The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,215

up on the bed, and was trying to wipe away the worst of the dust from the floor. When Eulis found a hand-made broom in the corner behind the fireplace, Letty clapped her hands and laughed.

Eulis grinned.

“Dang, Letty, it don’t take much to make you happy.”

Surprised by the pure truth of Eulis’s words, she paused to look down at her hands. They were red and numb from the cold as they curled around the broom handle, but she hadn’t given them much thought. She looked up at Eulis. Snow had frozen in his hair and on his partially bearded face, and there were red patches on his skin, which she knew probably mirrored her own. They’d come close to frostbite more than once, and yet the simplicity of finding a much-needed broom had brought her joy.

“You know something, Eulis, you’re right.”

His grin widened.

“Course I’m right.”

This time when she laughed, she swung at him with the broom.

He ducked and sidestepped, then pointed at her playfully.

“Woman, you watch out now. You don’t want to put me out of commission when we ain’t got a damn thing to eat except some jerky and beans.”

“You’ve got a point,” Letty said, and resumed sweeping, cleaning the floor of everything from dirt, leaves and mouse turds, to the bones of some small animal, most likely rabbit.

Within a couple of hours, the cabin had taken on a homey feel. The warmth from the fire had taken the chill out of the air, and Eulis had fastened their tent over the cabin door, blocking out the cold air that kept blowing through the cracks.

“I’ll fix those cracks in the door tomorrow,” Letty said, as she dished up the re-heated beans they’d carried from the low camp.

“And I’ll go for an elk at first light.”

Having stated an immediate plan for the future, they settled down to their beans and jerky, taking comfort in the shelter from the cold and the dark.

And when it came time to rest, they lay side by side on the bed without thought for propriety or sex. For now, they were two people who, despite the odds against them, had not only survived, but thrived.

Long after Eulis had fallen asleep and begun to snore, Letty watched the silhouette of his face highlighted against the glowing embers from the fire, and prayed to God that he would not succumb to disease. She knew all too well how few survived, and living without Eulis seemed obscene.

Within the week, there were two elk carcasses hanging in the shed, and enough firewood to last through most of the winter. The crack in the door had been fixed with a mixture of mud, grass, and some clay Letty had found near the waterfall, which had hardened like brick. She had used the rest of it to patch the chinking between the logs and let the fire in the chimney die back so that she could run a long branch up the flue. Her digging quickly knocked down a half-dozen charred and smoking bird nests from the chimney. She rebuilt the fire, taking great satisfaction that smoke no longer backed up into the room.

Rosy and Blackie had plenty of grazing and water. All they had to do was dig down past the snow to the dry grass beneath. Each night, Eulis brought them in from the meadow and put them in a small lean-to on the south side of the cabin. It wasn’t much in the way of shelter, but their proximity to the cabin deterred the occasional bear or cougar from attacking, although every night Letty heard wolves howling out in the valley. Even more daunting was the trail of footprints circling the cabin that the pack left behind each night.

Each day, Eulis taught Letty one thing new. He’d showed her the best way to fell trees, using the mules to drag them to the cabin, and then showed her how to split them for firewood. Yesterday it had been setting snares for rabbits. Today he’d showed her how to clean green skins for tanning. There was water to be had, and food to be cooked. She knew enough to take care of herself until spring, and she knew the way out of the valley. For Eulis, who figured he was living each day on borrowed time, it was all he thought about. He’d gotten her into this mess by dragging her to the gold fields, and if it was the last thing he did, he was going to make