Thank you, Anna said again. And this time, she wasn't talking about the quinine. Martha looked at her. She's going to be all right, Martha said. I believe she is.
Anna's hand on her arm for just a moment and then let go. Martha went out into the cold. The road back down was different from the road up the way the back half of any hard day was different from the front half. They were tired. The horses were tired.
The light was going fast in the way it did this time of year, dropping from usable to gone in what felt like 20 minutes. Silas handled the team in the dark sections by memory and confidence. And Martha sat beside him and watched the darkness between the trees and thought about the child's face and about fever and about how far four miles was in the mountains at night. She'll pull through, Silas said as if he'd heard her. Probably.
Martha said, "You're not certain. I'm never certain about fever and children." Anyone who tells you they're certain is telling you what you want to hear. She paused. But probably yes, he was quiet for a moment. Then you were good in there.
I did what needed doing. I'm not saying you did something extraordinary, he said. I'm saying you did it well. There's a difference. Martha looked at him.
In the dark, she could only see the outline of him, the large shape of him against the lighter dark of the sky. "Thank you," she said. They rode. About a mile from the pass, the team began to labor, not from the grade they were going down now, but in the particular hesitant way of horses that had sensed something. Silas steadied the res.
Martha's hand went automatically to the bench rail. "What are they smelling?" She said. "Probably a cat," Silas said. We get them on this section sometimes. But he slowed the team anyway because he was a careful man with animals the same way he was apparently a careful man with most things that mattered.
And then they heard it. Not a mountain cat. A crack from the road ahead would something would. And then the sound of something large and heavy settling onto the road in a way that blocked it. Silas pulled the team up hard.