Part 2
Chapter 2
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The trail was a treacherous mix of loose shale, exposed roots, and slick, freezing mud.
Jedodiah set a punishing pace, his boots chewing up the incline. He was testing her. He wanted her to quit.
He wanted her to sit down on a rock, weep into her hands, and demand to be taken back to the valley so he could add her to his tally of failures and be left alone with his bitter isolation.
Martha refused to give him the satisfaction. Her thighs chafed beneath the heavy wool.
Sweat trickled down the back of her neck, turning icy the moment the wind hit it.
Her heart hammered against her ribs—a violent, desperate rhythm. She didn't look up at the peak.
She didn't look at Jed's broad back.
She looked at the ground, focusing entirely on placing one foot in front of the other. Step, breathe, step, breathe.
Every time Jed paused to look back, expecting to see her collapsed in the dirt, he found her 10 paces behind.
Face flushed a dangerous red, eyes fixed on the mud, still moving.
When they finally broke through the treeline into a small, desolate clearing, the light was beginning to fail.
The cabin sat in the center.
It was a crude structure of raw timber and mud chinking, smoke curling lazily from a stone chimney.
It looked lonely enough to break a person's mind. Jed dropped her trunk on the porch.
The thud echoed in the vast silence. "Privy's out back," he said, not looking at her.
"Water comes from the creek, quarter mile down the north slope. You don't go out after dark.
The wolves here don't care how big you are."
Martha stood in the yard, her legs trembling so violently she thought they might give way.
She tasted blood in the back of her throat.
She looked at the bleak cabin, then at the man who clearly wished she was already gone.
"Understood," she managed to say, her voice cracking. She walked past him, opened the heavy timber door, and went inside.
The inside of the cabin was exactly what she expected. It smelled of stale smoke, dried blood, and unwashed wool.
Cast iron pans crusted with grease sat on the hearth.
A single bed occupied the far corner, covered in a mangy buffalo robe.
A small cot had been hastily pushed against the opposite wall. The floorboards were caked in mud.
It was the lair of a man who had given up on living and was merely surviving.
Martha didn't sit down. If she sat down, her muscles would seize and she wouldn't get back up.
She took off her hat, unpinned her shawl, and hung them on a rusty nail by the door.
She found a stiff-bristled broom leaning near the fireplace.
When Jed came inside 20 minutes later, carrying an armful of firewood, he stopped in the doorway.
Martha had swept a massive pile of dirt, dried leaves, and unknown grit into the center of the room.
She was currently scrubbing a cast iron skillet with a handful of coarse sand and a scrap of burlap.
She didn't look up when he entered. Jed dumped the wood into the bin with a loud clatter.
"You don't need to do that tonight."
"If I'm cooking in it tomorrow, it needs to not taste like last month's bacon," Martha replied.
Her tone conversational but clipped.
She rinsed the pan with a splash of water from a bucket near the door, wiping it dry.
The first week was a silent war. Jed told her the previous record for a bride was 5 days.
Her name had been Sarah.
She had taken one look at a skinned rabbit hanging over the basin, vomited into the woodbox, and demanded to be taken down the mountain.
Jedodiah didn't try to make Martha comfortable. He offered no pleasantries, no help, and no conversation.
He woke before dawn, leaving the fire entirely dead, forcing her to build it back up from the freezing embers.
He left the heaviest chores for her. On day three, he pointed to the water buckets. "Creek's frozen over.
Take the spud bar. Break the ice. Don't fall in." Martha took the buckets and the heavy iron bar.
The wind chill was well below freezing. The quarter-mile trek down the north slope was treacherous.
She found the creek, a solid ribbon of white ice. She raised the iron bar and slammed it down.
It bounced off, jarring her shoulders so hard her teeth rattled. She gritted her teeth.
She adjusted her stance, widening her heavy legs for balance, and brought the bar down again and again.
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She threw her entire weight behind it, using the mass she had hated her whole life to drive the iron through the thick ice.
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