The stranger's words stopped Clara Whitmore beside the fire. You can sleep when I'm done with you. His voice rolled through the cabin while snow hammered the roof. He stood near the only door, a hunting knife hanging from his belt. Then he reached for her frozen hands.
Clara snatched them against her chest. "Touch me and I'll put that knife through you. " The mountain man looked at the blade, then at the iron poker trembling in her grip. "Your fingers are turning white," he said. "I'm checking them before the cold takes them. " One hour earlier, Clara had been alone inside an abandoned lodge. Now a blizzard trapped her with a man Bear Creek called dangerous.
Three days earlier, Clara had stepped from a stagecoach carrying one carpet bag and a letter promising winter work. Theodore Ashford claimed to own a hunting lodge above Bear Creek, Wyoming. He needed a cook and promised good wages until spring. For Clara, the room mattered more than the money. Her husband, Warren Whitmore, had thrown her from their Denver home after she discovered his gambling books.
He kept her dresses, her jewelry, and every dollar her father had left her. A wife who questions her husband has no place under his roof, he had said. Clara sold her wedding ring for stage fare and traveled north without looking back. But the storekeeper in Bear Creek read Ashford's letter twice, then pushed it across the counter. Ashford fled to California in September, he said.
That lodge has been empty since the first frost. Clara's thumb pressed hard into the paper. Is the roof sound? The storekeeper blinked. Lady, you didn't hear me.
I heard you. Is the roof sound? By sunset, she was climbing the mountain in oversized boots with flour, dried beans, matches, and $3 remaining in her pocket. Snow covered the trail. Wind pushed through her thin coat.
Each breath cut, but returning to town seemed worse. Perhaps you understand why she kept climbing. Sometimes the road ahead looks deadly only because the road behind has already taken everything. The lodge stood beneath tall pines, dark and still. Its door hung crooked.
Mouse droppings covered the floor. Cold ashes filled the fireplace. Clara set down her bag and rolled up her sleeves. Within an hour, flames climbed over dry logs. She swept one corner, boiled beans, and patched the broken window with a grain sack.
Outside, the storm erased her tracks. For the first time in 7 years, no man could order her to lower her voice. She slept beside the hearth with the poker near her hand. Heavy boots struck the porch before dawn. The damaged door burst inward.
Snow spun across the floor, followed by a huge man wrapped in elk hide. Ice silvered his dark beard. A scar split his left eyebrow, and a rifle rested across his back. Clara rose with the poker raised. "Get out. " His dark eyes moved from her face to the dying fire.