Abigail sat on the floor in front of the fireplace, the kitten frolicking around her, and Evangeline’s heart swelled with love and gratitude as she watched the little girl at play. Oh, the resilience of children, she thought.

“I was very proud of you this afternoon,” Evangeline said, setting the leftover stew on to heat and taking bread from a large metal box on a wide shelf near the stove. “You obeyed me, and you were very brave.”

Abigail beamed at her. “You were brave, too, Mama. You took care of us, just like you said.”

“We took care of us,” Evangeline said, crossing to her daughter and crouching to touch her firelit face, then the downy little fur ball that was the kitten. It was a tabby, with one blue eye and one yellow. “If you hadn’t minded me, we could have had all manner of trouble.”

Abigail sighed. “Still, it would be better if Scully were here.”

Evangeline kissed the small forehead before rising to add wood to the blaze in the grate; it would be a cold night. “Yes,” she agreed, and pursued the subject no further.

When the wind began to wail, during supper, Evangeline was reminded of the shutters. She closed and fastened the ones inside, but she wasn’t about to go outside and latch the others. She had exhausted her store of courage for one day.

It was full dark when she dragged the washtub out of the pantry and set it in front of the hearth. She gave Abigail a hot bath, and fully intended to follow up with one of her own, but by the time she’d finished the first round, she was too weary to do anything but undress, put on her own nightclothes, and join her daughter in Big John Keating’s bed. She didn’t even empty out the bathwater.

* * *

Scully had made good time, traveling without women to look out for, though he’d probably been a little hard on Jacob’s mules. Evening found him seated comfortably at one of the McCaffreys’ tables, before a roaring fire, engaged in a checkers tournament with Jacob and Trey Hargreaves, who had a place up in the hills and, it was said, once had a common-law wife. An Indian, if the stories were true. He looked like an outlaw, Hargreaves did; his dark hair was bound back at his nape with a strip of rawhide, and his eyes were an odd, silvery shade of gray, like mercury. He had on a frayed shirt, ruffled in front like the ones greenhorn gamblers were inclined to wear, and buckskin pants.

Whatever else he was, Scully allowed to himself with a sigh, Hargreaves was a fair checkers player. He’d already trounced Scully twice, and he was no more than three moves from beating Jacob, as well.

June-bug brought plates of peach pie to the table, then refilled the coffee cups. She was always happy, it seemed to Scully, whether the place was empty or full of stagecoach travelers calling for seconds.