“Your wagon leaves in twenty minutes.”
“My wagon?”
“Bennett sent one.”
“I thought he was coming.”
“He doesn’t come into town unless necessary.”
“Convenient.”
Vernon leaned close.
“You will go.”
Evelyn did not step back.
“What happens if I refuse?”
For the first time all morning, Vernon smiled honestly.
Not kindly.
Honestly.
“You can find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”
There it was.
The real agreement.
Marriage or homelessness.
Evelyn looked at the man who had been her father’s younger brother.
Once, long ago, Vernon had carried her on his shoulders at a county fair.
She remembered stealing his hat.
Remembered him laughing.
She wondered when that man disappeared.
Or whether childhood had simply made her unable to see him clearly.
Evelyn picked up the leather envelope.
“I’ll pack.”
Vernon nodded.
As she passed him, he said:
“You could do worse.”
Evelyn stopped.
Without turning, she answered:
“I already have.”
Four hours later, Alder Creek disappeared behind the wagon.
The driver spoke little.
His name was Amos.
Older man.
Gray beard.
He wore a bearskin coat and drove as though mountain roads had personally offended him.
Snow began halfway through the journey.
Not heavy.
Enough to soften the pines.
Evelyn sat with her satchel against her feet and her father’s documents hidden inside her coat.
She kept thinking about Miles Bennett.
She knew the stories.
Everyone did.
Two years earlier, a logging sled had overturned above Black Elk Ridge.
Three men died.
Miles survived.
Barely.
A broken spine, people said.
Crushed pelvis, said others.
Some insisted both legs were useless.
Since then he lived alone in an isolated cabin on the eastern slope, appearing in Alder Creek perhaps twice a year.
When he did, he sat in a heavy wheeled chair built by the blacksmith.
Children stared.
Adults pretended not to.
He had inherited enough timber land to live without wages.
That was all Evelyn knew.
That, and he had paid thirty dollars for her.
As twilight deepened, the wagon climbed.
The road narrowed.
Evelyn began wondering whether she had made the greatest mistake of her life.
Then remembered she had not exactly made it.
Choice required alternatives.
At last Amos pointed ahead.
“There.”
A cabin appeared between tall dark pines.
Larger than Evelyn expected.
Two stories.
Stone chimney.
Stable.
Wood shed.
Warm yellow light behind curtains.
Remote, but not poor.
A man waited on the porch.
Seated.
The wheelchair looked heavier than the one Evelyn had seen Miles use in town.
Thick oak wheels.
Iron rims.
Dark bearskin blanket over his legs.
He wore a charcoal shirt beneath a fur-lined vest.
His shoulders were broad enough to make the chair look strangely small beneath him.
Dark hair.
Thick beard.
Hard pale-gray eyes.
Miles Bennett.
Amos stopped the wagon.
Miles wheeled forward.
Evelyn climbed down before either man offered help.
Her boots sank into fresh snow.
Miles’s gaze moved first to her satchel.
Then the leather envelope visible beneath her arm.
Only then to her face.
No smile.
“You’re Evelyn Carter?”
“Yes.”
His voice was deeper than she expected.
“Come inside.”
That was all.
No welcome.
No apology for purchasing her from a relative like livestock.
No explanation.
Evelyn’s fear sharpened into anger.
Good.
Anger was easier to carry.
Amos unloaded her trunk.
Miles paid him.
Then the wagon disappeared.
Evelyn stood on the porch beside a stranger.