Whoever tied it had done it with intention, not to hold temporarily, but to hold until the cold finished what the rope started. His jaw tightened as he worked through it. "What's your name?" "Martha. Martha Briggs."
A pause, thin as paper. "Widow." The rope gave way. She gasped as her arms came forward, the circulation returning in a way that clearly hurt. He moved to the second knot.
Behind him, the taller man said, "Mister, you do not want to do this. Wade Briggs will find out you interfered." "Then go tell him." Sam didn't look up. "Right now, go tell him exactly what you saw."
A silence. Then the sound of two sets of boots moving through the snow, unhurried, but definite. Then hoofbeats heading south toward town. The second rope fell away. Martha pitched forward, and Sam caught her, and she was so light it stopped him cold for just a moment.
The particular lightness of a body that has been giving everything it had for too long, with too little coming back in return. "Lily." Her voice was barely there. "Where is she?" "Right here, Mama."
The little girl had stopped screaming the moment the two men left. She was standing at Sam's elbow now, serious and watchful. Her bare feet red from the cold. Both hands pressed flat against her own small sternum. She looked at her mother, then up at Sam with the unnerving directness of a child who has learned to make fast decisions about adults.
"Can you carry her?" she asked him, perfectly matter-of-fact. "Yeah," Sam said. "I can carry her." "Okay." She reached up and put her hand in his.
"Then I'll walk." She didn't walk for long. By the time they reached the horse, she was shaking too hard, and Sam lifted her up without asking permission. Settled her against his chest inside his coat, and felt her small hands grip the front of his shirt with surprising strength. He laid Martha across the saddle as carefully as he could manage.
She didn't lose consciousness entirely. Kept making small sounds. Kept saying Lily. Kept trying to orient herself even as her body was shutting down. He kept one hand on her back the whole two miles home and talked to her the whole way.
Not because he thought she fully heard him, but because he needed her to know there was still a voice nearby. The cabin was cold when they arrived. He got the fire built up in under 4 minutes. It was a skill earned from years of Colorado winters that don't negotiate. Then he laid Martha on the bed and covered her with everything he owned that qualified as a blanket.