The-Man-At-The-Fence
The drought had taken everything that could be taken without a man's hands, and what was left, the bank was coming for in the fall.
Della Hart leaned on the top rail of the round pen and watched her best chance for fifteen wild-eyed mustangs run themselves stupid in the dust. Caught off the high range two weeks back, half-broke at best, and worth nothing to anybody until somebody gentled them down enough to sell as saddle stock. Her husband could have done it. Tom had a way with a frightened animal — slow, patient, the same way he'd had with her in the early years. But Tom was eighteen months in the ground beside the creek, and Della had buried her own gift for patience right there with him.
She heard the stranger before she saw him. Hooves coming up the road at a walk, unhurried, a man who knew not to crowd a place he hadn't been asked into.
He stopped at her gate and didn't get down. Sun-dark, road-thin, a hat that had seen more weather than the man wore easily. His own horse stood loose-reined and calm, which told her more than anything he might have said.
"Heard in town you were looking for a breaker," he said.
"Heard wrong. I'm looking for a miracle. A breaker's just what I can afford to pay for one." She looked at the dust where the mustangs were still circling. "Fifteen head. I've got till the first sale in September. After that the bank doesn't much care whether