“What’s happened to you?” Murdoch asked, noticing Scully’s bandages and wan appearance, apparently for the first time. “You tangle with a bear or something?”

“An Indian,” Scully answered.

“I carry a variety of medicinal products, you know,” said the conscientious peddler. “Tinctures, powders, pills—”

“Do you have books?” Abigail asked, more breathing the question than asking it.

“I do indeed,” answered Mr. Murdoch. “All sorts of them.”

Evangeline flinched inwardly. She’d used virtually all of their money preparing for and making the journey west, and Big John had evidently not seen fit to leave any sort of funds at her disposal before he went away. Still, telling the child she couldn’t have a book—this child who loved to read, who lived to read—was going to be very difficult.

“The ladies are in need of some cloth goods, too, if you’ve got them. And yarn for knitting and the like,” Scully said. “I’ll have a can of your best tobacco, too, and I’m sure there are some foodstuffs we could use.”

Evangeline was staring at him. “Mr. Wainwright, I don’t—”

He silenced her with a look. Abigail, overcome with glee, was bouncing around the floor as if she had springs in her feet.

“I can see you are a most generous husband,” Calvin T. Murdoch told Scully, with thunderous authority. “Yes, indeed, there are too few like you in this weary old world.”

“That’s probably true,” Scully agreed, without hesitation.

Evangeline would have elbowed him in the ribs if it hadn’t been for his injury. For the moment, she was mainly interested in finding out why he’d told the peddler that he was her husband, when he knew perfectly well she was going to marry Big John Keating in the spring.

Scully dragged himself over to the nearest window and looked out. Even from where she was, Evangeline could see that the sun had begun its downward slide toward the western horizon. “Looks like there might be a bad night coming on,” Scully remarked. “Snow, I reckon, or at least a good hard freeze.”

Murdoch sighed heavily. “These arthritic old bones can’t take much more of this cold weather. I’ve been saying I’d retire for years now, but dern it all, Scully, I really mean it this time. This is going to be my last pass through this country. I’ve put a bit by over the years, indeed I have, and I’ve decided to take myself southward, where all the pretty senoritas are.”

“Why don’t you spend the night here,” Scully suggested, “just in case?”

Evangeline was horrified.

“I’ll sleep in the barn,” Murdoch said. “And be grateful for it.”

“It’ll be too cold by half out there,” Scully replied. “You’ll bed down in here, and that’s the end of it.”

Murdoch was plainly pleased. “Much obliged,” he said. “My, my, but that turkey bird smells surpassingly good.”

The predicted snow began to fall just half an hour later, first in flurries, then in fat, slow-moving flakes that clearly meant business. Mr. Murdoch went outside to sort through his goods and bring in the things he thought Scully and “Mrs. Wainwright” would be interested in, and Abigail had gone trailing after him, Hortense at her heels.