It surprised both of them.
“Back to town.”
“Mrs.
Calloway—”
“I have three dollars.”
Ashford stopped.
“Three dollars,” she repeated.
“I sold my wedding ring to reach Wyoming.
I spent half the money I had left getting to Bearclaw Ridge.
Then I spent nearly everything else on food and boots large enough for a twelve-year-old boy.”
She lifted one foot.
Snowmelt dripped from the oversized leather.
“So before you tell me where I should go tomorrow, I would appreciate a fire.”
Something changed in Ashford’s expression.
Not pity.
Recognition.
“Fair enough.”
He knelt beside the stove.
Iris set down her provisions and began taking inventory of the room because counting things was easier than thinking about what happened next.
A cold stove.
A half sack of coal.
Two lamps.
A stack of split wood by the rear door.
Six tables.
Nearly twenty chairs.
A kitchen large enough to feed twice that number.
Ashford noticed where she was looking.
“Most of the bedding is still upstairs,” he said.
“Creditors took the horses and anything they could sell quickly.
Furniture wasn’t worth hauling down the mountain.”
“Food?”
“Almost none.”
Iris opened a cupboard.
He was right.
Salt.
A little lard.
Two onions beginning to soften.
Half a sack of potatoes.
She looked at the provisions she had carried four miles.
“Then tonight we eat my beans.”
Ashford glanced at her.
“Those are yours.”
“Yes.
Which means I decide who eats them.”
For the first time, he almost smiled.
The fire caught slowly.
While Ashford fed it, Iris peeled potatoes, cut salt pork, and put beans into water.
Her hands ached as circulation returned to her fingers.
Her feet throbbed inside the borrowed boots.
Neither of them spoke for several minutes.
The silence did not feel like the silences she had known in Edmund’s house.
Those had been punishments.
This one was work.
Finally Ashford said, “Your husband know you’re here?”
Iris kept slicing an onion.
“My husband knows I am no longer where he put me.”
