PART 2
For the first time in years, Amily slowly began removing the clothes she had always treated like armor.
She worked carefully.
First the soaked coat.
Then the heavy skirt.
Then the wool stockings that had frozen stiff around her calves.
Every wet layer landed on the floor with a dull slap.
Steam rolled up through the opening in the cabin floor, warm against skin that had gone almost numb. Amily kept looking toward the door even though she knew Harlon was outside.
Part of her expected him to come back.
Part of her expected every kindness to reveal its price eventually.
That had been her experience with men.
A compliment became a claim.
A favor became an obligation.
A ring became a list of things she would have to change before she was considered suitable to wear it.
Harlon had asked for nothing.
That made him harder to understand.
She lowered herself into the stone basin.
The heat struck so sharply that she gasped.
Pain flared through her feet and fingers as circulation returned. For several seconds she nearly climbed back out.
Then the warmth began working deeper.
Her shoulders loosened.
Her teeth stopped knocking.
Her breath slowed.
The basin was larger than it looked from above, carved into black stone and wide enough that she could sit comfortably without folding herself small.
That surprised her almost as much as the spring itself.
She had spent most of her life learning how to occupy less space.
On trains she turned sideways.
At church she sat at the end of the pew so nobody had to squeeze around her.
At dinner tables she tucked her elbows against her ribs.
In photographs she stood behind other women.
Even alone, she had learned the habit of shrinking.
There was nowhere to shrink in the water.
So she stopped trying.
She leaned against the stone and closed her eyes.
For the first time since the stagecoach attack, the mountain went quiet inside her head.
No horses screaming.
No pistol shot.
No man grabbing her sleeve.
No robber cursing when the rock broke his nose.
No running until her lungs felt torn.
Just water.
Heat.
The faint hiss of sleet against the roof.
Then she remembered Harlon.
Outside.
Her eyes opened.
She had been in the spring perhaps 20 minutes.
Maybe 30.
He was still standing somewhere in the storm because she was afraid of being seen.
The thought unsettled her.
She climbed out, dried herself with the rough towel he had left near the basin, and pulled his flannel shirt over her head.
It fell nearly to her knees.
The sleeves swallowed her hands.
Amily stood staring at herself.
For years men had joked that nothing would ever hang loose on her.
Harlon’s shirt did.
Something about that nearly made her laugh.
She dressed again in the driest things she could manage, wrapped herself in the blanket, then opened the cabin door.
Wind struck her face.
“Harlon?”
No answer.
She stepped onto the porch.
The storm had erased almost everything beyond 10 feet.
Then a dark shape moved beside the woodpile.
Harlon was splitting kindling.
In a blizzard.
His shoulders were white with sleet.
“What are you doing?”
He looked at her.
“Wood.”
“I can see that.”
He brought the ax down.
“You were supposed to take your time.”
“You’re freezing.”
“I’ve been colder.”
“That doesn’t make this sensible.”
Another strike.
The log split.
Amily pulled the blanket tighter around herself.
“Come inside.”
Harlon looked at her for a long moment.
Then at the cabin.
“You done?”
“Yes.”
He set down the ax.
Only then did he enter.
Inside, he immediately checked the stove, then the spring, then the color in Amily’s face.
Not her body.
Her face.
“You can feel your hands?”
“Yes.”
“Feet?”
“Yes.”
“Any burning pain?”
“Not anymore.”
He nodded.
“Good.”
His beard was crusted with ice.
Amily watched water melt from it and drip onto his shirt.
“You stood outside all that time.”
“I had work.”
“You were chopping wood we already had.”
“We’ll need more.”
“You could have died.”
“No.”
“You really like that word.”
He gave her a faint look.
“So do you.”
She remembered refusing to remove her wet clothes.
A flush climbed her cheeks.
“That was different.”
“Usually is when it’s your no.”
He hung his coat near the stove.
Amily stared at him.
Then, against her will, she smiled.
Harlon noticed.
He said nothing.
That irritated her more than if he had commented.
“What?”
“What what?”
“You looked.”
“So?”
“And then you didn’t say anything.”
“You want me to?”
“No.”
“All right.”
That almost made her laugh again.
He prepared supper.
Beans, salt pork, and biscuits hard enough to knock against the table.
Amily ate everything.
She realized halfway through the meal that Harlon kept placing food on her side of the table whenever he thought she was not looking.
Another biscuit.
Another spoonful of beans.
A thicker slice of pork.
At last she put down her fork.
“Do you think I don’t notice?”
Harlon looked at her plate.
“Notice what?”
“You keep feeding me.”
“You’re hungry.”
“I’ve already eaten more than you.”
“You ran half a mountain today.”
“So did you.”
“I live here.”
“That doesn’t make the mountain shorter.”
His mouth moved again.
That almost-smile.
Amily pointed at him.
“There. You do that.”
“Do what?”
“Nearly smile.”
“I smiled once in ’87.”
“What happened?”
“Didn’t care for it.”
This time she laughed openly.
The sound filled the cabin.
Harlon lowered his eyes toward his coffee.
But she saw it.
A real smile.
Small.
Gone quickly.
Still real.
That night he gave her the bed.
Amily refused.
He ignored her.
“There’s enough room on the floor for both of us.”
“No.”
“You’re too big for that chair.”
“So?”
“So you’ll wake unable to walk.”
“I’ve done worse.”
“I believe you. That doesn’t mean you should.”
Harlon dropped a blanket beside the door.
Amily stared.
“You sleep there every night?”
“When weather’s bad.”
“Why?”
“Door leaks.”
“That makes absolutely no sense.”
“Stops some of the draft.”
“With your body?”
“Body’s already warm.”
She looked from him to the door.
Then understood.
He did not trust the storm either.
A door blocked by a 6’5″ mountain man was harder for wind, animals, or men to come through unnoticed.
“You do that when you’re alone?”
“Sometimes.”
“And now?”
“Especially now.”
Because she was there.
He did not say it.
He did not need to.
Amily climbed into the bed.
It was wider than she expected.
Again, everything in Harlon’s cabin seemed made without apology for size.
The chair.
The table.
The spring.
The bed.
Nothing pinched.
Nothing complained.
Nothing made her feel like she had been constructed incorrectly.
She lay awake listening to Harlon breathing near the door.
Eventually, she slept.
She woke screaming.
The stagecoach was overturning again.
A robber had her by the hair.
She could smell whiskey on his breath.
Someone was shouting.
Then there were hands on her shoulders.
Amily struck blindly.
Her fist connected with something solid.
A grunt.
She came awake fully.
Harlon was kneeling beside the bed.
Blood ran from his lower lip.
Amily stared at him in horror.
“Oh God.”
“You’re awake.”
“I hit you.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
He sat back on his heels.
“You were dreaming.”
“I hit you.”
“I’ve been hit harder.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No.”
She pushed herself upright.
Her hands had started shaking again.
Harlon saw it.
He did not touch her.
“What did you see?”
“The coach.”
He waited.
“One of them grabbed me.”
Harlon’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But the cabin seemed colder.
“He dragged me out by the sleeve. He said…”
Her throat closed.
Harlon stayed where he was.
“What?”
Amily forced the words out.
“He said they ought to leave the driver and take me because one woman my size was worth two.”
Silence.
“He was laughing.”
Harlon’s jaw tightened.
“I hit him with a rock.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Your knuckles.”
She looked down.
They were split and bruised.
“And you told me you broke his nose.”
“I suppose I did.”
“You did.”
Something in his certainty steadied her.
She looked at the blood on his mouth.
“Let me see.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Harlon.”
He went still at the sound of his name.
Then he leaned closer.
Amily took the corner of the sheet and carefully wiped the blood from his lip.
Her hand looked small against his face.
That was new too.
She had never thought of her hands as small.
He watched her.
Not her body.
Her.
“Why aren’t you afraid of me?” he asked.
The question surprised her.
“I was.”
“When?”
“When you opened the door.”
“That was sensible.”
“When you told me to take off my clothes.”
“Also sensible.”
“For me or for you?”
“Both.”
Her hand stopped.
Harlon’s eyes held hers.
“I know what men think when they see a woman alone.”
His voice was lower now.
“I know what women think when they see a man like me.”
“A man like you?”
“Big. Alone. Bad reputation.”
“Do you have a bad reputation?”
“Depends who tells it.”
Amily lowered the cloth.
“What do they say?”
“That I killed a man.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
He did not soften it.
Did not explain immediately.
Just gave her the truth.
Amily swallowed.
“Why?”
Harlon looked toward the stove.
“Caught him with a girl from Silver Creek. Fifteen, maybe sixteen.”
Amily waited.
“He wouldn’t stop.”
“So you stopped him.”
“Yes.”
“Killed him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you mean to?”
Another silence.
“Yes.”
Amily studied him.
A reasonable woman should have been frightened.
Perhaps she was.
But beneath that fear was something else.
The knowledge that Harlon did not disguise ugly truths to make himself easier to accept.
“What happened to the girl?”
“Married a schoolteacher. Nebraska.”
“You know that?”
“She sends Christmas cards.”
Amily looked at his bloodied lip.
Then resumed cleaning it.
Harlon frowned.
“You’re still doing that.”
“You’re still bleeding.”
“You should be afraid.”
“Maybe I am.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“I was afraid of my fiancé too.”
That brought his attention fully back to her.
She had not meant to say it.
But the words were already there.
“Former fiancé,” she added.
“What’d he do?”
Amily almost gave the usual answer.
Nothing worth speaking of.
Then she remembered Harlon standing in a blizzard to give her privacy.
“He spent 3 years making me grateful he wanted me.”
Harlon said nothing.
“He said other men wouldn’t. Not really. Not once they had choices.”
Her voice remained calm because she had repeated these memories often enough inside herself that the edges had gone smooth.
“He liked telling me I was fortunate.”
“What happened?”
“He found someone smaller.”
Harlon’s eyes hardened.
Amily laughed without humor.
“He said she was delicate.”
“Bird bones.”
“What?”
“Women like that. Bird bones.”
“Is that an insult?”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Neither is substantial.”
She remembered the word.
The way he had said it before helping her into the chair.
Substantial woman.
For once, it did not sound like a judgment.
It sounded structural.
Like oak.
Stone.
Something built to remain.
“He told me I took up too much room.”
Harlon looked around the cabin.
“Still twenty by twenty.”
She laughed despite herself.
Then her eyes filled.
That angered her.
She turned her face away.
“I hate crying.”
“Why?”
“It makes me look weak.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I look like when I cry.”
“I’m looking now.”
She turned back.
His expression contained no pity.
That helped more than tenderness might have.
Harlon stood.
“Sleep.”
“What about you?”
“Door.”
“You cannot sleep there every night.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
He raised one eyebrow.
Amily folded her arms.
“You think you’re the only person allowed to be stubborn?”
“No.”
“Good. Tomorrow you take the bed.”
“No.”
“We’ll see.”
He turned away.
Amily lay down again.
This time, before sleep came, she realized she was no longer listening for him to rise.
She was listening because the sound of his breathing made the cabin feel safe.
The storm lasted another 2 days.
They fell into a rhythm.
Harlon chopped wood.
Amily cooked.
He repaired one of the stagecoach harness straps she had carried away without realizing it.
She mended the torn sleeve of his winter shirt.
He showed her how to read the direction of snow by watching the trees rather than the sky.
She taught him to make biscuits that could be eaten without soaking them first.
“They’re supposed to be soft,” she told him.
“Wasteful.”
“How is softness wasteful?”
“Need twice as many.”
“That may be the saddest thing you’ve ever said.”
On the second afternoon, they went outside together.
The storm had weakened enough to reach the woodpile.
Amily wore Harlon’s spare trousers beneath her skirt and his old boots stuffed with wool.
The boots were enormous.
For once, she was wearing something too large.
She found the experience delightful.
While carrying wood, her foot slipped.
Harlon caught her around the waist.
Both of them froze.
His hands fit around her.
Not barely.
Not reluctantly.
They simply fit.
Amily’s breath caught.
Harlon released her immediately.
“Sorry.”
She stared at him.
“You caught me.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
He looked uncomfortable.
“You don’t either.”
“For what?”
“Existing.”
The words landed softly.
Much softer than the first time.
She looked away before he could see what they did to her.
That evening, after supper, Harlon opened a small wooden box from a shelf.
Inside were letters.
Dozens.
He read 1 near the stove.
Amily tried not to look.
“From Nebraska?”
He glanced up.
“What?”
“The girl.”
“Yes.”
“What does she write?”
“Children mostly.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
“Does she know what people say about you?”
“Yes.”
“What does she say?”
Harlon folded the letter.
“That people like talking more than knowing.”
Amily thought about every room she had ever entered.
Every look.
Every laugh that stopped too late.
Every kind woman who told her she had such a pretty face.
Every man who said she would be beautiful if only she lost some weight.
“Smart woman.”
“Yes.”
The next morning, sunlight came through the window.
Real sunlight.
Harlon looked outside for a long time.
“Storm’s done.”
Amily should have felt relief.
Instead, something dropped inside her chest.
“When can I leave?”
He looked at her.
“Tomorrow.”
“So soon?”
“You wanted town.”
“I do.”
The answer came too quickly.
Harlon nodded and turned toward the stove.
Amily watched his back.
For the first time since reaching the cabin, she wanted the mountain to close again.
