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she could find sign of either her man or their beasts.
    Out in the wet melting snow she could still fathom the marks of hooves and the man’s feet next to them, leading off into the dark woods. “He has gone into the forest so I would not hear when he slaughtered her,” she said to the baby Purchase. “Next he will kill Ruth Potter for meat.” She looked back out across the fields, following the tracks in the snow until they faded at the entrance to the forest, and wondered which direction out there they had gone off into, so that she might listen for the animals’ scream.
    She sat and listened all day, cursing both the man and herself for marrying him. I left my home for this she reminded herself again, daydreaming about her former house, which was always well stocked with both food and good company, as the rooms and halls of memory inevitably are.
    Near dusk he reappeared, and just as she feared he had meat with him and was covered in blood.
    â€œI’ll not cook the proceeds of your murdering,” she said, when he put the flesh on the table. “Take it out of here.”
    â€œYou have to eat too, Sanne,” he said. “It is good meat.”
    When she heard him say this, the core inside her gave way and her eyes turned into hate-filled saucers. “Get it out of here,” she said again, taking up a knife from near the stove.
    â€œWhat are you planning to do with that?” he demanded cautiously.
    â€œGet it off my table,” was all she said.
    â€œCalm yourself,” Merian told her. “It’s not your cow.”
    â€œWhere is she then?”
    â€œI left her in the woods to feed. I took her out there this morning, down the valley, where the snow is melted enough that we found forage.”
    â€œWhat is that then?” Sanne asked, motioning to the flank on the table. “Did you spare Ruth Potter too or assassinate her?”
    â€œYes, I spared Ruth Potter,” Merian said, but she still held the knife. “You’d rather die or kill your husband than eat those two beasts? You are a stranger one than I thought.”
    â€œYou cannot bring an animal to you with one promise and then abuse it another way. What is on my table?”she asked again, not yet putting down the knife.
    â€œIt is bear, Sanne. The rest of it is hung up out back if you want to see for yourself.”
    She took him at his word, though, and cooked the meat as he prescribed, cutting it into thick steaks, which she grilled in a skillet with its own fat and onions from the otherwise empty cellar.
    He sat down to the table and bade her eat as well. She sat and sliced a portion of the tender flesh and took it into her mouth, where its savoriness and nourishment nearly made her tear. She realized how thin she had become, and that the child was put in jeopardy because of it. She felt absurd in her relief, as disaster had been avoided, for the way she defended the cow and the mule and even the hog for a time, guarding what was dear almost to the expense of losing what was most precious. She sliced the steak again and let out a low sensuous moan of pleasure, as she began to enjoy the taste of the meat itself, which was denser and unlike anything else she could remember eating.
    At his side of the table Merian took the hot meat with his bare hands and lifted it to his mouth, then tore off a great chunk from it and began to chew. He did not savor the flavor, but ingested the mass of flesh into his own dwindled stomach. The juices from the meat and fat rolled down one side of his face unchecked, as he finished the steak in three or four great bites. When he was done, he attacked the onions and only then remembered the first time he had eaten a wild bear and the awfulness of that winter.
    We will make it through this one as well, he told himself, and looked over to Sanne to see how she enjoyed her dinner. He was glad of it, and to know they would not die of starvation, even if the