Marta swallowed the ache in her chest. “We can speak normally now.”
They packed what they had because there was no time to mourn what they didn’t.
A small trunk that smelled of cedar and dust. A hand axe. A dented iron pot. Two wool blankets, one so thin the light passed through it if you held it up. Marta’s sewing kit. Britta’s slate and a stub of chalk. A family Bible with Soren’s name written inside in careful ink.
And seven dollars, folded twice and pinned inside Marta’s bodice like a secret.
By sundown, they were walking out of Elkhorn Flats, their silhouettes stretching across the road like something trying to hold them back. The town didn’t stop them. Towns rarely stop tragedies. They watch. They learn. They turn it into a warning to tell their children.
The prairie swallowed their footprints almost immediately.
That first night, the wind found every gap in their clothes and pushed cold fingers through. They built a small fire in a shallow draw and ate cornmeal mush so thin it looked ashamed of itself. Britta held the tin cup with both hands, blowing on it, pretending the steam was enough.
“Mama,” Britta whispered when the stars came out sharp as nails. “Where are we going?”
Marta stared at the darkness, listening to the wide, empty sound of Montana. The land made no promises. It did not offer pity. But it also did not lie.
“Somewhere the company can’t follow,” she said.
