Jamie stood still for a moment, lifting his face to the breeze that stirred the grass tops. A faint tang on the air: not bear. A buck deer close by, not yet in full rut, but interested in the does.

More crashing made him turn, but the eager chorus of mehh-hhs told him who it was long before his sister came up over the lip of the trail with four young nanny goats on a long rope. She had a gun over her shoulder and was looking keenly round.

“And what d’ye mean to do wi’ that, a phiuthair?” he asked conversationally. She hadn’t seen him in the shadows and swung round, startled, the fowling piece pointed straight at him.

He took a hasty step to the side, just in case it should be loaded.

“Dinna shoot, it’s me!”

“Gomerel,” she said, lowering her gun. “What d’ye mean, what do I mean to do with it? How many things can ye do with a gun?”

“Well, if ye’re after bear, I think your piece might give him a nosebleed, but not much more,” he said, nodding at the gun in her hand. His own rifle was still slung on his shoulder, loaded and primed. Not that it would likely stop a charging bear, but if the creature was only suspicious, a shot might make it keep its distance.

“Bear? Oh, is that what ye’re up to. Claire wondered.” She loosed the eager goats, and they dived headfirst into the thick grass like ducks in a millpond.

“Did she, then.” He kept his voice casual.

“She didna say so,” his sister said frankly. “But she saw your gun was gone, while we were makin’ breakfast, and she stopped dead, only for an instant.”

His heart squeezed a little. He hadn’t wanted to wake Claire when he left in the dark, but he should have told her last night that he meant to see if he could get upon the trail of the bear Jo Beardsley had seen. There’d been little time for hunting while they worked to get the roof raised before winter—they needed the meat and grease badly. Besides, they had only a few quilts and one woolen trade blanket he’d got from a Moravian trader. A good bear rug would be a comfort to Claire in the deep cold nights; she felt the cold more now than the last time they’d spent a winter on the Ridge.

“She’s all right,” his sister added, and he felt her interested gaze on his own face. “She only wondered, ken.”

He nodded, wordless. It might be a wee while yet before Claire could wake to find him gone out with a gun and think nothing of it.

He took a breath and saw it wisp out white, vanishing instantly, though the new sun was already warm on his shoulders.