dwindled down to almost nothing. The sacks that had once filled a whole corner of the barn, now counting less than a man could carry on one shoulder. By the first week of March, Elijah had given away the last of his grain, scraped the bins clean, and divided the final portion between the Apache children who needed it most.
And he was living on strips of jerked beef that tasted like old leather and the memory of meals he had eaten in better times. He did not tell the Apache how bad it had gotten for him. He did not tell anyone. He just kept working, kept tending his animals, kept putting one foot in front of the other because that was what a man did when there was nothing else to do. Some nights he lay awake and wondered if he would see the grass turn green again.
And some nights he was too exhausted to wonder anything at all. The people of Redcliffe kept their distance through the worst of the winter, but they did not forget. Bucker rode by once or twice, not stopping to speak, just looking. Samuel Crew sent his son out with a message saying that any man who fed the enemy could not expect credit at the store come spring, and Elijah sent the boy back with no answer. Old Claraara Hicks came by once, alone on a gray morning when the snow had stopped.
She did not knock or call out. She just walked up to the porch, set down a bundle wrapped in cloth, and walked away again without saying a word. When Elijah opened the bundle, he found dried apples inside, probably the last she had, sweet and brown, and smelling like autumn, even in the depths of winter. He ate them slowly over the next week and thought about what her visit meant. The last week of March came in with a wind that smelled different from all the ones that had come before it.
It was warmer, softer, carrying the first faint hint of the thaw that would come when the sun climbed higher. Elijah woke one morning and heard water dripping from the icicles on his roof. A steady musical sound that seemed like the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. And he knew that the worst was finally over. If he could hold on for another two weeks, maybe three, he would make it through.
The problem was that he had nothing left to hold on with. His stores were gone. Every last handful of grain and every scrap of meat. His animals were thin but alive. His own body felt like a canvas sack with all the grain scooped out, hollow and light and barely able to hold its shape.