The men went out. The storm was not brief. It ran through the night and into the morning, and by the time the sky began to lighten, it had covered the previous week's mudwork under 8 in of new snow and taken down a section of the east fence and buried the wood pile under a drift that added an hour to every trip to get fuel. Miriam kept the kitchen running. She kept the fire at the right level and the water warm.
And when Bramwell came in at 3:00 in the morning with Denny and Ferris, their faces gray with cold, she had food on the table before they'd finished pulling off their outer layers. When August came in an hour later, she had more. When Calhoun appeared at the door at sunrise, she had coffee and biscuits and the particular expression of a woman who had decided that keeping people alive was the thing she was doing tonight and was doing it without complaint or commentary. Calhoun stood in the kitchen and looked at the table and said, "Mrs. Hensley, you are a remarkable woman. Eat your biscuits.
" She said he ate his biscuits. Bramwell came back in at midmorning when the storm had dropped from violent to merely unpleasant and Miriam handed him coffee and he took it and sat down at the table and looked like a man who had been outside in bad weather for 7 hours which was exactly what he was. He drank the coffee. Then he said without preamble the north herd made it lost lost one maybe two will know more when we can see clearly. The barn is fine.
The east fence is going to need 2 days work when the ground's workable again. I'll adjust the supply order, she said. He looked at her. The fence repair will need materials, she said. I'll look at what we have and what we need.
Something crossed his face. Not quite exasperation, not quite humor. Something between them. Miriam, he said the fence can wait 1 hour. I know it can, she said.
I'm just noting it. He shook his head slightly. Sit down, he said. For 1 hour. You've been on your feet since 2:00 in the morning.
She considered arguing with this. She sat down. He poured her coffee, which was a reversal of the usual arrangement, and she accepted it without comment. They sat at the kitchen table while the storm diminished outside, and the house ticked and settled around them with the sounds of cold wood and warm fire. And after a while, Bramwell said, "When I came in at 3 and saw the food on the tables, he stopped.
She waited. Elizabeth used to do that. " He said, "Keep things running when everything outside was falling apart. " She had a gift for for the center holding even when the edges were bad. He was looking at his coffee.