Chapter 3 - Mrs. Gideon Hayes
Gideon crossed the cabin quickly.
Hattie held the photograph loosely.
She had no intention of hiding what she had found.
“It was on the floor.”
Gideon took it.
His movements were careful.
Too careful.
As though the photograph might break.
Or perhaps he might.
“Who was she?”
His eyes remained on the picture.
“My wife.”
Hattie felt something strange tighten in her chest.
Not jealousy.
She barely knew this man.
Still, the word wife carried weight.
“Your wife?”
“My first wife.”
“Mrs. Pritchard never mentioned you had been married.”
“She knew.”
That irritated Hattie.
Of course she knew.
Mrs. Pritchard knew everything that could affect a contract and very little that might affect a human being.
“What happened to her?”
Gideon looked toward the closed room.
“She died.”
The answer was so flat that Hattie immediately recognized pain underneath it.
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded once.
Then slipped the photograph into his coat.
That was clearly the end of the conversation.
Hattie let it be.
For now.
Their first week together established a rhythm neither had expected.
Gideon woke before dawn.
He checked traps, cut wood, tended the mules, hunted, and repaired fencing.
Hattie worked inside.
The transformation began almost immediately.
She scrubbed every surface.
Boiled bedding.
Washed curtains she suspected had not seen water in years.
She discovered three cracked jars of preserved berries, two sacks of flour, a box of onions, and enough salt pork to survive a siege.
She also discovered Gideon had the organizational instincts of a tornado.
When he returned one afternoon, Hattie had arranged tools along an entire wall.
Gideon stopped.
“What happened?”
“I saved your hammer from whatever criminal enterprise you were running.”
“I knew where everything was.”
“Where was the small wood saw?”
He paused.
“In the shed.”
“It was beneath your bed.”
His brows lifted.
“I wondered where that went.”
Hattie shook her head.
By the second week, the cabin smelled of bread instead of old smoke.
By the third, Hattie had rendered fat into soap, repaired two blankets, and reorganized the food stores.
Gideon began returning from outside earlier.
At first she thought it was coincidence.
Then she noticed he frequently appeared just before supper.
“You’re becoming suspiciously punctual,” she said one evening.
“You cook better than I do.”
“That is an insultingly low standard.”
He almost smiled.
There were other changes.
Small ones.
Gideon fixed the loose rung on Hattie’s chair without being asked.
He built a wooden shelf beside her bed.
He began bringing back things from his trips.
Pine branches with bright red berries.
A handful of late mountain flowers before the first heavy frost.
Once, a small blue stone he had found beside a stream.
He never explained them.
He simply left them where she would find them.
Hattie understood that Gideon Hayes spoke most clearly when he said nothing.
Then winter arrived.
Not gently.
One morning Hattie woke to six inches of snow.
By evening there were eighteen.
Gideon began preparing the cabin as if for war.
He stacked additional firewood.
Moved flour and dried meat into the main room.
Checked roof beams.
Sealed gaps around the windows.
Hattie worked beside him.
Her father had believed every daughter should know every part of the family business.
Hattie had learned to sharpen blades, carry carcasses, cure meat, and negotiate with farmers twice her age.
She was not frightened by labor.
Gideon noticed.
One afternoon they carried water together from the stream.
Gideon lifted two buckets.
Hattie lifted two.
He glanced at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Say it.”
“You’re strong.”
She stopped.
It was such a simple statement.
Yet she could not remember the last time someone had said it without mockery.
Usually people called her big.
Heavy.
Unladylike.
Unfortunate.
Strong was different.
“Thank you.”
Gideon nodded.
They continued walking.
That night, Hattie asked the question again.
They sat beside the fire.
Outside, snow slid from the roof.
“You could have chosen any woman in that saloon.”
Gideon’s hand stopped around his coffee mug.
“You asked me that already.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“I said winter was coming.”
“That wasn’t an answer either.”
He stared into the flames.
Hattie waited.
She had learned not to fill Gideon’s silences.
Eventually he spoke.
“Mary was twenty-two.”
Hattie said nothing.
“She came from Boston. Could play piano. Spoke French. Had never cut wood in her life.”
His eyes remained on the fire.
“She was beautiful.”
There was no insult toward Hattie in the word.
Only memory.
“She wanted adventure.”
His mouth tightened.
“I should have taken her back to town before winter.”
“What happened?”
“She got sick.”
“Fever?”
He nodded.
“At first we thought it was a cold. Then she stopped eating.”
Hattie’s voice softened.
“There was no doctor?”
“Not close.”
“Did you try to get one?”
“Three times.”
His hands tightened.
“The first time the pass was blocked. Second time my horse broke a leg. Third time I made town.”
He swallowed.
“The doctor came back with me.”
Hattie already knew the ending.
“Too late.”
Gideon nodded.
The fire cracked.
“I watched her disappear.”
Hattie closed her eyes briefly.
She could imagine the helplessness.
Gideon continued.
“She’d always been small. Delicate. By the end…”
He stopped.
Hattie waited.
Finally he looked at her.
For the first time since their wedding, she saw his guard completely lowered.
“You asked why I chose you.”
“Yes.”
“You looked like you could survive.”
The words should have insulted her.
Instead they settled somewhere deep.
Gideon continued.
“You didn’t have a corset.”
Hattie blinked.
“That influenced your decision?”
“Those things look dangerous.”
She almost laughed.
He went on.
“You had strong hands. Good boots. You stood straight when the others were trying to look smaller.”
His gaze moved over her.
Not hungrily.
Not mockingly.
Simply honestly.
“You looked healthy.”
Hattie felt warmth in her cheeks.
“So you looked at the nine beautiful women in the saloon and thought, absolutely not. Give me the one who can carry firewood.”
“I didn’t say it like that.”
“You nearly did.”
“I said it badly.”
“Extremely badly.”
His mouth moved again.
That almost-smile.
Then Gideon grew serious.
“I didn’t choose you because I thought you were less.”
Hattie stopped breathing for a moment.
He leaned forward.
“I chose you because I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Burying another wife.”
The words changed everything.
Hattie stared at him.
All her life, people had treated her body as evidence of failure.
Gideon had looked at the same body and seen the possibility of survival.
It was not love.
Not yet.
Perhaps it was not even romance.
But it was the first time a man had looked at Hattie Miller and seen strength before shame.
She looked toward the fire.
“You know I can still die.”
Gideon’s expression darkened.
“I know.”
“You can’t choose a strong wife and bargain with death.”
“I know that too.”
“Then stop looking at me like you expect the mountain to take me.”
He did not answer.
Hattie met his eyes.
“I am not Mary.”
“No.”
“I’m not fragile.”
“No.”
“And if I become sick, you will not decide everything for me because you’re frightened.”
Something moved in his face.
Agreement.
Pain.
Respect.
“All right.”
Hattie nodded.
Then she reached for her coffee.
“Also, tomorrow you’re cleaning the chimney.”
Gideon stared.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“It’s freezing.”
“You selected me for survival. Survive the chimney.”
A laugh escaped him.
A real laugh this time.
Low.
Rough.
Unexpected.
Hattie smiled.
And something began between them that neither would yet dare name.
But that night, long after Hattie had gone to bed, Gideon entered Mary’s room.
He sat beside an old wooden chest.
Inside it was a folded map.
A dried flower.
A wedding ring.
And a letter Gideon had never opened again after the day Mary died.
Across the front, in Mary’s handwriting, were six words.
For Gideon, when the truth returns.
Outside, snow began falling harder.
May you like
And miles below Dead Man’s Peak, a man called Red Lawson was riding toward the mountain.
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