I knew what she spoke of. For the past three nights I’d awoken to the sound of the wolves. Their cries haunted the dark, horribly pitched and chilling. Even though I knew I was safe in our loft, I’d press myself against Merry’s back, snuggling close, unable to warm myself.
“There was a grizzly near the tree line just last week,” Cyrus Danforth confirmed. “Biggest damn thing I ever saw.” He gestured to his shoulders, estimating its height. “And that was just on all fours. It was nosing around the Abels’ smokehouse. Didn’t think it’d…Not this.”
“Where are the other Elders?” Papa asked, looking to Matthias. “We should be forming a search party.”
The blacksmith scratched at his beard, as dark and shiny as a beaver pelt. “I haven’t seen Leland Schäfer. Cora said he went out along the western ridge with the flock this morning. He wouldn’t have heard any of the commotion from out there.”
“And Amos?”
We all glanced back uneasily to the general store. We could hear the old man’s sobs even from here.
“He and Martha ought to be with Molly now,” Matthias concluded. “And, Parson Briard? Perhaps they’d appreciate some comforting words from you?”
Clemency’s thick lips twisted with dismay. He clearly wanted to stay and watch the drama unfold. With a sigh, he gathered himself up, stretching as tall as his squat frame would allow, before giving out a benevolent nod. “I suppose you’re right, Matthias. Keep the McClearys in your prayers. Good Blessings to you all.”
“Good Blessings,” we repeated as he headed toward the store, his steps now charged with purpose.
“We’ll organize this on our own,” Papa said, returning to the problem at hand. “If there was an attack, bear or otherwise, the supply train could have scattered. People may be injured and lost.”
“The hell we will.” Cyrus spit out a sluice of tobacco, narrowly missing Prudence’s hemline. She jumped back, disgust wrinkling her nose. “That fool stallion probably threw Jeb and crossed paths with the bear before he could make it home.”
Papa shook his head. The Danforth farm bordered along our fields. Our families had years of disagreements stacked between them, never truly forgotten. Papa and Cyrus could put on civil faces when needed, but the animosity was always simmering beneath the surface, threatening to boil over. “We owe it to the supply train to at least search the nearby woods.”
“Look at that stallion. Torn to ribbons. You want that to happen to you, Downing? You want your wife and daughters seeing your riderless horse?”
Papa narrowed his eyes. “Of course not. But if there’s a chance others could be alive—”
Prudence’s husband, Edmund Latheton, reached out to Papa. He was even shorter than his wife, and his auburn beard was kept square and neat. “Gideon, maybe we should wait—the run should be back in another week or so…”
“If you were out there, would you want us waiting a week?”
Edmund swallowed, his jutting Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like a ship at sea. “I…no, but…we’ve seen things too. Not a grizzly,” he quickly clarified as his wife began to protest. “Or maybe it was….I don’t know. It was big, with silver eyes—”
“Glowing silver eyes,” Prudence added.
“Glowing silver eyes,” he agreed. “And it was fast. Faster than any bear I’ve seen.” He opened his mouth once, twice, clearly unsure how to finish the story. “Yes, if I was out in those woods, I’d want someone to come find me…but having seen that…thing…I don’t want to be the one going after them.”
“Glowing silver eyes,” Cyrus repeated, waggling his fingers theatrically. “You sound as nutty as your pa did, Latheton.”
Papa’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that you volunteering, then, Danforth?”
Cyrus wiped a sodden handkerchief across his forehead. “Hardly. I’m not about to get myself killed for Jebediah McCleary. I don’t care if he is an Elder’s son. He knows the risks he takes every time he goes over the pass. And so does every other fool who went with him.”
“You don’t benefit from those runs?” Papa asked, his voice heavy with skepticism.
“I’m a self-made man,” Cyrus said, his chest puffed out as wide and important-looking as it would go, undoubtedly to try to make up for the several inches of height Papa had over him.
“A self-made man who took sugar with his coffee this morning,” Samuel muttered, his nostrils flaring with derision.
I was listening so intently to the argument that my brother’s comment first slid over me, unnoticed. But like a burr, it caught in my mind, prodding for recognition.
I leaned in toward Samuel, lowering my voice. “How do you know how Cyrus Danforth takes his coffee?”
“What?” he asked, unmoving. His eyes were fixed on Papa with a sudden intensity as if he couldn’t bear to look away.
“You just said he had sugar this morning,” I pressed. “Why were you at the Danforths’?”
“I—wasn’t.”
Samuel was an awful liar. The tips of his ears always grew pink, and his sentences were reduced to stammering messes.
A bit of movement at the edge of the group drew my attention, and I looked over to see Rebecca Danforth joining the crowd. My best friend raised her fingers with a small wave, and my own hand echoed in automatic response before I noticed that Samuel’s did the same.
He’d focused wholly on Rebecca. When he dragged his eyes back to me, his smile died away and his cheeks turned a faint red.
“Did you go see Rebecca this morning?” I hissed, my voice softer than a whisper. A bolt of realization struck me, leaving me aghast. “Is she why you’ve been sneaking off all summer? Rebecca Danforth?”
“No!” he insisted. “Let it alone, Ellerie.”
“Are you courting her?”
“I said let it alone.”
“But—”
“Enough!” he growled. The thick lines of his eyebrows leveled into an angry ledge, and his face was splotchy.
I snuck one last peek at Rebecca, my mind racing. When Mama had supposed that Samuel was off visiting a girl, it had never occurred to me it might be her. It just wasn’t possible.
By all rights, we never should have become friends. The bad blood between our families went back generations, to even before her great-grandfather had killed mine. But as Danforths and Downings, we were always paired as desk-mates at school, and proximity can often create the best of relationships. We’d grown up sharing our pail lunches, weaving each other chains of clover, and swapping stories in the wildflower fields that separated her house from mine. Though we were no longer little girls, we still shared everything—books, recipes, even the few bits of jewelry we owned. She couldn’t have kept a secret like this from me.