“Micah!”
Conrad’s voice came through the stones again, weaker this time.
Eli stood behind me clutching the edge of the blanket while the old dog growled low in his throat.
For four days the storm had buried everything beyond our cave.
Snow covered the hillside so completely that day and night looked almost the same through the narrow breathing gap I had kept near the entrance.
I had expected branches to break.
I had expected drifts to block us in.
I had expected hunger if the storm lasted long enough.
I had not expected Conrad Pike to come begging at the door of the shelter he had mocked.
Another blow struck the stones.
“Micah, open it.”
Eli looked up at me.
“You gonna let him in?”
There are questions a father answers with words, and there are questions a boy remembers by watching what his father does.
I thought of Sarah coughing under the quilts.
I thought of Conrad saying she had died because I was too poor to keep her warm.
I thought of his wagon disappearing down the hill while Eli stood beside our belongings in the frost.
Then I removed the first stone.
“Help me,” I told Eli.
Together we pulled enough of the barrier apart to make a narrow opening.
Snow collapsed inward in a heavy white slab.
I dug with my hands until a gloved arm pushed through.
Conrad crawled into the cave on his knees.
He looked nothing like the man who had sat above me on a wagon bench in October.
Ice clung to his beard.
His hat was gone.
One side of his coat was stiff with frozen snow, and his hands shook so badly he could barely pull himself upright.
Behind him came members of the Pike household, exhausted and white-faced from the storm.
They squeezed through the opening one after another before I rebuilt the stones against the wind.
Nobody laughed at the cave.
Nobody said a word about graves.
They simply stared.
Our fire was small, but it was steady.
Smoke rose from the hearth and vanished toward the natural seam above it.
The stone sleeping platform was dry.
Bedding sat several inches off the floor.
Cornmeal and tools rested in the rear chamber where no snow could reach them.
Most important, the air was still.
Outside, the storm screamed like an animal.
Inside, Eli was barefoot beside the fire.
Conrad noticed that first.
His eyes dropped to the boy’s feet.
Then he looked at the walls.
“How?” he asked.
I handed him a blanket.
“Sit down.”
He did.
For several minutes all we heard was breathing, the faint crack of burning wood, and snow shifting against the blocked entrance.
When Conrad could finally hold the iron cup without spilling, he drank warm water and stared into the fire.
“Our chimney went first,” he said.
I waited.
“Wind tore part of it loose.
Then snow packed against the house faster than we could clear it.
Draft died.
Smoke started backing inside.”
His jaw tightened.
“We opened a window to clear it.
Wind came through and froze everything near the wall.
By morning the roof over the back room was groaning.”
Eli listened silently.
Conrad rubbed his hands.
“I thought the farmhouse was stronger than this.”
He glanced at the
