What I Kept From Bellwether

I hate losing by a hand’s width. Worse, I hate being told the win bought me nothing while the rain was still in my eyes. I could have put Silas down harder. Maybe I should have. I was watching the timber, not the man, and he beat me cleanly.

Lyle stopping payment felt smaller than the lock on the fuel. Cash can be replaced; leverage cannot. He wanted everyone to leave the yard thinking the whole day belonged to him. I let him have that little victory because arguing would only prove I cared.

Silais surprised me. He did not make the loss cute for the others. He gave me the chain, plain and useful, when he had no reason to improve my morning. I dislike owing a boastful deckhand anything. I am keeping the route clear of the Kato men anyway.

My ribs complain when I breathe deep. I pressed them in the ute and thought I had pushed too hard in the race. The thought settled, but it did not frighten me as much as it used to. There are aches I carry because moving still hurts less than stopping.

Rain on the roof is almost company. I kept Silas’s answer turning it over in my mind, not because I might use it tonight, but because knowing where the buried chain rises feels like keeping one small piece of Bellwether that Lyle cannot lock up.