Part 2
“Noah Price,” the young rider said, stepping out from behind Cole before anyone could answer for him. He could not have been far into his twenties. When Evelyn eased off one glove, his fingers were red and stiff, and he watched her touch them as if the hand belonged to somebody else. She sent him to the kitchen table, wrapped a dry towel loosely around both hands, and told Cole to bring warm—not hot—water. The speed with which fifteen rough-looking men obeyed an old woman in house slippers was the first thing that made her fear loosen its grip.
“Any white patches? Blisters?” she asked.
Noah shook his head. “Just burning now.”
“Burning is better than nothing. You tell me if it changes.”
She had treated Sam’s hands after enough winter repairs to know the limits of home care. Noah’s color improved gradually, and he could bend every finger, though it hurt. Evelyn made him keep the towel around them and assigned a thick gray quilt to his shoulders. He accepted it without the swagger she had expected from the tattoos rising above his collar.
The other riders arranged themselves wherever space allowed. They laid wet gloves on newspapers near the stove and hung jackets from dining chairs, careful to keep leather away from the heat. Two men brought in extra firewood from the mudroom without touching anything else. Cole remained standing until Evelyn told him his pacing was wearing a path in her rug.
“We’ll pay for the wood,” he said. “And whatever food you can spare.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” Evelyn set mugs across the coffee table and piano bench. “I have tea. It’s strong, and I don’t take complaints.”
“That sounds like a fair house rule.”
One rider took his first swallow too quickly and made a face before he could hide it. A laugh moved through the room—not at Evelyn, she realized, but at him. He lifted his mug toward her in surrender and drank again. The sound altered the house. It was still crowded, still full of men whose names she did not know, yet the laughter fit beneath the old beams more easily than the silence had.
Evelyn stayed alert. She noticed who glanced toward the stairs and who avoided it, who spoke over another man and who moved aside when she passed. Cole did not touch the mug she gave him until everyone else had one. When a rider’s wet vest brushed the framed wedding picture, he caught it with both hands, set it square, and apologized to Sam’s photograph.
“He would have charged you for crookedness,” Evelyn said.
The rider looked stricken until he saw the corner of her mouth move. “Then I’m glad I fixed it.”
The kettle emptied twice. Heat returned color to faces that had seemed carved from the storm, and the men began to shrink into ordinary proportions. One rubbed an old knee. Another asked if the grandfather clock had always run three minutes slow. The tallest man struck the low beam despite having been warned, and the others mocked him with the affection of people who had watched him do the same foolish thing before.
When Evelyn saw them looking toward the kitchen, she opened the pantry. She had a pot of potato-and-bean stew meant to last three days, two loaves of bread, a jar of pickled beets, and enough eggs for breakfast if the hens forgave her. Fifteen hungry men could turn that into almost nothing. She added water and another quart of home-canned tomatoes, then handed knives and potatoes to the three riders nearest the table.
“You eat, you work,” she said.
Soon the kitchen held the scrape of peelers and the soft bump of elbows. Noah, his hands recovering, tore bread instead of handling a knife. Cole carried bowls to the front room.
Nobody reached for food until Evelyn sat down with her own portion, which touched her more than she wanted them to see.
They ate the way cold people eat at first—quickly and with their faces close to the steam. Then the pace slowed. Names surfaced. There was Ben, who drove a school bus when he was not riding; Luis, who repaired farm equipment; Arthur, who wore reading glasses to inspect the heel of Evelyn’s unfinished mitten.
The patch on their backs remained the same, but the men inside the jackets became harder to arrange into one frightening idea.
A narrow guitar case had been strapped to one motorcycle beneath a tarp. After supper, its owner brought out a scarred acoustic guitar with a loose tuning peg. He worked the string into tune and played quietly, keeping the music below the wind. Nobody sang. The melody was old enough that Evelyn remembered Sam humming it while sharpening mower blades, though she could not recall the words.
Cole sat on the hearthstone, his forearms resting on his knees. Firelight showed a pale line beside his left eye and tired creases across his forehead. He watched Evelyn fold the gray quilt more firmly around Noah.
“My grandmother used to do that,” he said.
“Trap people in blankets?”
“Pretend she was irritated so nobody noticed she was worried.”
Evelyn picked up her knitting. “Your grandmother sounds perceptive.”
Cole stared into the stove window. “She died of cancer a long time ago. I was away more than I should’ve been near the end.” He did not turn the admission into a story, and Evelyn did not ask him to. Grief had taught her that questions could become a form of taking when a person had offered all he meant to give.
“Then sit still and let the fire do its job,” she said. “She’d probably tell you the same.”
Near midnight, the lights dipped, rose, and held. Wind drove handfuls of snow against the windows. Evelyn showed the riders where to find quilts and spare pillows, then left them to choose sections of rug and floor. Cole took the strip nearest the front door. Noah lay beside the stove with his hands uncovered and color fully returned.
At the foot of the stairs, Evelyn looked back. Her desk drawers remained closed. The wedding photograph stood straight. Fifteen pairs of boots made a dark, orderly row on the mudroom mats.
“Mrs. Hart?” Noah lifted his head. “Most people see the patch and don’t wait to hear us speak. Thank you for waiting.”
Evelyn had no polished answer for him. She crossed the room, pulled the gray quilt over his shoulder, and told him not to make her regret wasting good wool on him. His quick smile disappeared into the fabric.
Upstairs, she left her bedroom door unlocked. That surprised her after she had climbed into bed, and for a while she considered getting up to turn the key. Instead she listened to the old house accept new sounds: a muffled cough, the shift of a boot, the clock below, and the wind testing every seam. She set the key on the dresser and waited until the ordinary sounds downstairs outlasted the frightening ones.
Sometime before dawn, Evelyn woke to an engine turning over beneath her window.
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