The children gave me little time to indulge it. Micah and Matthew were two-year-old twins whose favorite game was running in opposite directions whenever I needed them together. Micah asked questions with his eyes before he knew the words. Matthew was fearless right up to the moment a thunderclap frightened him, when he wanted nothing more than to press his forehead against mine.
Sadie, not quite two, possessed Susannah’s red hair and what Susannah had called a healthy disrespect for instruction. She would insist on putting on her own boots, then rage because both ended up on the same foot. When I corrected them, she regarded me as though I’d betrayed her.
Caleb was only six months old. He still woke hungry in the middle of the night, his tiny hands searching the air until I gathered him against my chest. Some nights I stood rocking him with the stove burned low, listening to his breathing and thinking of all the mornings his mother would never see. Four children under three made for a crowded house, though the one absent person seemed to occupy the most space.
Our nearest neighbor, Amos Bell, lived five miles east. He had driven over twice after Susannah’s funeral and offered to take the twins for an afternoon so I could sleep. I’d thanked him, then refused. I didn’t trust myself to bear an empty house, even for a few hours. Now Amos was in Cheyenne buying cattle and wouldn’t return for days. Mrs. Pruitt, an older widow in Harmony, had once sent a basket of preserves and a note begging me to ask for help. I had used the preserves and burned the note in the stove.
On the morning of the bite, I’d been awake since before daylight. Caleb had a sour stomach and slept only when I held him. Matthew spilled a whole crock of milk. Sadie dropped her spoon into the ashes and cried as though she’d lost her best friend. I made oatmeal, washed faces, rocked the baby, and finally persuaded all four to sleep.
I ought to have slept too. Instead, I saw the little painted horse beneath the porch, one of the few toys Susannah had bought in town before she fell ill. Micah had cried over it at breakfast. I thought retrieving it would save trouble later.
What would Micah do when he opened the door and found me? Matthew would try to shake me awake. Sadie would cry until her little throat gave out. Caleb couldn’t even turn a doorknob. If I died here, the silence after their crying was the thing I feared most.
“Please,” I said, to God or Susannah or anybody who might still be listening. “Not yet. Let me get them somewhere safe first.”
Heat shimmered over the lane. At first I thought the moving shape beyond the fence was another trick of my eyes. Then a bay mare came through the dust, carrying a woman in a dark blue traveling dress. Her bonnet had slipped back, releasing strands of auburn hair.
My chest tightened. For one foolish, astonishing instant I thought Susannah had ridden home.
