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It was all going to end.

“Cows got out!” John hollered louder. Then Isaac was calling, “Rachel, you all right?”

I lifted my head. He was hurrying up the rise to me, the children staying at the barn. “Rachel,” he called again. There was worry in Isaac’s voice, not cold hardness. Maybe he hadn’t read the letter. Maybe he thought the baby had started.

“You all right?” Isaac said when he got closer. Relief washed over me. I saw that he hadn’t opened the letter.

“Yes,” I said. “Just some tired.”

“You sure? I don’t have to go.”

“You do,” I said. “The milk cow.” Then, because Isaac expected it, I said, “Some cows got out?”

“Seven of them. Came across them on the road, a few of them nicked up a fair amount from the barbwire. We rounded them up but I’ve got to fix that fence. Need my fencing pliers.”

All at once, I saw the meaning of it. The letter wasn’t meant to be posted. The cows broke out for a reason; Isaac’s coming back was a second chance. I wasn’t meant to go to Chicago, I wasn’t supposed to take the children. “Mama’s letter,” I said, putting my hand out.

“Still in my pack,” Isaac said. “Safe and sound.”

“I—” Words jammed up in my mouth. I had to get the letter back. Isaac wasn’t looking at me; he was looking off to the road that stretched west. I had to have a good reason for wanting it back.

“Damn cows,” Isaac was saying.

“The letter,” I said.

He shook his head. “Been fighting all summer to keep them up on their feet, and what do they do? Turn on me, trying to run off.” He looked back at me; he wasn’t thinking about the letter. “Like they think it’d be better somewhere else.”

Heat rose to my cheeks. Isaac might not have read my letter to Mama but he knew what was in my heart. He said, “I’ve got to fix that fence before any more break out. I’d still like to get over to Al’s today. You all right with that?”

“Yes,” I said, because all at once I was. The letter was written. I was doing it for our children. I wanted it posted.

“Going through the rest of his herd will take awhile. Means I’ll likely stay the night.” He nodded toward my belly and gave me a questioning look.

The bleeding from the baby had stopped. There hadn’t been any pain, but neither had there been any kicking. Most usually, before going into labor, I had a day or two of twinges. That hadn’t started yet. “Go on,” I said, thinking how I wanted that milk cow and how I wanted the letter sent. “But I’ll be looking for you early morning.”

He gave me a quick smile. “I’ll be on my way home first dawn.” He cocked his head, looking at me. “You look all done in.”

“I’m all right.”

“I’ll have John stay, help with the chores.”

“That’ll make him sorry.”

Isaac scanned the sky, reading the clouds. “Place needs a man,” he said. “John knows that.” Then he put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to him. “In the morning then.”

“First dawn.”

Isaac let go of me, nodded, and headed to the barn for his tools. It wasn’t but a handful of minutes before he left again, waving good-bye to me and the children, both letters riding in his knapsack.

The rest of the afternoon passed like every other—with chores—and I was glad of it. Work was good for tamping down all my queasy feelings. I left the laundry to Mary and the little girls while me and John shoveled out Jerseybell’s stall. It turned my belly but I kept at it, scrubbing Jerseybell’s blood and small meaty bits from the wheelbarrow. Better me than Mary; it’d break her heart. When we were done, John got the rake, I took the long-handled sickle, and the five of us—Rounder too—went down to the cottonwood.

“Can I?” John said, looking at the sickle.

“You’re not big enough,” I said.

“Daddy would let me.”

“Daddy’s not here.”

I raked as best I could while Mary swung the sickle, cutting dried-up grass to put down in the barn for the new cow. I was slow and heavy, held down by the baby in my belly and the worry in my heart. Alise and Emma sat on the piles of cut grass, doing their best to keep it from blowing away, while John and Liz stuffed it in the hemp sacks. Above us, thin clouds stretched low across