Chapter 4
Silas’s cabin sat in a hollow beneath black pines, so hidden by snow and shadow that I did not see it until we were almost at the door.
Smoke did not rise from the chimney.
No light warmed the windows.
For one terrible moment, I thought it was another empty place where women went to die.
Then Silas gave a sharp whistle.
Something moved inside.
The door opened with a creak, and a woman stood there holding a shotgun.
She was small, gray-haired, and fierce-eyed, with a knitted shawl around her shoulders and no fear in her face.
“Silas Hayes,” she snapped. “You better be bleeding.”
“Not me, Nettie.”
Her eyes dropped to me on the sled.
Then to Mercy in my arms.
The shotgun lowered.
“Oh, sweet Lord.”
I tried to speak, but the words fell apart.
Nettie came down the steps faster than a woman her age should have been able to move. She took one look at me, one look at the baby, and started giving orders.
“Get her inside. Not by the door. On the bed. Boil water. Tear more linen. And don’t stand there looking guilty, Silas. Move.”
For the first time since I met him, Silas obeyed without arguing.
The cabin was small but solid. One bed. One table. Two chairs. A stove that gave blessed heat. Bundles of herbs hung from the rafters. A crucifix hung over the door.
Nettie washed her hands and examined me with the brisk kindness of a woman who had seen life and death wrestle often.
“You did this in a trapper’s shack?” she muttered.
I nodded.
She glanced at Silas.
“With him?”
“He stayed,” I whispered.
Nettie’s face softened for one heartbeat.
Then it hardened again.
“Of course he did.”
She cared for Mercy next.
My baby wailed when Nettie unwrapped her, and that cry was the sweetest music I had ever heard.
“Small,” Nettie said. “Cold-touched. But strong.”
“Will she live?” I asked.
Nettie looked me in the eye.
“She’s trying. That matters.”
I clung to those words.
The day faded.
Nettie fed me broth, changed the bedding, checked the bleeding, and wrapped Mercy warm against me. Silas brought in wood until the stack by the stove reached the window.
He avoided looking at the bed unless Nettie ordered him to hand her something.
Yet every time Mercy coughed or I made a sound, his head turned.
Near dusk, Nettie stepped outside to fetch snow. Silas sat at the table, sharpening a knife that did not need sharpening.
I watched him.
“Who is she?”
“Nettie Boone. Midwife. Widow. Mean as a hornet.”
“I heard that,” Nettie shouted from outside.
Silas’s mouth twitched.
I almost smiled.
Then I remembered Hiram.
The valley claim.
Thomas.
My almost smile died.
Silas noticed.
“You should sleep,” he said.
“I’m afraid to.”
“Of what?”
“If I close my eyes, I’ll wake up back in that shack.”
He set the knife down.
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No. I don’t.”
His honesty should have hurt.
Instead, it steadied me.
Nettie returned carrying a pail of snow.
I asked her the question that had been burning through me.
“Do you know Amos Whitfield?”
Nettie’s mouth flattened.
“Everyone knows Amos Whitfield.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only safe one.”
Silas stood.
“No one here is safe anymore.”
Nettie looked between us.
Then she set down the pail.
“What happened?”
I told her.
Not all of it at once. My voice failed. I had to stop when Mercy stirred. I had to breathe when I spoke Thomas’s name.
But I told her about the wagon.
The shack.
The three days.
The tracks outside.
The riders.
Hiram Vale.
The deed.
By the time I finished, Nettie had gone pale with anger.
“That valley was your father’s,” she said.
I stared at her.
“You knew him?”
“Samuel Bell brought your mother to me when you were born.”
My heart twisted.
“You were there?”
“I was the first one to slap breath into you.”
Tears blurred the room.
Nettie sat beside the bed.
“Your father never trusted Amos Whitfield. He said if anything happened to him, his land was to stay with you. Not your husband. Not your husband’s father. You.”
“I have the deed,” I whispered.
Silas looked up sharply.
“Where?”
I touched the hem of my underskirt.
“My father told me never to keep it in a trunk. Never in a drawer. Never where a man would look first. So I sewed it into my clothing before Thomas and I left.”
Nettie let out a slow breath.
“Smart man.”
I closed my eyes.
“He tried to protect me even after he was gone.”
Silas crossed to the window.
Outside, night pressed close.
“We need a magistrate who doesn’t bend for Whitfield,” he said.
“Name one,” Nettie replied.
Silas said nothing.
That silence was answer enough.
A knock came at the door.
Three hard strikes.
Nettie froze.
Silas took up his rifle.
I pulled Mercy beneath the blanket.
Another knock.
Then a man’s voice called through the wood.
“Hayes. Open up.”
Silas did not move.
The voice came again.
“We know she’s in there.”
My breath stopped.
Nettie blew out the lamp.
Darkness swallowed the cabin.
Mercy shifted against me.
I pressed my lips to her head.
The man outside laughed.
May you like
It was Hiram Vale.
“Come on now, Cora,” he called. “Your husband wants his baby back.”
