She skidded on the icy porch as she cantered toward the stairs, but Chance grabbed her arm, steadied her, held her back.

“Wait, mujer. We don’t know …”

“It’s him,” she said, desperately. “Let me go.” She tugged her arm away, calling, “Andres? Where’s Phoenix? Is he with you?” She glared at Mara, the woman’s rifle still raised. “Don’t you dare fucking shoot.” She moved toward the stairs.

The man emerged from behind the tree, his arms upraised as if praising.

He wore thick snow gloves, a felt hunting cap, a jacket and jeans. His face contrasted against the snow, russet-brown and terrified. Calliope crumpled onto the icy steps.

It wasn’t him.

Chance called again, “Mister, identify yourself. What business you have here?”

“I’m just looking for anybody,” the man called. “Y’all a sight for sore eyes, lemme tell you.”

“You got a weapon?” Chance asked.

“No, sir, I do not.”

“Keep your hands up, I’ll come to you.”

Chance trekked through the snow toward the stranger.

How had the man gotten to her tía’s in a snowstorm? Was he a neighbor from down the road? The nearest house was two or three miles away. Why hadn’t he come sooner?

Mara muttered under her breath, “How’ll we know we can trust him?”

Calliope was too upset to answer, though Mara’s inhospitable tone meant he wasn’t a neighbor.

A few minutes passed, Chance talking to the man in the snow. After Chance had searched him, the stranger finally lowered his arms and they trudged back toward the house.

Calliope didn’t wait for them to reach the porch but went inside feeling heavy, and slumped in front of the fireplace, an iron-bellied soldier, a smoldering machine man. She would have pointed that out to Phoenix, who would have laughed his contagious little laugh.

The pile of firewood was running low. For no reason that made sense, she walked toward the back door, toward the unfenced backyard where Tía kept her ax beside the chopping block, passing Eunjoo playing at the dining table with salt and pepper shakers shaped as animal figurines, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything to the girl.

Outside, she brushed off the snow from the gloves beside the ax and slid them on her hands. She gripped the handle, positioned a thick chunk of wood on the flared stump, raised her hands above her head, fully cognizant that she should not exert herself, should not hold something so heavy above her head, should not swing, and brought the ax swiftly down. She did this several more times before Chance called from the back door, “Should you be doing that?”

Calliope ignored him, and the pain in her pelvis, and kept chopping.