Page 12 of Mail Order Moose

Ella sat up carefully. The window was a gray square with no shape beyond it. Usually, she could see the leaning spruce nearest the path, the end of the woodpile, and where the trail bent toward town. Now there was only white pressed against the glass.

She counted before she meant to. One sack of flour under the shelf, less than half full. Beans enough for ten suppers if stretched with potatoes. Four potatoes, one onion, coffee enough for David for perhaps twelve days if he did not drink extra at the mill. Wood beside the stove for morning only. More outside, buried now, unless David had stacked the top row beneath the eaves as he sometimes did when the weather smelled wrong.

David stirred when she crossed the room. “Is it morning?” he asked, his voice rough.

“Yes.” Ella lifted the curtain with two fingers, then let it fall. “But the road is gone.”

That woke him fully. He rose, pulled on his boots, and went to the door. When he opened it, snow pushed inward at once, powdering the threshold and his trouser legs. Beyond him, the world was white and moving. David shut the door against the wind. “That’s a hard one.”

Ella looked toward the shelf where the ledger sat wrapped in cloth. It was not only hard. It was early. Too early for the stores to have been fully moved. Too early for every household to know what it lacked. Too early for the people who had meant to make one more trip to Katie’s mercantile before winter truly began.

She knew who had meant to make that trip.

The thought came so quickly that for a moment she did not trust it. She crossed the room, opened the cloth, and found the page she needed. Her finger moved down the columns. Belle. Lula. Sally. Peabody. Myrtle. Maggie. Josie. Agnes. Ella.

Peabody.

She had a pile of goods ready to take to them, and it was her plan to do it that morning, but...things had changed. The snow would make it difficult to reach the Peabodys’ cabin.

“Peabody,” Ella said.

David turned from the door. “What about them?”

“They do not have enough food.” She looked at the page, though she did not need it any longer. “Not for a storm. Not if the path stays buried.”

David’s face changed in that small way she had come to know meant he was taking her words seriously before deciding anything else. He reached for his coat. “I’ll go to the mill. The men will be gathering there.”

Ella folded the ledger closed. “I am coming.”

His hand stopped on the peg. “Ella.”

She disliked the way her name sounded when it carried worry. She stood straighter, though standing straight did not make her feel taller. “I know the stores. I know what was left at Maggie’s. I know the safest route to the Peabodys’ cabin.”

“The men can break trail.”

“They can break the wrong trail.” The words came out sharper than she intended, but she did not take them back. “The creek bank drifts high near the bridge. If they follow the road, they will lose time. The sled track runs between the spruces behind Maggie’s house. It stays firm because the trees catch the snow.”

David looked at her for a long moment. The wind pressed against the cabin again. The latch shivered.

At last, he took down her coat before his own. “Then we had best go quickly.”

By the time they reached the mill, if the word reaching could be used for the slow battle through snow, several men had gathered near the open doors. Sebastian was there, his hat crusted white and his usual good humor buried somewhere beneath a scowl of concentration. Mr. Johnson stood beside him with a shovel in hand. Two other lumbermen were arguing over whether the main path should be cleared first.

“The road is where roads go,” one of the men said.

Ella stood just inside the door, snow melting on her sleeves, and felt every pair of eyes find her. She had expected it. Expecting did not help.

David did not speak for her. That startled her more than it should have. He stood at her shoulder, steady and silent, leaving the space open because the knowledge was hers.

Ella opened her mouth. No sound came at first. Sebastian’s gaze flicked from her to David, and then, to his credit, he closed his own mouth before filling the silence.

“The Peabodys need food,” Ella said. “Today.”

Mr. Johnson frowned. “Peabody was in day before yesterday.”

“For fabric. Not flour. Not beans.” Ella wished she had brought the ledger, though the page sat complete in her mind. “Mrs. Peabody was to collect beans after Sunday. She did not.”

The men looked at one another. It was not disbelief exactly. It was the hesitation of people as they rearranged a problem around a new center.