One of the mules started to buck the harness, and he calmed it by whistling once through his teeth. “There wasn’t much left of home, once the Yankees got done,” he said mildly. “My Pa died during the war, while I was away, and as far as I know, neither of my brothers ever came back. I waited around for a time, then I traded everything except my saddle and side-arm for that Appaloosa gelding of mine and made my way west. I drifted around for a while, then met up with Big John in Colorado, and decided to partner with him and bring that first herd north.”

“Did you see any Indians along the way?” Abigail interjected, from within the pile of bearskins.

Scully chuckled. “A few,” he said.

Evangeline rolled her eyes.

“Did they scalp anybody?”

“Abigail,” Evangeline warned.

Scully winked at her and, unaccountably, that warmed her more than any hides or blankets could have done. “No,” he answered. “They just wanted some beef. We gave them a few steers, and they went away happy.”

The answer seemed to satisfy Abigail, for the moment, at least. She settled back in her nest of furs again, but Evangeline knew that little mind was manufacturing dramatic scenarios faster than the northern munitions factories had made bullets at the height of the conflict. Abigail was far too precocious for a child her age, but she was what she was. She’d been reading and counting since she was three, writing her name even before that, and she could recite more than twenty poems and passages of Scripture, taught to her by her aging father, with no prompting at all.

Evangeline allowed herself to think of Charles, really think about him, for the first time in many weeks. They had never shared a storybook sort of love; Charles had worshiped his Clara, and though he’d been unfailingly kind to Evangeline, she had been more of a companion to him than a wife. He’d been given to staring off into the horizon, especially at sunset, as if expecting to see Clara there, beckoning, and he’d called Evangeline by the other woman’s name so often that she’d begun answering to it.

For all of that, Charles had been a good and gentle man, undemanding and uncritical, if a little misguided, and she missed him sorely. If she could have retreated into the time before his death, the ever-more-bitter war around them notwithstanding, she would have done so in an instant. Instead, like every other human being, she’d been left with no acceptable options other than to move forth boldly into an uncertain future. No promises, no guarantees.

“It won’t be so bad, you know,” Scully said quietly, interrupting her thoughts. “Big John might be a little rough around the edges, but he’s not a bad man.”

Some unnamed emotion surged suddenly within Evangeline; her eyes stung fiercely, and she swallowed hard, at the same time squaring her shoulders in an effort to maintain her dignity. “Does he consume ardent spirits?” she asked, in a voice smaller than she would have liked.