sat straight in the saddle and watched as Ethan Trent dragged his burden up the hill. His steps were slow and measured, his back rounded and his gloved hands knotted in the frayed weave of the burlap. When he reached the grave, he aligned the body with the long edge of the rectangular hole, paused for breath and bowed his head.
He was probably avoiding the snow, but she wanted to think he was showing respect for the act he was about to commit, if not for the man he was laying to rest.
She was grateful for that small comfort, but then he knotted his fists at his heaving sides, stared straight into the heavens and shouted a curse she would never repeat. With his oath ringing in the air, he dropped to his knees and rolled the corpse into the grave.
Jayne stared in horror. The veil of snow erased all color from her world except for the red flush burning across the rancher’s cheeks. Through the mist, she watched as he crossed one arm over his chest, rested his elbow on his forearm and pinched the bridge of his nose. His wide shoulders started to shake, and a low groan cut through the air as he raised both hands to his face and pressed them against his eyes, as if to hold in tears.
Stunned by a grief that matched her own, Jayne climbed off the mare and walked in his direction. As the horse clopped to the barn, the rancher’s gaze drifted to her face. Rising slowly to his feet, he blinked as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. Golden hope flickered in his irises like a candle in an empty window, but it died as suddenly as it had appeared. In place of that hope, she saw a loathing as deep and lasting as the grave at his feet. Sneering, he picked up the shovel and hurled more dirt into the hole.
Fresh tears scalded her cheeks. “I’ve come to help you bury my husband.”
“Help me? God Almighty,” he said, heaving more dirt into the grave. “Where the hell is Handley?”
“On his way to Midas. We parted ways at the ravine.”
From beneath the brim of his hat, he assessed her with a cold stare. “You’re stubborn, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m strong-minded.”
“What the hell’s the difference?”
“A stubborn person just wants her own way. Someone who’s strong-minded has principles and lives by them.”
He looked down at the dirt thumping into the hole, lifted another load and sent it flying. His gaze shifted back to hers. “So what damn principle gives you the right to invade my privacy?”
If he wanted an apology, he wasn’t going to get it. “Common decency is what gives me the right, Mr. Trent. How would you feel in my shoes? What if this were your wife?”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Jayne realized that she had made a terrible mistake. The shovel stopped in midswing, hanging over the grave as the rancher stared blindly into the hole. She’d once seen ice break apart on the Ohio River. The fractured planes of his face were no less treacherous.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know you. I shouldn’t have presumed—”
“Damn right.” He slowly turned the blade of the shovel so that dirt and snow fell together in a tarnished mist.
Trying to be respectful, she said, “I should have realized—”
“You should’ve gone with Handley.”
“But—”
“Dammit, lady. Mind your own business.”
“I’m trying to apologize.”
“Don’t.”
Taking a step back, she bowed her head and kept quiet. She owed him that much for burying Hank, but every instinct told her that silence was the last thing this man needed. He was a kettle boiling in an empty kitchen, one that had long since gone dry and was ready to explode. She’d be wise to keep her distance.
Closing her eyes, she prayed for strength as the rancher worked. The rhythm of the shovel became a dirge, a wordless goodbye that lasted for a small eternity. The snow was blowing sideways by the time he finished.
Tamping the mound with the shovel blade, he said, “I’m done. You can sleep in the barn or freeze on the trail. I don’t give a damn either way.”
Jayne believed him, but it didn’t matter. She’d come back to say goodbye to Hank and that’s what she intended to do. She had a warm cloak and would make a bed in the barn out of straw. She didn’t need the rancher’s help. She felt nothing but relief as he stormed off, put away the tools and marched across the yard to the tiny cabin.
The door slapped shut. In the sudden silence and absence of all things human, she surrendered to the tears she’d been fighting for a week. She sang her favorite hymns. She recited the Shepherd’s psalm and walked through the valley of the shadow of death, over and over, until the words were a jumble.
Exhausted, she dropped to her knees and squeezed a fistful of dirt. Someday she and Hank would be together again, but not for a very long time. On one hand, life was uncertain and eternity was a breath away. On the other hand, that gap spanned thousands of days.
Rising to her feet, Jayne turned her back on the grave and looked across the meadow to the rancher’s cabin. An L-shaped sliver of light marked a small window covered with a sheet of boards. Next to it a vertical line gave shape to the door. She smelled wood burning in the hearth and saw a plume of white smoke rising from the chimney.
As the adrenaline drained from her body, so did her natural warmth. Shivering, she imagined sipping hot coffee and the heat of a fire thawing her toes. She also imagined the rancher’s gaunt frame and his filthy clothes. He smelled like the bottom of a barn. The horses were better company, and that was a fact.
Holding her skirt above the snow, she trudged back to the splintery shell of the outbuilding. The cold and the dark didn’t scare her in the least. She would make it through the night an hour and a prayer at a time.
Ethan let go of the sheet of boards covering the window. The flat wood dropped back into place and pinched his finger.
“Dammit,” he muttered, shaking his hand to get the blood moving again. He had been standing at the sill for close to an hour, and the crazy woman was still singing hymns. He hated that sound. It brought back memories of Laura humming lullabies to their children and singing in church.
The widow had to be frozen half to death, but nothing on God’s green earth could bring her husband back. Ethan knew that for a fact.
Damn him for a fool, but the window drew him like a magnet attracting iron ore. After downing the dregs in the coffeepot, he slid the plywood open again. The widow had dropped to her knees and bowed her head.
He could still taste the acid coffee in the back of his throat and his stomach was burning. He needed to eat something, but the thought of this morning’s charred biscuits didn’t appeal to him. Neither did another can of beans or canned meat or canned anything. Laura had been a good cook, even better than his mother, and Ethan steeled himself against the memory of real food even as the widow’s singing tugged at him.
Be Thou my vision, oh, Lord of my heart.
Naught be of else to me, save that Thou art.
God
