“I didn’t want you to find him.  Sit down, I’ll get you something to eat.  You’re exhausted.”

At least it was over.  Now she could allow her mind to return to the schedule of their days, the schooling and bread baking, the chores and knitting, the horse and cow grazing.

He removed his coat and sat down wearily at the table.  “He’ll know I was out there.”

“Don’t.  Please,” Charlotte said.  “I can’t take any more.”

“I left signs, messages.”

“Like what?  Telegrams?  Four-page letters nailed to a tree?”

“There are no trees, there’s nothing in those high canyons.  No, it’s what scouts and trackers do and he’s better at it than anybody living or dead.  He’ll come across them.”

“Ellis, stop talking.  I made a life here and now I have to get back to it as if you never showed up and started yelling.”

“I’ll just say one more thing and then I’m done.  Look at me.”  She did.  “I’m pretty sure that, because you’re so stubborn, when you commit to something, or someone, it’s for good.  If you didn’t feel things so strongly, or have such a vile temper, I wouldn’t have gone.”

“So now it’s my fault?”

“My going is no one’s fault.  It’s because I care about you.”

She didn’t mean to blush.  “And who cares about you, Ellis?”

“Someone does.  Or at least I think they do.”

“Besides me?” she said, surprised.

“Thank God besides you.”  Ellis took a sealed letter out of his shirt and put it on the table.

Her studied glance went from the letter to him and back again.  “What is that all about?  And why haven’t you opened it?”

“I’m afraid to open it.”

Charlotte stared at him.  “You are?  Then who is it from?”

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.  It’s from someone I met in Missouri.”

“The way you’re acting it has to be a woman.  Come out with the rest of it.”

Ellis leaned his head on his hands.  “Her name’s Isabelle,” he said.  “She’s got two daughters.  Small, like Grace.”

“And the husband?”

“Dead.  Got kicked in the head trying to break a horse.”

“And there you were being so charming, women swooning all over the place…”

“Women were never swooning.”

“I beg to differ.  And yet she’s still in Missouri.”

“She had to think about it.  Me.  Oregon Territory.  Then I was in a different place than I said I’d be, so this letter took some time getting to me.”

“Do you want me to read it and tell you what it says?”

“That’s the last thing I want.”