was rocky on the hillside, under the shallow duff, and it was matted with root. The ditch was slow going. Often she stood up straight, pushing the ache out of her back and then plucking at the front of the sweater and the blue cotton waist, letting cold air in deliberately under her breasts, where she sweated. She had Larsâs big gloves. Her hands slid inside them so a blister was gradually rubbed on one hand, along the web at the base of the thumb. She wound a clean rag around that hand, inside the glove. She scraped the mattock along the ground stubbornly, huffing white breath on the still, cold air.
At dusk, in a frosty cold, she drove the mules and the goats inside the stiff new fence and let the goats down and again drank a cupful, standing there. She remembered suddenly, tasting the sweet heat of the milk: she had not made a meal. And remembering it, her stomach clenched with hunger.
It was black and cold inside the shack. She made a fire in the stove, coaxing it slow and smoking from the wet wood. She fried a patty of corn meal and bolted it down, standing over the stove.
She drank hot water, having no patience, this late, to get at the coffee among her piled-up stores. Afterward she took the dead rats out of the traps and set the springs on them again and heated salt and soda water in a pail. In the high jumping shadow of candlelight, she pushed a stiff boarâs hair brush steadily back and forth along the peeling, mildewed walls, the bedframe, the teetery three-legged table, and then made up her bed for the second night, on the clean bare logs of the bunk. She shook the bedding out and went along the quilts cautiously, holding up a candle, looking for vermin.
Sitting on the edge of the bed in the poor light, she wrote tiredly, crosswise over the printed vertical columns of the accounting ledger she had taken over for a journal.
Â
9 April
Cut brush all day to make a Fence. I have not worked this hard in a while so I am tired but now I have a place for the beasts to stand out of mud anyway. If Iâm to wear clean stockings in the morning must do up a little wash yet tonight. O I would trade all for a hot bath but too tired to lift the water myself. Believe I was up 3 times or 4 in the night to take dead Rats from traps and reset. Have killed 16 Rats so far. The rain has quit but it is still cold & the sky low.
Â
She sat on the edge of the bunk a while with the book closed in one hand, her eyes closed too. Then she undid her boots, lay down stiffly in stiff dirty stockings. The quilt had gone dank, clammy, all day in the leaky house, but there was still a little clean mothball smell in it. She pulled the edge up to her eyes.
10
Harley Osgood hated the leg-hold traps. He left them jangling on his saddle most of the day, until it was plain he wouldnât have any luck with finding game. Then, to keep from Dannyâs righteous yelling, he got down off his horse and set a couple of the damned things. He chained one to a tree, pried open the jaws and balanced a piece of meat gingerly on the trigger, then kicked a little duff over thejaws and the chain. He didnât worry about his smell being on the iron because they wouldnât catch any wolves in the things anyway; he knew better than that. And the truth was, he was afraid to touch a trap that was set. He had a stupid fear of the things, from breaking two fingers in a squirrel trap when he was a little kid, and a healthy fear, from seeing what a wolfâs leg looked like, caught in the sprung jaws.
It started to rain as he was setting the last one. It was half dark by then, so after thinking about it, he rode down the Jump-Off Creek to that old shack. He was quite a bit closer to it than to the place on the high bench, and the last time he had gone by the Jump-Off shack there had been a couple of cowboys living there, they had been young as him. He figured he would get in under the roof with them and get dry, wait out the wet and the
At dusk, in a frosty cold, she drove the mules and the goats inside the stiff new fence and let the goats down and again drank a cupful, standing there. She remembered suddenly, tasting the sweet heat of the milk: she had not made a meal. And remembering it, her stomach clenched with hunger.
It was black and cold inside the shack. She made a fire in the stove, coaxing it slow and smoking from the wet wood. She fried a patty of corn meal and bolted it down, standing over the stove.
She drank hot water, having no patience, this late, to get at the coffee among her piled-up stores. Afterward she took the dead rats out of the traps and set the springs on them again and heated salt and soda water in a pail. In the high jumping shadow of candlelight, she pushed a stiff boarâs hair brush steadily back and forth along the peeling, mildewed walls, the bedframe, the teetery three-legged table, and then made up her bed for the second night, on the clean bare logs of the bunk. She shook the bedding out and went along the quilts cautiously, holding up a candle, looking for vermin.
Sitting on the edge of the bed in the poor light, she wrote tiredly, crosswise over the printed vertical columns of the accounting ledger she had taken over for a journal.
Â
9 April
Cut brush all day to make a Fence. I have not worked this hard in a while so I am tired but now I have a place for the beasts to stand out of mud anyway. If Iâm to wear clean stockings in the morning must do up a little wash yet tonight. O I would trade all for a hot bath but too tired to lift the water myself. Believe I was up 3 times or 4 in the night to take dead Rats from traps and reset. Have killed 16 Rats so far. The rain has quit but it is still cold & the sky low.
Â
She sat on the edge of the bunk a while with the book closed in one hand, her eyes closed too. Then she undid her boots, lay down stiffly in stiff dirty stockings. The quilt had gone dank, clammy, all day in the leaky house, but there was still a little clean mothball smell in it. She pulled the edge up to her eyes.
10
Harley Osgood hated the leg-hold traps. He left them jangling on his saddle most of the day, until it was plain he wouldnât have any luck with finding game. Then, to keep from Dannyâs righteous yelling, he got down off his horse and set a couple of the damned things. He chained one to a tree, pried open the jaws and balanced a piece of meat gingerly on the trigger, then kicked a little duff over thejaws and the chain. He didnât worry about his smell being on the iron because they wouldnât catch any wolves in the things anyway; he knew better than that. And the truth was, he was afraid to touch a trap that was set. He had a stupid fear of the things, from breaking two fingers in a squirrel trap when he was a little kid, and a healthy fear, from seeing what a wolfâs leg looked like, caught in the sprung jaws.
It started to rain as he was setting the last one. It was half dark by then, so after thinking about it, he rode down the Jump-Off Creek to that old shack. He was quite a bit closer to it than to the place on the high bench, and the last time he had gone by the Jump-Off shack there had been a couple of cowboys living there, they had been young as him. He figured he would get in under the roof with them and get dry, wait out the wet and the
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