It was mid October. Across the bristling hillside the cedar and silver birch trees were slowly swallowing the withered sun. Soon the night would reclaim them. And soon, thought Larissa as she felt the evening frost sting her fingers, soon the snows would come, and then perhaps he would come too.
He had come to her last fall. Trekking back to Fort Compton to sell his furs and to shelter for the winter, he had asked whether he might rest awhile. He had stayed nearly a week. In their giving and taking, Larissa had thought they were merely bartering need for need, as he had bartered with Mohawk and Seneca. Only when he left, did her winter truly arrive, and only then did her empty heart discover the cost of their trade. Now her sole comfort was the prospect of his return. So Larissa watched the skies and counted the days, and waited.
The first snow arrived a few days later. To the other farmers around Kimberling it was an early, unwanted guest. But Larissa welcomed the snow like an old friend. She busied herself, stabling the horses and stacking logs next to the fire and stove. From the cupboard she retrieved a pair of old silk sheets and laid them across the thin mattress of her bed - just in case, she told herself. She took out a white, laced dress that her grandmother had bequeathed her. Holding it against her body, she pushed up her hair and regarded herself in the mirror. Then she pulled a face at her reflection and put the dress away.
It snowed for three days and nights, sifting floury, thick flakes upon the trees and pastureland. On the fourth afternoon, Larissa was looking out towards the west. There she spotted a figure, pulling a string of mules, shapeless and almost indistinct against the grey, white and black of the forest. Her heart leapt as she recognised his loping stride. From the farmhouse she tracked him as he worked his way down the ridge and across the fields. Behind him lay a trail of footprints in the thick carpet of snow. Tomorrow, she thought, his prints will have gone, and soon he will have gone too.
She put on her greatcoat and ran out to meet him by the Dutch barn.
'You've come back,' was all she could think to say.
Nathan was bearded, weather-beaten and weary. Even under the thick bearskin coat, he seemed thinner than she remembered.
'Yes,' he agreed uncertainly, as if surprised to find himself there.
'Eat or sleep?' she asked.
'Eat,' he answered.
As Nathan tended to the mules, Larissa heated up some stew and poured him a large glass of rye beer. He was hungry and devoured the food in quick, heaped spoonfuls. They sat in awkward silence but, as he ate, he watched her with appraising, hunter's eyes. And she watched him too, occasionally touching his arm across the table, as if by accident, but really to convince herself that he was not some cruel apparition that her loneliness had summoned from the past.
Almost as soon as he had finished, he fell asleep by the fire, lulled by the journey, the warmth and the beer.
When he awoke, Larissa was beside him. She had changed into her grandmother's dress. Nathan admired her slim forearms and calves, browned by the long summer days working the fields, and now reddened by the fire's glow. She had loosened her hair and it tumbled over her shoulders in liquid tresses, as dark and deep as her eyes.
The sleep had refreshed him. He drew her face to his and tried to kiss her but she pulled away.
'Not yet. I want to wash the forest from you.'
'It'll take more than soap and water,' he shrugged.
She poured him a bath by the fire. Nathan struggled out of his dirty, ragged clothes.
'I'll wash what I can,' she called from the kitchen, 'but I'll burn the rest of your clothes. I'll give you some of John's.' Through the doorway she watched him from behind. His body was lean and hard. Even shaving, his movements were easy and economical.
Larissa brought Nathan fresh clothes as he towelled himself off. Now, she found a quite different man before her, beardless and younger-looking.
