They rode toward the mountains without speaking.
Silver Creek disappeared behind them, swallowed by pine trees and white slopes.
Judson’s claim sat high in the Rockies, where winter did not merely arrive.
It conquered.
The wagon climbed narrow trails above ravines so deep Winifred refused to look down.
By the second hour, her fingers were numb.
By the third, snow had soaked through her boots.
Judson finally spoke.
“You ever chopped ice?”
“No.”
“Shot a wolf?”
“No.”
“Skinned an elk?”
“No.”
“Set a trap?”
“No.”
He gave a humorless laugh.
“What did you do in Boston?”
“I worked in a bakery.”
Judson looked at her.
“A bakery.”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
She turned toward him.
“You disapprove of bread?”
“Bread won’t save you when it’s twenty below and coyotes are circling the cabin.”
“I had assumed that was what doors were for.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Instead he said, “You’ll be begging to go back east by Christmas.”
Winifred looked toward the mountains.
There was no east anymore.
Her aunt Margaret had died in September.
The bakery had belonged to her aunt’s landlord.
Medical bills had consumed their savings.
Creditors had taken the furniture.
Her cousins had offered sympathy but no room.
By November, Winifred had possessed one trunk, three dresses, forty-six dollars, and an advertisement clipped from a newspaper.
COLORADO MINER SEEKS PRACTICAL WIFE. MUST BE HARDWORKING. NO FRIVOLITY.
She had laughed when she first read it.
Three weeks later, she had answered.
Now she stared into the white wilderness.
“No,” she said.
Judson glanced at her.
“No what?”
“I won’t be going back.”
Something in her voice stopped him from arguing.
His cabin was worse than she had imagined.
It smelled of smoke, damp wool, old grease, unwashed blankets, and something dead beneath the floorboards.
Winifred stood in the doorway.
Judson set down her trunk.
“Well?”
She looked at the blackened stove.
The table coated with eleven years of grime.
A pile of boots beside a chair.
A cracked window stuffed with newspaper.
A pan containing something she sincerely hoped had once been beans.
Then she looked at her husband.
“Where do you keep the soap?”
That was the beginning.
The next morning, she hauled water from the creek until her shoulders burned.
She boiled it.
Scrubbed the table.
Scrubbed the shelves.
Scrubbed the floor.
She found the dead thing beneath the boards.
Mouse.
Possibly two mice.
Time had made the distinction difficult.
Judson returned from checking traps and stopped in the doorway.
The cabin smelled different.
Not feminine.
Not exactly.
Clean.
He frowned as if cleanliness were suspicious.
Winifred was standing at the stove.
“What are you doing?”
“Cooking.”
“I can see that.”
“Then why did you ask?”
His eyes narrowed.
