Yet on the fourth night, the wind rose again, and with it came the realization that food, however abundant, was only a temporary shield against the winter.
And on the fifth morning, before the sun had cleared the rimrock, the sound came again.
Thump.
Another basket.
This one held a slab of smoked venison, two dozen dried apples, a crock of sweet clover honey, and a tin of tallow for waterproofing boots.
And again, no note. No face. Only the deep horse tracks fading into the northern blizzard.
Eleanor stood on the porch in the bitter predawn, clutching her shawl. Gratitude, sharp and sweet, washed over herâbut hard on its heels came the cold, creeping dread of a woman who knew the ways of the world.
In Wyoming, nothing was free. A stray calf was branded or shot. A piece of land was claimed or lost. A woman without a husband did not receive baskets of meat and flour from the shadows without a ledger being kept somewhere in the dark.
The settlement of Wind River consisted of two dozen false-fronted frame buildings clinging to either side of an unpaved road that was currently a frozen trench of ruts and manure-stained ice. At its center stood the Rourke Mercantile, a two-story emporium of trade that served as the commercial heart, post office, and gossip clearinghouse for sixty miles around.
On Tuesday morning, Eleanor Pierce hitched her old, rib-sprung plow horse, Barnaby, to the light wooden buckboard and made the five-mile journey into town.
She did not go to buy food. She went to buy coal oil for her lamps and thread to mend the boys' trousers. She carried with her a small crock of apple butter she had put up in the late autumn, hoping Silas Rourke would take it in trade against a spool of black cotton thread.
When she entered the mercantile, the iron bell above the door jingled merrily, but the sound that followed was an immediate, unnatural dampening of conversation.
Around the potbellied stove in the center of the store sat the townâs morning congregation: old Caleb Finch, whose ranch had gone under three years prior; Walter Higgins, the blacksmith; and Mrs. Abigail Rourke, Silas Rourkeâs sisterâa woman whose tongue had ruined more reputations than the territory had hanged horse thieves.
Eleanor walked toward the counter, keeping her eyes forward, her back straight. She could feel their eyes like cold needles through her shawl.
"Good morning, Mrs. Pierce," Silas Rourke said from behind the polished mahogany counter.
Silas was a man of fifty, sleek and well-fed despite the hard winter, with hair dyed black with walnut oil and small, calculating hazel eyes that rested behind gold-rimmed spectacles. He wore a waistcoat of brocaded velvet beneath a dark wool frock coat, looking more like an undertaker from St. Louis than a merchant in the wild northern territories.
"Mr. Rourke," Eleanor replied, setting her small crock on the counter. "I need one spool of black thread, number forty, and a gallon of kerosene."
Silas didn't reach for the thread. He rested his manicured hands on the counter and smiled. It was a smile that reminded Eleanor of grease floating on cold dishwater.
"Certainly, Mrs. Pierce. Certainly. Though I must say, you're looking remarkably well. Remarkably well indeed. We had worried that the storm had isolated the lower coulee. We wondered how you and the boys were faring for meat."
From by the stove, Mrs. Abigail Rourke gave a dry, papery sniff.
"Some folks don't seem to need the town relief fund," Abigail remarked to her knitting needles. "Some folks seem to find manna falling from heaven right onto their doorsteps. Or perhaps it isn't heaven that's dropping it."
Eleanor felt the blood drain from her face, leaving her skin icy. She kept her hands steady on the edge of the counter.
"I have not asked for relief from the church, Mrs. Rourke," Eleanor said, turning her head slightly toward the woman. "Nor have I asked for credit from your brother since David died."
"No," Silas chimed in, his voice dripping with false solicitude. "You haven't. And that is what has all of us so... intrigued, Eleanor. A widow on eighty acres of dead grass, with no cattle to ship, no timber to sell, and yet little Samuel was seen at the livery barn yesterday showing off a carved pine horse and telling Higgins's boy that his mama had sides of bacon thick as two fingers."
Walter Higgins looked down at his dirty boots, clearly uncomfortable, but Abigail leaned forward, her knitting needles clicking like rattlesnake tails.
"Men don't haul bacon through five-foot drifts out of the goodness of their Christian souls, Eleanor Pierce," Abigail said, her voice dropping into that poisoned, conspiratorial register reserved for destruction. "A woman living alone does not receive midnight visits from riders on expensive stock without paying for it in coin that doesn't come out of a purse."
"Abigail," Walter Higgins muttered under his breath. "Leave it be."