Maylin froze.
Faun lifted her head.
“Mama?”
No traveler had passed the cabin in nearly three weeks.
Certainly no one should have been traveling during this storm.
The knock came again.
Slow. Heavy. Patient.
Maylin stood.
“Stay behind me.”
She picked up the fireplace poker.
Shaw took Faun’s hand.
Maylin approached the door and lifted the wooden latch.
The wind nearly ripped it from her hands.
Snow rushed inside.
And through that white storm stood a man.
He was tall enough that the porch roof seemed too low for him. Snow covered the shoulders of his dark buffalo coat, and ice clung to the edges of a black hat pulled low over his brow.
A chestnut horse stood behind him.
Beyond the horse waited a wagon.
Maylin stared.
The wagon was overflowing.
Sacks of flour.
Potatoes.
Split firewood.
Smoked hams.
Coffee.
Sugar.
Blankets.
Lantern oil.
Apples.
Jars of preserves.
And beneath a canvas cover were several packages wrapped in brown paper and tied with red ribbon.
For several seconds, Maylin forgot the cold.
The stranger removed his hat.
Dark hair fell across his forehead.
He looked perhaps thirty-three or thirty-four, with a weather-beaten face, a scar crossing one eyebrow, and gray eyes that seemed unexpectedly gentle for someone carrying a revolver low on his hip.
“Mrs. Harrow?”
Maylin tightened her grip on the poker.
“Who’s asking?”
Something passed through the man’s expression.
Relief, perhaps.
Or sorrow.
“My name is Silas Reed.”
“I don’t know you.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then why are you here?”
Silas looked beyond her.
His gaze found Shaw and Faun.
His expression changed again.
This time Maylin was certain.
Pain.
He looked back at her.
“I’ve been trying to reach this cabin for nine days.”
“Why?”
He glanced at the wagon.
“Because I figured Christmas ought to look a little different than this.”
Maylin’s face hardened.
“We don’t take charity.”
“I didn’t say it was charity.”
“Then what is it?”
Silas hesitated.
That hesitation frightened her more than anything he had said.
He reached into the wagon.
Maylin raised the poker.
“Slowly.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He pulled out a small parcel.
It was wrapped badly, as though the hands responsible had never wrapped a gift before.
Silas crouched and looked toward the girls.
“Which one of you is Shaw?”
Shaw stepped behind Maylin.
Maylin’s blood went cold.
She had never told him her daughters’ names.
“How do you know that?”
Silas straightened.
“Mrs. Harrow—”
“How do you know my child’s name?”
“I can explain.”
“Explain now.”
He looked at Shaw.
Then at Faun.
Finally he handed Maylin the package.
“Maybe this explains part of it.”
Maylin did not take it.
Silas placed the parcel carefully on the porch floor.
He stepped backward.
Shaw suddenly whispered, “Mama.”
She was staring at the package.
At the writing across the brown paper.
Maylin looked down.
Three words had been written there.
For my Shaw.
Maylin stopped breathing.
She knew that handwriting.
The crooked S.
The exaggerated curl on the W.
The way the final letter leaned too far to the right.
“No.”
Her fingers loosened around the poker.
Silas said nothing.
Maylin bent slowly and picked up the package.
