Chapter Nine
The next day, Lula went out alone with her rifle and knife, wanting the silence of the woods and the sort of work that demanded her whole attention.
The air had turned sharp enough to sting the inside of her nose when she breathed, but she welcomed it.
Hunting had always steadied her. It only required patience, skill, and a clear head.
She found the tracks not long after leaving the main path and followed them at an angle through a stand of thin trees, moving carefully so the brush would not slap against her skirts.
When she finally saw the moose, it was standing in a clearing beyond the trees.
Lula went still. She lifted the rifle slowly, took aim just behind the shoulder, and let herself breathe once before she fired.
The report echoed hard through the trees.
The moose staggered, lurched forward two steps, and went down heavily.
Lula waited where she was for a count of several breaths, watching for any sign the animal might rise again, but it did not.
Only then did she lower the rifle and walk toward it, her boots sinking into damp ground as the smell of powder faded and the ordinary smells of earth and cold leaves returned.
She rested one gloved hand briefly against the rough hide.
“Thank you,” she murmured. Then she set down the rifle, pulled out her knife, and tied her sleeves back a little farther.
“Well,” she said to the dead animal, and then to herself, “you are a blessing, but you are also a dreadful amount of work.”
The first cuts were the hardest, not because she lacked skill, but because a moose was simply so much larger than the deer and rabbits she handled most often.
She worked steadily, talking under her breath as if the sound of her own voice made the labor feel less lonely.
“All right now. Nicely done, Lula. No wasting.”
She shifted her position, wiped the back of one wrist across her brow, and went on working.
“I ought not complain,” she told the still form before her.
“You are worth several weeks of rabbits, perhaps more.” She gave a short breath that almost became a laugh.
“I finally had my difficult conversation with Sebastian. And I am still here. He is still there. The roof did not fall in. So perhaps I can stop behaving as if honesty is a loaded rifle likely to go off in my hands.”
A twig snapped somewhere behind her. Lula looked up quickly and watched as Ella stepped out from between the trees with rope looped over one shoulder and an oilcloth sack under one arm.
Ella took in the scene in one sweep—Lula, the moose, the rifle leaning against a stump—and then nodded once, as if this were more or less what she had expected to find.
“I heard the shot,” she said. “When I was close, I followed your voice. You seemed to be having an interesting conversation with that moose.”
“I guess I was,” Lula said dryly, and to her own surprise, the answer came easily. “If you had taken much longer, I might have started arguing with the poor creature.”
Ella set down what she had brought and knelt opposite her without another word, taking hold where she was needed and making the work infinitely easier.
For several minutes, they worked in companionable quiet, passing the knife, steadying the heavier portions, and laying the meat out as neatly as the rough ground allowed.
At last, Lula said, as if picking up a thought she had set aside only moments before, “I talked to Sebastian.” When Ella looked up, Lula added more plainly, “I told him. The whole truth. About Bill. About my parents. About why they hated him, and why I have been so afraid ever since.”
Ella did not stop working, but her eyes lifted to Lula’s face and stayed there for a moment. “And?” she asked softly.
Lula sat back on her heels for a moment, the knife hanging loosely in one hand.
“And he did not send me away,” she said.
“He did not even look at me as if I were changed into something less in his eyes. He was hurt that I had carried the burden of truth alone so long, but not by the truth itself. This morning felt...” She searched for the word, then smiled a little.
“Lighter, I suppose. As if I had been bracing against a blow that never came.”
Ella smiled and reached for the next cut.
“Good,” she said. Lula laughed softly, picked up the knife again, and bent back to the work.
Between them, the moose was steadily turned into the sort of order they both understood, and for the first time in days, Lula felt that the future might be all she’d imagined it could be.
*****
A few hours later, Lula and Ella returned to Lula’s cabin from selling a portion of the moose meat in town.
Sebastian was already home when they arrived, and Ella waved at Lula and headed back to her own cabin. Sebastian was splitting kindling beside the cabin, his shirtsleeves rolled to the forearm despite the weather, and he looked up at once when he heard their steps in the yard.
“Well?” he said, setting the axe aside and straightening.
Lula could not help the smile that answered him. “I got a moose this morning. Our cold house is now completely full, and Katie bought all our excess meat.”
Something warm and almost boyish lit his face. “Did she?” He crossed the yard toward them. “I think I should retire from my job soon. You make enough for both of us, right?”
“I’m not sure I’m making enough for that...” Lula said. “But Katie did make two notes on my ledger. Once for what she wanted for the store, and once for what she wanted for herself and Bernard. I think she would have taken more if we had brought it.”
Sebastian let out a low whistle as he glanced toward the cold house. “That much?”
“That much,” Lula said, following him inside. “And she was pleased with the wrapping. She said it was beautiful work. Of course, Ella is the reason it’s done so well. I told Ella on the way into town that she ought to have half the money for the meat she helped bring in.”
Sebastian’s brows rose just a little, not in disagreement, only interest. “And what did she say to that?”
“She stopped right in the path and told me that twenty-five percent was all she deserved.”
Sebastian’s mouth twitched. “That sounds like Ella.”
“It was very stubborn of her,” Lula informed him.
“Well,” he said at last, “you did the shooting.”
“I know that.”
“And the first dressing?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “But if Ella helped with the carrying, sorting, wrapping, and deciding what would sell best, then she did more than lend a hand at the edges of things.”
Lula folded her arms. “Exactly.”
“Katie agreed with her that twenty-five percent was her share. I couldn’t argue anymore.”
Sebastian glanced at Lula, and a smile tugged at his mouth. “Then I’d say you’ve both done exactly what I’d expect of you.”
Lula frowned. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” he said, “that you are trying to give away more than you must, and Ella is trying to take less than she’s owed, and between the two of you, perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
But if the matter is already settled at twenty-five percent, then I advise you not to reopen it unless you enjoy freezing in the path while arguing with one another. ”
Lula laughed. “You make me sound impossible.”
“No,” he said, and now his smile was clear. “Just determined.”
Lula moved to the stove and lifted the lid to see if the water inside was near boiling.
The cabin felt different this evening—warmer, though the fire was no larger than usual, and fuller somehow, as if the success of the day had come in with them and settled itself on the walls.
She had gone out hunting many times in her life, had sold meat before, had carried game home on aching arms, and counted out hard-won coins.
But this felt different from those other days.
Back then, every rabbit or deer had meant survival.
A little more time. A little less fear. Today had been work, but it had also felt like the beginning of something.
“She put the amount to my account,” Lula said over her shoulder. “Most of it, anyway. And she made a separate note for Ella’s portion. She said she liked an arrangement that could be written down.”
“That sounds like Katie,” Sebastian said.
“It does,” Lula admitted. “And she bought enough that I think we may actually do well at this.”
“Lula,” he said, and there was something quieter in his voice now. “You already are doing well at it.”
She was surprised for a moment at how much his approval meant to her. She’d rarely received it. But Sebastian gave it freely.
“I mean it,” he added, as if he had seen at least some of that cross her face.
“You’ve built this with your own hands. The hunting, the cold house, the arrangement with Katie.
You saw what could be done and then went out and did it.
I don’t know why that should surprise me anymore, but somehow you still manage it. ”
Lula lowered her eyes briefly, pretending to fuss with the kettle, though it needed no fussing. “Well,” she said, because the warmth in her chest made her voice feel unsteady, “I did not do all of it alone.”
“No,” he said. “And that’s a good thing too.”
Lula told the story of Katie’s inspection in fuller detail—how she had untied each parcel, how she had approved the cuts, how briskly her pencil had moved over the ledger page. Sebastian listened with an attentiveness that made the tale feel worth telling.
“We should bring Katie more next week,” she said, half to herself and half to him “Not everything at once. Enough to keep the account growing, but enough left back for winter.”
Sebastian lifted his own cup. “Then I suppose I’m married to a woman with a proper enterprise.”
Lula glanced at him over the rim of her tea. “You say that as if you’re pleased.”
“I am pleased.”
“With the enterprise?” she asked.
He held her gaze. “With all of it.”
Lula smiled and looked down. But the smile stayed with her all through the rest of the evening.