"You tie the rope from the house to the shed where the wood is stacked," Cale explained, "so that if there's a really bad storm, you can go out and get firewood and not get lost in the snow."
"How could you get lost? The house is right there." Eric pointed.
"Sometimes the wind blows the snow around so much you can't see your hand in front of your face," Cale explained, "so you would hold on to the rope and use it to lead you back to the house. Come on, guys, let's go real quietly and we'll see what just landed in that big pine tree..."
Dolefully rolling their eyes at each other, the sullen little boys trudged reluctantly through the snow behind their father.
Chapter Four
"Are you sure you don't mind that I go out for a while?" Quinn wrapped the scarf around her neck and searched the pockets of her parka for her thick fur- lined gloves. "I haven't been up to Elizabeth's cabin in months."
"Of course I don't mind," Catherine assured her daughter, "just don't get stuck up there. We haven't had near as much snow this year as we did last, and the latest report said that the storm may not arrive until tomorrow, but you never know."
"I have four-wheel drive. I wont get stuck." Quinn stole a cookie from the cooling rack. "And if the snow is too deep, I'll just turn around and come back."
"Well, you won't want to stay up there for too long anyway. There's no heat in the cabin, and it hasn't even been opened in months. You'll more than likely have to clear a path to the front door."
"Right I'll take a shovel."
"Here, take this, too, just in case you get cold." Her mother handed her a thermos of hot coffee with one hand and a large wreath of fresh greens with the other.
"Thanks, Mom. And maybe I'll take a few of these, too, in case I need a snack." Quinn wrapped a few more cookies in a napkin, pitched an apple into her nylon shoulder bag, which was already bulging-- cleaning cloths, candles, her cellular phone, pruning clippers--and headed out the back. "I won't be long. I just want to make sure that Elizabeth gets her wreath this year."
The cold mountain air was jarring once outside the house, and Quinn hurried across the densely packed snow toward her vehicle, which she had parked out by the barn. She opened the driver's door, tossed her bag onto the front seat, and laid the wreath on the backseat. Returning to the house, she took a broom from the pantry and a snow shovel from the open back porch and slid them both onto the floor in the back of the car before climbing in. She turned on the ignition, giving the engine a minute to warm up before making a wide circle and heading toward the road, driving tentatively, testing the depth of the snow. Finding her traction, she headed on up into the hills, to the old stone cabin that was built by her great-great-grandparents over a century earlier, where every year, Quinn or one of her siblings had gone to hang a wreath on the door to commemorate not only the date on which their great-great-grandmother had been born, but the date she had wed, as well.
They all called it Elizabeth's cabin, although in truth it had been both Elizabeth and Stephen Dunham who had, together, hauled endless stones from the beds of mountain streams to build their sturdy one- room shelter where they had begun their married life. As Stephen prospered as a trapper, the cabin had been expanded to accommodate their growing family. Years later, when Stephen's father had died back East in Philadelphia, he had with the greatest reluctance made the decision to return to take his place in the family shipbuilding business. Elizabeth had known that her husband's blue-blooded family was not likely to welcome her, a full-blooded Cherokee, with open arms, but she had promised to keep an open mind for Stephen's sake and for the sake of their children. And so she had accompanied him on the train across the country, the children all dressed in new "city" clothes, the boys tugging at their stiff collars, the girls confused by the number of undergarments they were forced to wear. The Dunhams had tolerated Elizabeth's presence while Stephen lived, but after his demise following a tragic carriage accident on Broad Street, Elizabeth had packed her belongings, and left her children with their grandmother to be educated as their father had wished. Taking the stash of gold coins Stephen had set aside for her, intending that she would never have to ask her in-laws for money, Elizabeth returned alone to the hills she had loved, to the cabin where she and Stephen and the children had been so happy, and it had been there that she remained until she died at the ripe old age of ninety- two.
Behind the cabin a small stone rose from the grass to designate Elizabeth's final resting place, a smaller stone nearby marking the grave of a daughter, Mary, who had not survived an outbreak of measles. Stories passed down through the family told of Elizabeth's oldest daughter's, Selena's, fight to bring Stephen's body back to the hills to bury him beside his beloved wife, but her efforts had been blocked by her brother Robert. Having taken his place as a Philadelphia Dunham, Robert had refused to permit the moving of their father's body from the cemetery in the city Stephen had never really known, and surely had never loved as he had loved the Montana wilderness. Elizabeth's heart would have broken, seeing her children divided, her son Avery siding with Selena, and Sarah and John siding with Robert. To this day, the descendants of one faction had no communication with those of the other.
It was said, too, that Elizabeth had never left the hills, that she waited still for Stephen's return. Several of Elizabeth's descendants had, at one time or another, claimed to have seen her, usually at a time of danger. Her daughter Selena was said to have seen her innumerable times, as had Quinn's mother and aunt, Catherine and her sister, Charlotte. In Quinn's generation, both Liza and CeCe had claimed to have seen her once when they were swimming and a mountain lion had stalked them on the way home. Susannah swore she had seen her once when a momma bear had decided that Susannah was picking huckleberries all too closely to the den wherein her cubs slept. Each time, it seemed, Elizabeth had appeared to lead her descendants to safety. Quinn alone of Catherine's girls had yet to see the old woman, who had always been described in the same manner: dark hair, gently streaked with gray, hanging over one shoulder in a fat braid that reached past her hips, a green woolen blanket wrapped around her against the chill of the mountain air.