Chapter 3 - Kindness Without a Price
Dela woke before dawn with the newspaper still beneath her hand.
The stove had nearly gone cold.
She quickly folded the notice and pushed it away as Rufus shifted beneath the elk hides.
By five, biscuits were in the oven.
Coffee boiled.
Venison fried in the skillet.
Routine gave fear fewer places to sit.
Rufus came to the table already dressed for outdoors.
He poured coffee.
“You sleep?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a poor liar.”
“So are you.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“About what?”
“You’ve been pretending not to watch the trail all morning.”
Rufus glanced toward the frost-covered window.
“Habit.”
“New habit.”
He said nothing.
Dela placed biscuits between them.
“You could collect the reward.”
The words came out before she could stop them.
Rufus slowly looked up.
“Five hundred dollars.”
“I can read.”
“That’s a great deal of money.”
“Yep.”
“You need a new roof on the shed.”
“Yep.”
“And another horse.”
“Probably.”
“You could take me to Timber Crossing yourself.”
“I could.”
Dela’s throat tightened.
Rufus spread jam across a biscuit.
He seemed almost deliberately unconcerned.
“Well?”
He chewed.
Dela’s irritation flared.
“Well what?”
“Are you planning to?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I already have a housekeeper.”
She stared.
He drank his coffee.
Dela could not decide whether she wanted to laugh or throw something at him.
“You cannot possibly be that simple.”
“I’m not.”
“You hardly know me.”
“Know enough.”
“You know nothing.”
“I know you get up before I do, even though your ribs hurt.”
Her face changed.
“I know you put extra feed out for the dog when you think I’m not looking. I know you mend shirts better than anyone I’ve ever paid. I know loud noises scare you, men standing too close scare you, rifles sometimes scare you, and none of those things stop you from working.”
Dela looked down.
Rufus continued.
“And I know the man who put that advertisement in the newspaper wants strangers to think you can’t speak for yourself.”
His voice hardened.
“I’m not helping him do it.”
That was when Dela realized she had spent years measuring men by what they might take.
Rufus was forcing her to learn a more difficult measurement.
What they chose not to take.
Later that afternoon, she found him replacing the latch on the cabin door.
The old latch had worked perfectly.
“What happened to it?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why replace it?”
“This one’s stronger.”
“For Warren?”
Rufus kept working.
“For winter.”
Dela folded her arms.
“Another poor lie.”
“I’m improving.”
A smile escaped her.
Rufus glanced over.
It was the first time he had seen her smile without sadness hiding beneath it.
For a moment he simply looked.
Then he returned to the latch.
The expression on his face made Dela’s smile disappear for an entirely different reason.
Days passed.
No one came.
The mountain settled under deeper snow.
Dela began venturing farther from the cabin with the gray dog beside her.
Rufus called him Bear, which she considered a ridiculous name until she watched the animal stand chest-deep in snow and realized no smaller name would have suited him.
Bear followed her everywhere.
To the creek.
To the woodpile.
Even to the outhouse, where he sat outside with solemn dedication until she threatened to stop feeding him scraps.
One afternoon she was hanging linens when Bear suddenly growled.
Dela froze.
The dog stared toward the tree line.
“Bear?”
His fur lifted.
A dark shape moved between trees.
Dela’s heart slammed.
“Rufus!”
He appeared from the shed within seconds, rifle in hand but pointed down.
“What?”
Bear barked once.
The shape emerged.
A mule deer.
Dela’s knees weakened.
Rufus lowered the rifle.
“Just a buck.”
“I knew that.”
“Course.”
She glared.
His mouth twitched.
“Don’t you dare laugh.”
“I wouldn’t.”
He was absolutely laughing.
Silently.
Dela threw a clothespin at him.
Rufus caught it.
For a few seconds, the mountain cabin contained something Dela had almost forgotten existed.
Playfulness.
That frightened her too.
But less.
That evening, Rufus brought an old book from a shelf.
“You like stories?”
“I used to.”
“What happened?”
“Life became demanding.”
He gave her the book.
It was a collection of frontier tales.
The pages were worn soft.
“Read.”
“To myself?”
“To me.”
Dela stared.
“You said you didn’t need conversation.”
“Changed my mind.”
“You’re allowed to do that?”
“Cabin’s mine.”
She rolled her eyes.
Then she began reading.
Her voice was awkward at first.
Rufus repaired a harness while listening.
After twenty minutes, she forgot to be self-conscious.
After an hour, Rufus stopped working entirely.
When she reached the end of the chapter, he said, “Keep going.”
“It’s late.”
“Keep going.”
“You’re very demanding for a man who claimed he didn’t want company.”
“Keep going.”
She did.
And somewhere between the fictional plains and the real storm outside, Dela realized she had stopped listening for danger.
Only for a little while.
But it was a beginning.
Near midnight, after Rufus went to bed, she returned the book to its shelf.
Then she noticed the canvas bag beneath her cot.
The sight of it brought reality back.
She pulled it out.
At the very bottom, beneath her spare dress, lay a rectangular parcel wrapped in oilcloth.
Dela stared at it.
Her pulse quickened.
She had almost left it in Butte.
Perhaps she should have.
She unwrapped one corner.
Leather.
A ledger.
Warren’s ledger.
The reason his search for her would never stop.
The bruises were part of it.
His pride was another.
But the book was the true reason.
Dela had found it hidden behind false paneling in Warren’s study two nights before she fled.
Names.
Payments.
Mining claims.
Bank officials.
Property taken from widows whose signatures had been forged.
Money moved through accounts that did not officially exist.
And one entry carrying the name of a judge.
Dela had taken the ledger without entirely understanding why.
Perhaps because for once she wanted proof that Warren Marsh was not the respectable man everyone believed.
She wrapped it again.
Then she heard something.
Outside.
A crunch.
Not wind.
Not Bear.
A footstep.
Dela slowly raised her head.
Another crunch came from beyond the wall.
Bear exploded into barking.
Rufus was awake instantly.
He appeared carrying the rifle.
“Stay inside.”
He opened the door.
Bear shot into the darkness.
Rufus followed.
Dela stood near the stove, one hand over her ribs.
Minutes passed.
Then Rufus returned.
Snow covered his boots.
His expression had changed.
“What?”
He locked the door.
“Tracks.”
“Animal?”
“No.”
Her stomach tightened.
“How many?”
“One man.”
“Could it have been a hunter?”
“Could.”
“But you don’t think so.”
Rufus looked toward the canvas bag beneath her curtain.
“No.”
Dela’s blood turned cold.
“Did the tracks come near the cabin?”
Rufus’s gaze met hers.
May you like
“They came to the window.”
The window beside her sleeping alcove.
