A Reliable Wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

terrible chill, the awful dread of the thing she hadn’t expected.
    The horses veered, pulling them off the road, the wheels cracking into new snow, a sound like a blade through bone. The carriage
     hurtled through a thin fence and everything was noise and chaos and Ralph had one leg up on the front of the carriage, screaming
     the horses’ names, pulling back, swearing, and the cold seemed sharper, and Catherine, terrified, holding on, rigid with fear,
     felt the cracking thud as the carriage hit a rut, the leftover gash of some autumn rivulet, and Ralph was thrown into the
     air, the reins flying. She saw him just long enough to see the iron rim of the wheel strike his head as he fell beneath the
     carriage, and then they were off, jolting and careening wildly, the horses wild, too, off the road now, heading toward the
     black river.
    Catherine groped blindly. The reins whipped in the wind, but she found them, took them in her hands. The carriage rocked in
     the pitted field, but she held on. Her foolish cloak was streaming in the wind, choking her, and she ripped it from her neck
     and it flew out behind, a momentary ghost in the swirling snow.
    She knew enough to let the horses run. She knew enough to hope in their natural instincts. Her strength was no match for the
     terror she felt pulsing from the horses’ black rumps. She held on. She did the only thing she could.
    The horses raced on in a frenzy. They galloped down a small bank, skimmed onto the frozen river, the carriage arcing dangerously,
     so that the horses were spun in a circle, leaving crazy black trails on the powdered ice, really frightened now, aware, suddenly,
     of how far they were from safety. One of the horses slipped, lost its footing and collapsed onto the ice, which cracked and
     shimmered but held. Catherine sat mute with fear, with the idea of death in the frigid water, drowning, tangled in dying horses.
    The river held. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. As the horses struggled to find their footing, she climbed the traces and
     lay along their steaming necks. As the black gelding stood again she was there, whispering in its ear, the words coming from
     somewhere and lost in the wind, but enough, whispering, holding her hand gently against the softest part of its throat.
    The horses calmed beneath her hands, their panic passed. They heard her voice, barely audible above the howling wind, and
     they stood patiently as she inched her way back through the harness, her hands never leaving their flesh, never letting them
     forget that she was there, was in charge, promising them safe delivery.
    She gently picked up the reins again and they walked, exhausted now, her eyes straining in the howling dark to pick up the
     ruts in the snow so she could tell where they had come from, driving them slowly back to the place where the deer had leapt
     out of nothing and sent the stillness flying into panic.
    On the road again, the horses stood pitiful and defeated. The gelding almost collapsed, but pulled himself upright, and together
     the two horses hauled the carriage into the white blindness. Miraculously, the lanterns had held, and she could see a short
     distance ahead.
    They almost ran over Ralph before she saw him. He stood calmly in the middle of the road, swaying a bit, blood streaming from
     a gash in his forehead, a gash deep as bone.
    She jumped from the carriage. She hadn’t come all this way to have him die now. Not now. She caught the hem of her skirt on
     the edge of the seat, heard the quick tear of the cheap material as she almost fell into his arms. The blood covered his face,
     mixing with the snow clotted in the fur collar of his black coat. She took his elbow. He shook her off, but then he staggered,
     and she took his arm again and this time he didn’t push her away but leaned into her, so that she realized the size and solidity
     of him, the depth of his chest, even through his heavy coat the heat of his body was clear. She helped