At the farthest end of the field, a man followed a mule and a moldboard plow. The distance was too great for recognition, but Rusty assumed this would be Geneva’s grandfather, old Vince Purdy.

A girl was hoeing in the garden. For a fleeting few moments Rusty thought she was Geneva. He spurred ahead, then drew Alamo to a stop as he realized this was one of Geneva’s sisters. The two younger girls had grown up during the war years. He had hardly known them the last time he had been here.

The girl saw the horsemen and the wagon. She dropped the hoe and climbed over the log fence that enclosed the garden. Lithe as a young deer, she raced barefoot to the cabin. She was shouting, though Rusty was too far away to make out the words.

By the time he and Tanner reached the cabin, Clemmie Monahan stood on the dog run. She was a small, thin woman of perhaps ninety pounds, so slight that she looked as if a high wind could sweep her away. Rusty knew from experience that her appearance was deceiving. She had a will of pure steel and a backbone to match it. Her two younger daughters stood on either side, beaming with delight. Rusty struggled with his memory a moment before he recalled that the older of the two was Josie. The younger was named Alice.

Clemmie had taken it badly when Rusty had arrested her son James long ago for an attempt on Caleb Dawkins’s life in revenge for Lon and Billy. She had mellowed in the years since, and he hoped she had put the incident behind her. That she greeted him with a thin smile gave him hope.

“You-all get down and come in,” she shouted.

Rusty dismounted and removed his hat. “Clemmie,” he said by way of greeting.

“Rusty,” she answered. Neither seemed to know much more to say at first. While he tried to decide how to continue the conversation, he stared at the two girls, hardly believing the change. Josie looked a great deal like her grown sister and appeared to be about as old as Geneva had been when Rusty had first met her. Alice was a pretty girl of fourteen or fifteen.

Josie declared, “I told them it was you, Rusty. I recognized you from as far as I could see you.”

He was glad she could not read his mind and know that he had had trouble remembering her name.

He said, “I expect you-all have heard that the war is over.”

“We heard,” Clemmie responded. “Now maybe the menfolks will be comin’ home . . . them that survived.” She coughed away a catch in her throat. “I’m right glad to see that you’re one of them, Rusty”

Tanner was on the ground, stretching his long legs. Pickett had brought the wagon up near the cabin’s dog run. He and Tanner helped the captain to the ground.

Rusty looked past Clemmie, hoping to see Geneva somewhere. “You remember Captain Whitfield, don’t you? And Len Tanner? This other feller is Oscar Pickett.”