Page 36 of Repentance and Absolution

“I’m glad you met them. Maybe you can visit each other over the winter. Might be a little less lonely for everyone.”

“I reckon. We don’t plan to come to town too much, at least until March. We might not see you for a while.”

“Did you get some supplies in?”

“That’s why we’re here. We got a load waiting for us o’er at the general store.”

“Did you want to borrow my wagon to get it home?”

“That’s very kind. But we brought our mule, and we’ve got smaller packs for our horses. We’ll be fine.”

We chatted a bit longer and said hi to Tim Jensen, who made an appearance. T’was good to already have a couple of friends in town.

Afterward, we rode o’er to the store with Poke. It took us a little while to get everything sorted on the mule and behind our saddles, but we managed to find a place for everything.

“Maybe we should buy a wagon or a sled, Jimmy.”

I side-eyed him. “Why?”

“T’would be easier than doin’ this.”

“’Cept we only have to do this once or twice a year, I reckon. Once the weather’s better, we can ride in every couple of weeks for supplies. We might not even need the mule.”

“True.”

“Wagons…they’re costly. I’m trying to make sure this money lasts us, at least ’till summer, when we’ll have to find some jobs in town, I suppose—and save enough of our wages to get us through the next winter.”

“Yeah.”

“We want to get the house fixed up, don’t we? We still gotta pay for that.”

“How much we got left? Enough?”

“I hope so.”

* * * *

About a week before Christmas, when Oscar and I were enjoying a relaxing afternoon, movement out of the window caught my eye. T’was a woman on a horse, sitting astride, like a man, with her skirts hiked up under her buffalo coat.

“Oscar, look,” I said, standing up. “’Tis Irene Trelawney.”

Oscar stood from the table and came o’er to look. His eyes lit up like t’was Christmas Day already.

T’was a good thing we hadn’t been in the middle of a clinch or we might not have seen her coming. As t’was, Oscar had been practicing his letters while I’d been examining my recipe booklet. I’d tried a few of them, to some success, and I wanted to make something special for Oscar on Christmas Day. I planned to go hunting, to see if I could catch us a goose, a duck or even a rabbit—something fresh that I could turn into a hearty stew or roast in the oven. T’would be our first Christmas together, and I wanted to make it special. I already had a surprise planned. I’d had Carson help me get a special gift for Oscar that wouldn’t bring on suspicion but would seem like a thoughtful trinket between friends.

Oscar moved quick to the door and flung it open, calling out to Irene with excitement, as the cat shot out like a bullet into the snow, wondering what the fuss was about.

“Oscar! Don’t let the cold in. Tell her to come inside.”

“Helloooo!” he hailed. “Come on in! You can hitch your horse to the fence, there, where it’ll be out of the wind—or do you want to put it in the barn?”

I didn’t hear Irene’s reply, but Oscar closed the door and rubbed his arms, as I took in his appearance and stood to pull up my braces.

“Oscar, you ain’t decent.”

I stifled a laugh as Oscar looked down at himself in a panic.

He wasn’t quiteindecent, but his braces hung down, his shirt had come untucked and he was barefoot.