afternoon," he said instead.
"Thank you."
He pushed off the doorframe and went back outside.
What happened with Ethan happened gradually, which was the only way anything real ever happened.
Gideon hadn't set out to involve the boy.
He had three ranch hands and more than enough work to go around, and he wasn't running a school.
But two days after Clara arrived, he walked out to the near paddock to check on a section of fence that Sid had flagged as needing attention and found Ethan already there, standing on the outside of the fence line, watching the horses in the adjoining pasture with his hands shoved in his coat pockets and an expression that gave nothing away.
Gideon stopped a few yards back and assessed the fence line himself before saying anything.
"Post is rotted through," he said.
Ethan turned.
He hadn't heard Gideon approach, and for just a second, before the careful blankness reset, there was something younger in his face.
"I noticed that," he said. "Third one from the left."
Gideon looked at the posts.
The boy was right.
"You know about fence repair?"
"No," Ethan said. "I just know what rotted wood looks like."
Gideon walked to the back of the supply shed 20 yards away, pulled out a replacement post and the tools he needed, and came back.
He didn't tell Ethan to help.
He didn't tell Ethan to leave.
He just started working.
Ethan watched for about four minutes.
Then he said, "What do you want me to do?"
"Hold that post level while I drive it."
Ethan moved without further comment.
He held the post with both hands and kept it steady while Gideon worked, and he didn't ask unnecessary questions or make unnecessary conversation, which Gideon appreciated more than he would have said.
When the post was in, Gideon straightened and looked at the line.