Chapter 2 #2
Jonas cut branches and showed Fergus how to brace them against the wagon to strengthen the shelter. He checked the oxen, rubbed their legs, and moved them closer to the trees.
Annie had begun crying again, which he took as a good sign. Nell held the girl near the stove once Fergus managed to fit the pipe through a gap in the canvas. Smoke curled inside at first, causing all three adults and Annie to cough.
Fergus stared at the pipe. “What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t leave enough draw.”
“I followed the illustration exactly,” Fergus waved a booklet he had brought with him.
“The illustration you have wasn’t made for a canvas roof.”
Jonas adjusted the angle and widened the opening around the pipe, packing damp earth where the heat touched the canvas.
“You’ve done this before,” Nell said.
“I’ve made mistakes before.”
Fergus gave him a sideways look.
Jonas ignored it.
By nightfall, the shelter held more warmth than wind. The smoke cleared. Nell fed Annie broth from a tin spoon while Fergus sat with his hands extended toward the stove.
Jonas stepped outside to gather another armful of wood.
The storm had quieted, though snow continued to fall. It muffled the world beyond the canvas. The trees stood dark against a sky with no stars.
Jonas looked south.
Willow Crossing lay less than an hour away in good weather. His own home was farther east, where Reuben and Tobias would be finishing the evening chores and wondering whether he had decided to stay with the Dalrymples.
Reuben would complain when Jonas asked him to return and help build a cabin, but he would come anyway.
Tobias would say little, gather his tools, and follow.
Convincing anyone from town would be harder.
People liked speaking about how the territory needed good families. They were less interested in helping those families survive once they arrived.
Jonas carried the wood inside.
After they ate, he took Fergus beyond the shelter with a lantern.
“You need to know what’s here if the food runs low.”
“We brought food.”
“Not enough.”
Fergus looked back toward the wagon. “We’ll hunt.”
“What?” Jonas tried to hide the amusement in his voice, but the sharp look Fergus shot him showed him he hadn’t been successful.
“Deer.”
“With what?”
Fergus’s silence answered him.
Jonas rubbed one hand over his jaw.
He showed Fergus the low shrubs that held small berries beneath the snow and warned him away from pale fruit growing nearby.
“Those will make you sick,” Jonas said. “These won’t feed you for long, but they may keep your child eating.”
Fergus crouched beside the shrub. “How can you tell the difference?”
“Look at the leaves. Smell them. Draw a picture of the safe ones in that book you carry everywhere. Don’t eat anything just because it looks close enough to something you remember.”
“What else?”
Jonas showed him where rabbits had crossed near the creek and how to recognize their tracks even after fresh snow softened the edges. He explained where snares could be set and where placing them would be a waste of wire.
Fergus was listening fully now, his questions and irritation finally gone in the face of everything ahead of them.
Even pride had its limits, and winter’s cold was able to find those limits quickly.
When they returned to the shelter, Nell had spread their meager supply of blankets across the fir boughs.
Jonas unrolled the fur tied behind his saddle and handed it to her.
“No,” she said, this time lifting her hands up. “I know that you’ll need that on the way back.”
“My coat is enough.” It wasn’t. Not if the temperature dropped.
Fergus looked from the fur to Jonas. “We can’t pay for it.”
“I didn’t ask for payment.”
“We’ve already paid you to guide us.”
Jonas shot him a look as he continued to hold the fur out to Nell. “The night isn’t over. Take it for the child.”
She took it.
Fergus’s face tightened, but he nodded. “I’ll return it the first chance we get.”
“Keep it until you have a roof.”
Jonas settled near the entrance while the family got ready for bed. He slept little. Every shift of the wind brought him awake. Once, the canvas pulled loose from a stake, and he went outside with Fergus to secure it.
Nell was up before dawn the next morning, and Jonas stood, stretching his back. They met eyes through the canvas flap, and he could read the panic in them. Something twisted in his stomach, and he found himself offering more than he had planned to.
“I can bring you some help. The ride out to my home and back is about two days’ time. I’ll bring my brothers. We can raise a stronger shelter before the next storm. You’ll need more food, nails, and another axe.” Jonas was already walking to his horse.
“We have one,” Fergus called after him.
“You need one that isn’t cracked at the handle.”
Nell tucked the fur more tightly around Annie. “Two days?”
“I’ll return before dark on the second day.”
Jonas unpacked most of his remaining venison to give to Nell and repeated the directions to Willow Crossing in case the shelter failed before he returned.
Fergus walked him to his mare.
“I know what you think of me,” he said.
Jonas checked the girth. “Do you?”
“You think I’m a fool.”
“I think you brought your family into winter without enough money, food, or knowledge.”
Fergus’s face hardened.
“I also think you got them across half a country,” Jonas said. “That counts for something. But it doesn’t make you ready for everything that comes next.”
Fergus stared toward the shelter.
“I couldn’t turn back. There was nothing to go back to.”
“Keep the fire small,” he said. “Don’t leave Nell alone to gather wood. Watch the creek ice. It’s thinner near the bend.”
Fergus nodded.
Jonas mounted and rode south.
He took the river trail because it would cut time from the journey. The snow had slowed, leaving the air hard and cold. His mare moved carefully between the trees.
By midday, his hands had gone numb inside his gloves.
He thought about stopping at Willow Crossing before heading home. The family needed flour, salt, lamp oil. The inn might have supplies Martha Bellamy could spare, though Jonas knew her only by reputation.
The young widow who kept refusing proposals.
The woman trying to hold together a building everyone expected her to lose.
Willow Crossing watched anyone who lived differently from what the town considered proper.
Jonas had learned that early, and he figured that she was learning that now.
He guided his mare down the slope toward the river. The trail looked solid beneath the fresh snow, but ice covered the stones near the bank.
The mare’s front hoof slipped.
Jonas pulled the reins, shifting his weight to keep her upright. She recovered, but the movement sent him sideways. His boot struck the ground.
The crust broke beneath it.
His leg shot forward. The rest of him followed.
He hit the slope hard and slid.
Jonas grabbed at a branch. It snapped in his hand.
The river rushed up beneath him.
He struck one rock with his shoulder and another with his thigh. Pain tore through his leg. Then the ice at the river’s edge gave way, plunging him into water so cold it emptied his lungs.
For one stunned moment, he could not move.
The current dragged at his coat.
Jonas forced his hands against the broken ice. It cracked beneath his weight. He reached farther, caught a stone, and pulled.
His injured leg refused to help.
He dragged himself forward on his elbows until his chest cleared the water. The mare stood several yards away, reins trailing, eyes wide.
“Easy,” he tried to say.
The word came out as a breath.
He hauled himself onto the bank.
Blood spread through the torn cloth along his thigh, dark and fast. Jonas pressed one hand over the wound. The cut felt deep.
Too deep.
He needed to get to the mare. He needed to reach Willow Crossing. He needed to return to the Dalrymples in two days with Reuben, Tobias, and enough supplies to keep Annie warm.
Jonas planted one boot beneath him.
He felt the earth tilt beneath him as he struggled to stay upright.
He tried again, but his leg folded, and his shoulder struck the snow.
The trees blurred above him. He could hear the river moving beneath the ice, steady and indifferent.
Jonas pressed harder against the wound.
His hand no longer felt the blood.
That frightened him more than the pain.
He drew one breath, then another.
On the third, the sky narrowed to a gray strip between the trees.
Then it disappeared.