By the autumn of 1878, Martha Hale had learned there were two things the people of Milhaven believed made a woman easy to dismiss.
Poverty was one.
Being fat was the other.
Martha happened to be both.
At thirty-one, she was unmistakably heavy-set, with thick arms, broad hips, a round abdomen, and sturdy legs hardened by years of hauling water, chopping wood, feeding livestock, and helping her husband wrestle a living from Wyoming soil that seemed determined to reject them.
Milhaven’s women whispered behind gloved hands about how much flour a woman Martha’s size must eat.
The men joked that she needed a reinforced wagon bench.
Children sometimes repeated what they heard at home.
Martha had stopped answering years ago.
Not because the words did not hurt.
Because answering never changed the kind of person who enjoyed saying them.
Her husband, Samuel Hale, understood that better than anyone.
He was thirty-four, lean where Martha was broad, with dark hair already showing gray near the temples. He had returned from the war missing two fingers from his left hand and carrying memories he rarely spoke about.
Some nights Martha woke to find him sitting upright in bed, staring at the wall.
When she asked what was wrong, he usually said, “Nothing.”
She knew enough not to press.
Together, they had claimed forty difficult acres north of Clearwater Creek.
They owned a one-room cabin patched with pine boards.
A small barn.
A crooked fence.
Two aging goats.
One milk cow that kicked if Samuel stood on her left side.
And, on the morning everything began, exactly twelve cents.
Martha counted the coins twice at the kitchen table.
Eight pennies.
Four more.
That was all.
Samuel stood near the stove pulling on his worn coat.
“We’ve got enough cornmeal until Thursday,” he said.
“And after Thursday?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
Martha hated that phrase.
They had been “figuring it out” for three years.
A late frost had ruined their beans.
Grasshoppers had eaten most of the barley.
Samuel’s damaged hand made some work slower than it once had been, though he would rather bleed than admit it.
They were not starving.
Not yet.
But they had reached the frontier’s most dangerous kind of poverty—the kind where one broken tool, one sick animal, or one winter storm could finish what bad luck had started.
Martha slid the twelve cents into a cracked leather purse.
“I’m going into town.”
Samuel glanced at her.
“For what?”
“Salt.”
“We have salt.”
“A little.”
“Martha.”
She looked at him.
Samuel had known her too long.
“You saw something,” he said.
She almost smiled.
“Maybe.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you if it’s still there.”
He sighed.
“Try not to buy a railroad.”
“No promises.”
The three-mile walk to Milhaven took nearly an hour.
Martha preferred walking to using the wagon because their mule, Jasper, had developed a limp, and every mile saved mattered.
The town looked like a handful of wooden buildings thrown against a wide Wyoming sky.
A mercantile.
Blacksmith.
Feed store.
Saloon.
Church.
Stable.
A row of homes trying hard to pretend they were permanent.
Martha heard the chickens before she saw them.
A ragged collection of clucks and screeches came from behind Harkin’s feed shed.
Old Silas Harkin stood near a rough crate smoking a pipe.
Inside the enclosure were eleven of the saddest chickens Martha had ever seen.
One hen had a twisted foot.
Another had lost most of the feathers along her back.
A rooster stood on one good leg.
Two birds were so thin their breastbones looked sharp beneath their skin.
And one gray hen dragged her left wing through the dirt.
Martha stopped.
Harkin noticed her.
“Don’t.”
She looked at him.
“Don’t what?”
“Start feeling sorry for them.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’ve got that face.”
“What face?”
“The face women get right before they turn somebody else’s problem into their own.”
Martha crouched beside the enclosure.
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Everything.”
“Disease?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then what?”
Harkin shrugged.
“Winter’s coming. I’m keeping my strong layers. These ain’t worth feed.”
“What are you doing with them?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Soup, probably.”
Martha watched the gray hen attempt to reach a kernel of corn.
A stronger bird pushed past her.
The injured hen tried again.
Something about that small act held Martha’s attention.
“They still lay?”
Harkin barked a laugh.
“Lady, half of them can barely stand.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“Sometimes. Couple eggs here and there.”
“How much?”
“For what?”
“All of them.”
Harkin removed the pipe from his mouth.
“All eleven?”
“Yes.”
He stared at her.
“You planning a funeral?”
“How much?”
He considered.
“Fifty cents.”
Martha laughed once.
Harkin shrugged.
“Fine. Thirty.”
She opened her purse.
“Twelve cents.”
He stared inside.
“That’s all you’ve got?”
“All I’m offering.”
“That’s your grocery money.”
“That’s twelve cents.”
Harkin looked at the chickens, then back at Martha.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Martha looked down at the gray hen again.
“Because you’ve already decided what they’re worth.”
“And?”
“I’m curious whether you’re wrong.”
For several seconds Harkin said nothing.
Then he laughed so loudly two men near the stable turned to look.
“Twelve cents?”
“All of them.”
He slapped his thigh.
“Done.”
By the time Martha started home, she was carrying one chicken beneath each arm and attempting to herd the remaining nine along the road with a willow switch.
It was an absurd procession.
Naturally, half the town noticed.
Delbert Marsh drove past in his wagon and nearly pulled his horse to a stop.
“Well, look at that!”
Martha kept walking.
Delbert pointed.
“Somebody bought the ugliest supper in Wyoming!”
Two men riding with him laughed.
One called, “Careful, Martha! Those birds might eat more than you do!”
More laughter.
Martha stared straight ahead.
A woman outside the mercantile whispered something to her friend.
Both women smiled.
The chickens scattered toward a ditch.
Martha patiently gathered them again.
One step.
Then another.
Then another.
By the time she reached the Hale property, sweat soaked the back of her dress despite the autumn chill.
Samuel stood outside repairing the lean-to.
He looked up.
Then froze.
The eleven ragged chickens wandered around Martha’s broad skirts.
Samuel lowered the hammer.
“Martha.”
“Yes?”
“What am I looking at?”
“Chickens.”
“I know what chickens are.”
“That saves time.”
His eyes narrowed.
“How many?”
“Eleven.”
He looked at the cracked purse tied to her waist.
“Twelve cents?”
“All of it.”
Samuel closed his eyes.
Martha waited.
“The pen isn’t finished,” he said.
“I know.”
“Cold front tonight.”
“I know that too.”
“We have barely enough grain.”
“Yes.”
“And you bought eleven injured chickens.”
“That appears to be what happened.”
She expected anger.
Samuel stared at her for another long moment.
Then he looked toward the unfinished lean-to.
He picked up his hammer.
“Then we better finish it.”
Martha smiled.
They worked until dark.
Samuel hammered boards while Martha stacked straw.
They blocked the northern wind using an old door removed from the barn.
Martha spread warm stove ash beneath the roosting area because her mother had once told her ash discouraged mites.
She mixed softened corn mash with goat milk for the weakest birds.
From the herb patch, she gathered prairie thyme and crushed it into warm water.
Samuel splinted one rooster’s crooked toe using thin strips of cedar.
Martha wrapped the gray hen’s damaged wing gently against her body.
The hen trembled at first.
Then settled against Martha’s chest.
“You’re stubborn,” Martha whispered.
Samuel overheard.
“Talking to yourself?”
She gave him a look.
Near midnight, they finally went inside.
Wind rattled the cabin walls.
Samuel stood at the window watching shadows move inside the makeshift chicken shelter.
“What happens if they live?”
Martha sat near the stove mending her sleeve.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s comforting.”
She looked toward the dark yard.
The eleven animals had been considered worthless by everyone who saw them.
Too damaged.
Too weak.
Too inconvenient.
Martha understood something about being judged before anyone bothered looking closer.
“But I’d like to find out,” she said.
Samuel studied her.
Then smiled.
Outside, the wind grew stronger.
And inside the crude lean-to, eleven broken birds survived their first night.