Annie said, “You don’t know what all a boy can do until you give him the chance. I think Cyrus could be an apt pupil for somebody who wanted to teach him the right way.”

Isaac seemed downcast for a moment. “I wish. I just wish—” Then he shrugged. “That coffee sure smells good.”

She had been thinking for some time that she needed to get a dog, so it would bark and let her know when somebody or something was coming. The first she knew of company was when she heard a mule bray out in front of the cabin, and an answer from one of Isaac’s hitched to the wagon in back. She gave Isaac a questioning glance. “I hope it’s not soldiers again.” She pushed her chair back from the table and went reluctantly to the door that led out onto the dog-run.

A familiar voice called, “Annie?”

She stopped at the edge of the dog-run, not quite believing what she saw. “James?”

It was her younger brother, all right, leading a string of pack mules. Behind the mules was someone else on horseback, slumped over in the saddle so she could not quite see his face in the dark shadow beneath his hat brim. “James, that’s not you!” She realized how foolish that sounded. “It is you. Where’d you come from?”

“From Hell, I guess you could say. Mind if I get down?”

“You can do what you want to. It’s your place.” She rushed to embrace him as he dismounted from the bay horse. He seemed surprised at the warmth of her greeting.

He said, “I was half afraid you’d take a club to me.”

“Tomorrow maybe. Right now I’m too glad to see you.”

“You don’t know where I’ve been, or what I’ve been up to.”

“You do some fool things at times, but you’re still my brother. Who’s that with you?”

The other rider had moved forward. James helped him to the ground. “You remember Sly Shipman. He’s been wounded.”

She felt a quick sympathy, but she also remembered the last time she had seen Shipman, his casual attitude toward women, and his running away and leaving them to the mercies of Sergeant Díaz. “I suppose he’s done some fool thing, too.” She allowed a little disdain into her voice.

“It was me that done the fool thing,” James admitted. “Sly got shot tryin’ to pull me out of it. I was hopin’ you’d see your way clear to help take care of him till he’s healed up.”

That put a different light on the situation. “Bring him, then.” She turned and led the way to a bedroom across the dog-run from the kitchen. When they had built the cabin, they had divided that half of it into two rooms so Annie would have her privacy. “This is your room, anyway,” she said. “The boys have been sleepin’ in it when they come over to help me.”

Shipman could walk on his own, but James gave him support, anyway. James said, “His bandage needs changin’. If you’ll fix me some hot water, I’ll do it.”