Page 13 of Mail Order Moose

“We go by the main path,” one man said. “It’s wider.”

“No.” Ella’s heart struck once, hard. The word seemed too large after it left her, but it was the right word. “Not the main path.”

The room went still enough that she could hear snow sliding from the mill roof in a soft rush.

She made herself continue. “The bridge will drift. The low place before it fills from both sides. Behind Maggie’s house, the old sled track runs higher. It bends twice, then meets the creek above the narrow crossing. There are spare provisions stored in Maggie’s shed. Flour. Beans. Dried apples. Salt. They were set aside because the shelf inside was full.”

“You remember all that?” Mr. Johnson asked.

Ella looked down at her gloves. “Yes.”

Sebastian clapped his hands together once. “Then we go the way Mrs. Sanders says.”

No one argued after that. Perhaps because Sebastian had made it sound simple. Perhaps because David had not moved from beside her. Perhaps because the storm outside had made pride seem smaller than hunger.

They took two sleds, four shovels, rope, and every sack Ella named from Maggie’s shed. Maggie appeared at the door with her shawl over her hair and did not ask why Ella knew exactly which corner held the beans. She only handed over another cloth-wrapped bundle.

“Dried meat,” Maggie said. “If you’re right, they’ll need it.”

Ella tucked it between flour and beans where it would not slide loose. “They will.”

The journey began badly and became worse.

The first stretch behind Maggie’s house was sheltered, just as Ella had said, but sheltered did not mean easy. Snow came past her knees in places and higher where the wind had curled it into soft ridges. The men took turns breaking the trail. David went first until Sebastian pulled him back with a muttered remark about saving some strength for the rest of the town. Ella followed behind the sleds, watching the trees, the slope of the ground, and the places where white lay too smooth.

Smooth snow could mean untouched ground. It could also mean a hollow.

“Left,” she called when Mr. Johnson angled too far right.

The word disappeared into the wind.

She swallowed, cupped her hands around her mouth, and tried again. “Left!”

This time he heard. He turned, and three steps later his shovel struck the buried edge of a stump. Had the sled followed where he meant to go, it would have tipped hard enough to spill half the load down the slope.

Mr. Johnson looked back at her. Snow clung to his beard. “Good eye.”

Ella did not answer. Her face felt hot despite the cold.

They reached the creek crossing near midday, though the sun was only a pale thought behind the clouds. The narrow place was half covered, the ice showing in dark strips where the wind had scoured it clean. One of the men stepped forward.

“Wait,” Ella said.

He did not hear or did not think she meant him. His boot came down at the edge where snow had bridged over running water.

“Stop!”

The force of her own voice startled her. It startled the man too. He froze. David was beside him in two strides, catching his arm and pulling him back as the snow crust broke away beneath his heel. Dark water flashed below before the pieces vanished under the current.

No one spoke for several seconds.

Ella could hear her pulse in her ears. She had shouted. Not spoken. Not answered. Shouted. Her throat felt raw with it, as if the word had scraped its way out.

David turned to her. There was no alarm in his face now, though there had been a moment before. Only something quiet and bright that made her look away.

“Where?” Sebastian asked, all cheer gone from his voice.

Ella pointed to the left, where two spruce roots made a dark arch under the snow. “There. The bank is stone beneath. One at a time. Rope first.”