“Yesterday helped break me in.” Trace shrugged, not mentioning how it affected him to hear that little boy cry for his mama. No sense going over all of his own history, being stranded, losing his pa. That terrible loneliness. It’d all happened a long time ago.
“What makes you say ‘A voice of one crying in the wilderness’? That’s a Bible verse about John the Baptist.”
“Yep, and little Ronnie’s no preacher, least ways he’s not shown signs of it yet.” Trace finished gathering and walked to the stairs. “Go on up ahead. The steps are steep, and I can stop you if you start tumbling.”
“I appreciate that.” She passed him and headed up, not a bit unsteady.
“My men brought supplies of all kinds back from Sacramento, on a string of packhorses. I made good money on my beeves and had it to spend and paid them their time, so they added a few things they wanted. We’ve plenty to get through winter.”
“Even with four extra mouths to feed?” Deb asked.
He hesitated. Not so sure. “I’ll do some hunting. I’ve got a herd . . . so we’ve got food on the hoof. There are some chickens. I’ll keep us fed.”
Utah was visible by the chopping block, nearly behind the cabin, stacking wood at the speed of molasses in January. The sky was lighter from the approaching dawn.
Trace called to him. “Hurry up, the baby is dressed again.”
Utah shuddered, grabbed the wood, and followed Trace in. He seemed to be using Trace to block his view of the cabin until he was sure it was safe.
“Wolf’s gonna chew one of those kids up,” Utah muttered from behind Trace.
“He seems to love them. Strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m pretty sure I saw a Ts’emekwe when I lived with the Cayuse Indians, so I’m not saying this is the strangest, but it’s strange all right.”
Trace turned to look at Utah. “A what?”
“It’s kinda a wild man covered with hair. Heard it called Sasquatch. Bigfoot. A wild man. I described it to the tribe, and the Cayuse called it Ts’emekwe. They said they lived in the highest hills and fought shy of people. Pretty sure I saw one. And I once shot a buffalo, cut it open, and slept inside it to survive a blizzard. That was almighty strange.” Utah passed Trace and went to build up the fire.
Trace shook his head to knock loose the image of a wild man covered with hair living inside a buffalo, then set the flour and other supplies on the small table beside the things Deb had carried.
From where he knelt by the fire, Utah said, “I’ll start building a new house today.”
Deb gasped and turned from Utah to Trace. “You don’t have to do that. Not for us. Trace, you and your men have already done so much.”
“We were planning on building in the spring, miss,” Utah said. “But now that you’re here, we decided to get on with it and hope the weather holds until we can get the roof on. When I got back from the drive, I decided to talk Trace into building now anyway. I didn’t want to sleep in here all winter. So I reckon we’ll build two houses if we get the time.”
Deb looked bewildered. “Two houses?”
Trace nodded. “And I need you to write a letter.”
He saw Deb’s eyes light up. “To Maddie Sue’s pa, you mean? You can mail a letter?”
“Yep, Adam’ll make a trip to Dismal, the nearest post office. Three hours on a fast horse, one way. So he wants to get moving.”
“That’s wonderful. Where can I find paper and a pencil?”
Trace stopped in his tracks. “Uh, don’t you have that?”
CHAPTER
10
Deb had spent her whole life writing. Well, about all of it she could remember, anyway. She’d started fetching and carrying for Ma at the newspaper since before she went to school.
Then she got a few years in school until Pa saw she was writing and reading well, and he brought her home to help Ma with the paper. She still studied at home some, using Gwen’s books, and managed to get to school enough to keep passing through the grades, but mostly she’d worked at the newspaper. With the writing and the bill paying it’d been a fine education of reading and writing and arithmetic. But never before in her life had she wondered how to find a piece of paper.
“No, I don’t have any.” She thought of the bag she carried with so many supplies in it. She’d never considered adding paper and a pencil. “There was paper and such in the wagon, but it all went up in flames.”
Trace’s brow furrowed, and he snapped his fingers. “I know where I have a piece of paper. No pencil, but maybe one of my men has one.” He turned to the fireplace. “Utah, have you got such as a pencil or a pen and ink among your things?”
“I can’t read nor write, Trace. I have no need to carry those around.”
“Well, can you go ask Adam? Though I doubt he has any. He’s been here four years, and I’ve never seen such things.”
“Maybe you can write with a bit of charcoal,” Utah said. “I seen it done once.”
“Or we could burn a pointed stick and use that. Okay. Go check with Adam just in case.”
Utah headed outside.
“I’ll get breakfast started,” Gwen said. She began bustling around the table, taking steady glances at the children.
Trace went to a corner in the cabin, a square space formed where the head of one bed touched the foot of another. There was a gap, and Deb saw there was a trunk of some kind back there hidden in the shadows cast by the cabin’s single lantern.
Trace bent down and lifted the whole box. Not that big, a couple of feet high and deep and wide, but Trace’s muscles bulged as if
