He took it with one hand and lifted the trunk as if it contained blankets instead of nearly everything she owned.
She followed him outside.
The six wagons were surrounded by people.
Children stared at slabs of salted meat.
Women cried.
Men who had mocked Lucien for years shook his hand.
Horace Cobb stood on an overturned barrel directing portions.
“Widows first!” he shouted. “Families with young children next!”
He looked almost noble.
Sadie hated him for that.
Lucien placed her trunk in the back of his wagon.
His own supplies occupied little space.
A canvas roll.
Two rifles.
Traps.
Flour.
Salt.
A wooden crate.
Coils of rope.
Sadie climbed onto the seat.
Lucien stepped up beside her.
Cobb approached.
“You’ve got what you wanted.”
Lucien looked at him.
The mayor’s smile weakened.
Lucien said, “Do I?”
Cobb glanced at Sadie.
Something passed between the men.
Sadie caught it.
She did not understand it.
Cobb recovered.
“Agreement fulfilled.”
Lucien’s jaw tightened.
“You told me she agreed.”
Sadie’s head turned sharply.
Cobb’s eyes flickered.
“She stood at the altar.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
“What difference does it make now?”
Lucien looked at Sadie.
Then back at Cobb.
“A large one.”
Cobb stepped closer to the wagon.
“Don’t start acting righteous now, Holt. You’re taking the woman.”
Lucien’s expression became so still that Cobb stopped moving.
“I’m taking my wife home.”
The sentence should have frightened Sadie.
Instead, the way he said it sounded like a warning aimed at Cobb.
Lucien gathered the reins.
The wagon started.
Sadie looked back.
Oak Haven disappeared slowly behind them.
First the church.
Then the boardinghouse roof.
Then the blacksmith chimney.
Then only smoke against a colorless sky.
She kept her spine straight until the last house vanished.
Only then did she let herself breathe.
Lucien drove without speaking.
The road climbed north and west through frozen grassland toward the mountains.
Sadie waited for questions.
None came.
An hour passed.
Then two.
The cold sharpened.
Wind moved under her thin borrowed coat.
She folded her hands inside her sleeves.
Lucien noticed.
He reached behind the seat and pulled out a thick buffalo robe.
Sadie stiffened.
He laid it across her lap.
Nothing more.
She stared at the fur.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
Ten minutes later she asked, “How far?”
“Three days.”
“To your house?”
“Cabin.”
“What’s the difference?”
“House has rooms.”
Sadie looked at him.
Was that humor?
His face gave nothing.
“What does your cabin have?”
“One room.”
Her stomach tightened.
Lucien noticed that too.
His jaw worked once.
He said nothing.
Sadie hated that he noticed.
She looked away.
By late afternoon they camped beside a creek crusted with ice.
Lucien unharnessed the mules.
Sadie tried to help.
He handed her a small hatchet.
“Kindling.”
She almost laughed.
Not because funny.
Because she had expected him to treat her like cargo until they reached the mountain.
Instead he gave her work.
She collected pine branches while he raised a canvas windbreak.
When she returned, a fire was already burning.
Lucien cooked beans with strips of smoked meat.
They ate opposite each other.