Matthew Kirby recuperated in her cabin. Days went by when he hardly opened his eyes. Muttering in the language he was born into, not the one he learned on these shores.
“Yks kalja,” he whispered more than once.
She didn’t have any idea what he was saying, but she hoped it was something nice. She said it to Matthew’s horse when she went out to feed it; maybe it was a phrase the animal would recognize and find soothing.
More than once Adelaide thought of killing him. She held no malice toward him, this was just instinct that came from three decades of keeping a secret. Her parents made her feel like the world would end if anyone else found out. And now this man knew. So she considered killing him. His rifle right there in a corner. Uncle Finn would’ve dropped Grace and Sam home days ago and gone back to their camp. If he appeared at her door, asked after Matthew, it would be easy to say he rode off hoping to reach home before nightfall and never made it. These plains could erase a rider. She considered it, but made a conscious decision not to kill him. It felt like an act of defiance. She could hear her parents telling her this choice would be her great mistake.
While Matthew rested in a state somewhere between sleep and death, she dragged the trunk out of the cabin and down into the root cellar. Farm life had made her strong; a few months of homesteading—all alone—made her even more powerful.
Not a sound came from inside the trunk the whole time. The dead weight of the trunk was proof the creature still lay curled within. With it locked away inside the root cellar, Adelaide could almost imagine it had never been there; in the cabin, in her life. If not for Matthew’s blood, dried along the floorboards, she might’ve forgotten everything.
She cleaned the cabin the best she could. The rocker had been obliterated, so she swept its pieces up. She gathered up the loose pages from her novels; they were only kindling now. She slept in the great chair while Matthew lay in her bed. She wore the key to the lock around her neck again. She would never sleep without it.
On the fifth night she found the box of photos she’d brought in from the root cellar. Tomorrow she’d take Matthew’s horse and ride into Big Sandy, turn any photos of Mrs. Mudge and her boys over to the local sheriff. But the box held quite a surprise. Full of pictures, but not one of them with Mrs. Mudge, or her four sons. No one who even resembled the Mudges much.
Family photos. But whose?
After four more days Matthew Kirby recovered enough to sit up and sup. They hardly spoke. He scanned the cabin: no more wicker chair in the corner, the floor slats still cracked where Adelaide had wrestled the creature down. The trunk had disappeared. This seemed to relieve him. He said he’d heard her but the things she said made no sense.
“Not a mountain lion,” he said. “Not a rattlesnake.”
He watched her and she turned stiff, her courage faltered.
“Are you sure?” she asked him. “I found you all torn up. Outside.”
Matthew Kirby looked angry at her lie, but then bewildered by it. Could it be that he’d imagined everything? It didn’t help that he still looked so groggy, not many paces from the threshold of death. Confused, he tried to recall what happened. Could it be that he had imagined…?
He looked back at her and she hid behind a mask of indifference, even as she felt her stomach tighten up.
“Then what happened to me?” he whispered. “You tell me.”
Adelaide crossed her arms. “This land is trying to kill every single one of us,” she said.
Matthew lay back down and pulled the blanket over himself and turned his face toward the cabin wall, and the days of their tenderness were finished.
When he finally felt fit enough to mount his horse, she helped him stow his rifle and gear; she filled a leather sack with water from her barrels. Before she walked him outside, she opened his hand and gave him twenty dollars. She hadn’t earned a dime yet and now she gave Matthew most of what she had left in the world. Not even eight dollars left to her name.
He looked at the loot, then back to her.
Did she have to tell him she was buying his silence? No. She’d thought he might refuse the money, out of pride or perhaps some lingering affection.
But he slipped the money in his boot and, with her help, climbed up into the saddle.
Matthew Kirby slumped in the saddle and she wondered if he’d make it back to Finn. If he fell off, that would be the end of him. And it wouldn’t be her fault. Not like if she’d shot him and buried him out here.
Did she want that to happen? No.
Yes.
Both.
That’s the truth of it.
She watched him ride off. If he fell while she could see him, she decided she would go help. But after that? After that it was between Matthew and the land.
She hoped she would never see him again. But she would.
Twice more.