Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sky burns bright and blue in New Austin when Sadie steers her horse under the wooden arch that marks the entrance to Beecher’s Hope. 

Sadie isn’t sure how long she would be staying for—if no one was here, it would be a few minutes, but otherwise it might be days—so after a moment of deliberation she slides off Hera and hitches her to the post in front of the ranch house instead of corralling her more permanently in the barn. Better to play it safe. 

Hera tosses her head and whinnies, probably because of the unrelenting heat. Sadie gives her a pat on the neck, more absentminded than anything, and glances over her possessions. A sack of rations. A spare change of clothes. Her guns. Everything is in order, so the only thing left to do is walk up to the door.

Which she does, but only after scrubbing a hand over her face in a vain attempt to wipe the dirt off. Then she raises her hand and knocks.

“Abigail?” she calls out, her voice scratchy. She clears her throat and tries again. “You in there? It’s, uh. Sadie Adler.”

A few seconds pass before, all at once, footsteps creak from the other side of the door and it opens. 

“Sadie,” Abigail says. There’s a ghost of—something on her face, but Sadie can’t quite make out what it is. Abigail’s eyes flicker from the top of Sadie’s head to the bottom of her boots. “That really you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“...Because I didn’t think you were alive.”

Of all the things to say to someone after seeing them again for the first time in six years, Sadie hadn’t expected that. But it’s true, so she just cracks an easy smile and shifts her weight. “I am,” she says. “That bother you?”

A pause, then Abigail’s eyes soften. “No. Not at all.” She steps forward, twists the hem of her apron in her hand, and gestures inside. “Won’t you come in?”

Wordlessly, Sadie nods and steps inside. She glances back at Hera, and maybe she’s imagining things but her horse seems to dip her head encouragingly. It’s a good sign, and honestly Sadie hadn’t even expected to make it this far anyway, so she gives Hera an affectionate wink and then turns to shut the door behind her.

Abigail leads Sadie to the living room, and it’s then that the familiar smell of Beecher’s Hope hits her: musty pine mixed with the faint odor of lye, which she knows Abigail scrubs the house with on cleaning days. She doesn’t know why she remembers that, but she does, and the familiarity of it all makes her breath hitch. It’s been six years since she left, yet nothing has changed.

Except—well, the obvious.

Abigail sits down on the couch, and Sadie sits in the chair next to her. For a moment there’s an awkward silence.

“How...how are you?” Abigail ventures. There’s a nervous smile on her face, like she isn’t even sure where to start. 

“Good,” Sadie responds. “I’m real good. I, uh, I’ve been in the area for a while, and I just figured I might see how you were doin’.” She worries the inside of her cheek. “Honestly, I half expected you and Jack to have moved somewhere. I guess the ranch is kind of hard to run without, uh.” Without John, she wants to say, but she can’t make the words come out. “Well, anyway. I’ve rambled enough about myself. How are you? How’s the boy?”

Abigail tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and doesn’t quite meet Sadie’s gaze. “I suppose we’re managing the best we can. We’ve had to sell a few of our horses, but all things considered it ain’t been too bad. Jack’s really been a help.”

Speaking of Jack, Sadie doesn’t see him anywhere. “Is Jack around?” she asks.

“No, he told me he would be in town today,” Abigail says. She nods slowly, as if to herself. “Quite the young man he’s grown into, you know. You wouldn’t even recognize him.”

Sadie conjures up the image of Jack she remembers: a lanky, awkward boy, with a sharp wit that he seemed almost defensive of. When she left, his voice was just starting to crack, although she’d been decent enough not to comment on it. By now it must be fully deepened. Sadie offers a smile to Abigail. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“I think John would be, too.”

Ah, Sadie thinks, there it is. There’s only so much dancing around a topic she can do, after all. In the end it wasn’t her who brought it up first, but Abigail, and she would be lying if she said she didn’t feel guilty about it.

“Listen,” Sadie starts, then shifts in her seat. She’s never been good with words. “Abigail, I’m real sorry. I—I was in the area a couple years ago, and I saw it in the paper but I got caught up in other things, and I guess—”

Abigail cuts her off by placing a hand on top of hers. “Ain’t no need to apologize.” After a pause, she looks at Sadie again. “I mean, you of all people should know how I feel, right?”

There’s a certain irony in that, which makes Sadie smile despite herself. “I guess the shoe’s on the other foot now.”

Abigail smiles back and squeezes Sadie’s hand. Time, for the most part, has not been kind to her. There are worry lines on her forehead, silver hairs peeking through the mass of brown, and even her dress is threadbare and dull. It would be surprising if Sadie hadn’t come prepared for it. She knew—still knows—that Abigail’s love for John was fierce, and although it’s been two years since that cold morning when Sadie had opened up the daily paper and read the news firsthand, that doesn’t mean the wound has healed. If anything, she thinks it means the opposite. 

Sadie scratches the back of her neck and glances at the floor. “I was just gonna say, if you happened to need some help taking care of the animals, I’m uh. I’m happy to do it.”

“You came all this way for that?” Abigail says, and laughs a little. “To ask to be my ranch hand?”

When Abigail puts it like that, it sounds absurd, but Sadie just shrugs. After all, although there were other reasons, that had been the main one. “Just for a while,” she says. “If you’ll have me.”

There’s a moment when both of them stare at each other, and then Abigail laughs again. Sadie’s missed that sound more than she realized. “Course I’ll have you,” Abigail says. “This is your home too, for as long as you want it.”

Not even an hour later, Sadie feeds Hera a treat, scratches her behind the ears, and leads her from the hitching post to the cool interior of the barn. They’re not going anywhere.

As the afternoon turns into evening, the steady clop of horse’s hooves from outside the barn signal that Jack is home. Sadie and Abigail are in the middle of eating dinner, and when they hear it Abigail shoots up from her seat and runs to open the door before Sadie can say anything. 

“Jack,” she calls out, “come see who’s staying with us.” She waves her hand at him, and although Sadie can’t see outside, a few seconds later Abigail shuts the door and pulls in Jack behind her. 

Sadie has to fight to keep her expression from looking surprised. It’s hard, because for a second it’s like John is alive and walking again right in front of her, but then the differences make themselves clear: Jack’s hair, which is brown and not black, and his expression, which is oddly sullen. 

Nevertheless, he proves himself to be at least polite. “Ma’am,” he says, and takes off his hat. John’s hat, now that she looks closer. “It’s nice to see you again.”

Abigail places a hand on his back. “You remember Mrs. Adler, don’t you, son? She visited us a while back. And she was there for that whole mess with...with Dutch.”

“Sure, I remember.” Jack clears his throat. “I, uh, I’m going to wash up now. If you don’t mind, that is.”

“You gonna join us for dinner?” Abigail asks, gesturing at the steaming bowls of stew on the table. “There’s more than enough for you.”

Jack casts a long look at the dinner table, at Sadie, and finally at the floor. “Maybe later, Ma.”

Abigail’s face falls. “Oh. Alright, Jack.” As Jack shuffles into the bedroom and takes his hat with him, she calls out after him. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

Jack pauses as he shuts the door to his room. “Okay. Thanks.”

Sadie is left standing with Abigail in the emptiness of the living room. She meets Abigail’s eyes.

Abigail speaks first. “I, uh—”

“You’re right,” Sadie says, cutting her off. “Jack’s grown.”

Truthfully, she isn’t sure if that’s a good or bad thing. But this is Abigail, and Abigail loves her son more than life itself, so Sadie crinkles her eyes in a smile and sits back down at the dinner table. “Now, you were tellin’ me about Miss Tilly?”

After a moment, Abigail sits down too and picks up her spoon. “I was,” she says, and recounts all the letters that came over the years. As Abigail’s spoon scrapes against the bottom of her bowl, she tells it all—from the secondhand account of marriage, to a novel from Mary-Beth, to the news of a baby. Sadie listens, and smiles, and if she glances back at the door to Jack’s room she tries to hide it.

After Jack takes a bath, Sadie decides to take one as well, to try to scrub the dirt and sweat off from her journey. Abigail was polite enough to not say anything for the few hours that passed since Sadie’s arrival, but Sadie’s caught enough of her own scent to know that she’s in desperate need of intervention. 

So, after sheepishly asking Abigail if the tub was still where she remembered it to be and getting a nod and a laugh for an answer, Sadie gathers her change of clothes and hauls bucket after bucket of water into the bathtub. 

Climbing into the cool water sends shivers and goosebumps up her body, but as soon as she relaxes it’s like everything falls quiet. 

Sadie lets the water soak in and sighs, resting her head against the back of the tub. Seeing Abigail again, seeing Jack all grown up—it’s a lot to take in. Sadie left Beecher’s Hope six years ago thinking she would never come back, that she would go to South America and lose herself in the web of politics and revolution that she knew was entangling the region, but in the end she never even left the States. All she did was bounty after bounty, and when those ran out she started doing odd jobs, and when folk looked at her funny for asking about work she did the jobs so well that they never questioned her again.

There’s a knock on the door. “Everything all right in there?” Abigail calls from the other side.

“Couldn’t be better,” Sadie calls back. “I’ll be out soon.”

“Take as long as you like!”

Sadie smiles and leans back into the water. After a moment, she starts scrubbing soap all over her body and into her hair, until her skin squeaks when she rubs her fingers over it and her hair feels more like stiff straw. She hasn’t had a bath like this in years. Between the hotel managers who couldn’t understand why a woman would rent a room by herself, to the poor ladies who gasped in surprise when they asked if “you need any assistance, sir” and heard Sadie answer, trying to pay for a bath was just too much of a hassle.

The laughter, the cut-throat, careless freedom of being alone by herself—Sadie misses it already. But it’s only a passing thought. Nothing more.

The sky is a blue-grey twilight by the time she steps out of the tub and puts on her clothes. When she walks into the living room, Abigail looks up from her knitting and blinks at her. 

“Well,” she says, “you certainly look better.”

Sadie cracks a smile. “So I was lookin’ bad before?”

Abigail rolls her eyes and smiles back. “Horrible.”

“Where’s Jack gone?”

“Down by the barn,” Abigail says. “Said he was brushing the horses, or something like that.”

“I can give him a hand, if he needs it.”

Abigail presses her lips together and shakes her head. “I...ain’t sure if that’s such a good idea.” When Sadie raises an eyebrow, she quickly continues. “I mean, some nights he just wants to be alone, you know? Some nights it’s kinder to leave him be.”

Sadie knows that feeling all too well. If anything, isolation means that her sadness is hers alone. If she wants to head down a path to self-destruction, she can, and no one would stop her because no one would care. It makes sense why Jack would feel this way. Everyone’s angry at eighteen, but he has a cause to be angrier than most.

“You’re a good mother,” she says.

“You’re just saying that to be nice.”

Sadie shakes her head. “No, I mean it,” she says. “Just because no one’s told you doesn’t mean it ain’t true.”

Abigail’s eyes meet hers, and she gives a little nervous laugh. “You sound so convinced,” she says. She laughs again, and then runs a hand through her hair. “I—I’m sorry, I—” The clicking of knitting needles pauses, and Abigail looks at her. Her fingers tremble as they put the needles down. “No one’s told me that in a long time.”

Sadie interrupts her. “Don’t apologize.” After a moment, she chooses her words carefully. “Do...do you still talk to the others? Tilly? Mary-Beth?”

“Of course,” Abigail responds quickly. When Sadie makes no move to respond, she turns her gaze to the floor. “It’s just...hard. I guess they don’t know what to say.”

“I understand,” Sadie says. She sits down on the couch next to Abigail and stares at the same spot on the floor.

They sit in silence like that for a while. A coyote suddenly howls in the night, and after that a chorus of yips and yells echo after it. Although Sadie’s noticed all kinds of civilization cropping up more and more, belching smoke and pollution into the air, here it’s like nothing changed—nothing surrounds them but nature. 

Abigail shifts to lean into her side, her shawl rubbing up against Sadie’s worn out cotton shirt. It’s nice—the warmth, the implicit understanding that settles between them. Sadie can’t remember the last time she’s existed in such easy silence. All kinds of ancient memories come flooding back into her: Jake’s death, those freezing nights up at Colter, the painful thaw of Horseshoe Overlook, unwelcomed and unwanted but warm anyway. That spring, it was like she died and came back to life again.

I’ve missed you , Sadie thinks. But she doesn’t say it.

Time passes by more quickly that Sadie could’ve imagined. Before she knows it, a month has passed, and still she is here, waking up at the crack of dawn to feed the horses and repair the rickety wooden fences that seem to constantly break down. An extra pair of hands means that larger projects around the farm can be completed, which means that more than once Sadie and Jack have nearly thrown their backs out trying to patch up the side of the barn, or rebuild the chicken coop, or even deliver a foal. Sadie thought she was used to hard labor, but every day for the first week she would collapse in bed and feel the tiredness pulse from her temples all the way into the soles of her feet. Now, her muscles are wiry and strong. It takes hours before she breaks a sweat.

Abigail’s been happy with the work being done—Jack too, if Sadie’s being honest. It took a while for him to come out of his shell, but one day he had come up to her while she was bringing water to fill the troughs. “Need help with that, Mrs. Adler?” he’d said.

Sadie had put down the two buckets of water with a grunt. “I think I’m alright. I’m sure there’s somethin’ better for you to do.”

“It’s no trouble, Mrs. Adler.”

“For God’s sake, call me Sadie, will you?” Realizing how irritated she’d sounded, Sadie had tried to backtrack. “I—I mean—”

Jack had smiled then, taking off his hat and wiping an arm across his brow. “Reckon I deserve that.”

Sadie had eyed him with a mixture of amusement and relief. “Maybe,” she’d said. She’d shifted her weight, awkwardly looking at the dirt, and then nodded towards the buckets of water. “You wanna take one, and I’ll take the other?”

“Sure.”

Since then, Jack has taken the opportunity to lend a hand whenever he can, despite Sadie’s constant reassurances that she can handle things just fine by herself. She wonders if he thinks she’s weak, but judging by the quiet, satisfied look on his face whenever she thanks him, she figures maybe this is his way of showing his appreciation. 

In any case, Sadie is content. So content, in fact, that when she notices the wallpaper in Jack’s bedroom peeling off at the edges, she’s the first one to suggest they strip the whole thing and replace it. 

Jack is dubious, but Abigail seems to jump at the idea of taking a trip into town to do something other than sell eggs and milk. “It’ll be fun,” she says to Jack. “Don’t you want to go to the store? Pick out a color?”

He pulls a face. “Uh...not really.” At Abigail’s affronted look, he says, “Don’t we need someone to stay back and mind the ranch, anyway?”

Sadie can’t help but roll her eyes at Jack’s reluctance. Some things never change. “Fine. Me and Abigail will head out, and you can stay back. Just don’t get all in a huff if we pick out somethin’ you don’t like.”

With Jack staying at Beecher’s Hope, Abigail and Sadie get ready to go into Blackwater. They would have to go into the more commercial part of town, farther away from the houses on the outskirts, where all the various shops would be. 

Sadie trades her dirt-stained clothes for some cleaner ones, and when she emerges from the attic where she sleeps Abigail is waiting for her. She’s wearing a dress Sadie hasn’t seen her in before, one made of papery green linen that cinches around the waist. 

“Look at you,” Sadie grins. “All dolled up.”

“Oh, be quiet.”

They hop up onto the wagon. Sadie takes the reins, raises her hand in goodbye to Jack, and yanks the reins, sending the horses trotting out of the ranch and into town.

The buying of the wallpaper goes quickly enough, and although Abigail spends what seems to Sadie to be an unreasonable amount of time choosing between prairie blue and light yellow, eventually she chooses blue and they pay. 

“That wasn’t too hard,” Abigail says brightly as they walk out of the dusty shop and into the street. 

Sadie snorts. “You serious, Abigail? I was about to fall asleep just standin’ there. You would’ve had to carry me out of the store.”

“And I would’ve,” Abigail declares. “I don’t take kindly to people getting in the way of my errands.”

“I doubt you would’ve been able to get me off the ground, considerin’ the fact that I ain’t quite as slim as fourteen years ago.”

Abigail laughs and squeezes Sadie’s shoulder. “Sadie, you might just be the only woman I know who’s that honest about her own body.”

Sadie gives a careless shrug. “Ain’t exactly a reason to lie.”

They make their way to the horses and wagon, where Sadie takes the wallpaper from Abigail and tosses it in the back. Abigail gives her a strange look, a smile growing on her face.

“You’re being real nice to me,” she says.

It’s not something Sadie is prepared to hear, so she reddens a bit and puts a hand on the back of her neck. “It ain’t nothin’,” she mutters. “Bounty huntin’—well, it’s given me more money than I know what to do with. And I just figured—”

“I don’t need you to explain, Sadie.” A second passes, and Abigail brings back her hand to her own lap. “I just wanted to say thanks.”

“Well,” Sadie says, fumbling at the reins, “you’re welcome. I guess.”

She starts to steer the horse and wagon slowly out of Blackwater, pulling on the reins when a person walks in front of them and only speeding up when they get to the open road. The afternoon sun warms her skin, and the breeze cools the dewy beads of sweat that form on her temples. Abigail starts humming a tune, then stops. She turns in her seat to face Sadie. “Tell me about one of your bounties,” she says suddenly.

Sadie doesn’t try to hide the surprise on her face. “Didn’t you think it was horrible work?”

“Course I do,” she says, “but I reckon you must have a lot of stories to tell.”

Abigail’s right. She does. Not all of the stories end happily—in fact, most of them don’t, but they’re all memorable so as she guides the wagon around a bend in the road Sadie closes her eyes and thinks of one.

Eventually, she clears her throat. “There was one time in Ambarino, where the sheriff sent me to bring back a runaway wife.”

“Wife?” Abigail asks. “I thought you caught criminals.”

Sadie can’t help but grin, and she says, “I take what I can get.”

Years ago, in Ambarino, Sadie was paid fifty dollars upfront for bringing back the wife of some wealthy businessman. That kind of money was rare, rare enough that even though all she had to go by was a brief description and a speculation of where the wife would be, she didn’t ask any questions. 

It took three days before she found her, crouching near a pool of water and crying bitter tears. When Sadie asked her to come back to the sheriff’s office, she burst out anew, saying that she would rather die before going back. It was then that Sadie bid a heartfelt goodbye to her reward money. They talked for hours, and when Sadie handed the woman a stack of bills to start a new life with, she threw her arms around her and kissed her cheek.

Sadie had gone to see her a few times after that, and they’d done other things. But she doesn’t mention that part.

If Abigail senses that Sadie’s not telling the whole truth, she doesn’t show it, and when Sadie finishes her story she sighs in amazement. “I can’t believe you would just give up the money like that,” she says. 

“Like you wouldn’t have done the same.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have even been in that situation in the first place, would I?”

Sadie laughs. “Guess not.”

They enter under the wooden arch marking Beecher’s Hope, where Jack is waiting for them with a book in his hand. “Ready to do some work, son?” Abigail calls out brightly. Sadie helps her down from the wagon and shoots an amused look over at Jack, who already looks like a fish out of water. 

Jack hurriedly puts the book away. “I, uh—”

Sadie dumps the bundle of wallpaper into Jack’s unsteady arms before he can protest. For herself, she takes a putty knife, tossing it a couple times to get used to the weight. “Come on,” she says. “If we hurry we can get half the room done before sundown.”

It takes a lot of scraping, scrubbing, and cursing, but eventually Sadie and Jack manage to strip the entirety of the walls in Jack’s room. Abigail occasionally pops in to check on them, leaning against the doorframe and smiling in Sadie’s direction. She often catches Sadie off guard, and in those moments there isn’t much she can do besides nod her head in Abigail’s direction and feel the blood rush to her cheeks—from exertion, she tells herself, as her shirt clings to her skin from the sweat and she renews her focus. 

The sun sinks into the horizon before Sadie decides to call it a day. As she predicted, about half the room now has a mellow blue background that, when the light hits it, looks almost green. She thumps Jack on the shoulder. “I’d say we ain’t completely ruined it, huh?”

He’s as sweaty and worn-out as her, but he still gives her a smile. “Not completely.”

“Let’s go see if your mother decided to feed us or not.”

They walk into the living room to find Abigail in the middle of laying out bowls of bread and stew. When she sees them, she quickly puts the food down, and her gaze flicks from Sadie to Jack. “You two worked hard,” she says. “How’s it looking?”

Sadie pulls out a chair and practically collapses into it. “Not too shabby. You like the color, Jack?”

He also sits down, although he’s less dramatic about it. “Sure,” he says, and starts spooning stew into his mouth. Sadie gets the feeling that he doesn’t care about the aesthetics of his room as much as Abigail thinks he does.

Dinner passes by quickly, and when Jack is done he excuses himself to go check on the horses. 

“Wait,” Abigail says. “I made dessert tonight. Want to have some?”

Jack laughs a little. “Aw, you know I don’t like sweet things, Ma.”

“Let Jack go off to the animals,” Sadie interjects. “We don’t have to have any dessert tonight.”

When Jack nods and makes his exit, Abigail sighs and shakes her head. “That boy,” she says. “Ain’t even realized...”

When she trails off and doesn’t say anything else, Sadie says, “Realized what?”

“That he’s...grown,” Abigail finishes after a moment. “I guess.”

Sadie swallows the last of her meal and nods. Sometimes, on hazy nights like this one, Abigail looks at Jack and can’t help but see the vulnerable child he used to be instead of who he is now.

Sadie understands, of course. “I remember watchin’ him play with Cain. You remember that dog?”

Abigail’s brows furrow for a second before she speaks. “Was that the one Dutch found?”

“Think so,” Sadie says. Seeing how much little Jack had loved that dog had stirred something both warm and painful inside her, back then. She never found out what happened to it, although she has some suspicions. It doesn’t matter, though—the dog would’ve died by now anyway.

“You wanna sit by the campfire for a spell?” she asks, after she submerges her dirty plate and spoon in the tub of water in the kitchen. 

“Sure. Tonight ain’t too cold for that, I think.”

She and Abigail make their way over to the campfire a little ways away from the house, and Abigail sits down on one of the logs while Sadie fiddles with the pile of tinder and logs to try to get a fire going.

While she does so, Abigail starts bringing up old memories that Sadie hasn’t thought of for years—hesitating at first, like she isn’t even sure where to start, but then as the minutes pass she uncovers more and more. “You remember how Miss Grimshaw always used to scream at us for taking second helpings?” she asks, and Sadie laughs and nods, all while lighting the tinder, hoping for the flame to catch. 

“You remember how many books Lenny carried with him?” 

“Enough to fill a goddamn wagon.”

Sadie strikes a match, drops it into the tinder, and the flames finally spread with a crackle and whoosh. She whoops and lets herself fall onto the seat next to Abigail. “Finally got it,” she says.

Abigail smiles at her, and without warning, leans her head to rest on her shoulder. Sadie’s heart starts thumping like a jackrabbit. Calm down, she tells herself. This is Abigail, for God’s sake. What had gotten into her in the past month?

They sit like that for a while. Sadie gazes at the hard little pinpoints of stars dotting the night sky. She feels Abigail shift against her shoulder.

“I met a man once who reminded me of Hosea,” Sadie says. It’s more to fill the silence than anything, but Abigail’s head perks up.

“Hosea?” she asks. “And here I thought I’d never hear of someone like him again.”

Sadie laughs and shakes her head. “Well, it was a long time ago,” she says. “And he didn’t really look like him—I mean, he was a big, burly, guy, not exactly Hosea’s size. But...he did trick me.”

“What? How?”

“Well, this was back when I was new to the whole bounty business, so I hadn’t quite learned the ropes yet. He was one of the guys I had to catch, actually. He was some sort of scam artist.”

“So did you catch him?”

“Hold on,” Sadie says, “I’m gettin’ there.” Sadie continues, unraveling the story of how she was sent to track him down deep in the Ambarino mountains, and when she’d finally found a man matching his description huddled up in the snow, it turned out to be one of his associates, disguised to look like him. She’d only found that out when she’d carried him into the sheriff’s office, and the sheriff had groaned and claimed this was the third time that week the man had pulled this sort of trick.

“Of course, I still got him in the end,” Sadie says. The man she captured took one look at her expression, and revealed the whole scheme: who he was working for, where he was, and what Sadie needed to do to find him. Things had been easy after that—and Sadie had enjoyed the look on the man’s face when she’d ridden up to him, grinning, with a lasso clenched in her fist. 

When Sadie finishes the story, Abigail laughs. “You’re a strange woman,” she says. Even so, Abigail looks more amused than anything. 

Sadie’s stomach flutters. “You don’t even know half of it.”

Abigail rolls her eyes but says nothing, and they go on sitting in comfortable silence. A couple of minutes pass, with the wind blowing every once in a while and making the feathery hairs on Abigail’s head dance. Sadie doesn’t quite know why she notices that, but she does, and she has to stop herself from staring.

“All those songs we sang,” Abigail says suddenly, “do you remember any?”

Sadie, after being jerked out of her train of thought, takes a few moments before saying anything. “There’s one,” Sadie finally says. “The one with the ducks? Sean used to sing it.”

“How did it go?”

It’s a harmless enough question, but Sadie balks. “I ain’t too fond of my singin’ voice, unfortunately.”

Abigail laughs and lays a hand on Sadie’s shoulder. “Oh, none of that,” she teases. “It’s just you and me out here. Who’s judging?”

“...Fine,” Sadie says. “If you want me to.”

She takes a deep breath and starts on the first verse, flinching at how rough her voice sounds. 

Then she sings the second, and soon Abigail joins in, and for a few seconds their voices float over the fire and into the dark night. Sadie doesn’t know if Jack can hear them, but she soon banishes that thought from her head. It’s alright, she thinks. There’s no reason to be afraid. It’s just us. 

Suddenly Abigail stops singing. “You messed up a line!” she exclaims.

“What?”

“It’s I’m leaving sweet Mollie, the fairest in the land, not...whatever you said.”

“But I thought it was best in the land, not fairest,” Sadie says. “Ain’t that fit better?”

“Maybe, but I know I’m right.”

Sadie groans and breaks out into a grin despite herself. Truthfully, the only thing she remembers for sure from back then is the soft murmur of conversation around the campfire, constant and comforting on those nights when she felt like dying rather than sleeping. The people around her were what mattered. All those songs they sang—those were just background noise. 

“Look at me,” she says, and chuckles. “Can’t sing, can’t remember the lines…”

“It’s alright,” Abigail says. She takes Sadie’s hand and squeezes it between her own warm ones. “We can try again.”

It’s impossible to ignore the way Sadie’s heart kicks against her chest. Or how she swallows and her mouth is dry, or how she can feel a warm, intense tendril of feeling wrap around her stomach and extend until her fingertips. “We can?” she whispers. She meets Abigail’s eyes with her own. 

Abigail looks back at her for a long second. “We can,” she repeats slowly, and kisses her.

She tastes like dry chocolate. That’s the first thing Sadie notices. The second is that she’s cupped her hands over Sadie’s jaw and is holding her, tenderly, and sighing through her nose so that little puffs of warm air tickle her cheek. After a moment Sadie kisses back. A thousand thoughts run through her mind at that moment: thoughts like, what would Jack do if he saw us, am I imagining it or is she smiling, but as Abigail pulls her even closer the only thing that stays with her is that she thinks she’s been waiting for this moment for a long time. Longer than a month. Longer than she’s ever realized.

Abigail is the first one to pull apart and she catches her breath, her half-opened lips glittering wetly in the firelight, all while keeping her eyes on Sadie. The corners of her mouth lift up. 

“Well,” she says softly. “I, uh, wasn’t planning on that.”

Sadie can’t stop herself from staring at Abigail’s mouth. “Me neither,” she says, the words coming out hoarse. 

“Did you not want it?”

“No!” Sadie exclaims. Then she shrinks back a little. “I mean, I did want it. Do want it.” She pauses, swallowing, and asks, “Do you?”

In that moment she thinks of John before she can stop herself. John, one of the only people she could trust with her life, dead since two years ago. He saved her, back when they went on that foolish quest for revenge. He gave her a home when she was too wounded to sit up. He married Abigail, right in front of her. What would he think, looking at them now? 

Does it even matter?

“Yes,” Abigail tells her. “I—I think I do. I think I want it.”

That’s all the confirmation Sadie needs. She leans over, curls her hand around Abigail’s waist, and kisses her again.

Later that night, they put out the fire and go inside the house. Jack is sitting on the couch, idly leafing through one of his books. He looks up when they come in. “I was wondering where everyone was.”

“Sadie and I were just by the fire,” Abigail says. “How were the horses?”

“Lazy, as usual.” She smiles and Abigail laughs when he says that, and he glances between them and pauses. “Why are you two in such a good mood?”

Sadie tries to school her expression as best as possible. The euphoria from before still courses through her, but now it’s dampened by a piercing worry. She meets Abigail’s eyes and sends her a desperate look.

“We were just happy about the room,” Abigail eventually says. 

Jack merely shrugs and turns his attention back to his book. “Me too, I guess.”

Some of the tension releases from Sadie’s shoulders. They could cross that bridge when the time comes, she supposes, but for now she’s just glad to have avoided that conversation. 

Abigail heads off to do the washing from dinner, and Sadie spends the next part of her night doing her best to tidy up the house. At some point, Jack retreats to his room. It makes her ashamed to admit it to herself, but when he’s gone what washes over her is pure relief. 

That night, she’s about to climb the ladder to the attic where she sleeps when Abigail comes up behind her. 

“Sadie?”

She pauses and turns around. Abigail has on a plain white nightgown and her black hair spills loose on her shoulders. “Somethin’ wrong, Abigail?”

“I just thought, maybe—” she pauses, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear “—you don’t have to sleep up there anymore. Not if you don’t want to, I mean.”

Sadie frowns. “Why wouldn’t I?”

The dim lamplight barely illuminates Abigail’s face, which is why it’s only then that Sadie realizes her cheeks are flushed. “Well, I thought...you might want to sleep with me. Not—I mean, not that I want to do anything, you know—”

Oh. Something hot flickers in Sadie’s chest and her breath hitches. She smiles before she can stop herself. “Of course,” she says quickly. “We don’t have to do anythin’ you don’t want to.”

Abigail pauses and nods. “Right,” she says, “You’re right.” She breaks out into a smile. “Well, you need help moving your things?”

Sadie feels the blood rush to her cheeks, and she says, “Ain’t so many things. I think I can manage.”

She hauls herself up the ladder, gathers her clothes under one arm, and heads back down. She didn’t think Abigail was the type to be so forward. Somehow she thought she would be the one to ask these things, although she never realized she thought about them before. It makes sense, though—after all, Abigail had to be the one to chase after John all those years. 

There he is again, Sadie thinks. Now that she started thinking about him she can’t stop, even if she wants to. She shakes her head, willing the thought to go away, and pushes open the door to Abigail’s bedroom.

Abigail is sitting on the bed, combing out her hair. “There you are,” she says. She puts down the comb and shifts so she’s facing Sadie. “You sure this is okay?”

Sadie sits down on the bed next to her. “‘Course it is.” She glances at Abigail’s lips and takes a steadying breath. “I know you said you didn’t want to do anythin’, but can I—”

“Yes, Sadie,” Abigail says. “Yes.”

So Sadie trails her fingers up Abigail’s arms and presses a kiss to her lips. Abigail shivers and laughs, and when she shifts on the bed, the springs creak under them. For the second time that night, Sadie feels like soaring high in the sky, the blood pumping in her veins hard enough that she feels it all the way down to her toes. Abigail is beautiful. She’s worn, and tired-looking, and her hair is streaked with silver, but even so she is the most beautiful woman Sadie’s ever seen. Maybe it is precisely this that makes her so. 

Some time later, they stop. Abigail sighs and lays on her back in the bed, looking at Sadie with dancing eyes. “I feel…”

“Happy?” Sadie suggests. 

“I was going to say, surprised.”

Sadie raises her eyebrows. “Why surprised?”

“At—myself,” Abigail finally says. “I suppose.”

As she shrugs off her work clothes and puts on her nightgown, Sadie tries to think of what to say. So she starts with the obvious: “Is it because I’m a woman?”

Abigail turns her head against the pillow to look at her. She doesn’t say anything, not immediately, and Sadie starts to think she’s asked the wrong question before she suddenly speaks up. “I just didn’t think I could feel this way about someone who ain’t a man.”

“You mean,” Sadie starts to say, and then stops herself and sighs. 

“...Go on.” 

“You mean,” she continues, “with someone who ain’t John.”

A small smile comes over Abigail’s face, and she switches her gaze to the low ceiling. The only time they had talked about him had been that first time, when Sadie had shown up at Abigail’s door unannounced and uninvited. After that, they’d talked about anything and everything else: the prices of grain, how much milk the cows were producing that week, what Abigail was planning on making for dinner. It hadn’t been on purpose, not really—but it had been easier. 

“You’re right,” Abigail says. “For my whole life it had been him.” She closes her eyes for a second. “At least, for the part of my life that mattered.”

And now he’s dead, is what remains unsaid. He is dead, and Sadie is the one sleeping beside her, two years later.

Sadie should feel angry, she thinks, that Abigail is dismissing her. But all she feels is sadness. “I understand,” she says.  

“Did you feel like this too? About your husband?”

Briefly, Sadie considers lying, saying something about how yes, Jake was her first love, and how when he died everything after felt gray and dull and lifeless. But she knows that isn’t true. 

Now dressed in her sleeping clothes, Sadie lays down on the bed next to Abigail. “I didn’t,” she admits. Then after a pause she starts telling Abigail the story of how she and Jake met when they were teenagers, and the first time they’d kissed both of them had recoiled as if they’d been burned, seen the other person’s expression, and started laughing out of sheer relief. They’d gotten married because if Sadie couldn’t spend her life with a woman, and Jake couldn’t spend his life with a man, at least they could spend it with each other and be happy. 

“We loved each other,” Sadie says. “But—not in the way we were supposed to. I guess.”

The only thing Abigail says after a pause is, “Oh. I see.”

Sadie can’t read her expression, and she starts getting nervous. “That bother you?” she asks. She almost doesn’t want to know the answer.

“What?” Abigail says. “Oh, darling, of course I ain’t bothered by that.” A pause, then, “You really thought I would be?”

“No,” Sadie says, but her voice wavers slightly. She’s kept silent about this for her whole life. Having it out in the open now sends a powerful relief coursing through her, but not without an undercurrent of fear. 

Abigail shifts closer and brushes the back of her hand against Sadie’s cheek. “We’ve known each other for fifteen years, Sadie.”

“I know.”

They fall silent, and the only noise Sadie hears is the skittering of a lizard across the roof of the house. In the dark she can’t tell if Abigail’s eyes are closed or not. She lays there and breathes, thinking of Abigail’s skin. Her gentle fingers. The way she makes Sadie feel—not beautiful, because saying Sadie is beautiful is like saying a river is dry—but wanted. That seems enough.

Minutes pass. She can’t tell how many. “Sadie?” Abigail whispers in the dark. She must not be asleep after all. “Do you remember when I taught you how to sew?”

“Sew?” Sadie echoes.

“Yeah.”

She thinks back once again to her time under Dutch, rooting through all the faded, battered memories. But, no matter how hard she searches, she can’t recall Abigail ever teaching her to do that. It was something she always thought she knew.

Looking back at Abigail, she sees how her eyes shine with hope and desperation. At least I can do this, Sadie thinks, gripping Abigail’s hand in her own and giving her a smile, so that when she speaks the words come easy.

“I remember.”

Sadie wakes up to the sound of rustling blankets and steps on the floor. Blearily, she cracks open one eye and rolls over in bed, patting around for where Abigail’s body should be and pausing when she finds nothing. “Abigail?” she says. Her voice is scratchy from sleep.

“Go back to sleep, Sadie.”

Sadie opens her eyes fully and looks around. It’s barely even dawn, and Abigail is standing in the doorway. She’s changed out of her nightgown and into her dress and shawl. “What are you doing?” Sadie asks.

“I was just checking on something,” Abigail says. “I’ll see you in the morning, alright?”

Too tired to think clearly, Sadie grunts, waves a dismissive hand, and closes her eyes again. She hopes Abigail takes that as a yes.

The next time Sadie wakes up, she feels the warm rays of the sun shining on her face. The space beside her is empty, the blanket carefully laid flat. Sadie gently lifts herself off the bed, strips off her nightgown, and puts on the worn clothes she’s been wearing day after day to work on the ranch. It’s early enough so that she can slip out of the room unnoticed.

She wants to ask Abigail about what happened in the morning, but over the course of the day it gradually slips her mind. By the time evening comes, Sadie has forgotten entirely. 

That night Abigail waits for her again. That night Sadie goes to sleep for a second time in her arms, breathing in her warmth and leaving slow kisses on her skin. They talk about anything and everything, switching between the daily goings-on of the farm to their memories of the gang in the space of a heartbeat. When they speak, they are quiet—and although Sadie knows it’s better that Jack doesn’t know about what they share, she wonders how long this will last. 

A sort of routine forms: Sadie will wake up to an empty bed, sneak out of the room, and go about the ranch as if nothing had changed between them. When Jack joins her, she’s already hard at work. Together they haul hay, shovel manure, and take care of the animals, only taking breaks to wipe the sweat off or get a drink of water. After the sky darkens enough, Sadie and Jack make their way to the ranch house, where Abigail waits for them with dinner. The three of them eat together. Occasionally Sadie shares a story from her bounty hunting days—which already feel more like a distant memory, pale and faded against the vibrancy of the present. And every night, after Jack goes to his room, Sadie cracks open the door to Abigail’s bedroom and closes it behind her to find Abigail waiting for her. 

After a week of this, she doesn’t even have to think about it. The only thing she wonders about is why Abigail wakes up so early, but soon the normalcy of everything makes her forget even that.

One morning, Sadie and Jack are hauling water to the troughs when she sees a young boy riding under the arch and towards them. She puts down her bucket and shades her eyes with her hand, watching him stop the horse in front of them and hop off.

“What do you want?” she calls out. 

He looks up at her with nervous eyes and hands her a piece of paper. “Telegram,” he says. “For a Mrs. Adler.”

She takes it, hands the boy a crumpled dollar bill as a tip, and sends him off. Then she opens the telegram and reads the contents.

Work if you have interest, it says. Contact Sheriff’s office. Could use help.

After staring at it for a second, she folds it up and puts it in her pocket. Jack looks at her curiously. “Mind if I ask what it said?”

“Just a note from the sheriff,” Sadie says. “Seems he needs my work back.”

“You mean...like bounties?”

She sighs and picks up the bucket of water from the ground. “I suppose so.”

When she’d mentioned to the sheriff a month ago that she would be taking a break from catching criminals, he’d laughed in her face. “You mean to tell me that after ten straight years, you want to go on a vacation?”

“I’m sure you can find some other poor soul to pick up the slack,” she’d said while giving him a hard look. That shut him up long enough for her to walk out the door and not look behind her. Now it seems that her absence has been missed sorely enough that the sheriff felt the need to send her a personal message—Sadie almost feels flattered. 

Jack quickly picks up his bucket and follows her to the trough. As he dumps the water in with a splash, he asks, “Does that mean you’re leaving?”

“I—I dunno, Jack.” Sadie straightens up with a grunt and wipes a hand across her forehead. “It ain’t like I’m obligated to go back. I don’t have to if I don’t wanna.”

“But what about all the criminals?”

“There’ll always be criminals,” Sadie says. “And there’ll always be people like me to hunt ‘em down. Even if they ain’t quite as skilled as I am.”

“Pa was,” Jack says after a moment. “As good as you, I mean.”

Sadie blinks and regards Jack with a look. She’d thought Jack didn’t like talking about John, but maybe he was just waiting for the right moment. Maybe he’d thought her too much of a stranger this whole time.

After a second Sadie gives him a small smile. “John? Oh, he was better than me. By a long shot.”

“He taught me to shoot, you know.” Jack’s voice wavers a little as he says it.

“I’m sure.”

They fill the buckets up with water again and carry them over to the trough. One of the horses comes up behind Sadie and nudges her in the shoulder with its nose, and Sadie huffs a laugh. Jack doesn’t seem to want to say anything more than that, and Sadie doesn’t want to push him. 

She needs to talk to Abigail. Out of all the reasons to stay at Beecher’s Hope, Abigail is the one that really matters, and she deserves to know about this. With Sadie’s help, the ranch has gotten back up on its feet again—but if Abigail thinks she should go, then she would. Without a second thought. 

When she finishes her chores with Jack, Sadie heads back into the house, stopping by the kitchen to take a much-needed drink of water. As she exits to the living room, she sees Abigail standing by the fireplace, holding something in her hands and looking at it.

“Abigail?”

“Oh!” she exclaims, and quickly puts down what she was holding—a framed picture, now that Sadie looks closer. “Sadie, you scared me half to death.”

“Well, I apologize.” Unfolding the telegram, she shows it to Abigail. “Listen,” she says, “I got a note from the sheriff. He, uh, wants me to do another bounty.”

Abigail’s eyebrows raise. “But why?”

“I guess they just need my help. Or somethin’ like that, anyway.”

They stand there in silence for a moment, then Abigail speaks up. “Are you gonna do it?”

“I thought—” Sadie says, then sighs. “I don’t know, Abigail. Do you want me to?”

“It ain’t my decision. It’s yours.”

Deep down, Sadie knows Abigail was going to say something like that anyway, but it still leaves her feeling unmoored—like what’s passed between them these past few weeks has been nothing but talk. But she knows that’s not true, so she pushes the thought aside.

“I think,” Sadie says, “stayin’ here has been good to me. Better than how I was before.”

Abigail steps closer to her. “And?”

“And I—well, I wouldn’t give that up for anythin’.”

It’s the truth, after all. Those first few days after settling into the ranch, Sadie used to crave the freedom that came with doing bounties. No longer can she wake up at noon, amble to the sheriff’s office, and walk away with a hundred dollars by midnight. Her guns are rusted, unused. But as the days passed, she stopped thinking about it. Why would she, after all, when she has all this? 

Smiling, Abigail glances over her shoulder, then grabs Sadie’s hand and pulls her into a kiss. “I think I could get used to having you around,” she says. 

A surge of relief washes over Sadie, and she smiles against Abigail’s mouth. “You think?”

“Not just think, darling. I know.” Abigail squeezes her hand, then pulls away from the kiss. “Now, don’t you have some work to do?”

Sadie lets out a laugh and says, “Sure do. Someone’s gotta keep this place runnin’.”

“Go on, then.” Abigail pats Sadie’s cheek, then heads off to the kitchen, probably to start preparing dinner. 

As she turns around to head back outside, Sadie notices the photo Abigail was holding earlier. She picks it up, and stills. It’s of Abigail and John, clasping each other in an embrace, and although it’s clearly staged the Abigail in the picture looks at John with love that is entirely real. John, fresh-faced and awkward, has a hand gingerly placed on her waist. Sadie stares at his face and feels a pang of sadness.

From the kitchen she hears Abigail humming faintly to herself. Part of her wants to walk in there right now and ask Abigail why she felt the need to look at the photo—but Sadie doesn’t. What would be the point? 

Because after saying it out loud for the first time, she knows now that she truly wants to stay here. If only to wake up every morning and see Abigail’s face beside her, to go to sleep every night holding her in her arms, to steal quick kisses in the lazy silence of the afternoon. There is a kind of peace to this, Sadie thinks. If that is all, it’s more than enough. 

That night, as Sadie is lying next to Abigail under the covers, she asks her a question. “How did you manage, before I came?”

Abigail shifts beside her and brushes her fingers over Sadie’s collarbone. “You mean, on the ranch?”

“I guess.”

Silence hangs over them for a moment before Abigail responds again. “Jack worked hard,” she says softly. “We hired a few ranch hands, here and there. But it wasn’t easy.”

“I should’ve come sooner,” Sadie says. The familiar wave of guilt washes over her. “I just—”

“Don’t, Sadie.” Abigail looks into her eyes and presses her lips together. “You’re here, ain’t you? And you’re happy?”

“Abigail, I’m happier than I’ve been in—” Sadie pauses, taking in a sharp breath. “Well, I ain’t sure how long.”

Abigail tucks a strand of Sadie’s hair behind her ears and leaves her hand resting on her neck. The warm pressure makes Sadie shiver, and she shifts in the bed so that her legs are intertwined with Abigail’s as if they are two trees, rooted to the same earth and growing in tandem. 

Then, without warning, Abigail starts to cry. 

“What’s wrong?” Sadie asks, startled. “Abigail?”

“Nothing,” Abigail says between stuttering breaths. “Nothing’s wrong. I promise.”

“So you’re just cryin’ for no reason?”

Abigail doesn’t respond to that, choosing instead to press her cheek next to Sadie’s chest and wipe her eyes with her free hand. Holding onto her, Sadie watches for a few seconds in silence. She wonders what could’ve possibly said to cause Abigail to act like this. Sadie’s never been good at reading emotions, and now is no different.

“Talk to me,” Sadie says. “I want to help, I swear.”

Abigail clears her throat and wipes her eyes. “Oh, Sadie, I know you do.” She sighs, and her breath tickles Sadie’s skin. “But I’m alright. Just go to sleep, okay?”

Sadie gazes into Abigail’s eyes. “Okay.”

There are so many things Sadie wants to ask Abigail as they are falling asleep. She wants to ask her if she really wants Sadie to stay, if there is a reason why she still gazes at John’s photo with such longing, if she is truly happy like this. She isn’t brave enough to ask her now, but maybe in the morning, when things are clearer. Then they can sort this all out once and for all.

“I love you,” she whispers out loud. The truth of it makes her heart ache. But Abigail must be asleep, because the only thing Sadie hears in response is the slow hooting of the owls and the steady patter of rain, unannounced, on the rooftop.

In the end, she never responds to the telegram. There’s no need to. Sadie wakes up every morning and considers that answer enough, never straying foot from the ranch unless it’s to sell whatever they manage to produce. The little routine she has continues on like clockwork.

Occasionally, there are things Sadie notices that she has no explanation for. There is one night where, laying in Sadie’s arms, Abigail asks her about John. “Do you think he’d want us together?” 

Sadie struggles to find an answer to that. “I don’t, uh, know about that,” she says. “I mean, if he was alive I’d say no.”

“I know that, silly. Don’t you believe in heaven, though? On people up there watching us from above?”

“The only thing I know about heaven is that I ain’t going there.”

Abigail laughs at that, touching her head to the crook of Sadie’s neck. She doesn’t say anything for a moment, until she speaks up again. “Sometimes I wonder what he would say about all this.”

Sadie rubs her thumb over the curve of Abigail’s shoulder while she thinks of a response. “I think,” she says slowly, “he would want you to be happy.”

“You know,” Abigail says, “I think so too.” But for the rest of the night, she doesn’t smile again. Sadie holds her close and says nothing. 

“I know what you and Ma have been doing,” Jack says to her one afternoon as they are in the barn.

Sadie stills, schooling her expression into something vaguely neutral, and looks back at him. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw you two in the kitchen yesterday. You were kissing her.” As Sadie tries to read his expression, he stands closer to her, drawing himself up to his full height. “You love her, don’t you?”

Sadie takes a breath and swallows, her mouth dry. “Well, I don’t—”

“Answer me,” Jack says. “Please.”

Her heart pounds, and although Sadie knows there is no reason to be afraid of him, she wishes Abigail was here with her. She would know what to say, but Sadie? All she can say is the truth. 

“I do,” she admits. “I’m, uh, sorry. That I ain’t told you.”

Jack’s expression crumples, and although Sadie didn’t expect him to be happy about the news, she still watches him with disappointed eyes. This was bound to happen—she just wishes she’d been the one to reveal it to him herself.

“Now I understand. She’s been acting so strange these past few weeks, but I get it now.” Jack clenches his fists, eyes glinting like obsidian as they stare Sadie down. “Mrs. Adler, I don’t know why you came here or what your goal was, but you can’t keep doing this.”

Sadie stares at him for a second. “What? ”

“You can’t just show up one day and try to replace him,” Jack says. “That ain’t how it works.”

The words stab into Sadie’s gut. “Of course I ain’t replacing him!”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I don’t understand,” Sadie says helplessly. “I’m happy with her. She’s happy with me. What’s wrong with that?”

To her surprise, Jack lets out a laugh. “Happy? You can’t be serious.”

Sadie thinks back to the first time she’d kissed Abigail, during that night by the campfire. If Abigail wasn’t happy then, she doesn’t know what she was at all. 

“Don’t you see?” Jack continues. Sadie can’t find the words to interrupt him. “She keeps looking at that picture of her and Pa. I’ve heard her crying.” He gestures at the hill a ways off from the house. “She visits his grave. She hasn’t done that in months, and now all of a sudden she goes every goddamn day.”

Sadie follows Jack’s hand and looks at the hill. She knows Abigail stays inside the house for the whole day. If she left, Sadie would see her come out of the house. At night they are together. Which means the only time Abigail could be going up there is early in the morning.

Suddenly, she understands why, when she wakes up, Abigail is never there beside her. 

“I don’t—” she says, then stops when her voice trembles. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I see fresh footprints when I visit. And I know you ain’t the one going there.”

Sadie can only stand there and try to absorb what she’s heard. “I’m sorry,” she says, although she doesn’t quite know why. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t had the courage to visit John’s grave. Maybe it’s because all the signs were right there in front of her and she still didn’t see it. 

“I’m sorry,” Sadie says again. Her mind races, her heart pounds in her chest, her fingers shake. She hasn’t been afraid in years, but now she is. What have I done? she thinks. What the hell have I done?

“We were fine, Mrs. Adler,” Jack says. “We weren’t happy, but we were fine. Ma was fine.” He takes a breath and lets it out. “Then you came, and now...we ain’t even got that.”

He turns his back on her and exits the barn, his footsteps sending up little clouds of dust. Frozen still, Sadie can only watch. A minute passes, then she sinks down to sit on the floor against a wooden beam. 

All those nights, she’d felt the warmth of Abigail’s body and thought nothing of it. She thought only of herself. Sadie, of all people, should’ve been the one to know that moving on is never easy. But how could she, when she and Jake had been anything but ordinary?

“You fool,” she whispers to herself. “Sadie, you fool.”

And she knows, with a cold realization, that there is only one thing she can do about it.

The rest of the day passes uneventfully. She and Jack work in the farm, but they exchange only whatever is necessary to complete their chores. At dinnertime, Sadie barely touches her food. She can’t make herself eat. Abigail notices, but when she asks about it Sadie waves off her questions with a tight smile. 

Night comes, as it always does, and at first Sadie doesn’t go to Abigail’s bedroom. Really, there’s no reason to hide what she’s doing anymore, but somehow she still wants to. So she stays in the living room and stares at the picture of John and Abigail to pass the time. 

Jack goes to bed. An hour after that, Sadie finally creaks open the door to Abigail’s bedroom. 

Surprisingly, Abigail’s still awake. “Sadie,” she says with wide eyes. “I was about to go out to see where you were.”

“I’m here.” Sadie almost chokes on the words. “You don’t need to look for me anymore.” She unbuttons her work shirt and pulls on her nightgown, as she’s done so many times before. Abigail watches her and says nothing.

When Sadie lays down beside her, Abigail wraps her arm around her and pulls her close. The touch burns against Sadie’s skin. But at the same time, she craves it, wants it more than anything else. She clasps Abigail’s hand with hers. Slowly, she traces over her skin—memorizing every groove, every divot and wrinkle, committing it all to memory.

“You were acting strange today,” Abigail says softly. “Is something wrong?”

Sadie takes a sharp breath in and blinks a few times. “No,” she says. 

“You know you can talk to me about anything.”

“I know.”

They lie there for a few minutes. An urge courses through Sadie, an urge to tell Abigail everything. But she holds back. Not for Abigail’s sake, but for her own. Sadie wants this night to be like any other one.

“Abigail?” she asks eventually. “You still awake?”

Abigail shifts against her and brushes her nose against Sadie’s neck. “I’m still awake.”

“I just—” Sadie says, then pauses. “I want you to know how much you mean to me.”

Seconds pass where Sadie can feel Abigail breathing against her. “I know, darling.”

“I wish there was some way I could tell you,” Sadie says. “Because I don’t think you know. Not really. And I want you to. I’m scared you won’t ever find out.”

Shifting so that she’s propped up on her elbows, Abigail trails her fingers along the side of Sadie’s forehead. “What’s gotten into you, Sadie?” 

I don’t know, Sadie thinks, I don’t know. She squeezes her eyes shut and swallows against the lump in her throat. “Nothin’. I think I just need sleep.”

Abigail laughs softly and presses a kiss against Sadie’s jaw. “Well, alright then,” she says. “Sleep.”

She lays back down on the bed and strokes her fingers through Sadie’s long hair. For several long minutes, that continues, until the movements get slower and slower, and then they stop. Long, deep breaths fill the room.

Sadie can’t sleep. Her heart squeezes too painfully in her chest. All she can do is lay there and count each breath Abigail takes. Fifteen years worth of memories come flooding back, all at once, and although Sadie never felt the need to reminisce about the past now she clings onto them like a lifeline. Abigail wasn’t the first to show her kindness after Jake’s death. There was Dutch, although he soon changed. There was Tilly, Mary-Beth, Miss Grimshaw. Charles, and John, and Arthur. Most of them are dead—but in her mind, they come alive again. 

A sudden memory comes back to her: Abigail, sitting beside her with a needle and thread, guiding her hands slowly and laughing when she accidentally tears open the stitches. She’d been so gentle, then. And Sadie realizes that Abigail was right. She was the one who had taught her to sew.

“It was you,” Sadie whispers into the night. “I didn’t remember, Abigail, but I was wrong. It was you.”

By the time early morning comes, Sadie’s been awake for hours. Without making a sound, she slips out of Abigail’s embrace and stands up. She changes out of her nightgown and into her work clothes, and then gathers the rest of her belongings into her arms. As Sadie exits the room, Abigail doesn’t stir. 

The sun hasn’t even risen yet—the sky is blue and gray, with fading white dots for stars. When Sadie opens the door to the barn, Hera gives her a sleepy whinny, and bumps her with her nose.

“We’re gettin’ an early start today,” Sadie says. Her voice is scratchy and soft. “Sorry, girl.”

She leads Hera out by the reins, and together they step out of the barn. Sadie throws a look back at the house, thinking of Abigail and Jack. She never thought she would be the type to leave like this, but she guesses that even at her age she’s still full of surprises.

The weight of what she is doing sinks upon her like lead. And she doesn’t know why, but she feels the sudden urge to change herself, to leave Beecher’s Hope different from the way she came in. Maybe it’s because Sadie spent years solving her problems with nothing but violence. Or maybe it’s because this is the only thing she can think of to do, but whatever the reason, the need courses through her like lightning, shaking her to her core.

Sadie takes her hunting knife out of its sheath. It’s dull and unused, but it still works, so she holds her braid in one hand and places the knife against it with the other. One cut, and she can get rid of the whole thing.

“Sadie! Sadie!”

Before she can react, she feels a hand grab her wrist and pull the knife away from her. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

Abigail stands in front of her, not in her nightgown but in a dress and shawl. Sadie looks back at her, too shocked to speak.

Breathing heavily, Abigail looks at the knife and back at her. “I thought you—that you were trying to hurt yourself.”

Sadie blinks. “Hurt myself?”

“With the knife.”

“Oh,” Sadie says. She looks Abigail up and down, and notices how she’s dressed for the day already. It’s barely dawn. If she didn’t believe what Jack was saying before, she believes him now.

“I,” she says hollowly, “I was tryin’ to cut my hair off.” It sounds foolish now, when Sadie says it out loud. 

Abigail smiles a little and looks confused. “Why would you want to cut your hair off?” 

“Because...I’m leavin’.”

A moment passes. “Leaving?”

“I have to,” Sadie says. “You know it, I know it. I ain’t doing nothin’ but hurting you.” She pauses, then decides to continue. “You still love him, don’t you?”

Abigail stands in front of her and her expression slowly grows more stricken. She looks Sadie in the eyes, maybe to see if she’s lying or not, but as she looks harder Abigail seems to realize Sadie isn’t joking. 

“I,” she starts. “Sadie, I—”

“I’m sorry,” Sadie says. “I made you do things you didn’t want to.”

Something about the way Sadie says that makes Abigail come out of her reverie. “No,” she says, “don’t talk like that. Don’t be sorry.”

“But it’s true, ain’t it?”

Abigail shakes her head. “I wanted to,” she says. “Oh, Sadie, I did. You were so good to me.” She tries to smile at her, but her expression trembles, and she ends up blinking a few times. “How did you know?”

“Jack told me.”

Abigail shakes her head and looks down at her feet. “That boy,” she says. “Knows more than is good for him.”

“I’m glad he did,” Sadie says. “Because ain’t he right?” She points at the hill overlooking the ranch house. “You go up there every mornin’.”

Abigail follows Sadie’s gesture to look at the hill. She doesn’t say anything for a second. The wind blows through the ranch, making the stray hairs poking out from Abigail’s bun flutter in the air. 

“I just—” Abigail takes a sharp breath in “—I miss him, Sadie.”

“I understand.”

Abigail takes Sadie’s hand in hers and brushes her thumb across her knuckles. “I don’t think you do.”

Abigail’s right. Sadie doesn’t understand. There are some things that aren’t meant for her to comprehend, no matter how hard she tries. 

“Don’t look for me,” Sadie says after a minute. “I promise I won’t come here again. So don’t try to find me.”

“Sadie—”

Sadie looks Abigail in the eyes. “Please.”

“...Alright. I won’t.”

Despite herself, Sadie gives Abigail a smile. She lets go of her hand, turns around, and is about to mount Hera when Abigail calls out from behind her.

“Wait!”

Sadie pauses and glances over her shoulder, her heart beating painfully in her chest. A hundred different scenarios run through her mind in that moment, and for a second she feels a wild hope that maybe she won’t have to go after all.

Abigail’s still holding her hunting knife, and she gestures at Sadie’s braid. “I can cut your hair for you,” she says. “If you want me to.”

Standing there, Sadie feels her hope die. Instead, something warm and painful twists in her stomach, sending tears springing to her eyes and clogging up her throat. Abigail looks so earnest, even now. “You would do that?”

“I would,” Abigail says. She smiles, goes inside the house, and comes out with a pair of small metal scissors. “Sit down,” she says. “It’s easier that way.”

So Sadie, still shaken, goes to the porch and sits down on a wooden chair. Abigail stands behind her and lays her shawl on Sadie’s shoulders. “Keeps the hair off of your clothes,” she explains.

At first Abigail just stands there with her hands on Sadie’s shoulders. Sadie’s tempted to take the scissors and make the cut herself, but she holds herself back, patiently waiting for Abigail to do it herself. 

When the first snip of the scissors comes, Sadie has to squeeze her eyes shut. With every cut, more of her hair falls to the floor, creating a sea of little golden strands at her feet. Then all of a sudden Abigail makes a cut, and Sadie’s entire braid falls with a thump. 

“There,” Abigail says. “Now I just need to clean the rest of it up.”

Abigail’s fingers brush Sadie’s temples as she cuts off the hair by her ears. Her touch is impossibly gentle. She uses the scissors as if she’s cut hair a thousand times before, with practiced ease and care. Sadie wishes she could turn around and see Abigail’s face. She wonders if she is smiling. She misses her already, although they are right next to each other.

“Sadie,” Abigail says. “Look at the sun.”

Sadie does—it’s barely peeking above the hills, filling the sky with wisps of pink and gold. “I’ve always wanted to show you this,” Abigail admits quietly. “I’m sorry that I never got to do it proper.”

“It’s alright,” Sadie says. “I’m sorry too.”

“For what?”

Her voice trembles when she speaks. “For leaving without sayin’ goodbye.”

Abigail snips a few more stray hairs from the back of Sadie’s head. She runs her fingers through Sadie’s hair, now cropped short and close, like a man’s. “Well,” she says, “it ain’t too late to do that now, is it?”

Abigail looks at her and Sadie looks back. She feels so much lighter now without her braid. The early morning breeze is cool and gentle, as it always is, and it tickles the back of Sadie’s neck. Mourning doves call out from their perches. 

The goodness of it all, the kindness of it all, makes Sadie want to cry. Part of her wishes she never came to Beecher’s Hope—but the rest of her knows she would’ve come, eventually, no matter what had happened before. Just as she knows that she will never return again. 

As the sun casts its warm rays upon the ranch, bathing the land in golden light, Sadie sits in a wooden chair next to Abigail on the porch and finds the courage to speak. “It ain’t too late,” she echoes. “We can still do it.”

So they do. Silently, looking at the outstretched world before them, they do.