Colum remained in the parlor through the rest of August.
The days became a strange rhythm.
Martha rose before sunrise, fed the chickens, milked the cow, worked the garden, checked the corn, repaired whatever had broken overnight and returned to the house several times each morning to help Colum.
Colum complained.
Martha ignored him.
Then Colum complained about being ignored.
She ignored that too.
But little by little, the hostility changed.
One morning Martha entered carrying oatmeal and found him sitting upright without pillows supporting his back.
She stopped.
“How long?”
“Maybe ten minutes.”
“You’ll exhaust yourself.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“I’m tired of lying flat.”
She set the bowl down.
His arms trembled visibly.
“You planning to hold yourself like that all day?”
“If I can.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“I can imagine.”
She turned toward the kitchen.
“Martha.”
She looked back.
Colum stared at his legs.
“Can you move them?”
She frowned.
“What?”
“Bend them. Straighten them. Whatever the doctor showed you.”
“You hate when I do that.”
“I know.”
“Yesterday you called me a butcher.”
“I was in pain.”
“You called me a butcher before I touched you.”
“Preparation.”
Martha folded her arms.
“What changed?”
Colum hesitated.
“I need them to remember.”
“Remember what?”
“That they belong to me.”
Something about the answer tightened her throat.
She pulled a chair beside the cot.
“All right.”
She placed one hand beneath his knee and the other beneath his ankle.
“Tell me if I hurt you.”
“I probably won’t feel it.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Colum looked at her.
Then nodded.
She bent his leg carefully.
Again.
Again.
He watched every movement as though trying to command the muscles through sheer anger.
“Move,” he whispered.
Nothing happened.
Martha straightened the leg.
Again.
“Move.”
Nothing.
By the twentieth repetition, sweat covered Colum’s face.
“You’ve done enough.”
“Again.”
“Colum.”
“Again.”
Martha stared at him.
Then she bent the knee once more.
September arrived with cooler nights.
Martha was repairing fence along the north pasture when two riders approached.
Amos and Ezra Pike, owner of the feed store.
Martha leaned on her hammer.
“Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it.”
Amos laughed.
“Came to see whether our mountain man survived.”
“He has a name.”
“So he’s alive?”
“Unfortunately.”
Ezra chuckled.
Martha did not.
Amos looked toward the house.
“He useful yet?”
“He wasn’t dropped here to entertain you.”
“Useful question, though. Winter’s coming. You’ve got taxes due.”
“That concerns me.”
“It concerns the county when you can’t pay.”
Martha’s jaw tightened.
Samuel had borrowed money during the drought three years earlier.
Most had been repaid before his death.
But not all.
Amos knew exactly how close Martha was to losing the farm.
He enjoyed knowing.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“That would be new.”
Amos rested his hands over the saddle horn.
“Just saying it’d be easier to sell while somebody might still buy.”
“To you?”
“Could save you embarrassment.”
“You mean profit you.”
“Samuel’s land belonged with Higgins land.”
“It belonged to Samuel.”
“And now?”
“To me.”
Amos’s eyes hardened.
“Until the bank says otherwise.”
Martha stepped closer.
“Ride away.”
He smiled again.
“Tell your half-man hello.”
Something moved behind Martha.
She turned.
Colum sat on the porch.
Martha’s heart nearly stopped.
He had dragged himself from the parlor.
One hand gripped the porch post.
The other rested beside him.
His legs lay straight across the boards.
Amos stared.
“Well. Look at that.”
Colum’s pale blue eyes settled on him.
“Come say it closer.”
Ezra stopped smiling.
Amos shifted in his saddle.
“You threatening me?”
“No.”
Colum’s voice was quiet.
“I’m inviting you.”
For several seconds nobody moved.
Then Amos spat into the dirt.
“Enjoy winter.”
They rode away.
Martha waited until they disappeared.
Then she marched toward the porch.
“What were you thinking?”
Colum looked up.
“Morning to you too.”
“You could’ve fallen.”
“I did.”
“What?”
“Twice.”
“Colum!”
“I got back up.”
“You crawled fifteen feet by yourself?”
“Twenty.”
“Why?”
His expression became almost innocent.
“Fresh air.”
Martha put both hands on her hips.
“You are the stupidest man God ever made.”
“Amos might compete.”
Despite herself, Martha laughed.
It startled both of them.
She had not laughed like that since Samuel died.
Colum looked at her for a moment.
Something softened in his face.
Martha noticed and immediately busied herself with gathering his blanket.
“Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
“I can get there.”
“You got here. That doesn’t mean you can get back.”
“I’ll manage.”
Martha sighed.
“Fine.”
She walked into the house.
Five minutes later she heard him swear.
Ten minutes later he reached the cot.
Martha never told him she had watched from the kitchen doorway the entire time.
That afternoon, she found a piece of charcoal and marked a line on the floor.
“What’s that?”
“Your starting place.”
“For what?”
“Crawling.”
Colum stared.
“You said you wanted your body to remember.”
Martha marked another line six feet away.
“Tomorrow you reach this.”
His mouth twitched.
“You’ve become ambitious.”
“I’ve become tired of hearing you complain.”
The next day he crossed six feet.
The day after, eight.
Within two weeks, Colum could move from the cot to the porch without help.
His arms strengthened quickly.
His back followed.
But his legs remained useless.
Until one morning Martha was flexing his right foot.
Colum suddenly inhaled.
“What?”
“Do it again.”
She moved the foot.
His face changed.
“What?”
“I felt something.”
Martha went still.
“Where?”
“My ankle.”
“Pain?”
“Pressure.”
She pressed her thumb against the side of his foot.
“Here?”
“Nothing.”
She moved higher.
“Here?”
“Nothing.”
Then to his calf.
Colum flinched.
Martha looked up.
“You felt that?”
He stared at her.
“Do it again.”
She pressed.
He laughed.
It was not a polite laugh.
It burst from him like thunder.
Martha began laughing too.
She did not know why.
Perhaps because hope was frightening after you had lived without it.
That evening Colum said, “I need wood.”
“For the stove?”
“No. Two straight poles. Hickory if you’ve got it.”
“What for?”
“Crutches.”
Martha studied him.
“You can’t stand.”
“Not yet.”
Three days later, Colum started trying.
Martha positioned the crude crutches beneath his arms while he sat at the edge of the cot.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Tell me this is foolish.”
“It is foolish.”
“Then don’t say it.”
“You just did.”
“Martha.”
“All right.”
She stood in front of him.
“Ready?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He pushed.
His arms locked.
His body lifted.
For half a second his feet rested on the floor.
Then his knees folded.
Martha caught him beneath the arms.
They crashed against the cot.
Colum shouted in frustration.
“Again.”
“You nearly took me with you.”
“Again.”
“Not today.”
“Again!”
Martha grabbed his face with both hands.
It shocked him silent.
“Listen to me.”
His breathing was hard.
“You are not going to destroy the parts of you that work because you hate the parts that don’t.”
His eyes flashed.
“You don’t understand.”
“Don’t I?”
“No.”
Martha released him.
“You think I don’t know what it is to hate your own body?”
Colum’s anger disappeared.
Martha stepped backward.
“Every woman in town has made sure I know exactly what they think of mine. Every man has had a joke. Every child has heard one and repeated it. When Samuel married me, folks said he wanted free farm labor.”
“Martha—”
“I spent years believing if I worked twice as hard, stayed twice as quiet and ate half as much, maybe they’d decide I was worth being treated like a woman.”
Colum said nothing.
“They didn’t.”
She looked toward the window.
“Then Samuel died, and I understood something.”
“What?”
“They were never going to give me permission to matter.”
The room became quiet.
Martha met his eyes again.
“So I stopped asking.”
Colum stared at her.
Then slowly he nodded.
“All right.”
“All right what?”
“Tomorrow.”
She understood.
“Tomorrow.”
Autumn settled over the prairie.
Their strange partnership deepened.
Colum could not plow, but from the porch he could sharpen tools.
He repaired harness buckles.
Mended a lantern.
Fixed Martha’s broken butter churn.
Built a new handle for her axe.
When she returned from the fields, she often found something repaired.
“You keep this up,” she told him one afternoon, “I might have to feed you better.”
“I was wondering when that would happen.”
He gained weight.
His shoulders filled out.
The hollows beneath his cheekbones softened.
Martha trimmed his hair one evening.
“You cut ears?”
“Only when men complain.”
“I withdraw the question.”
When she finished, he touched his shorter hair.
“Haven’t looked civilized in years.”
“You still don’t.”
“Comforting.”
October brought frost.
And with frost came trouble.
The corn harvest was poor.
Martha sat at the kitchen table one evening counting coins.
Colum watched from the parlor.
“How bad?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“That bad, then.”
Martha gathered the coins.
“Taxes are due December first.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-eight dollars.”
“You have?”
“Seventeen.”
Colum frowned.
“Sell the cow?”
“Then we lose milk.”
“Chickens?”
“Two scrawny hens won’t save us.”
“Corn?”
“Enough to feed us and the cow. Barely.”
Colum stared at the ceiling.
“I’ll earn it.”
Martha laughed tiredly.
“How?”
“I can carve.”
“What?”
“Traps. Axe handles. Chairs. Whatever people need.”
“People in town won’t buy from you.”
“Why?”
“Because then they would have to admit you’re still alive.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Make a list.”
“A list?”
“Everything broken on this farm.”
Martha almost smiled.
“It’ll take until Christmas.”
“Good.”
For the next month, Colum worked.
He built.
He repaired.
And every morning, he tried to stand.
For three seconds.
Then five.
Then eight.
His left leg responded before his right.
The first time he managed to lock one knee beneath himself, he nearly shouted the roof down.
Martha pretended she had dust in her eye.
By late November, Colum could stand between the cot and a chair for nearly half a minute.
But only if Martha helped him rise.
Winter arrived early.
Snow buried the fields after Thanksgiving.
Wind rattled the shutters.
The farmhouse shrank into a small warm island surrounded by white emptiness.
Then came the morning Martha would remember for the rest of her life.
She woke before dawn.
For a moment she lay listening.
The house seemed unusually quiet.
Then—
BANG!
Martha sat upright.
A second crash shook the parlor.
“Colum?”
No answer.
She threw off the blankets and ran barefoot into the hall.
Another heavy thump.
“Colum!”
She reached the parlor doorway.
Stopped.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
The iron cot was empty.
The chair beside it had been knocked over.
A tin mug rolled slowly across the floor.
And Colum—
Colum Hale—
the mountain man everyone in Oak Ridge had declared permanently broken—
was standing.