A quarter mile, she stopped twice to catch her breath, her lungs burning, her legs threatening to give out beneath her. The cold had numbed her fingers, her face, but sweat ran down her back beneath the coat. By the time they reached the cabin, nearly 2 hours had passed. The sky was starting to lighten in the east, gray bleeding into the black. Clara's legs gave out on the threshold.
She knelt there in the doorway, Silas half dragged across her lap, her whole body shaking. The fire had gone out. The cabin was cold. She left him by the stove and rebuilt the fire with numb fingers, kindling, small logs, the bigger pieces once the flames caught. Then she went back to him.
His leg was bad. She knew that before she cut away the trouser leg, before she saw the bone pressing white against the skin below the knee, not broken through, but fractured. The flesh already swelling purple and hot. She needed splints, bandages, someone who knew what they were doing. She had none of those things.
She had herself. The next hours blurred together. She found straight branches in the wood pile, cut them to length with the hatchet, her hands slipping on the handle. She had two dresses in her valise, the gray wool for every day, the calico for Sundays. She tore the calico into strips and bound the splints tight to his leg, trying to keep the bones aligned, trying not to hear the sounds he made when she worked.
She gave him laudanum from the bottle in the cabinet, just a little, just enough. When it was done, she sat on the floor beside him, her back against the wall, and let herself shake. The weeks that followed carved new lines into both of them. Silas couldn't stand, couldn't walk, could barely sit up without the pain turning his face gray. For the first time in 12 years, he had to let someone else do everything.
Bring him water, feed him broth, help him with the tin pot she'd found in the back of the cabinet for the times he couldn't make it outside. He hated it. She could see that in every line of his body, every clipped word. The first few days, he snapped at her constantly. "I can do it myself." "You can't." "Just leave me be." "No." She didn't argue.
She didn't explain. She just kept coming back with the broth, with the water, with clean bandages and the bitter tea she'd brewed from willow bark to help with the swelling. By the second week, the snapping stopped. By the third week, he'd started saying thank you. It was near the end of that third week when Clara woke in the dark to the sound of him shifting on the bed.
She'd given him her room easier than trying to get him up the ladder and taken to sleeping on a pallet by the fire. Close enough to hear if he needed something in the night. She went to him without lighting the lamp. The fire had burned down to embers, casting just enough glow to see by. He was awake.
His face tight with pain. His hand gripping the edge of the blanket. "Hurts." he said. Just that. She sat down in the chair beside him without thinking.
She reached out and took his hand. His fingers closed around hers. Rough, calloused, cold. She didn't let go. Sometime later, she couldn't say how long, she felt her head growing heavy.
She tried to stay awake, to keep watch, but the warmth of the room and the exhaustion of the past weeks pulled at her. Her eyes slipped closed. When Silas woke before dawn, she was still there, asleep in the chair. Her head tipped forward. Her hand still wrapped around his.
He lay in the dim light watching her breathe. The embers cast red shadows across her face, softening the lines of fatigue, the hollows under her eyes. She'd lost weight these past weeks. Her cheeks were sharper than before. Her wrists thinner where they emerged from her sleeves.
She'd been carrying everything. The wood, the water, the cooking, the cleaning, and him. His chest ached. Not from the leg, that pain had become familiar, almost companionable. This was something deeper.
If she left, the thought came unbidden, if she left, what would he do? Go back to the silence, the empty cabin, the empty years. He couldn't. He knew that now. He didn't let go of her hand.
Eight weeks after the accident, Silas could stand with the cane she'd carved from an oak branch. Walking was still slow, still painful, but possible. He spent his days by the window watching the snow, waiting for his body to knit itself back together. It was late February when they heard the horses. Clara was at the stove stirring soup.
Silas was in the chair by the fire, his splinted leg propped on the stool. The sound came from a distance, hoofbeats muffled by snow, but unmistakable. More than one rider coming up the trail, Silas's hand went to his hip where his knife usually hung, found nothing. He looked toward the rifle above the door, 10 ft away. Might as well have been a mile.
Clara, he said quietly, get the rifle. Clara crossed the room and lifted the Winchester from its pegs. She brought it to him without hesitation, her hands steady. His weren't. Silas had to brace the stock against his thigh to keep the barrel from wavering.
His fingers felt weak, useless. Eight weeks ago he could have held this rifle one-handed. Now he couldn't keep it level for more than a few seconds. Three riders emerged from the tree line. They stopped 20 yards from the porch, close enough to see clearly, far enough to stay out of easy range.
The man in front wore a bowler hat and a wool coat too fine for these mountains. A gold watch chain glinted at his vest. The other two hung back, local men by the look of them, hired hands. Mr. Cade.
The man in the bowler swung down from his horse. His boots crunched in the snow as he approached. Harlan Crane, Northern Pacific Railroad. I believe you received our letter last fall. Silas remembered the letter.
He'd burned it without reading past the first paragraph. I'm not selling. Crane smiled, all teeth, no warmth. I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. He reached into his coat and produced a folded document, thick paper, official looking, sealed with red wax.
The territorial government has authorized the railroad to acquire rights of way for the new spur line. Your property sits directly in the proposed path. I've got papers, deeds registered with the county. Indeed. Crane unfolded the document, made a show of studying it.
But county records can be complicated, especially for parcels acquired during the homestead period, especially for men living alone, without legal heirs or His eyes flicked toward the cabin, toward Clara standing in the doorway. Legitimate family ties. Silas's grip tightened on the rifle. The barrel shook. He saw Crane notice it, saw the flicker of contempt in the man's eyes.
Get off my land. Mr. Cade, Crane tucked the document back into his coat. I understand this is difficult, but the law is the law.