“If she was ever even raveled in the first place,” she said.
I liked being with Portis, but it always came with a tug of hurt when I thought of everything we might have had, everything we might have been if only him and Mama had lived different lives and found a way to stay together through it.
The east side of the river felt much safer, but we were moving slow. The snow had deepened between the trees and I had to use the pines for balance and move from trunk to trunk. I was starting to lose feeling in my toes and between the numbness there were stabs of heat and outright burning. The pain came in waves, and when a bad one hit I had to stop myself from crying out. I found that if I put my weight on my heels it helped slightly, but it made walking that much more difficult.
There was no longer any light from the moon. The sky itself might have remained lit, but there was no way to tell through the high canopy. I felt about ready to collapse and was glad to see Portis finally drop his ruck and cop a lean against a tree. I stopped beside him and we both stood there breathing heavy.
“Goddamn,” he said. “That’s a tough sled.”
“It’s like walking through molasses,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Except it’s cold as shit.”
Portis uncapped his whiskey and had a gulp. He had another and then offered me the bottle.
“You want a nip?” he said. “For the warmth?”
“No,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Good girl,” he said, and had another.
Jenna cried some and I wondered if I should take her out. I knew she wanted to be held, that she was likely hungry, but thought it might be best to keep her sealed inside the carrier. That whatever warmth had gathered needed to be held.
Her eyes were hard-creased at the corners when she cried. The tips of her black hair were frosted with snow and the tiny mists her breath made in the cold tore me up with their smallness. I’d known that baby no more than a few hours and she’d already broken my heart a half-dozen times.
“She seems to be holding up,” Portis said.
“It’s amazing,” I said.
“We’ll feed her at the shanty,” he said.
“How much further?”
“Not much,” he said. “We’ll get there before the storm hits again.”
“What?”
“This storm’s about to take things up a notch,” he said.
“It’s not even snowing.”
“Well,” Portis said. “It’s about to.”
“I think the storm has passed, Portis,” I said. “I haven’t seen a flake of snow since the cabin.”
“This storm’s a long way from over,” he said.
“How can you tell?”
“It don’t matter,” he said, and held out his gloved hands. “C’mon. Let me carry the baby for a bit.”
“I don’t know if I can carry your pack,” I said. “It probably weighs more than she does.”
“I didn’t say you had to carry any pack.”
“I’m fine with her, Portis. Really.”
“I ain’t going to drop her,” he said. “Hurry up and do it while she’s still fussy. That way we only have to settle her once.”
“What about your leg?”
“What about it?” he said, and left his hands held out between us.
I was too tired to fight him any further. Besides, my shoulders were on fire and I was desperate for a break from that carrier. I lifted it off and handed Jenna over.
Portis’s hair fell forward off his brow and as he gathered Jenna close he pushed the strands back to keep from disturbing her. He put the harness over his right shoulder and swung the papoose in and carried it like a football. The rope was too small to loop across the other side, but Portis barely seemed to register the weight as he folded his left arm beneath the right and walked.
Jenna fussed harder at first, but her cries soon steadied and then receded altogether. She fell asleep in Portis’s arms and I felt the muscles in my shoulder and back loosen and go to jelly.
“Portis,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can,” he said. “But only because I don’t think I can stop you.”
“Did you ever think about asking Mama to marry?” I said. “When you two were together?”
“Well,” he said. “This took a turn.”
“It’s something I’ve always wondered.”
“I thought about it,” he said. “Sure.”
“How much?”
“Who knows?” he said. “A lot, I guess.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“No reason, really.”
“There had to be some reason,” I said.
“There wasn’t.”
“Did you love her?”
“I did.”
“She was pretty, wasn’t she?”
“She was as beautiful a woman as I’d ever seen. And I have not seen one like her since.”