"Third?"
"I fell at the creek crossing too. You couldn't see that one."
She looked at him a while longer. Nimrod had come out onto the porch beside her and stood with his shoulder against her knee, quivering. The horse, a bay with a white blaze, had its head down almost to the snow.
"Put your horse in the shed," she said. "There's hay in the rack and the mules won't trouble him. Then come in and stand by the stove, and keep your hands where I can see them, and you can give me your letter."
He did as he was told. It took him a long time to get the saddle off; his fingers would not work on the cinch, and in the end she leaned the rifle against the shed door and did it herself while he stood and watched and said nothing. Up close he was younger than she had thought, thirty perhaps, with a long Scotch face and a nose that had been broken once and set badly. His eyes were gray and very tired. He kept them on her hands while she worked, not on her face, and she found she was grateful for that.
Inside, she put him on the bench by the stove and took the rifle with her to the other side of the table and sat with it across her knees. He unwound the scarf. He took off the hat and the blanket strip. His hair was dark and cut short, and his ears were white at the edges, and she said, "Don't rub those," and he said, "No, ma'am, I know," and held his hands out to the stove and shook.
She let him shake. She put the kettle on the hot plate and measured coffee into the pot and did not take her eyes off him for longer than it took to do it. When the coffee was made she poured a cup and pushed it across the table toward him with the barrel of the rifle, and he reached for it and wrapped both hands around it and closed his eyes.
"Thank you," he said.
"The letter."