Try to leave without me, she said. And you'll find out what else I can do with a wrench. Something shifted in his expression. Not quite a smile, but the precursor to what. He turned back to the harness.
Get up front, he said. I'll finish here. The road to Blackwater Pass started gentle enough, climbing through Pine Forest on a great the horses took without complaint. Martha sat on the wagon bench beside Silas with her tool chest wedged behind her seat and her hands folded in her lap, watching the road ahead and listening to the wagon the way she'd taught herself to listen years ago. Not for catastrophic sounds, but for the small ones, the subtle ones.
The sounds a healthy wagon didn't make. The wagon sounded healthy. She let herself breathe. You've done this run before, she said. Not a question.
The way he handled the team on the narrow sections. Told her everything about a man who knew this road in his sleep. Every season for 12 years, Silas said, "Spring before the mud gets bad. Fall before the snow closes it. Winter runs if it stays open long enough." He kept his eyes on the road.
There are four families beyond the pass. Homesteaders. They don't have the horses or the wagon to come down themselves in weather, so I come to them. Martha thought about that. Does anyone pay you for it?
Sometimes, he said. Mostly they pay me in what they've got. Cured meat, dried herbs work in trade. He paused. The Hendersons have a boy who spent two summers helping me repair fence line.
The Kowalski family sent their oldest girl to help Eleanor with canning three years running. So, it's not a business. Martha said it's an obligation. He said, "I've got a wagon and a road and the ability to make the run." "They don't. That seems clear enough to me." Martha was quiet for a moment, looking at the road.
Henry was like that, she said. She didn't plan to say it. It came out the way things did when you weren't expecting them to. He never passed a stranded wagon without stopping. Didn't matter what weather, didn't matter how late we were running.