Chapter 2 - Season It With Laughter
The storm lasted six days.
By the second morning, Alandre learned that Jedodiah Boone possessed exactly three conversational moods.
Silence.
Grunting.
And sentences so dry she sometimes needed several seconds to realize he had made a joke.
She also learned that he rose before dawn.
Every morning he carried wood inside, checked the horses sheltered behind the cabin, cleared snow from the roofline, and returned with ice clinging to his beard.
He never complained.
He never talked about where he came from.
And he never asked Alandre questions she did not want to answer.
At first, she appreciated that.
Then she began noticing how carefully he avoided certain subjects.
Thomas was one.
Stage routes were another.
Guns were a third.
On the fourth night, they ate rabbit stew at the table while snow rattled against the shutters.
“This is good,” Jedodiah said.
Alandre stared at him.
He paused.
“What?”
“Was that a compliment?”
“Don’t get accustomed to it.”
She smiled despite herself.
“There,” he said.
“There what?”
“The seasoning.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You are going to regret making that condition.”
“Already do.”
She threw a folded cloth at him.
Jedodiah caught it without looking.
For one brief instant, Alandre forgot she was supposed to be miserable.
The guilt returned immediately afterward.
She put her spoon down.
Jedodiah noticed.
“You don’t have to punish yourself for being alive.”
Alandre’s eyes hardened.
“You don’t know anything about it.”
His expression changed.
“I know more than you think.”
She looked up.
Jedodiah stared at the fire.
“Who did you lose?” she asked.
He did not answer.
“A wife?”
“No.”
“Brother?”
His jaw tightened.
“Friend?”
A long silence.
“Several.”
She waited.
Jedodiah stood and carried his bowl toward the washbasin.
Conversation over.
That night, Alandre dreamed about the attack again.
She and Thomas had been traveling west beside a frozen creek when two men appeared from the trees.
Thomas shouted.
Alandre remembered the crack of a rifle.
The wagon horse screaming.
Thomas collapsing.
One man searched the wagon while the other pulled Alandre down from the seat.
She remembered him best.
Tall.
Lean.
Fine gray coat.
A smile too calm for what he was doing.
Then she remembered the revolver.
Silver plated.
Pearl grip.
A rattlesnake engraved along the barrel.
The man pressed it near her face and asked Thomas where he had hidden the lockbox.
Thomas would not answer.
Someone struck Alandre.
Darkness.
When she woke, the men were gone.
So was Thomas’s lockbox.
So was Thomas.
Alandre woke inside Jedodiah’s cabin with a cry caught in her throat.
She sat upright.
The hearth glowed low.
Jedodiah was already awake.
He sat in the chair beside the fire, rifle across his knees.
Not pointed at her.
Not threatening.
Just there.
“You talk in your sleep,” he said.
Alandre wiped moisture from her cheek.
“What did I say?”
“Thomas.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
“And?”
“Nothing that made sense.”
It was a lie.
Jedodiah had heard more.
He had heard her say silver gun.
He had heard her say rattlesnake.
And for nearly an hour afterward, he had sat staring at the floor beneath his bed.
Alandre lay back down.
“Why do you sleep with a rifle?”
“Wolves.”
“That all?”
“No.”
She waited.
He gave nothing else.
By the sixth day, the sky finally cleared.
The world outside sparkled beneath hard winter sunlight.
Alandre stepped onto the porch.
Mountains rose around the cabin like enormous white walls.
For the first time she saw Jedodiah’s entire little world.
A stable.
A chopping block.
Two horses.
Traps hanging beneath an overhang.
Stacks of firewood.
And beyond the fence, miles of wilderness.
No neighbors.
No town smoke.
No road she could clearly identify.
“You really live here alone?” she asked.
Jedodiah was splitting wood.
“Mostly.”
“Why?”
He drove the ax through another log.
“People ask too many questions.”
Alandre folded her arms.
“That sounds suspicious.”
“Exactly.”
She laughed again.
This one came more easily.
Jedodiah glanced toward her.
Something unexpectedly gentle appeared in his face.
Alandre felt it.
And immediately looked away.
The attraction frightened her.
Not because Jedodiah was dangerous.
At least she did not believe he was.
It frightened her because she had once promised Thomas forever.
Forever had lasted four years.
What right did she have to feel warmth toward another man after three months?
She spent the afternoon scrubbing cupboards to avoid thinking about it.
Behind a jar of salt, she found an old brass token stamped with the mark of the Overland Northern Stage Company.
“Jed?”
He turned from repairing a saddle.
She held it up.
His face went still.
“Where’d you get this?”
“Cupboard.”
He took it quickly.
Too quickly.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Old stage token.”
“You worked for them?”
“No.”
“You rode their coaches?”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“Alandre.”
His tone was not angry.
It was final.
She stopped.
Jedodiah slipped the token into his pocket.
For the rest of the evening, he became quiet.
Later, while washing dishes, Alandre watched his reflection in the dark window.
Thomas had worked occasionally with freight companies.
The lockbox stolen after his murder had contained papers he refused to discuss.
Whenever Alandre asked, he had said they were business documents.
Now she wondered.
That night she noticed something else.
Jedodiah thought she was asleep when he crossed the cabin.
He knelt beside his bed.
His fingers pressed against one particular floorboard.
He stayed there several seconds.
Then stood again without lifting it.
Alandre closed her eyes before he turned.
Her heartbeat continued long after Jedodiah returned to his chair.
For the first time since arriving, she wondered whether the greatest danger on Black Pine Ridge was not outside the cabin.
May you like
Maybe it was sleeping ten feet away.
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