One evening, after a dinner eaten in their usual silence, she asked her first real question. You fought his hands which had been whittling a piece of cedar near the fireplace stilled. Yeah, he said finally. Confederate Missouri Battalion. She looked at him long and hard.
And now you help me. He didn't look up. War is done. But it wasn't not really. She sat quiet that night, staring into the flames, wondering how a man who had once fought people like her could kneel beside her cod and clean her wounds without flinching.
She thought maybe he had lost someone. Maybe that's what changed a man. She didn't ask. Not yet. 2 days later, the fever came.
It started with a sweat, then the shivering. By nightfall, her lips were dry, her skin hot to the touch. Josiah worked tirelessly, wiping her face and chest with cool cloths, boiling willow bark in a pan, and forcing the bitter tea between her clenched teeth. When the fever peaked, she groaned in her sleep, clawing at the blanket, her fingers digging into his arm as he held her down. She whispered names in a patchy, broken, feverish sounds he did not understand.
But one name came through, clear and sharp. Taza, her brother. He was right. She broke the fever the next morning, her eyes heavy, but clear. Josiah had barely slept.
You stayed? She asked, her voice a ragged whisper. He nodded. You're still here. It wasn't much, but it mattered.
He hadn't run. Even when she burned, even when she screamed, he had stayed. As her strength returned, she began to ask more questions. She learned that he had built the cabin himself, that the nearest town was a halfday's ride, that he didn't go there often because he didn't like people. When she asked about his wife, he fell silent.
She didn't press him. She respected his silence just as he respected her scars. One afternoon, she pulled the dress she had been wearing tighter around her chest. The fabric, torn and worn, hung loose, her shoulders bare. She glanced at him.
He was at the table, chopping onions. He saw her, looked, then looked away. "Doesn't it bother you?" she asked, her voice a challenge. He set the knife down and looked at her again, his pale blue eyes steady, unwavering. "You're a woman," she scoffed.