From the time I’d moved here, Samuel and I had come to the creek to talk through troubles or share gardening advice or just be quiet while we fished. He was the better gardener and fisherman and knew this land like the back of his hand. I’d learned much from him.
The first time we’d met, he’d looked me up and down and shaken his head ruefully. “You won’t last a winter.”
“Watch me,” I’d said. By spring, I’d earned his respect and his friendship.
Fighting the weight of my grief, I nudged Twist to continue into the trees. The dense forest made this section of the property dark even in the afternoon sun. In the summer, the shade from the trees served as a respite from the heat. This time of year, under the branches laden with heavy snow, the temperature seemed to drop. Despite my gloves, the tips of my fingers were numb. Twist shook his mane and neighed when we came out of the trees. He knew where we were and that an apple was probably waiting for him in the barn. Samuel had loved his horses and mine.
The house that Samuel’s father had built from logs and river rock sat on a flat section of land. A covered porch ran the length of the front of the house. Puffs of smoke rose from the chimney.
I put Twist in the barn with the Coles’ horses, Lucy and Bell. They whinnied to Twist as if he were a long-lost friend. Samuel kept a bucket of bruised and fallen apples from his orchard in the shelf near the stalls. Had anyone thought to give one to the horses since yesterday? God, I thought, who is going to take care of these animals and the rest?
His place had been a source of pride with Samuel. No one worked his land but him. Things had changed in the second that bullet entered his chest. His desire for complete independence could not be continued without him. We would have to hire a man. Maybe two. Samuel had done the work of at least that many.
I gave Twist and Bell apples and nuzzled their noses. When I offered one to Lucy, she ducked her head and made a mournful noise. Did she know Samuel was gone? Or was she asking where he was?
I took off my hat and leaned against her strong neck as a wave of grief nearly knocked me to my knees. We stood like that, the magnificent horse and me, as tears from my eyes bled into her mane. She whinnied again and in that high-pitched cry, I heard a message as if she’d spoken words to me. He needs you to take care of his family.
“I’ll do my best, old girl.” I gave her one last stroke and let go. “Thanks for the talk.” I put on my hat and walked outside.
The world
seemed too still. I had the eerie sensation of isolation, as if I were the last man left in the world. I walked past the woodshed where Samuel’s blood stained the snow. Averting my eyes, the images from the night before played through my mind. Samuel with a hole where his chest used to be. Rachel keening over his body. Harley arriving with a coffin he’d made in an hour attached to our sleigh. Jasper leaning against the shovel, panting from the exertion of digging a grave in cold dirt.
Rachel had refused to leave Samuel. While we dug through the snow and then the frozen ground, she’d sat beside him in that cold, dark night. It took us hours to make a shallow grave. We’d lifted Samuel from where he’d fallen and placed him inside wrapped in a quilt his mother had sewn from scraps of his baby clothes. “He’ll want it for the journey to his mama,” Rachel had said.
I fought against the awful ache in my gut. The living needed me. I had to get on with things. I knocked on the front door and waited. Susan opened it a minute later. Small and quick, Susan had kept the Coles’ house since it was built. At sixty, she’d lost a few inches of height, and gray had replaced the brown in her hair. Still, she moved around like a young woman. Today, her eyes were red and puffy.
“Good afternoon, Lord Barnes. Come in.” Susan twisted her hands around and around. “She’s in his study. She won’t eat or sleep.”
“Did she tell the children?”
Susan nodded and dabbed at her eyes with a hankie. “Terrible thing. They all just sat there lined up on the bench and didn’t make a peep. I’m not sure they understand.”
A memory came to me of Josephine at the bottom of the stairs when I’d brought Ida’s body in from the snow. She hadn’t moved a muscle, her expression stoic. “She’s dead then?” Josephine had asked.
I’d nodded and stood there, helpless with my wife’s body in my arms until Jasper came inside carrying Theo.
Theo. My little boy who had found his mother frozen to death ten feet from the house.
The living. Take care of the living.
“Can I see her?” I asked Susan.
“She’s expecting you.” Susan lowered her voice.
I thanked her and went to the study. Wearing black, Rachel was as straight-backed and elegant as always. The woman with the blood-soaked dress was not visible today.
“Alexander, you didn’t have to come.”
“Nonsense.”
She patted a book on the desk. “He left notes about everything in here, along with his instructions for you and me.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“He left instructions for the children to go to school,” she said. “Can you believe what a fool he is?”
I sank into the chair opposite the desk. “He told me as much. You don’t agree?”