“Fair enough,” Scully answered, without rancor. Then he lay down on his pillows, propped the book of myths on his chest, and began to read.

After a light dinner of cornbread and the last of the boiled beans, a sort of quiet languor settled over the cabin. Abigail, yawning, permitted herself to be tucked into bed for a nap—an uncommon occurrence, now that she was “big”—and Scully nodded off, too. His book lay open on his chest, like a bird with its wings spread.

Evangeline slipped out onto the porch to survey the sky. It was still clear, but the crisp and distinctive scent of snow was in the air. She stood there, breathing deeply, listening to the chirps and cackles of the surrounding wilderness, feeling the bite of the wind. Her hands were raw where she’d gripped bucket handles and chopped wood with Scully’s heavy ax, she was as weary as she’d ever been, and spring was still a double-edged sword. For all that, she enjoyed a rare sense of well-being, as though she had set aside some burden and could now move forward much more easily, with a lightened load.

Perhaps talking to Scully had done it. She’d been annoyed at the time, had felt cornered and prodded by his questions, and the telling itself had been like the lancing of infected flesh. Now she could see that the whole exercise, however painful, had been a remedy of sorts. She was thousands of miles from Mott, and from all parts of her past, except for Abigail. It was time to stop dwelling on old sorrows and concentrate on making a new life here, in the Montana Territory.

When she first heard the voice, far in the distance, she’d thought it was a trick of the wind. Then, squinting against the brightness of the midafternoon sun, she saw an enclosed wagon jostling through a copse of naked birches, drawn by a mud-splattered gray mule.

“Hi-ho, Lady!” called the man at the reins, holding his bowler hat in place with one hand as he and the mule and the wagon came toward her. “Felicitations of the day to you!” he boomed. She saw as he drew nearer that he was very substantially built, with a bulbous, veined nose and tufts of wild white hair protruding from beneath his hat. His cheeks were round and red and even from a distance of a dozen yards, Evangeline was struck by the merriment in his blue eyes. “Calvin T. Murdoch, here. I’m in dry goods and sundries. Long way from nowhere, ain’t you?” He stopped, laughed uproariously. “I reckon we both are.”

Evangeline was in a state of amazement.

“I can see you’re asking yourself, where did Calvin T. Murdoch come from?” said Calvin T. Murdoch, raising one plump finger for emphasis. He wore a striped silk vest straining at the buttons and a woolen suit that had seen more prosperous days.

But then, Evangeline reasoned, hadn’t they all.

“Well,” he went on, when Evangeline didn’t answer. Indeed, she wasn’t entirely sure she shouldn’t fetch Scully’s pistol from above the coat pegs. “The truth of it is, I got myself trapped by that last snowstorm, and that’s a fact. Spent three days in the company of some Injuns I met up with. Your man at home, ma’am?”