The knock came at half-past nine, three slow strikes heavy enough to carry over the wind. Nobody came up the Hart Ridge Road after dark in the first storm of the year. Eliza Hart lifted the rifle off its pegs, kept the barrel down, and opened the door. The snow came in first, then the man. He filled the frame, tall, shoulders wide, hat brim loaded, a dark beard frosted along the jaw.
Buttoned inside his coat and held against his chest, a small boy slept with his cheek flattened into the wool. Four years old, maybe, one bare hand curled in the man's collar. Behind him stood three more children. A girl of about 13, straight-backed, with her arm around a smaller girl whose teeth were clicking. A boy of 10 held the lead ropes of two shaggy horses and a pack mule.
And he held them properly, close to the jaw. The man took off his hat. In that wind, it struck Eliza as ridiculous, and then it struck her as something else. " Ma'am, my name's Caleb Rowan. I'm looking for work." "
At half-past nine,"she said, "in a blizzard." " I'd have come at a decent hour if the pass had let me. "His voice was low, and he did not step forward an inch. " I've got four children and no wife and no place fit to winter them. I can pay their keep in labor.
I'm not asking charity." " Whose children?" " My sister's." " Sarah Hale." " She died on October 12th.
"Eliza knew the name. Sarah Hale had taught the Sage Bend school two winters before she married a timber man. The little girl on the step had her face. The smallest one made a thin sound in his sleep. The wind was coming straight down off the ridge now, carrying snow flat. "
Bring them in,"Eliza said, and pushed the door wide. " Before that baby loses his ears. "They came in one at a time and stopped just inside, dripping, none of them touching anything. The 13-year-old took the sleeping boy from her uncle without being asked and did not put him down. Barn's the second building.
Hay's in the loft, and you'll have to break the trough ice. She looked at the 10-year-old. " He stays with you. He'll be warmer working. "Caleb looked at her, one steady look and she understood she had passed a test she hadn't known was being given. "
Ben,"he said, "come on. "She hung the rifle back up and considered what was left in her kitchen. Three children in wet wool thawing into her floor. " Coats off, boots by the stove." " There's bread and beans and a ham I've been eating alone for four days.
"The smaller girl had already gone to the stove like a moth. The oldest stayed where she was holding her brother, watching Eliza the way a person watches weather. " You can sit down." " I'm all right." " I didn't ask if you were all right.
I said sit down and give me that boy before your arms give out. " Nobody moved. Then the girl came forward and let her take the small warm weight and Eliza settled him against her shoulder as though she had done it a hundred times, which she had not, not once. By the time Caleb and Ben came in stamping, the beans were hot and the 7-year-old had reported that her name was Lucy and that the mule was called Pilot. They ate the way children eat when food has been careful for a long time.
Caleb ate last and least. Eliza noticed and said nothing about it. " Your sister,"she said when the plates were empty. " What happened?"He turned his cup a half turn on the table. Tom Hale went under a rolling log at the fork last spring.
Sarah took a fever in September and it went to her lungs. Three weeks. He said it the way a man reports weather that has already ruined the crop. She made me promise the four of them stay together, and you took them up the mountain. I've got a cabin on Elkhorn Creek, one room and a lean-to.
It'll winter one man fine. It won't winter five, and the chimney's cracked clear through. His jaw worked once. I could patch it, or I could feed them, not both. " So, you came down." "
I'd rather be a man who asked for work,"he said, "than a man whose nephew froze in his own bed. " Eliza looked at the four of them. The small boy asleep in the rocker, Lucy folded on the wood box, Ben sitting straight with his hands flat on the table like a man at a hearing, and the oldest watching every word out of her mouth. " Emma,"the girl said, as if she'd been asked. " Emma Hale." "
That's Ben. That's Lucy. That's Samuel." " Eliza Hart. This was my father's ranch.
It's mine." " Where's your husband?"Lucy said from the wood box. " Lucy,"Emma said. " There isn't one. Never has been. "
Eliza got up and lit a second lamp and stood a moment with the chimney in her hand, thinking about the east wing. Her father had built it the summer she turned nine, four rooms and a hall, planned for the family she would raise where he could hear it. He died before she was 22. The doors had been shut for years, the furniture under sheets, and she had never once let herself count the beds. " There's four rooms on the east side,"she said. "
Cold and dusty, and that stove hasn't been lit since my father was alive. Help me carry wood, and they'll be warm by midnight. " Caleb stood up. " Tell me where the wood is. "It took two hours.