PART 2
Silas did not ask Hattie to trust him again.
He simply stood and began preparing to leave.
That mattered.
Adults had been making promises around Hattie for most of her life. Promises about harvests. Promises about wages. Promises that winter would be easier next year. Promises that men would come home before dark.
Promises, she had learned, cost almost nothing to make.
What Silas did next cost him time.
He went back into the snow and returned with blankets, a canvas tarp, a lantern, and a wooden crate from his freight wagon. He lined the crate with wool, then set it near the stove.
“Boy first,” he said.
Hattie did not move.
Silas waited.
Finally, she lowered Asa into the crate.
The baby stirred, opened his mouth, and made a small angry sound.
“Good,” Silas said.
“What’s good?”
“He’s complaining.”
Hattie almost smiled.
Silas looked at Mercy.
The girl barely moved.
He reached out slowly.
“May I?”
Hattie watched his hands.
Large.
Scarred.
A freighter’s hands.
Not gentle-looking hands.
She nodded.
Silas slid one palm beneath Mercy’s head and the other under her body.
His expression changed almost immediately.
“She’s cold.”
“I kept her by the stove.”
“I know.”
“I wrapped her more than Asa.”
“I know.”
“She still got colder.”
Silas looked at Hattie.
“You did everything you knew.”
The words hit somewhere she had been holding shut for six days.
Hattie looked away.
Silas wrapped Mercy beneath his coat against his own chest.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving her heat.”
“You said we have to go.”
“We do.”
“Then why aren’t we going?”
“Because if I put her in the wagon like this, she may not live long enough to reach the road.”
The sentence was plain.
No softening.
Hattie appreciated that.
Nobody had softened the truth when her mother stopped breathing.
There was no point starting now.
Silas sat near the stove with Mercy against him while Hattie packed what little she could.
A dress.
Her mother’s comb.
The family Bible.
Two diapers cut from flour sacks.
A tin cup.
She stood in front of the curtain for a long time.
Silas did not tell her to hurry.
Finally, Hattie pulled it aside.
Her mother lay beneath the quilt.
Six days had changed the room around her, but not Hattie’s memory.
Anna Pell had been twenty-nine years old.
Her hair had been brown.
She had sung while kneading bread.
She had called Hattie “Hat” when she was happy and “Henrietta” when she was angry.
The night the babies came, she had screamed until there was nothing left in her voice.
Then she had whispered to Hattie.
Keep them warm.
Hattie had.
Or tried.
She reached under the quilt and took her mother’s wedding ring.
Her fingers shook only once.
When she came back to the stove, Silas had seen.
He said nothing.
“Will someone come for her?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ll send men from Twin Falls.”
“What if they don’t come?”
“I’ll come back myself.”
Hattie stared at him.
Silas met her eyes.
Then she gave a tiny nod.
Not trust.
Not yet.
But something near enough to move with.
They left at midday.
Silas placed the crate holding Asa on the wagon bench beside Hattie, wrapped in two blankets.
Mercy stayed beneath his coat.
He drove with one hand on the reins and the other pressed protectively against the small shape inside his shirt.
Snow came steadily.
Not a storm yet.
But enough to make the road disappear under the runners.
Hattie sat rigid.
Every time the wagon hit a rut, she grabbed the crate.
“You can hold him,” Silas said.
“I might drop him.”
“You haven’t dropped either of them in six days.”
“That was sitting down.”
“You carried them and fed them and kept a stove alive.”
Hattie looked at him.
“You’re eleven.”
“I know.”
“Eleven-year-olds are allowed to drop things sometimes.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Babies aren’t things.”
Silas nodded.
“No.”
He did not argue again.
After an hour, Hattie picked Asa up.
The baby settled against her.
Silas drove.
The road narrowed as they climbed.
Snow covered the sage.
Wind pushed loose powder across the trail in silver ribbons.
Twice Silas climbed down to check the runners.
Once he walked ahead for nearly half a mile, probing the drift with a pole before bringing the team through.
Hattie watched everything.
“Why do you know how to do all that?”
“Been doing it a long time.”
“Were you always a freighter?”
“No.”
“What were you before?”
Silas glanced at her.
“You ask a lot.”
“Mama said questions keep ignorance hungry.”
He almost smiled.
“Your mama sounds troublesome.”
“She was.”
That was the first time Hattie had spoken of her in the past tense.
The realization silenced her.
Silas did not fill the quiet.
Near dusk, Mercy stopped making sounds.
Hattie noticed before Silas did.
“She’s not crying.”
“She hasn’t cried much.”
“She was making that little noise.”
Silas stopped the team.
He reached inside his coat.
Mercy’s face was pale.
Too pale.
Her mouth opened weakly but made no sound.
Silas swore under his breath.
“Is she dying?”
He looked at Hattie.
“I don’t know.”
“That means yes.”
“No. It means I don’t know.”
“What do we do?”
Silas looked ahead.
The road toward Twin Falls was darkening.
They were still hours away.
Then he looked north.
“There’s a ranch two miles off the road.”
“Whose?”
“Caleb Wynn.”
“Does he have milk?”
“He has cows.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
“Does he have a woman?”
Silas looked at her.
“Yes.”
Hattie understood immediately.
“A nursing woman?”
“Had a baby in October.”
Silas turned the team.
The wagon left the road.
The next two miles took almost an hour.
At one point the horses sank to their knees.
Silas climbed down and broke snow ahead of them.
Hattie watched him lean into the harness beside the team, helping them pull.
His coat was open now.
Mercy was inside Hattie’s dress, tucked against her skin beneath layers of wool.
Silas had made her do it.
“Body heat,” he said.
Hattie had been embarrassed for less than a second.
Mercy was too cold for embarrassment.
By the time a yellow light appeared through the trees, Hattie was crying without realizing it.
Not loudly.
Just tears freezing on her cheeks.
Silas pounded on the ranch-house door.
A man opened it holding a rifle.
“Brennan?”
“Need Sarah.”
“What happened?”
“Newborn.”
That was enough.
The rifle disappeared.
A woman came running from the back room.
She was broad-faced and tired-looking, with a baby already in her arms.
Silas pointed at Hattie.
“Six days old. Mother died. Girl’s fading.”
Sarah Wynn took Mercy immediately.
“Lord.”
“She hasn’t eaten proper,” Hattie said.
Sarah looked at her.
“You the sister?”
Hattie nodded.
“How long have you been feeding them?”
“Six days.”
“Cow’s milk?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Rag corner.”
Sarah’s face changed.
Not judgment.
Something worse.
Understanding.
“You kept them alive six days on rag milk?”
Hattie’s chin lifted as if she expected criticism.
Sarah only said, “Then you’ve already done a miracle. Let’s see if we can make it seven.”
She took Mercy into the bedroom.
Hattie tried to follow.
Silas stopped her gently.
“Let her work.”
“I need to see.”
“Hattie.”
The use of her name made her look up.
Silas crouched.
“You kept that baby alive because nobody else was there.”
His voice was low.
“Now someone else is.”
Hattie stared at the closed bedroom door.
“I don’t know how to stop.”
Silas’s face changed.
Something old moved behind his eyes.
“I know.”
She looked at him.
For the first time, she wondered what he had once failed to stop doing.
They stayed at the Wynn ranch that night.
Sarah fed Mercy slowly.
A little at a time.
The baby was too weak to nurse properly, so Sarah expressed milk into a spoon and dripped it into her mouth.
Hattie watched every drop.
Asa nursed eagerly.
Sarah laughed once when he grabbed at her dress.
“That boy’s got opinions.”
“He always does.”
Silas looked at Hattie.
“Good.”
She remembered the cabin.
Complaining meant life.
Near midnight, Mercy finally cried.
It was thin.
Weak.
Beautiful.
Hattie’s entire body folded around the sound.
She put both hands over her face.
Sarah sat beside her.
“You can cry now.”
Hattie shook her head.
“Yes, you can.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because then something else will happen.”
Sarah looked toward Silas.
Silas was standing by the stove.
He turned away.
Not because he did not care.
Because some grief needed privacy.
Hattie cried anyway.
For her mother.
For her father.
For six nights of listening to babies breathe.
For the wood box getting emptier.
For the sound of a horse that never came.
For being eleven years old and not understanding why nobody had come back.
Sarah held her.
Hattie fought at first.
Then stopped.
She slept for twelve hours.
When she woke, sunlight filled the ranch house.
For one terrible second, she did not know where she was.
Then she heard Asa crying.
Mercy answered.
Not loudly.
But clearly.
Hattie ran into the kitchen.
Sarah sat in a rocking chair with both babies.
“They’re hungry.”
Hattie stared.
“Both?”
“Both.”
Something inside her unclenched.
She looked for Silas.
“Where is he?”
Caleb Wynn answered.
“Barn.”
Hattie’s face changed.
“What?”
“He’s in the barn.”
“Why?”
“Checking his team.”
“He left?”
“No.”
Hattie ran anyway.
Barefoot.
Through snow.
She threw open the barn door.
Silas stood beside one of his horses adjusting a strap.
He looked up.
Hattie stopped.
For a moment neither spoke.
Then she said, “I thought you left.”
Silas’s hands stilled.
“No.”
“You weren’t in the house.”
“No.”
“You could have told me.”
“Yes.”
Her face tightened.
Silas came closer.
Not too close.
“I should have.”
Hattie looked at the snow around her bare feet.
“You said we go together.”
“We do.”
“You said you wouldn’t leave.”
“I didn’t.”
“You weren’t there.”
Silas understood then.
The difference.
Physical distance was not the same thing to Hattie anymore.
After six days, a closed door could mean abandonment.
A missing coat could mean death.
A horse outside could mean someone had gone forever.
He took off his own boots.
Hattie stared.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re barefoot.”
“I know.”
He put the boots in front of her.
“They’re too big.”
“So are most things until you grow into them.”
Hattie looked at him.
Then she stepped into the boots.
They reached almost to her knees.
Silas walked back to the house in his socks.
Hattie followed.
That afternoon, a rider came from Twin Falls.
He had news.
Tom Pell had never reached town.
His horse had been found near the Snake River crossing three days earlier.
Saddle empty.
One stirrup torn loose.
They had been searching downstream.
Hattie heard all of it.
She did not cry.
“Is he dead?”
The rider hesitated.
Silas said, “Answer her.”
“Most likely.”
Hattie nodded.
“Did he leave us?”
“No,” the rider said quickly. “Looks like the horse slipped near the bank.”
She looked at Silas.
“Then he tried to come back.”
“Yes.”
That mattered.
Not enough to undo anything.
But enough to change the shape of it.
Nobody had come back.
But someone had tried.
