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left in this small place alone. This inner dissatisfaction had been growing
for some time. She could trace it all the way back to that first meeting with
Webb Calder.
Plagued by this guilt that always came with any thought of Webb Calder,
Lilli hurried to the door that had swung shut. A flurry of snowflakes swirled
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in when she opened it, letting in another bitter blast of frigid air. Stefan
was tramping through the snow several yards from the house, the rifle on his
shoulder.
"Stefan!" She hunched her shoulders together, shivering in the opening. When
he turned, she felt the old affection and friendship for him flowing through
her again. She realized she was being ungrateful and unappreciative of his
kindness and goodness toward her. "It looks like it could storm. Don't go too
far!" she called after him in concern.
He lifted a hand, acknowledging he'd heard, then turned and began traipsing
across the snow, a dark, hunched figure in a gray-white world. Lilli closed
the door and hurried over to the stove to warm herself. She looked about their
home.
When he returned, she vowed to have everything done and a hot supper waiting
for him. The kettle was simmering to heat the snow-water in the basin. She
poured it in. Working was always the quickest way to get warm, she remembered
her mother saying that.
The clouds were flattening themselves close to the barren snowscape, making
land indiscernible from sky. The dark plot in the gray picture grew steadily
larger as Webb approached it. The smoke rising from the chimney pipe blended
into sky. He could smell it in the air, but he couldn't distinguish its wispy
trail from the gray-spun clouds.
The snow-covered wagon sat next to the bleached poles of the corral. The
wind shelter for the draft team had been closed to create a shed where they
could seek protection from inclement weather. At the moment, Webb could see
the two mares nosing at the straw scattered in clumps next to the shed,
offering them browse. There was a glimmer of light
showing from inside the shanty, mostly blocked by the covering over the
window.
The black gelding stopped of its own accord near the door, as if sensing
this was their destination. Webb's legs were numb and stiff with the cold.
They felt like two dead sticks when he tried to dismount, and didn't seem
inclined to support him when he did step down. He stamped them to bring back
the feeling, with jarring results as pain shot through his body.
"Hello in the house!" he hailed the shack's occupants, notifying them of his
presence.
Despite the scarf around his mouth and nose, his face felt numb and his lips
were unwilling to form the words. The air was so cold that it hurt to breathe.
Much longer out in this cold and he'd turn into an icicle. He moved stiffly to
the rear of his horse to unlash the carcass. His call had met with no response
from inside the cabin. Webb paused to call again.
"Hey! Anybody home?" He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted.
The door was opened a narrow crack. He recognized Lilli despite the heavy
blanketlike shawl wrapped around her. He
stood there for a long second, breathing hard from the cold and the effort of
breathing at all. She said nothing in greeting.
"Tell your husband to come outside and give me a hand with this." Webb
finally spoke to break the silence, and bent down to continue his awkward
attempt to untie the nearly rigid corpse of the cow. Snow crunched under the
footsteps of someone approaching him. He glanced up to see Lilli coming toward
him.
"What's that?" The shawl was up around her face, muffling her voice.
"One of our cows. She broke a leg and I had to shoot her." He grunted as he
tugged at a knot with numb fingers. "Thought you could use the meat. It was
either that or stick some poison in her for the wolves to eat." He
straightened and looked expectantly toward the house. The door was shut.
"Isn't your husband coming?"
There was a long pause before she answered him. "He isn't here." The blue of
her eyes seemed to dare him to say something. Her eyes were all he could see
of her face, the rest of it hidden by the dark shawl that covered her hair.
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"The horses are here. So's the wagon." He didn't want to be accused of
coming here with the foreknowledge that her husband was absent from home.
"Where is he?"
"He went hunting this morning and hasn't come back yet," she said.
"He went hunting in this weather?" Webb frowned. The cold was a frigid band
of steel across his forehead.
"Yes." She became apprehensive at his reaction.
"All the wild game will have taken shelter with this storm coming. I didn't
even see a jackrabbit on the way here," he stated, impatient at the ignorance
of a homesteader who had no practical knowledge of living on the land. "Babes
in the woods" was a mild description. "Where do you want me to put this
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