Page 47 of The Widow and the Wanted

She waves him away. “How many?”

“Hard to tell for certain. One for sure. Maybe two.” I lean the rifle by the wall and strip off my gloves finger by finger. “Careful ones. Came in, checked the horse, left her.”

Lula sets the spoon down. “Why leave her?”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Okee says. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”

She waves at him again, not looking at him, face still on me, stricken with worry.

“That’s the question,” I say. “If they’re lurking over hunger, they steal something. If it’s drunks, they try the door and piss in the yard. This ain’t none of those things. This is somebody patient.”

Okee takes his pistol cleaning kit and falls into a chair with a sigh that says he gives up. His eyes cut to the window, toward the pale yard beyond it.

The fire pops. Fat hisses once where a drop hits the stove lid. Outside, the wind presses against the wall with a long, low whistle.

Lula wipes her hands on a cloth, movements neat despite the way her mouth tightens. “If it’s Hollister’s men,” she says, “wouldn’t they come with others? With guns?”

Okee breaks his pistol open, an oily rag in one hand. His jaw flexes once.

“They’re scouting,” he says, as if the answer was obvious to him all along. “They’re confirming first. How many are here. Whether we’re armed. So they can come back prepared.”

Her chin trembles, but she forces it still. “What do we do?”

She’s gone pale. Maybe Okee was right to protect her from the ugly truth of it.

“Don’t you worry. We ain’t lettin’ no harm come to you.”

She draws in a breath and huffs, a muscle jumping in her cheek like that ain’t the answer she was looking for.

“We pay attention,” Okee says, firmer now. “That’s the first rule. Double watch. Dawn and nightfall. I’ll take first dark.”

“I’ll walk the perimeter again before supper,” I say.

Lula’s eyes move between us. “And me?”

“You stay inside after dark,” I say.

Her brows come together at once. “I am not helpless.”

“I know that,” I say, softer than before. “That ain’t what I said.”

Okee sets the pistol down and looks at her square. “If something happens, you wake one of us. You do not go to the door. You do not investigate a noise. You do not try to be brave on your own.”

A little heat flashes in her face at that, but it isn’t fear. It’s temper. Better than fear. Temper keeps a body breathing.

“And if you two are both asleep?” she asks.

“Then yell loud enough to wake the dead.”

That gets the ghost of an expression from her. Something hisses, startling her. She dashes over to the pot.

That night the cabin feels smaller than ever. We eat quick—bread, pheasant, the last of the onion cooked soft in grease. Some kind of stewed fruits and nuts. It’s tangy, sweet, and crunchy.

“What’s this scrumptious little dish?” I ask.

She perks up some. “Rose hip, persimmon, berry nut crumble.”

“Holy hell, that is one delectable dessert. Even the words sound tasty.”