Mel's Arc

Chapter 36 of 36

The two new barns held the winter safe. But the work never stopped. Since the frost came, Mel and Ted rose in the dark to haul hay to the old rancher, the widow, and every pact family running short. They ate cold food standing up. They fell asleep before they could talk. They had fought the whole valley to marry. Now they were married and never alone. One morning Mel came in from the fields and found Ted asleep at the table, head on his arms. His plate sat untouched. She looked at the man she had chosen and could not remember their last real talk. She shook his shoulder. "Ted. Wake up." He lifted his head. "Is a fence down?" "No." Mel sat across from him. "When did we last just sit? Not for chores. Just us." Ted rubbed his eyes. "Before the barn-raising, I think." He tried to smile. "We'll rest come spring." "Spring is months off." Mel's throat tightened. "I didn't marry you to trade one fight for another. I married you for this. For being here." He reached across the table and took her hand. His palm was rough and warm. "Then we take a day," he said. "The hay's delivered through the week. The herds are fed. One day won't break us." "The pact needs—" "The pact can spare us one morning." He squeezed her hand. "You gave them two barns. Give me this." Mel felt the tightness break. She nodded. They saddled the black horse and the brown, and rode out past the fields into the hills. No wagons. No hammers. No one watching the road. The cold air stung Mel's face, but she rode close beside Ted and did not think of counts or bales. They stopped where a creek cut the frozen ground. Ted spread a blanket. They ate bread and cheese and talked about nothing. He told her about his father teaching him to ride these hills as a boy. She told him about her mother's stubborn old plow horse. They laughed. For the first time since the wedding, Mel was only his wife, and he was only her husband. When the sun dropped low, Ted took her hand again. "We keep one day a week," he said. "No matter what the Caldwells do. No matter the hay. The pact can build barns without us for a morning." "One day a week," Mel agreed. "We protect it like we protected everything else." They rode home in the dark, tired but easy. The marriage they fought for was theirs now, not just on paper. Mel held that close. But riding down toward Ted's house, she saw a lamp burning in the window. No one should be inside. Someone had come while they were gone. Mel's easy feeling drained cold. The pact fed people. It still could not keep the Caldwells off their own porch.