Without discussing it, they set up their traveling day as before.  Charlotte took the reins in the morning, Chace stayed close, he took the reins in the afternoon and she rode the mare up ahead, keeping in sight.  The skies were gray and a light rain fell, but only enough to cool off the horses and damp down the dust of the track.

Chace stopped early, holding back as much as he possibly could.  Charlotte gathered wood and built a fire.  She had the urge to bake.  When Chace came back from hunting, he had squirrels.

“Lean day,” he said.

“I’ll fry them in bacon grease and I made honey cake.”

“I don’t know why the white man thought he needed all those guns.  All they had to do was send you in to cook and none of the members of the tribes would be able to get up on their horses.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“In that way, it is that bad.”

In the evening, they played cards.

“I can’t handle so many wild cards,” he said.

“We’ll get serious then.”

“I already was serious.”

“Five card stud,” she said and he looked at her hard.

“We have to talk sometime,” he said as he dealt out the first cards.

“Please not now.”

“Okay, but soon.”

She won three games out of four and had a pile of twigs.

“We should up the stakes.  Play for branches or something.  What I need is a town to be in.  I imagine they don’t let women into poker games but I could maybe be a dancehall girl.”

“You could not be a dancehall girl.  We’re switching to blackjack.”

“Why couldn’t I?  They put their hair up and wear those satiny kinds of dresses don’t they?  Do they dance?  I could stand behind somebody and tell him what cards to play.”

“They go upstairs.”

“Upstairs?”  What did that mean?  And then it came to her and she felt herself flush with color.  Then suddenly she was studying him.  How did he know these things?

“Have you ever gone upstairs?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“That’s not fair.  Why can’t I know?”

“You just can’t.  That’s long ago and far away from here.”

She let her gaze rest on him.  “You’ve lived about a hundred lives.”

“Sometimes it feels like it.  Are you playing or aren’t you?”

After enough rounds of blackjack, when he had won back some of the twigs, they still sat at the fire.

“I’ve been thinking,” Chace said, “and I’ve got questions again.”

“Is this possibly about the Others?”

“It possibly is.”

“I guess I expected that.  What do you want to know?”

“Everything you can tell me.”

There were an infinite number of other conversations she’d rather have but she felt she owed him this.

“They aren’t from here.”

“Where are they from?”