At first I thought the blood belonged to Hayes.
That fear came so quickly it made my heart stumble.
A dark red line stained the snow near the trees, half-covered by new flakes. From the bed I could see only twenty feet beyond the window, and every shadow seemed capable of becoming a wounded man.
I pulled myself upright.
Pain tore through me.
The room tilted.
My baby stirred against my chest.
“Easy,” I whispered, though I was not certain whether I meant him or myself.
Hayes had been gone most of the day.
Before leaving, he had stacked wood beside the stove and placed water within reach. He had even moved the chamber pot near the bed, a kindness so practical that I had been too embarrassed to thank him.
Now none of that mattered.
Someone was bleeding outside.
I wrapped the baby inside Hayes’s spare wool shirt and forced my feet onto the floor.
My knees immediately weakened.
I grabbed the bedpost.
The blood loss had left me hollow.
Every step felt borrowed.
Still, I moved.
The rifle Hayes had left beside the door was too heavy for me, but I dragged it close.
Then I heard something.
A scraping noise.
From the porch.
I froze.
The baby whimpered.
“Shh.”
Another scrape.
Then three heavy knocks.
My throat closed.
“Cora.”
Hayes.
I nearly collapsed.
I threw the latch aside.
The door opened inward.
Hayes stumbled through.
There was blood on his coat.
“Hayes!”
“Not mine.”
He turned.
Only then did I see the rope over his shoulder.
It disappeared into the white darkness beyond the door.
“What—”
“Stay back.”
He braced himself and pulled.
Something slid across the porch.
A wooden drag sled.
And on it lay a man.
For one second I saw only boots.
Then a torn brown coat.
Then blond hair frozen with snow.
My knees gave out.
“Samuel.”
I did not remember crossing the room.
One moment I was beside the door.
The next I was on the floor beside my husband.
“Samuel!”
His face was gray beneath his beard.
His lips were blue.
Blood had frozen along one side of his trousers.
But his chest moved.
Barely.
“He’s alive,” Hayes said.
I touched Samuel’s cheek.
So cold.
Too cold.
“Samuel. Samuel, can you hear me?”
His eyelids fluttered.
Nothing else.
“What happened?”
Hayes kicked the door closed.
“Found his horse first.”
“Alive?”
“No.”
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
Hayes continued.
“Horse broke through crust near a ravine. Went down hard. Samuel was thrown.”
“How long?”
“Likely the first day.”
Three days.
Samuel had spent three days injured in the mountains.
My stomach turned.
“How did he survive?”
Hayes began removing Samuel’s frozen coat.
“He crawled beneath a rock shelf. Had matches. Burned pieces of his saddle.”
The image nearly broke me.
Samuel alone.
Injured.
Calling my name into the storm.
“I found this near him.”
Hayes handed me something.
Samuel’s glove.
Inside it was a folded scrap of paper.
The writing was barely legible.
Cora—
If anyone finds this, tell her I tried.
Tell my son his father was coming home.
I stopped reading.
The room disappeared behind tears.
“He thought he was dying.”
“He was.”
I looked sharply at Hayes.
“Was?”
Hayes met my gaze.
“He isn’t dead yet.”
That became our task.
Keeping him that way.
Hayes had found Samuel with a badly injured leg, two cracked ribs, and severe cold exposure. One boot had been torn open in the fall, and two toes looked waxy and pale.
Hayes said little while working.
He cut away wet clothing.
Wrapped Samuel in blankets.
Placed warm stones near his sides.
Not hot.
“Too much heat too quickly can kill him,” he explained.
I sat beside Samuel holding our child.
“Can he hear me?”
“Maybe.”
I leaned close.
“You came back.”
Samuel did not move.
“You promised me, and you came back.”
Technically Hayes had brought him.
But promises sometimes returned in unexpected forms.
For the next hours our tiny shack became a place between worlds.
A newborn on one side.
A half-frozen man on the other.
And Hayes moving between us.
When the baby cried, I fed him.
When Samuel moaned, Hayes checked his injuries.
When I became dizzy, Hayes ordered me back beneath the blankets.
By midnight Samuel’s shivering had become violent.
I celebrated it.
Hayes said shivering meant his body still had fight left.
Around two in the morning, Samuel opened his eyes.
“Cora?”
I thought I imagined it.
I bent closer.
“Samuel?”
His eyes found mine.
Confusion came first.
Then disbelief.
“You…”
“I’m here.”
His cracked lips moved.
“The baby?”
I brought our son closer.
Samuel stared.
Something inside his face collapsed.
“A boy?”
“A boy.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Thank God.”
He tried to raise his hand but could not.
I moved the baby close enough for Samuel’s fingers to touch his blanket.
“Our son,” I whispered.
Samuel cried silently.
Then he noticed Hayes.
Fear hardened his expression.
“Who…”
“He saved us.”
Samuel looked at me.
I told him everything.
Not all at once.
Bits and pieces.
The labor.
The silence after the birth.
Hayes breathing life into our son.
The bleeding.
The long night.
Then how Hayes had gone searching.
Samuel stared at the hunter.
“You found me.”
Hayes shrugged.
“Eventually.”
Samuel swallowed painfully.
“I heard shots.”
“Mine.”
“I thought…”
“I fired because I saw your signal smoke.”
Samuel’s eyes closed.
“I ran out of wood.”
“So I noticed.”
A weak laugh became a grimace.
Hayes immediately leaned forward.
“Don’t do that.”
“Laugh?”
“Break your ribs worse.”
Samuel opened his eyes again.
“You always this friendly?”
“No.”
That was the beginning of something between them.
Not friendship.
Not yet.
A recognition.
Two men who understood that neither of them had expected to survive the week.
At dawn, the sky finally cleared.
For the first time in nearly four days, sunlight struck the snow.
It was beautiful.
It was also blinding.
Hayes stood outside studying the slopes.
“We have maybe two days before the next weather moves in.”
Samuel was conscious now, though weak.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means this shack isn’t where we want to be when it hits.”
I stared around us.
The roof leaked.
The walls breathed cold.
Food was nearly gone.
“But Samuel can’t travel.”
“He can’t walk.”
“That sounds like the same thing.”
“It isn’t.”
Hayes pointed toward his drag sled.
“You brought him miles on that.”
“Four.”
“To take him back down?”
“Not yet.”
“Then where?”
“My cabin.”
Samuel’s eyes opened.
“You live close?”
“Seven miles east.”
I stared at him.
“You live seven miles away?”
“Closer than any settlement.”
“Why didn’t you take me there before?”
“You were having a baby.”
Fair.
Hayes continued.
“My cabin has food, medicine, a proper bed, better walls.”
“And seven miles of mountains between us.”
“Yes.”
Samuel spoke from the floor.
“She can’t make that.”
Neither man looked at me.
“I am sitting right here.”
Samuel turned his head.
“Cora—”
“I gave birth yesterday, not died.”
Hayes’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
Samuel almost smiled.
Then his expression grew serious.
“She lost blood.”
“I know.”
“She nearly died.”
“I know that better than you do.”
The room tightened.
Samuel looked at Hayes.
Something passed between them.
Not jealousy.
Gratitude mixed with helplessness.
Samuel hated that another man knew things about my survival that he did not.
I understood.
I hated that he had nearly died without me too.
Pain creates strange forms of pride.
“What are the alternatives?” I asked.
Hayes answered immediately.
“Stay and hope the next storm is mild.”
“It won’t be?”
“No.”
“Wait for rescuers?”
“No one knows we’re here except maybe whoever Samuel tried to reach.”
Samuel swallowed.
“I never reached the settlement.”
Hayes nodded.
“So no one knows.”
“Then we go.”
Samuel objected.
I ignored him.
Hayes did not.
“We wait until tomorrow morning. Cora rests today. You get warm. I build a second sled.”
“For her?” Samuel asked.
“For supplies.”
I smiled.
Hayes knew me already.
By afternoon, Samuel’s color had improved.
The baby slept against my chest.
For the first time, we discussed his name.
Samuel had wanted to name a son after his father.
James.
I liked the name.
But when Samuel suggested it, I looked across the room at Hayes.
He was repairing a harness.
“Middle name,” I said.
“What?”
“James can be his middle name.”
Samuel looked puzzled.
“What do you want for his first?”
I studied our child.
The tiny mouth.
The dark hair.
The impossible strength inside such a small body.
“Hayden.”
The hunter’s hands stopped.
Samuel followed my gaze.
I worried he would object.
Instead, my husband looked at the man who had delivered our son, breathed life into him, stopped my bleeding, crossed a mountain, and dragged Samuel from a ravine.
“Hayden James Mercer,” Samuel said quietly.
Hayes stared down at the leather strap in his hands.
“No.”
I smiled.
“No?”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“Why?”
“Boy will blame me.”
“For what?”
“Every time somebody calls him Hayden.”
Samuel laughed.
Then winced.
“Don’t make me laugh,” he said.
“You started it.”
Hayes returned to the harness.
But his ears had gone red.
That evening I stepped outside for the first time.
Only onto the porch.
Samuel slept.
Hayden rested inside a basket near the hearth.
Hayes stood beside me.
The mountains looked endless beneath moonlight.
“I read Samuel’s note,” I said.
Hayes nodded.
“He thought he would die.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“When I found him?”
“Yes.”
Hayes looked toward the ridge.
“I thought there was a fair chance.”
“And me?”
He glanced at me.
“Same.”
“And the baby?”
“Worse.”
I should have found that terrifying.
Instead I found comfort in finally hearing the truth.
“You saved three people.”
“Storm isn’t finished yet.”
“You don’t let yourself have anything, do you?”
His face changed.
“What does that mean?”
“You could simply say you’re glad.”
“Glad about what?”
“That none of us died.”
He stared toward the trees.
“I’m glad.”
It was almost too quiet to hear.
Then I noticed something carved into the leather sheath at his hip.
Two initials.
E.H.
“Your name isn’t just Hayes.”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“Elias Hayes.”
“Elias.”
He winced.
“You dislike your own name?”
“My mother was the only person who used it.”
“Was?”
His silence answered.
Before I could ask more, a sound rose from the valley.
Not wind.
Not wolves.
A horse.
Hayes straightened.
Another sound followed.
Men shouting.
He stepped inside and reached for his rifle.
Samuel woke.
“What?”
Hayes extinguished the lantern.
The room dropped into darkness.
“Someone’s coming.”
“Help?” I whispered.
Hayes looked through the crack beside the shutter.
Three riders moved among the trees.
Maybe four.
My heart lifted.
Then Hayes said something that destroyed the feeling immediately.
“Those aren’t rescuers.”
“How do you know?”
He chambered a round.
“Because one of them is riding Samuel’s saddle.”