I’m trying to figure out if I’m at fault here or if he is. “Do you want me to run back to the forge for some tools?” I offer. He used to make his crutches out of steel, but his father always said it was a waste of good iron. Now he’s well practiced in making them out of wood.
“No.” He tugs his cloak straight, then balances on one foot while he uses the good crutch to right the milking stool. “You can grab the bucket, though.” He drops onto the stool, then blows on his fingertips to warm them. He puts a hand against the cow’s flank. His voice gentles ina way that only happens when he talks to animals, never people. “Easy there, May.”
The cow flippantly seizes a mouthful of hay and whips her tail, but she sighs.
I seize the frigid bucket and hand it to him. “You … you came over in the middle of the night to milk the cow?”
“It’s not the middle of the night. It’s almost dawn.” He grabs hold of a teat with practiced ease, and a spray of milk rattles into the tin bucket. “I didn’t want to wake you by firing up the forge.” He hesitates, and the air is heavy with the weight of unspoken words.
Ultimately, he says nothing, and the breath eases out of him in a long stream of clouded air.
He studies the bucket. I study him.
Most of his hair is tied into a knot at the back of his head, but enough has spilled loose to frame his face, throwing his eyes in shadow. He’s lean and a bit wiry, but years of forge work and using his arms to bear his weight have granted him a lot of strength. We’ve known each other forever, from the time when we were children, when everything in our lives seemed certain and sure, until now, when nothing does. He remembers my mother, and he sat with me and Nora when she didn’t return from the war. He sat with me again when Da died.
He doesn’t know his own mother, but that’s because she died when he was born. When his father is drunk, I’ve heard him say that was the first mark of misfortune Jax brought on the family.
The second mark came five years ago, when Jax was thirteen. He was trying to help his father fix a wagon axle. It collapsed on his leg and crushed his foot.
I guess the third mark almost came courtesy of my ax. “I’m sorry I almost cut your head off,” I say.
“I wouldn’t have complained.”
Jax is one for brooding, but he’s not usually so sullen. “What does that mean?”
He lets go of a teat to thrust a hand under his cloak, then tosses a piece of parchment in my direction. I drop the ax in the straw to fetch it.
When I unfold the paper, I see the exact same writing that was on the parchment from the tax collector, the note that’s still sitting in my bedroom.
The number on his is twice as large.
“Jax,” I whisper.
“The tax collector came to the forge,” he says. “She claimed we haven’t paid in two years.”
“But—but the forge has so many customers. I’ve seen them. You—you make a decent living …” I see his expression, and my voice trails off.
“Apparently when my father leaves to pay the taxes every quarter, he’s not actually paying them.” Jax is dodging my gaze now.
I wonder if that means his father gambled the money away—or if he drank it away.
Not like it matters. Both options are terrible.
May’s milk keeps spraying into the bucket rhythmically. I grab the other milking stool from the corner and plop it down beside him. Jax doesn’t look at me, but he ducks his face to toss the hair out of his eyes.
I watch his hands move with practiced efficiency. His fingers are red from the cold, scarred here and there from forge burns.
I wish I knew how to help him. I barely know how to help myself.
My midnight worries feel so selfish suddenly, when I have options. They’re not options I want, but they’re options I have. Icansell the farm. Icanenlist. I’d probably never make it past the rank of cadet, not with Father’s stain on our family, but I could do it. Noracango to an orphanage—or I could possibly use part of a soldier’s pension to pay for her to have a guardian somewhere.
Jax can’t do any of those things. His father barely stays sober long enough to worknow. Jax is the one keeping the forge in business. He can’t be a soldier. With a missing foot, few people would take a chance on Jax as a laborer—or anything else.
If they lose the forge, they’d lose everything.
I put a hand on his wrist, and he goes still. “You don’t have to milk the cow,” I say quietly.
He turns to look at me. There’s a shadow on his jaw, and I wonder if he got the bruise when May knocked him down—or if his father did it. They live all the way down the lane, but when they fight, I can often hear it from here.
