Chapter 3 - Fire Before DawnCaleb pulled on his boots without tying them properly and stepped outside.
The eastern horizon was still black.
Cold hit his face like water.
Then he saw the orange glow.
The forge.
For years it had been nothing more than a collection of rusting tools, a cracked firebox, and memories of men who no longer worked there.
Now smoke rose from the chimney.
Caleb crossed the yard.
Mave stood at the anvil.
She had changed into a work shirt and heavy trousers, with a leather apron tied around her waist.
Her sleeves were rolled.
A pair of tongs held a piece of heated iron against the anvil.
She raised a hammer.
Strike.
Turn.
Strike.
The movement was clean and practiced.
Caleb stopped several feet away.
“What are you doing?”
“Working.”
Mave did not look at him.
“I can see that.”
“Then why ask?”
She returned the iron to the coals.
Caleb glanced around.
In a few hours she had transformed the place.
Tools were arranged by size.
Scrap metal had been sorted.
A broken bench had been braced with spare boards.
She had patched the firebox with old brick from the collapsed side of the shed.
“How long have you been out here?”
“Since four.”
“Mave.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“You know how to use a forge.”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of the answer irritated him.
“You didn’t tell me.”
One eyebrow lifted.
“You didn’t tell me your ranch was being foreclosed.”
Caleb had no reply.
Mave turned back to the fire.
“My father was a blacksmith.”
“You said he owned a shop.”
“I assumed you knew what shops contain.”
“That could mean anything.”
“Not outside Cheyenne.”
She pumped the bellows.
The coals brightened.
“He taught me when I was a girl. First sweeping. Then holding tools. By twelve, I could shape nails. By sixteen, I was shoeing horses he didn’t trust his apprentice with.”
Caleb stared.
“You ran the shop after he died?”
“For a while.”
“Why did it close?”
Mave’s expression changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
“The railroad expanded its own repair operation. Bigger shop. Cheaper contracts. Men who had been coming to my father for fifteen years decided a woman couldn’t possibly know the work as well as he did.”
Her hammer struck harder.
“I lowered prices.”
Strike.
“I worked longer.”
Strike.
“I took every repair nobody else wanted.”
Strike.
“It still wasn’t enough.”
She placed the finished piece into water.
Steam exploded upward.
Caleb waited.
“What are you making?”
“Hinge pins.”
He looked toward the barn.
“For what?”
“Every door on this ranch appears to be trying to fall off.”
Caleb glanced at the nearest one.
She was right.
“After that?”
“The pump.”
“You can repair pumps?”
“I can repair the part of the pump that’s broken.”
“And then?”
“The windmill bearing.”
Caleb laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because something inside him had finally become too full.
Mave stared at him.
“What?”
He shook his head.
“I spent two years watching this place fall apart because I couldn’t afford help, and yesterday a blacksmith climbed off a stagecoach.”
“Don’t make me into a miracle.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Yes, you were.”
Her tone softened slightly.
“I’m one person, Caleb. The bank doesn’t care how useful I am.”
He stepped closer to the forge.
“People still need blacksmith work.”
“They do.”
“Town smith?”
“Retired last spring, according to the stage driver.”
Caleb frowned.
“You asked?”
“I listen.”
She pointed with the hammer toward the road.
“Farmers need plow blades. Teamsters break axles. Ranchers need shoes, hinges, gate hardware, tools.”
Caleb began understanding.
“You want to reopen the forge.”
“I want to use the only thing on this ranch that can earn money before spring.”
He looked toward the cattle.
The herd could not multiply in nine days.
Grass could not grow.
A forge could produce something today.
“How fast?”
“That depends on whether you have usable coal and whether half these tools can be saved.”
“I’ve got coal.”
“Dry?”
Caleb hesitated.
“Mostly.”
Mave closed her eyes briefly.
He added, “I can dry it.”
“Good.”
She picked up another piece of iron.
Caleb watched her.
“What do you need?”
That stopped her.
It was the first time since she arrived that he had asked the question.
Not what are you doing.
Not why didn’t you tell me.
What do you need?
Mave looked toward the shed.
“Move the scrap pile where I can sort it. Find every file you own. I need a bucket that doesn’t leak. And if there’s any old wagon spring steel, bring it.”
Caleb nodded.
“I can do that.”
“And breakfast.”
“What?”
“I haven’t eaten.”
He almost smiled.
“Beans?”
“If you serve me another plate of beans, I may reconsider the foreclosure.”
He laughed.
A real laugh this time.
It surprised both of them.
Twenty minutes later, Caleb was carrying scrap metal toward the forge while bread warmed on the stove.
The sun began rising over the eastern ridge.
Mave returned to the anvil.
The hammer rang across the yard.
Sharp.
Rhythmic.
Certain.
The ranch had been quiet for so long that the sound seemed unnatural at first.
Then Caleb realized what it reminded him of.
Life.
By noon, the well pump worked without grinding.
Before sunset, two barn doors closed properly for the first time in months.
Mave stood beneath the windmill examining its bearing while Caleb held the ladder.
“This whole assembly needs replacing eventually.”
“Eventually sounds expensive.”
“It is.”
“Can you make it survive winter?”
She looked down.
“Probably.”
Caleb grinned.
“Probably is the best news I’ve had all year.”
That evening he sat at the table and opened the ranch ledger.
For months, every line had recorded money going out.
Feed.
Loan interest.
Repairs he could not complete.
Veterinary costs.
Now he turned to a clean page.
At the top, he wrote one word.
FORGE.
Then he looked toward the window.
Orange light moved against the darkness.
Tomorrow, Caleb decided, he would ride into town.
If people needed iron repaired, he would make sure they knew where to find the woman who could repair it.
May you like
They still had eight days.
For the first time, eight sounded like more than zero.
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