“He’s running a full team already.” I feel bad as I say it, but on the other hand, I’m not sure I like the idea of her being just one of my family’s hired hands.
“Great.” She pulls a face. “Can’t catch a break anywhere.”
“It’s not personal. The ranches around here run family crews. Have done for generations. Taking on someone new means vouching for them, and people don’t vouch for strangers.”
“That sounds personal to me.”
“That sounds like the Hill Country.” I take a drink of coffee. “What brought you out this way? Specifically. There’s a hundred towns between here and Arkansas where a person who knows cattle could find work.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Considering. Choosing what to share.
“I’m traveling with a friend. Briar. We’ve been moving around for a while, looking for somewhere that fits.” She turns the mug slowly between her hands. “Briar’s more of the keep-your-head-down type. I’m the one who talks to people. Probably why she’s smarter than me.”
“She’s the one in the hills?”
A small hesitation. “She likes being outdoors. Doesn’t do well sitting still.”
Briar. The quiet one has a name. I log it without reacting.
“And you?” I ask. “Do you do well sitting still?”
“I used to. Not anymore.” She stares down into her coffee. “After a while, moving becomes the default. You forget what it feels like to stay.”
There’s something underneath the words. Loss. Displacement. The tone of a woman who’s talking about more than a road trip, and who knows it, and is deciding how close to let me get to whatever’s underneath.
I don’t push.
She’s looking out the window at the hills. “It’s dry,” she says. Not a complaint. An observation. “Where I’m from, there’s water everywhere. Creeks in every hollow. Here it looks like the land’s holding its breath.”
“That’s because it is. You want to know what makes this place tick? It’s not the ranches. It’s not the cattle. It’s the water.”
“Tell me.”
“You see those hills?” I nod toward the window. “Underneath all of that is the Edwards Aquifer. Biggest underground water system in Texas. Every spring, every creek, every swimming hole within sixty miles… that’s the aquifer surfacing. The whole landscape is built on top of water you can’t see.”
“And the ranches tap into it?”
“Some do. Wells, mostly. But the springs are what matter. In August, when the plateau dries out and everything goes brown, the only green left is where the springs break through. The live oaks and the bald cypress crowd around those spots like they’re guarding them. You can map the aquifer just by looking at where things are still alive.”
She’s turned on the stool to face me. Not all the way; one elbow still on the counter, her coffee between her hands. But her body’s angled toward me, and she’s listening with everything she has.
“What about drought years?” she asks. “When the water table drops?”
“Then it gets ugly. The springs go dry. The creeks stop running. Ranchers who don’t have deep wells start losing cattle.” I take a drink. “Happened a few years back. The Pedernales—runs about twenty miles south of here—went down to bare rock in places. Hadn’t done that since the fifties. Some of the older ranches lost a third of their herd.”
“But not yours.”
“My grandfather drilled three wells when he built the compound. Went deeper than anyone else was willing to pay for. People called him paranoid.”
“Smart paranoid.”
“That’s the Forrester motto. Should put it on the gate.”
She almost laughs. I see it. The shift in her expression, the warmth surfacing. She’s trying to keep her distance, but she’s losing the fight.
“What about the cedar?” She nods toward the hills where the dark trees crowd the ridgelines. “I’ve never seen it this thick. Where I’m from, it’s all hardwood… oak and hickory.”
“It’s actually Ashe juniper. The Hill Country’s curse. Half the county’s allergic. Come January, the pollen’s so thick you can see it rolling off the hills. Looks like smoke. People think there’s a wildfire and call 911.”