“I thank thee, Ian,” she said quietly. “I need to talk with my daughters alone. Thee should go back to Rachel and thy son.”

He could see her thin, worn face in the changing light, one moment smoothed with shadow, the next strained with anxiety.

“I’ll wait,” he said firmly.

She laughed, to his surprise. It was a small and weary laugh, but a real one.

“I promise I shall not seize the girls and ride off into a blizzard alone,” she said. “I had peace to think while we rode, and to pray—and I thank thee for that, too. But it became clear to me that I must let Patience and Prudence see their father. I need to talk with them first, though, and explain what has happened to him.” Her voice wavered a little on “happened,” and she cleared her throat with a little hem.

“I’ll stay in the taproom, then.”

“No,” she said, just as firmly as he had. “I can smell the landlady’s supper cooking; the girls and I will eat together and talk and sleep—and in the morning, I will comb their hair and dress them in clean clothes and ask the innkeeper to arrange for us to be taken back in a wagon. Thee need not worry for me, Ian,” she added gently. “I shall not be alone.”

He studied her for a moment, but she meant it. He sighed and dug out his purse.

“Ye’ll need money for the wagon.”

86

Unwelcome Prophecy

IT WAS COLD, BUT the air of dawn was clear as broken glass and just as sharp in the lungs. Ian was hunting with Thayendanegea this morning, and they were following a glutton. Following, not hunting. Fresh snow had fallen in the night—was still falling, though lightly for the moment—and the animal was visible, a tiny black blot on gray snow at this distance, but moving in the stolid, rolling fashion that spoke of long patience, rather than the graceful diving lope of pursuit. The glutton, too, was following something.

“Ska’niònhsa,” Thayendanegea said, nodding at a patch of muddied snow, in which the curve of a hoofprint showed.

“Wounded, then,” Ian replied, nodding in agreement. A glutton wouldn’t take on a healthy moose—few things would—but it would follow a wounded one for days, patiently waiting for weakness to bring the ska’niònhsa to its knees. “He’d best hope the wolves don’t find it first.”

“Everything is chance,” Thayendanegea said philosophically, and brought his rifle down from its sling. The rifle notwithstanding, Ian thought the remark was not entirely philosophical. Ian tilted his head to and fro in equivocation.