These two possessions she would take from their time together, a duck feather for all that was simple and easy between them, and an eagle feather for what was complicated and beyond words.  She would build a collection around them, though that was an offense within the Family also.  She’d been doing such a thing with interesting objects since she was small, why, she didn’t know.  They didn’t have any significance to her that she could recall, she just liked how they belonged together, but her father insisted on calling them altars and it upset him greatly.  She couldn’t count how many he’d taken apart, throwing away the acorns and seed pods, blue jay feathers, dead bees, birds’ nests, pebbles from the river, dried flowers.  Did he seriously believe that she could cause harm with such innocent constructions?  She felt sadness for him sometimes on that count alone, the constant vigilance required to protect his faith.

Charlotte was aware of the explanation behind all this sudden turn of thought.  If someone was out looking for her and had come from Fort Randall, how many days had he traveled?  Not many, she guessed.  Chace had told her they’d soon have to cross the creek and head north again.  But north into what?  At least there was this, the cabin, the barn, the surround of trees from which to look out on the vast prairie and either dream or despair. She was doing both.

In the gathering darkness, Charlotte took off her shirt and hung it over the back of the wagon, choosing among other reasons not to swelter through the night.  Having the blanket around her was hot enough.  She sat in her bare feet with the rifle across her knees, thinking nothing except as usual, where was he?

Then the big gray edged into the clearing.  Chace swung down and led the horse to the creek, then into the barn.  He picked up his blanket and went to lay it under the tree.

“Since it’s the last time ever here,” she said, “could we sleep in the barn?”

“What’s the last time ever got to do with it?”

“To remember it by.  Unless I come back out here to live someday, I’ll never see it again.”

“Don’t talk like that,” he said, and had to turn away.  “It’s hot in there.”

“No hotter than out here.  The doors can be wide open.  The loft door’s already open and there’s sort of a breeze.”

“It’s dark.”

“It’s dark everywhere.  It’s night and not even a quarter moon.  And it’s more comfortable in there.  I don’t mind sleeping outside but every once in a while I’d like to turn over in the night and not have a rock in my back.”

“We could put down straw out here.”

“What?  Is there something in there you’re afraid of?”