Winter on the Belle Fourche

***

She woke to the memory of cold, the ghost of this sensation close to death, a specter that consumed her, left her hollow, left her numb with the certainty there was no heat great enough to drive the terrible emptiness away. She woke and saw the fire and tried to draw its warmth to her with her eyes. The walls and the ceiling danced with shadow. The shadows made odd and fearsome shapes. She tried to pull her eyes away but could find neither the strength nor the will for such an effort. The shadows made awful deathly sounds, sounds she could scarcely imagine. And then with a start that clutched her heart she remembered the sounds were real; she had heard them all too clearly through the walls from the trees across the snow.

"Oh Lord Jesus, they are dying," she cried aloud, "they are murdered every one!"

Darkness rose from the floor and blocked the fire. It seemed to flow and expand to fill the room, take form as a broad-shouldered demon cloaked in fur; it grew arms and a dark and grizzled beard, a wicked eye.

She screamed and tried to push herself away.

"Ain't any need for that," the demon said. "Don't mean ye any harm."

She stared in alarm. His words brought her no relief at all. "Who--who are you?" she managed to say. "What do you want with me?"

"My name's John Johnston," the figure said. "Folks has mostly took out the t, but that ain't no fault of mine. Just lie right still. You oughter take in some soup if ye can."

He didn't wait for an answer, but moved across the room. Her heart pounded rapidly against her breast. She watched him carefully, followed his every move. He would likely attack her quite soon. This business of the soup was just a ruse. Well, he would not catch her totally unaware. She searched for some weapon of defense, pulled herself up on one arm, the effort draining all her strength. She was under some heavy animal skin. It held her to the floor like lead. She saw a broken chair, just beyond her reach. With the help of Lord Jesus it would serve her quite well. David had very little more and brought another fearsome giant to his knees.

As she reached for the chair, stretched her arm as far as it would go, the heavy skin slipped past her shoulders to her waist. She felt the sudden cold, stopped, and caught sight of herself. For an instant, she was too paralyzed to move. Frozen with terror and disbelief. She was unclothed, bare beneath the cover! Her head began to swim. She fought against the dizziness and shame. Oh Lord, don't let me faint, she prayed. Let me die, but don't let me faint in the presence of the beast!

Using every ounce of will she could find, she lay back and pulled the cover to her chin. With one hand, she searched herself for signs of violation, careful not to touch any place where carnal sin resides. Surely he had done it in her sleep. Whatever it was they did. Would you know, could you tell? Defilement came with marriage, and she had no experience in that.

The man returned from the fire. She mustered all her courage. "Stay away from me," she warned. "Don't take another step."

He seemed puzzled. "You don't want no soup?"

"You-- you had no right," she said. "You have invaded my privacy. You have looked upon me. You have sinned in God's eyes and broken several commandments. I demand the return of my clothing."

He squatted down and set the soup on the floor. "Ma'am, I didn't do no sinnin' I recall. You was near froze stiff in them clothes."

"Oh, of course. That is just what you would say to excuse your lust. I would expect no less than that."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I cannot find it in my heart to forgive you. That is my failing. I will pray that our Blessed Savior will give me the strength to see you as His child."

"You feel a need fer this soup," Johnston said, "it's on the fire." With that he rose and left her, moved across the room and curled up in a buffalo robe.

He woke at once and grabbed his heavy coat and picked up the Hawken rifle, all this in a single motion out of sleep. The woman hadn't moved. He had propped the broken door back up as best he could, and now he moved it carefully aside and slipped out into the night. The world seemed frozen, silent and hard as iron, yet brittle enough to shatter into powder at a touch. He couldn't put his finger on the sound that had broken through his sleep. The horse was all right, safely out of the wind by the cabin's far wall. The ground was undisturbed. He circled around and watched, stopped to sniff the air. Nothing was there now, but something had left its ghost behind.

Inside he warmed his hands by the fire. The woman was still asleep. It wasn't fair to say that she hadn't roused him some, that the touch of her flesh as he rubbed life back into her limbs hadn't started up some fires. Not like an Injun girl now, but some. He'd seen maybe two white women stark naked in his life. They seemed to lack definition. Like a broad field of snow without a track or a rock to give it tone. An Injun girl went from one shade to another, depending where you looked. John Hatcher had kept two fat Cheyenne squaws all the time. He kept them in his cabin in the Little Snake Valley and offered Johnston the use of one or both. He had politely declined, preferring to find his own. Hatcher's squaws giggled all the time. An Injun woman tended to act white after a spell and start to giggle and talk back. His wife hadn't done that at all. She'd been pure Injun to the end, but there weren't very many like that.

When she woke once again she felt sick, drained and brittle as a stick. The man was well across the room, squatting silently by the wall.

"I would like that soup now if you please," she said as firmly as she could. She would show him no weakness at all. A man preyed upon that.

He rose and went to the fire, filled a tin cup and set it by her side.

"Take a care," he said, "it's right hot." He returned to the fire and came back and dropped a bundle on the floor. "Your clothes is all dry," he said.

She didn't answer or meet his eyes. She knew any reference to her garments would encourage wicked thoughts in his head. The soup tasted vaguely of corn, meat a little past its prime. It was filling and soothed the hurt away.

"Thank you," she said, "that was quite good."

"There's more if you want."

"I would like you to leave the cabin for a while. I should think half an hour will do fine."

Johnston didn't blink. "What fer?"

"That is no concern of yours."

"You want to get dressed, why you got that buffler robe. Ain't no reason you can't do it under there."

"Why, I certainly will not!" The suggestion brought color to her cheeks.

"Up to you," he said.

"I shall not move until you comply."

"Suit yerself."

Oh Lord, she prayed, deliver me from this brute. Banish transgression from his mind. Reaching out beneath the robe, she found her clothing and burrowed as far beneath the cover as she could, certain all the while he could see, or surely imagine, every private move she made.