Chapter 162

Sloane

We got back after dark.

Teague had come down the logging road for us in the truck at three, the way they had arranged it, and been waiting at the bottom with the engine running and the heater roaring. He hadn’t asked how it went. He had looked at Malachi’s face, and then at mine, and grunted, and put the truck in gear. The whole long climb back up the mountain, nobody said anything. I sat in the middle with my knees against the gearstick and watched the headlights push up through the trees, and fell asleep somewhere past the trading post with my head against Malachi’s shoulder, and woke up when the engine stopped.

Now the stove was going. Teague had made a stew out of whatever was left, and we had eaten it without tasting it, and he had washed the bowls one-handed and gone to bed early, which he never did. The cabin was very quiet. Only the fire, and the wind outside, and the small sounds of Malachi at the table, cleaning his boots.

I sat on the