“Or five.  And owns a Colt she can’t shoot.”

“Unfair.”

“And is worth twenty horses.”

“Are you talking about me?”

“I’m fairly certain there isn’t anyone else who fits that description.”

“Because you realize, all things considered, I may not be the best marriage material there ever was.”

“Between the two of us, which one is?  Think about it.”

“Chace, I don’t have to think about it.”

“Then can you go with me now?”

“Go where?”

“To the chaplain,” he said.

Charlotte stared at him.  “Today?” she said.  “Right now?”

“If that’s okay with you.”

“I just wasn’t prepared, that’s all.”

“There are things you need to do first?”

“Only get used to the idea this is actually happening.”  The heat from the cookstove was suddenly intense.  She felt the flush rising in her cheeks.

“I’m concerned about what you’re getting into,” she said.  “I’m not a member of the tribes.”

“I wish you’d told me that sooner.”

“But won’t that change everything for you?”

“I didn’t care about it back then where we were, and I don’t care about it now.  But there’s the other side.  I am a member of the tribes and there’s no doubt about how much that changes life for you.  It’ll be there all the time.  If you think people look at you now, just wait.  And we’ll always know that we came from very different places.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Charlotte said, “but I don’t care about any of it either.  Or maybe it makes you even more important to me.”  She had to turn away.  She bent to the oven and retrieved more loaves of bread, then came back to him.  “There’s one more thing and it’s serious.  You have to know it.  It seems to me I’d be marrying myself out of the Family by doing this.  But what if the horrible truth is that you’d be marrying yourself into it?”

“We have the voices and the old ones have visitors from the sky, but there are songs too.  The rocks have a song, the fire has a song, all the four-leggeds have songs, the earth has a song.  I bring my grandfather’s words with me, and his songs and his spirit also.”

“So nobody should worry about the Family is what you’re saying.  I won’t then.  In that case, I’m ready.  Do you know where the chaplain even is?”

“He wasn’t hard to find.  I’d say he has some time on his hands.”

“I have a favor to ask.  Could we keep it just to ourselves for a while?  That would mean a great deal to me.”

“However you want it to be.”

“There’s one person who does have to know, though.  I can’t forget.  The Colonel’s wife.”

“He’s already aware that I’m here.”