Chapter 2 - Two Days Into the Snow
By the time Eleanor saw Caleb Morgan’s cabin, every part of her hurt.
Her fingers ached.
Her back ached.
Even her teeth seemed tired from two days of cold.
The cabin sat in a clearing surrounded by pine forest, one dark shape against an endless white mountain.
A barn stood fifty yards away.
Smoke lifted from a stone chimney.
There were no neighboring houses.
No church steeple.
No road.
No human voice.
Eleanor stared.
“This is it?”
Caleb dismounted.
“This is it.”
“You said isolated.”
“It is.”
“You failed to mention the rest of humanity had apparently been removed from the earth.”
Caleb looked at her.
“Would that have changed your answer?”
She considered it.
“No.”
“Then I saved us both time.”
She almost laughed.
Almost.
Inside, the cabin was painfully simple.
One main room.
One table.
One iron stove.
Shelves.
A washbasin.
A narrow sleeping space separated by a curtain.
Eleanor stepped into the bedroom area.
There was one bed.
She turned.
Caleb was carrying firewood inside.
“You have one bed.”
“Yes.”
“And where exactly were you planning to sleep?”
“Floor.”
“No.”
He paused.
“No?”
“The contract says you won’t bother me. It does not say you have to freeze to death beside your own stove.”
“The floor won’t kill me.”
“Three months on wood might.”
He frowned as if nobody had ever argued with him about his own discomfort.
“There’s a curtain,” Eleanor said. “You sleep on your side of the room. I sleep on mine.”
“That isn’t what we agreed.”
“We agreed you wouldn’t touch me.”
“I won’t.”
“Then the problem is solved.”
After a long pause, Caleb nodded.
“All right.”
“Caleb.”
“What?”
“If we’re supposed to convince somebody we’re married, calling you Mr. Morgan seems unhelpful.”
Something faintly amused entered his eyes.
“Then I suppose I should call you Eleanor.”
It was the first time he said her name.
She remembered the sound longer than she wanted to admit.
That afternoon she investigated the root cellar.
Potatoes.
Beans.
Salt pork.
Cornmeal.
Preserved tomatoes.
Apples.
Coffee.
Eleanor lifted the tin.
“You have coffee.”
From above, Caleb answered, “I have coffee.”
She looked toward the ceiling.
“Perhaps this marriage has a chance.”
A sound came from upstairs.
It might have been a laugh.
When she returned to the cabin, she cooked beans with onion and salt pork.
She made cornbread.
She found an old tablecloth in a chest, washed the dust from it, and spread it over the battered table.
It was not beautiful.
But it was clean.
When Caleb came in from the barn, he stopped.
He looked at the table.
Then the stove.
Then Eleanor.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That is clearly not nothing.”
He removed his coat.
“It smells different.”
“Like food?”
“Like someone lives here.”
The words landed more heavily than he seemed to intend.
They ate.
Caleb finished two bowls.
Then a third.
“You were hungry.”
“I usually forget supper.”
“That explains a great deal.”
“What does it explain?”
“Your personality.”
He looked up.
Eleanor waited.
Then Caleb shook his head.
She saw the smile he tried to hide.
The next morning he left before sunrise.
When he returned hours later, Eleanor had repaired a torn curtain, straightened the shelves, fixed a loose hinge, scrubbed the table, and hung dried pine near the doorway.
He stood inside with snow melting from his boots.
“You did all this?”
“I needed something to do.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know.”
He looked at her strangely.
Eleanor went back to kneading bread.
She did not realize until much later that those three words mattered to him.
I know.
Not obligation.
Not payment.
Choice.
Days took shape.
Caleb built the morning fire before she woke.
Eleanor left coffee warming when he returned from the barn.
He split wood.
She stacked it.
He brought home rabbits.
She turned them into stew.
She mended his gloves without asking.
He repaired the heel of her boot without mentioning it.
Neither called these acts affection.
That would have been ridiculous.
They had known each other less than two weeks.
But the cabin changed.
The silence changed.
Even Caleb changed.
Sometimes Eleanor caught him standing in the doorway watching her hum while she cooked.
Whenever she noticed, he looked away.
One night she discovered him reading by lantern light.
“What is it?”
He turned the cover.
A book of poetry.
Eleanor stared.
“The Mountain Wolf reads poetry?”
His expression hardened.
“Tell anyone and I’ll deny it.”
She laughed.
The sound startled both of them.
It had been a long time since Eleanor laughed without thinking about whether anyone would judge the volume of it.
Caleb lowered his book.
“You should do that more often.”
“What?”
“Laugh.”
She immediately became self-conscious.
“Why?”
“Because you look like yourself when you do.”
Eleanor stared at him.
Nobody had ever said anything like that to her.
Caleb seemed to realize he had stepped somewhere dangerous.
He returned to the book.
The moment passed.
But Eleanor carried it to bed.
Days later, they received their first visitor.
A county surveyor named Ellis Parker came to inspect the North Slope boundary.
Eleanor served coffee.
The man glanced between them.
“So you two really married?”
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
Eleanor answered before he could.
“Would you like to see the certificate?”
Parker coughed.
“No need.”
“Then drink your coffee.”
After he left, Caleb stood by the window.
“You didn’t have to defend this.”
“This?”
“Our arrangement.”
“I defended my name.”
He looked at her.
“And yours.”
Caleb said nothing.
That evening he added another piece of wood to the fire.
Then another.
The temperature dropped below zero.
Wind rose.
By midnight the cabin shook.
Eleanor woke to the sound of branches scraping the roof.
Caleb was already awake.
He stood at the window.
“Bad?”
“Getting worse.”
“Do we have enough wood?”
“Yes.”
“Food?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll be fine.”
He turned from the window.
“You aren’t frightened?”
“I’ve been frightened before.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Eleanor pulled the blanket closer.
“Yes.”
Caleb nodded.
“So am I.”
That answer surprised her more than reassurance would have.
The Mountain Wolf was afraid.
Not panicked.
Not weak.
Simply human.
And somehow that made the storm easier.
In the morning, Caleb prepared to check the traps.
Eleanor looked outside.
Snow already obscured the barn.
“You’re going out?”
“I won’t be long.”
“You said the storm was dangerous.”
“It is.”
“Then why—”
“We need to secure the lower line before the snow buries it.”
She wanted to argue.
Instead she handed him his gloves.
“Come back before dark.”
Caleb looked at her.
“I will.”
He left.
Three hours passed.
Then four.
Darkness arrived.
Caleb did not.
Eleanor stood at the window watching the mountain disappear beneath snow.
Another hour passed.
Then another.
She told herself she was practical.
A man missing in a storm was a practical concern.
Nothing more.
But when the wind screamed around the cabin and the door remained closed, Eleanor finally understood something she had not intended to learn.
There was already one thing on that mountain she was afraid to lose.
May you like
And his name was Caleb Morgan.
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