“No. But until this child stops fighting, neither do we.”
They sat together until dawn.
Just after sunrise, May began sweating.
At first Silas thought something worse was happening.
Then Clara touched the girl’s forehead.
A smile trembled across her face.
“The fever’s breaking.”
Silas stared.
“Are you sure?”
“Feel.”
He pressed his palm to May’s skin.
Warm.
Not burning.
Warm.
May opened her eyes.
“Papa?”
Silas made a strangled sound.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“I’m thirsty.”
He laughed and cried simultaneously.
Clara turned toward the window.
Silas kissed his daughter’s forehead over and over.
For the first time since Sarah’s death, hope entered the room without feeling like a lie.
May slept almost eighteen hours.
Silas slept twelve.
He woke on the floor beside her bed.
Someone had placed a pillow beneath his head.
Clara.
He found her outside repairing a chicken enclosure.
“You should have woken me.”
“You needed rest.”
“I owe you work.”
“You owe me nothing yet.”
Silas looked around.
The Higgins ranch was better than he had realized.
Nearly two hundred cattle grazed in the southern pasture. The barn was sturdy but neglected. Several fences sagged. One side of the house needed shingles.
“How many acres?”
“Fourteen hundred.”
He whistled.
“You run this alone?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“I hire men during roundup.”
“Why not year-round?”
Clara hammered a nail.
“Men have opinions.”
“About what?”
“A woman owning fourteen hundred acres.”
Silas almost smiled.
“I imagine they do.”
“And after my husband died, several developed the opinion that I needed another husband.”
“Maybe they were worried about your fences.”
Clara glanced at him.
“That your idea of humor?”
“Used to be better.”
“I hope so.”
Silas laughed.
The sound startled both of them.
It was the first genuine laugh he had produced since Nebraska.
May improved quickly.
Within three days she was eating eggs.
Within five she followed Clara around the kitchen asking questions.
“Why are your biscuits crooked?”
“Because biscuits don’t know what shape they are.”
“Why doesn’t your cat have a tail?”
“Bad decision involving a wagon.”
“Does she miss it?”
“Only when she tries to chase it.”
May considered this deeply.
Then she laughed.
Silas stood in the doorway listening.
His chest ached.
Sarah’s absence remained enormous.
But for the first time, May’s laughter did not sound like a memory.
It sounded like a future.
Silas began working.
He repaired the eastern fence.
Replaced barn hinges.
Cleared an irrigation ditch.
By the second week, Clara stopped telling him which tasks needed doing because he already knew.
One evening she found him rebuilding a corral gate after dark.
“You planning to repair the moon next?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Good. It has looked crooked lately.”
Silas grinned.
She handed him coffee.
Their fingers touched.
Both pulled away.
Clara sat on the fence.
“You never told me where you were going.”
“Before here?”
“Yes.”
“Colorado.”
“Why?”
“I heard mines were hiring.”
“With May?”
“I didn’t have better choices.”
Clara nodded.
“What happened to your family?”
“Parents dead. Brother died at Shiloh.”
“And Sarah’s?”
“Never knew them.”
Clara looked at him.
“She had no family?”
“She was orphaned young.”
“Where?”
Silas shrugged.
“Somewhere east, I think.”
Clara’s face went pale.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’ve done that before.”
“Done what?”
“Looked like you recognized something.”
Clara jumped from the fence.
“You’re imagining things.”
“Clara.”
She walked toward the house.
Silas watched her go.
For the first time since arriving, suspicion entered his mind.
Three weeks later, May found the locked room.
