My breath came hard and fast. My arms burned. But I kept swinging, kept splitting, kept working because work was the only thing I knew how to do when the world stopped making sense. By the time the sun started its slow slide toward the western mountains, I'd split enough wood to last a week.
My hands were blistered. My back ached. But my mind was quieter. I went inside.
Takala had made food. Some kind of stew that smelled like sage and meat. She'd set two bowls on the table. One at each end.
She sat at the far end, eating in silence. I washed my hands at the basin and sat down. The stew was good. Better than anything I'd made for myself in years.
We ate without speaking. When we finished, she took the bowls and washed them. I added wood to the stove. The routines of domestic life performed by two people who shared a space but nothing else.
As darkness fell, she went to her room and closed the door. I made my bed on the floor by the stove, where I'd slept since my family died. The bedroom I'd shared with Emily was still locked. I couldn't bring myself to open it.
I lay awake for hours listening to the wind outside and the creak of the house settling. Somewhere in the night, I heard Takala crying. Soft, muffled sounds. Like she was pressing her face into the pillow to keep from being heard.
I wanted to go to her. To say something. Anything. But what could I say?
I'd killed the man she loved. No words would change that. So I lay there and listened and hated myself for everything I'd done and everything I'd failed to do. When sleep finally came, I dreamed of Rio Grande.
Of smoke and gunfire and men falling. Of a woman's scream that went on forever. I woke before dawn to find Takala already up, feeding the stove. She didn't look at me.
I got dressed and went outside to tend the animals. The sky was the color of old bruises, heavy with the promise of more snow. I fed the horses and the two milk cows I kept and checked the henhouse for eggs. Normal things.
Ordinary things. But nothing felt normal anymore. When I came back inside, there was coffee waiting. Takala was gone, back in her room.
I drank the coffee standing up, looking at the photograph on the wall. Emily would have known what to do. She always did. She had a way of cutting through complicated things to find the simple truth underneath.
But Emily was five years dead. And I was on my own. The day passed like the one before. Work.
Silence. Meals eaten at opposite ends of the table. Takala moving through the house like a ghost. Touching nothing of mine.
Keeping to herself. That night, Chaska came to visit. I heard the horse before I saw him. Takala heard it too.
She came out of her room, and we both went to the window. Chaska rode up slowly, favoring his wounded shoulder. When he dismounted, I went out to help him. He waved me off.
"I am stronger than I look," he said with a slight smile.
Inside, Takala made him sit by the stove and brought him food. They spoke in Apache, their voices low and quick. I sat at the table and pretended not to watch. Finally, Chaska turned to me.
"I came to warn you. The soldiers who shot me, they have told Fort Stanton that I attacked them. The army is looking for me. And they will look for anyone who helped me."
"Let them look."
"You do not understand. Captain Hollis, he commands Fort Stanton now. He is not a good man. He wants war with the Apache."