Chapter 18
“I can.”
“Then do it.”
“I said—”
“Move them.”
His nostrils flared, but he obeyed. The first two fingers flexed slowly. The third lagged. The little finger barely moved at all.
Henrietta swallowed. “Again.”
This time he understood why she was asking. “They’re numb.”
“So are mine.”
“Yours were numb an hour ago.”
“Yes.”
He shifted abruptly, trying to push himself upright. Pain tore through him so violently that his breath vanished. His face went gray, and Henrietta caught his shoulder before he could roll onto the broken leg.
“Idiot,” she hissed. “What are you doing?”
“You have to go.”
The words came through clenched teeth. She thought pain had scrambled his senses until he seized the front of her coat with his good hand.
“You have to go now,” he repeated. “Before it gets darker.”
Henrietta peeled his fingers from the wool one at a time. “We discussed this.”
“No, you refused to listen. That is different.”
“You cannot stand.”
“I noticed.”
“You cannot ride.”
“I noticed that too.”
“And you think I am going to leave you under a rock in a blizzard.”
“I think you’re going to take the horse and find the road.”
“The horse could throw me in this wind.”
“It could.”
“I could miss the ranch entirely.”
“Yes.”
“I could freeze before I reach it.”
His eyes met hers. “You could.”
Henrietta’s anger rose hot enough to feel almost pleasant. “Then explain why this marvelous plan recommends itself to you.”
Calvin’s grip closed over her wrist, not harshly but with the desperate strength of a man who had begun calculating loss. “Because one of us can still walk.”
She stared at him.
His thumb rested against the pulse beneath her glove. “Your joints are failing. Don’t lie to me. I felt your knees shaking when you hauled me up that slope.”
“You were dangling over a ravine. I was entitled to shake.”
“You nearly collapsed twice after.”
“I did not collapse.”
“You caught yourself against a tree.”
“That is the function of trees.”
“Henrietta.”
The way he said her name stopped the argument. There was no contempt in it, no impatience, not even the stiff formality he had used through most of their marriage. Only fear.
Calvin released her wrist as if realizing what he had revealed. “Ride out,” he said more quietly. “Bring help if you can. If you cannot, at least you might live.”