“Can You Make Me Come Tonight — The Mail Order Bride Asked… The Virgin Mountain Man Whispered, ‘I…’”

Chapter 7

The whiteout started on a Tuesday and didn’t stop for four days.

The wind didn’t just blow. It screamed over the tin roof, a high, mechanical shriek that rattled the iron stove pipe and buried the cabin under drifts so deep Elias had to climb out the small side window just to shovel the heavy oak door clear. Inside, the world shrank to four walls, the glowing belly of the stove, and the relentless, suffocating pressure of absolute isolation.

Cabin fever was a tangible thing. It smelled like damp wool, wet dog, and wood smoke. It tasted like the same food reheated for the fourth time. It sounded like the creak of settling timbers and the howl of a world trying to erase itself.

By the second day, Margaret understood why Elias had wanted a wife. Not for the physical labor. Not for the warmth in his bed. But because the silence in this cabin was a living thing that would eventually drive a man mad if he had to face it alone.

She watched him pace. Back and forth, back and forth, from the stove to the window to the door. His restlessness was palpable, a physical pressure in the small space. He checked the food stores three times. He rearranged the woodpile. He sharpened every knife he owned.

On the third day, he sat down across from her at the table and looked at her with an expression she couldn’t read.

“Tell me something about yourself,” he said. “Something real.”

Margaret set down the shirt she had been mending. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything. I don’t know anything about you except that you came from St. Louis and you had a husband who didn’t treat you right.”

She was quiet for a moment. The question was simple, but the answer felt enormous.

“His name was Charles,” she said finally. “He was handsome. Charming. Everyone loved him. And behind closed doors, he was a different man entirely.”

“Did he hit you often?”

“No. That’s what made it so confusing. He didn’t hit me often. He just… hit me enough. Once a month, maybe twice. Just enough to keep me scared. Just enough to remind me that he could.”

Elias’s hands, resting on the table, tightened into fists. “If I could go back in time, I’d kill him.”

“I know you would.” She reached across the table and laid her hand over his fist. “But he’s dead. And I’m here. And you’re not him.”

“No,” he said, his voice rough. “I’m not him.”

“Tell me something about you,” she said. “Something real.”

He was quiet for a long time. The wind screamed outside. The fire popped and hissed.

“I used to talk to the trees,” he said finally. “When I was a boy, after my ma died, my pa brought me up here. He wasn’t a talker. He could go weeks without saying a word. So I started talking to the trees. I’d tell them about my day. I’d ask them questions. I’d pretend they were answering.”

Margaret felt a lump form in her throat. She could picture it so clearly — a lonely boy in a vast wilderness, pouring his heart out to silent witnesses.

“Do they still answer?” she asked.

He looked up at her, and there was something raw and unguarded in his eyes. “You’re the first thing that’s answered back.”

The confession hung between them, fragile and precious. Margaret didn’t trust herself to speak. She squeezed his hand instead, and they sat in the warm, comfortable silence of two people who had stopped being strangers.

On the fourth morning, Margaret woke to find Elias standing by the window, his brow furrowed. She wrapped a fur around her shoulders and joined him.

“What is it?”

“The woodpile,” he said. “We’re burning through it faster than I expected. If the storm doesn’t break by tomorrow, we’ll have to start burning the furniture.”

She looked at the remaining logs stacked by the stove. There were maybe thirty left. Enough for a day, maybe two if they were careful.

“Then we’ll be careful,” she said. “We’ll stay close to each other. Share body heat.”

He looked at her, a faint smile crossing his face. “That’s not a hardship.”

“It’s practical.”

“Practical,” he repeated, and the warmth in his voice made her blush.

They spent the day huddled together on the bed, wrapped in every fur and blanket they owned, reading aloud from one of his battered books. It was a novel about pirates and lost treasure, and Elias read in his slow, rumbling voice, stumbling over the elaborate prose. Margaret didn’t care. She lay with her head on his chest, listening to his voice vibrate through his ribs, and felt more content than she had ever been in her life.