Free Lauraine Snelling by Whispers in the Wind

why don’t you and Lucas go up on the roof and take care of those missing shakes. Chief, if you and Micah want to see about the wood supply, I think there are some fallen trees a little way up the hill. You could drag them down here. There used to be a bucksaw stand hanging on the wall behind the cabin. We women will clean the inside. Let’s get a fire going to heat the water that’s in the barrel.”
    She opened the lids on the iron stove. “A bit rusty, but steel wool will take care of that. Cassie, please bring in that wood we brought. I put kindling in the wagon too.” She grabbed the wire handle on a black pot from one of the boxes and handed that to Runs Like a Deer. “We’ll use this to carry and heat the water.”
    With the fire going and the water heating on the stove, Mavis handed Cassie the broom. “You need to sweep the ceiling first and then the walls. We’ll start on the cupboards and shelves. We’ve had mice in here. No doubt we still do. We can catch one of the cats down at the barn, or maybe two so they’ll stay together, to live here and get rid of the mice for you.”
    Cassie took the broom and started sweeping the ceiling. “Why is there a ladder on the wall?”
    “Oh, we used to use the upstairs for storage. It’s not really high enough to stand in except in the middle, but Ivar laid boards over the rafters so we could store supplies up there. He used to go out trapping some in winter, and once the skins were dry, he’d keep them up there until he had enough to sell.”
    Dust and cobwebs ran before Cassie’s attacking broom. She sneezed at the dust but kept on. This was actually not work at all; it was too much fun. She finished the ceiling and started on the walls. By the time she’d completed her task, the two other women had swept and washed down the cupboards and counter, the smell of lye soap permeating the air.
    Cassie listened for a moment to the men up on the roof, boots rattling the shakes, the hammers ringing loud every once in a while. She heard an ax thunking too, so Chief must have returned with the dry wood.
    When Mavis called a halt for dinner, they took their sandwiches outside to enjoy the sunshine.
    “You can see forever from here,” Cassie said, sitting on the wagon tailgate, her feet swinging as she chewed. Before her, nearly the whole valley spread out in graceful curving lines stitched with trees. Browns and yellows and greens and the clear blue of a cloudless sky. How lush it all was, with even the brown patches a rich, vibrant brown. The country might be dying of autumn, but it was still full of life.
    Mavis nodded. “I know. That was one of the things I really missed when we moved down into the big house. I had a bench by the wall, right over there, and I’d bring my coffee cup out here to watch the men fencing down below or the cattle grazing. We didn’t have many then. Deer used to browse in the field over there. Those trees have taken over much of what used to be my garden plot. But we can rip them out.”
    “You had a garden up here?”
    “Of course I did. So should you, come spring. Plowing up my garden space was one of the first things Ivar did that first spring. He’d plowed it once in the fall to break up the sod. We didn’t put any fields into grain then, just pastured it all and raised hay. I remember the haystacks. He built fences around the stacks and let the cattle go through one stack at a time so they didn’t waste any. He was a really good rancher.”
    “That was all after my father left?”
    “Yes. As you know, we weren’t married yet when the two of them built this cabin to live in as they worked the mine. They bought and paid for the land with the gold they found and were digging deeper, because they figured the vein hadn’t actually quit, it had just shifted or something. That’s when the mine collapsed. It is thanks to John Birdwing—your Chief—that both of them made it out.”
    “Were they injured?”
    “Not much. Cuts and