“It was good of you to bring home a tree, Scully,” she said, “but you shouldn’t have raised Abigail’s hopes by mentioning St. Nicholas. It took practically every penny we had, including what Big John sent, merely to get out here, and I’ve got nothing to give that child. Not even a hair ribbon.”

There was a certain sad tenderness in Scully’s eyes, though he smiled at her. “Have some faith, Evangeline—it’s Christmas. A time for miracles.”

“How can you believe in miracles, after that war?” she burst out, with an impatience so sudden and savage that it stunned her. The anger, the disillusionment, had surely been lurking inside her for a long time, but she’d thought she’d routed them, that they had gone forever. How wrong she had been.

“How can I not believe?” Scully countered, and passed her to go into the house.

Evangeline was left with two choices, follow, or freeze to death. She chose to follow, but not with any real enthusiasm.

“You’re a fraud, Evangeline,” Scully told her, fifteen minutes later, when they were both idling near the cookstove. “I’ve heard you pray with that child. I’ve seen you reading the Good Book. But you don’t really believe, do you? Your faith died with those boys that fell at Gettysburg.”

She looked away, looked back. “Yes,” she admitted. “I’m afraid it did.”

He sighed and took a thoughtful sip from his mug of hot coffee. “I feel sorry for you, then,” he said. That was all, just those words and nothing more. He had the gall to walk away, in fact, sit down by the hearth, and take up his harnesses and the oiled polishing cloth again.

She wandered over in his direction when it seemed like a good idea, ostensibly to wipe down the table. “You didn’t lose your faith?” she challenged, speaking softly lest Abigail hear. “After all you saw and heard and felt, you didn’t stop believing?”

He raised his eyes to look at her. At the windows, snow was drifting past, pure as a benediction, and lamplight made the place cozy. Made the log walls seem somehow more solid and the roof sounder. “I didn’t have anything else to hold on to,” he replied. “I went home and everyone important was gone. The house had been burned to the ground, the fields trampled and stripped. There was just me and that old horse out there in the barn, and the things I’ve always believed. So I gripped those things real tight and they got me through, Eve.”

She didn’t know how to answer him. He was unlike anyone, man or woman, that she’d ever encountered, a peculiar mix of saint and sinner, angel and imp. Dear God in heaven, how she loved him, whatever he might be, and how very hopeless it all was.

Abigail arose soon after that, bright-eyed and expectant, and Scully carried the checkerboard over to the bed and played game after game with the child, until it was time for her supper. Evangeline let her come to the table, after building up the fire, and during the meal Abigail and Scully talked about the wild horses. Abigail was worried that they’d be too cold in the corral, and Scully assured her that they’d be fine, since they knew enough to huddle together close when storms came.