“Gone or dead.”
Eli leaned back in his chair. “I feel like shit for saying so, but that’s a relief.”
“It’s a relief, period,” Lynn said as she tried to place the unfamiliar feeling of contentment and warmth that had spread through her chest at the sight of the people she cared about gathered safely under her roof.
Lynn couldn’t remember a winter that had been so content. The plentiful snowfall meant that there was no need to break the ice on the pond to gather water. When they were thirsty, Lynn and Lucy gathered snow in buckets and warmed it on the stove, or ate it in frozen mouthfuls, after pelting each other with it first.
With the threat from the south removed, Lynn joined Lucy on the ground and showed her the different tracks in the snow. Deer and raccoon, the occasional flying leaps of a squirrel that left a sporadic, clumsy trail. The padded track of the coyotes that had been making appearances again. Lucy learned fast and wanted to know more. Lynn taught her how to distinguish the different birdcalls of the hardier birds that stayed for the winter, and how to make a grunt call with her cupped hands to attract bucks.
Lucy was thriving, her thin arms and legs now stocky with muscle from fighting her way through the snowdrifts in search of her next adventure. Lynn followed her, plowing after the little footprints and warning her off the icy pond on the warmer days. They made the occasional trip to Stebbs’, though it made Lynn anxious to go. Lucy told her no one wanted a pond that was frozen solid, and they agreed to only be gone a little while. Lynn found her worries melting away once in Stebbs’ comforting presence, and they usually stayed long past her time limit.
Eli visited often, making the arduous trek from the stream even on the coldest of days. Lucy would shower him with attention for a while after he showed up, then be distracted by something new, leaving them to talk privately and hold each other’s gloved hands. Eli’s visits were short by necessity. Neva liked some moments alone, but her fear of the wilderness didn’t allow those moments to stretch into hours.
“There’s a fine line between enjoying some alone time and just being downright lonely,” Eli said as they trailed in Lucy’s wake one snowy afternoon.
“Do you think she needs Lucy back?” Lynn asked, even though she wasn’t ready to make the offer. “I don’t want Neva to hate me, but I want what’s best for Lucy.”
“Right now—and I hate to say this—being with Neva is not it,” Eli answered. “She’s not entirely stable. She carries that gun that you gave her inside her bra.”
“That hardly makes her unstable,” Lynn said, letting go of his hand to pat the sidearm she had tucked into her coverall’s pocket. “It’s common sense.”
“Maybe for a girl like you it is, but Neva hadn’t even seen a gun until we got here. Now she sleeps with one?”
Lynn shrugged off his concerns, and they walked quietly hand in hand for a while. “Do you think she’d come over here? Maybe she’d leave the stream now that the men from the south are gone.”
“It’s possible. I can ask.”
“Stebbs says there’s a warm spell coming. Maybe then?”
“Maybe.” Eli squeezed Lynn’s hand and stopped her in her tracks. He held her face in his hands for a moment, tucking stray strands of hair back under her cap. “Can we stop talking about Neva for just a minute?”
Lynn agreed with a smile and leaned forward for her kiss.
A small voice taunted them in the distance. “Lynn and Eli sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
Eli turned to her, his voice rolling over the snowdrifts. “Do you even know what that spells, brain wave?”
“Uh . . . I think it spells that you’re in love.”
“Hmm . . .” Eli turned back to Lynn, his hands still on her face. “She might be onto something.”
Lucy popped up beside them. “Can I have hot chocolate?”
“Race ya!” Eli challenged Lucy and they started for the house at a dead run that turned into a rolling ball of clothing when Lucy took him out at the knees. Lynn followed more slowly, noting the muted edges of the drifts. The snow was melting, imperceptibly at first, but it was going. Soon the spring would bring warm temperatures, mud everywhere, and a high water mark in the pond due to runoff.
For the moment, life was good.
Though she knew spring was close, the nights were still long and Lynn’s dreams were not as pleasant as her days. Sleep came easily but didn’t last long. After one nightmare, Lynn woke with Mother on her mind. Lucy’s even breathing filled the room, and she envied the little girl her deep sleep and innocent dreams. She unwrapped her legs from the sheets, pulled her boots and coat on, and silently slipped up the basement stairs and out the back door.
There was no moon. The utter blackness of the outdoors descended upon her and swallowed all her thoughts, leaving her aware only of her surroundings and what could hide in it. She unshouldered her rifle and sat on the stone step, grateful for the familiar worries of something she could control. Lucy’s sleeping form, curled and content, slipped through her mind and she tightened her grip on the rifle, eyes roaming the black expanse of the night.
Her eyes drifted to the south from habit, where a pale glow made the tree line of Stebbs’ woods visible. “What the hell?” Lynn was so taken aback that she spoke aloud, her words trickling away into the night.
She thought for a second that she had worried away the entire night, but the sun wouldn’t be rising in the south, and the glow she saw there wasn’t the natural pink streaks of the morning. It was a sickly yellow, its pale aura reaching only past the stark black of Stebbs treetops, and shedding light no farther.
Lynn studied it with a grim face, her mouth tight. She clicked the rifle safety off, all traces of fatigue stolen from her in a breath. This light was unfamiliar and strange.
Which meant it was dangerous.
Stebbs appeared on the horizon a few days later, his limping trail snaking behind him. Lucy had learned quickly how to spot his track, the telltale drag of his injured foot left an easily distinguishable pattern in the snow. For weeks in the dead of winter, he had created crisscross paths in the snow, making a game for her to find the right one that ended with him, and a bear hug. She ran toward him the second she spotted him, abandoning Lynn to the task of scraping ice off the doorstep alone.
“Melt giving you much trouble?” Stebbs asked when he made it to the house, Lucy tucked safely in the crook of his arm.
“Not bad. I’m tired of the refreezing in the night, though. Lucy fell walking out the door this morning. I can’t have her breaking a leg.”
“No, ’cause then someone would have to carry her around everywhere they went,” Stebbs said to the little girl, who leaned her head against his shoulder and giggled. “What a chore.”
He sat her down and Lucy tugged on his hand. “Come inside and eat with us, and see what I made. Lynn’s teaching me to knit.”
“That a fact?”
“Trying,” Lynn said, swatting the little girl’s backside as she ran past her down the stairs. “This one’s got the patience of a gnat.”
“And Eli’s teaching me to play guitar,” Lucy added.
“Again, trying,” Lynn said to Stebbs, as she tossed wood onto the stove and opened a can of vegetables. Once they were settled and eating, Stebbs brought up his reason for visiting.
“There’s another pack of coyotes in the area.”
“I know,” Lynn said between bites. “We heard them last night.” The frantic yelping of the pack had brought Lucy into Lynn’s cot, her small body quivering in fear.
Lucy took a bite of her corn and looked from Stebbs to Lynn. “I thought you killed them all,” she said.
