Nothing moved. Just wind, just snow. He looked back at the two women. "Do the next thing, " Norah would have said. "Not everything, just the next thing.
" He unwound his coat, wrapped it around the smaller of the two women, the one with the weaker pulse, and lifted her. She was lighter than he expected. He settled her across Abel with all the care he had. Kept one hand on her back, went for the other one. The first woman stirred when he lifted her.
Just a sharp exhale, pain registering somewhere below consciousness. I know, he thought. Just stay with me. He got them both positioned the best he could, took Abel's reigns, started walking into the wind, into the white four miles, his coat on someone else's back, the cold going through his flannel shirt like it was nothing. He did not think about the cold.
He thought about the rope. The cabin was dark when he reached it. Of course, it was. He'd been gone all day. No lamp, no fire, nothing waiting.
He brought them in first, both of them, one at a time. moving fast, laid them on the braided rug near the fireplace. Norah's rug. The colors faded now to something softer than the original, which somehow suited the moment. Then he built the fire.
His hands were shaking. Not from cold. From the specific tremor that comes when urgency drops away, just enough that your body remembers it's human. The fire caught grew. Heat pushed outward in slow increments.
He heated water, found the extra blankets in the cedar chest, wrapped both women carefully, checked their hands, fingertips pale but not black, not the worst. Then he sat back on his heels and looked at them in fire light. The similarity between them, was even more striking than it had been in the gray storm light. Not just the faces, the way they had moved toward each other, even in unconsciousness. The one with the slightly stronger pulse had shifted, turning slightly toward her sister.
Some navigational system below waking had pointed her in the right direction. He looked at their clothing now that there was light enough to see it properly. One buckskin, soft leather, earthcoled, a deep ochre brown that caught the fire light and held it warm. The kind of hide that took months to tan correctly. Fringe along the sleeves, each strip cut even.
Ice crusted now, but beneath it the color was still true. Late summer ground across the chest and along the hem, bead work. Turquoise, real turquoise, not glass imitation, set in patterns that carried meaning he didn't have the language to read. The beads caught the fire light differently than the leather. Small points of blue green in the amber warmth around her neck, silver, not a chain.
A collar of worked silver with more turquoise inset. The craftsmanship more deliberate than anything in a Cheyenne shop. Old work or work made by someone who had learned from someone old. Both women's hair was braided. Two braids each, long and dark.
The braids were still intact despite everything. Whatever the storm had done to the rest of them, the braids held. He did not touch anything he did not need to touch. He watched them breathe in, out, in, out. Getting steadier, he added another log and waited.