Kaki Warner Read Online Free

coffee on to boil, then went outside to feed Merlin and the few chickens roosting in the small barn. The light was fading and clouds seemed to hang just above the treetops. Working quickly, he replaced the ropes on the gate Merlin had broken through, scolded him soundly, then collected four eggs and a venison steak from the cold box in the loft. As he crossed to the cabin, the first fat flakes began to fall.
    Soon he had onions, beaten eggs, and venison chunks frying. He added a side dish of grits and topped supper off with a stale biscuit coated with honey. A fine meal even if he did fix it himself. After he cleaned his dishes and set them back on the shelf beside the stove, he went out to the privy behind the cabin.
    Already, snow had covered over the tracks he’d made earlier, and flurries were coming down fast. On his way back to the house, he stopped by the woodshed. Mindful of his stitches, he gathered an armful of firewood, dumped it on the porch, and went back for three more loads.
    It was dark when he stomped the snow off his boots and went inside.
    The cabin was warm now. Roscoe rushed to his spot by the hearth, adding a wet-dog aroma to the lingering scents of coffee and onions and fried meat. Firelight shadows danced along the log walls, and the only sounds Daniel could hear were the hound’s soft snore, the crackle and pop of the fire, and the rhythmic tick of the cooling stove.
    He was weary. His side hurt like a son of a bitch, and his head throbbed. He just wanted to sleep.
    But across the room, its balusters aligned in a frozen smile and the darkened upstairs windows watching like reproachful eyes, the dollhouse waited.
    He worked through the night, unaware of the passing of time until he opened the door to let Roscoe out and saw dawn breaking over the white-topped ridges in the east. He blinked in surprise at a world transformed under a blanket of fresh snow, and Merlin standing on the porch.
    “Damn it, Merlin. How’d you get out?”
    The horse answered with a snort that fogged in the air and stomped his front hoof. Daniel would have sworn he was laughing.
    “I ought to shoot you.”
    With a flip of his tail, the horse leaped over the steps and trotted toward the barn.
    Ducking back inside, Daniel slammed the door, loosening a slide of snow that sounded like an exhaling locomotive as it came off the roof. The fire was out, and inside the cabin it was almost as cold as it was outside. Shivering, he quickly lit kindling and set water to heat. Then he straightened and studied the dollhouse through gritty eyes.
    He hadn’t worked from a set plan, but had followed a vague image in his mind. Now that it was almost finished, he realized he had copied one of Savannah’s most beautiful homes, although the last time he’d seen Harvest House it had been a charred skeleton.
    An image flashed through his mind. Spring, two years before Sherman marched through, Maryellen standing before the house, talking to the babe in her arms. “Someday we’ll have a home like that. Your daddy will build it for us.”
    Regret settled over him like a heavy cloak. Desperate to outrun the cloying guilt that lingered even after the faces of his wife and son had faded from his mind, he grabbed his jacket off the hook and left the cabin.
    He spent the next few hours in the paddock, repairing the rails Merlin had kicked loose and tending to routine chores that wore out his body and dulled his mind. When he returned to the cabin, morning had bled into afternoon, and he was staggering with weariness from a sleepless night. Too numb to think . . . or remember . . . he collapsed onto the bed without even removing his boots, and sank into an exhausted sleep.
    ***
    “Where are you?”
    Daniel jerked awake, disoriented and confused. “What?”
    No one answered.
    Lurching up onto one elbow, he looked groggily around the cabin, darker now with the approach of dusk. “Who’s there?”
    Silence, except for a faint hiss from the last