Hers.
She rarely locked it.
That was not point.
The first winter after marriage, Clara woke one morning to find Silas stocking a large wooden chest near the door.
Fifty pounds flour.
Ten pounds salt meat.
Coffee.
Three wool blankets.
Clara stared.
“What are you doing?”
Silas looked guilty.
“I thought…”
She walked closer.
The exact goods.
Exact quantity.
Her throat tightened.
Silas said:
“There’s old trapper shelter near lower pass.”
“I repaired roof.”
Clara waited.
“I thought we could keep supplies there.”
“For travelers?”
“Yes.”
“Free?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
“Why?”
Silas looked toward chest.
“Because someone freezing shouldn’t have to trade anything.”
Clara’s eyes burned.
She touched one blanket.
“No one should have to trade themselves for flour.”
“No.”
She smiled.
“Then we need better coffee.”
Silas almost laughed.
“We can afford.”
They carried supplies together.
The shelter sat two miles below the cabin along the worst stretch of pass.
They repaired chimney.
Added hooks.
A water barrel.
A box of matches in tin.
Clara wrote a sign.
Silas read.
TAKE WHAT YOU NEED. LEAVE NOTHING BUT THE DOOR SHUT.
He looked at her.
“No payment?”
“None.”
“What if people steal?”
“Then they needed more.”
“That is optimistic.”
“Yes.”
“You’re married to suspicious man.”
“I noticed.”
Each autumn they restocked.
Sometimes supplies disappeared.
Sometimes travelers left coins despite sign.
Clara used coins to buy more.
Once someone left carved wooden spoon.
Another winter, a woman and two children survived storm there for three nights.
She came to cabin afterward crying.
“What do I owe?”
Clara answered:
“Nothing.”
The woman kept asking.
Clara finally said:
“Feed someone else someday.”
That became the only debt.
Years moved.
Clara and Silas had a daughter.
Eliza.
Silas chose name before Clara asked.
Clara cried.
Two years later came a son, Jonah.
The cabin expanded again.
Silas complained he had once lived happily in one room.
Clara said:
“Then stop producing children.”
Silas nearly dropped hammer.
Clara laughed for ten minutes.
He told no one.
Eliza inherited Clara’s eyes and Silas’s silence.
Jonah inherited Clara’s opinions and Silas’s size.
Neither child believed father frightening.
At six, Eliza once heard a visitor call him mountain devil.
She punched boy.
Clara made her apologize.
Silas secretly carved her a fox.
Clara found out.
“You are rewarding violence.”
“I rewarded loyalty.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Yes.”
Marriage remained imperfect.
Silas sometimes made decisions alone when danger frightened him.
Once he sold two traps and bought a second horse without asking.
Clara was not angry until she learned he used part of her sewing income.
They fought.
Loudly.
“You took my money.”
“I planned replace.”
“That is not point.”
“We needed horse.”
“Then ask.”