“He was saddlin’ his horse when I went out to milk.”

She felt a momentary impatience with her brother. “Didn’t you at least ask him to stay for breakfast?”

“He seemed bound on goin’. I didn’t argue with him.”

“I suppose, no matter what he does, you’ll never be able to forget that he’s a Blackwood.”

“It’s a hard thing to overlook. I look at him and I see Finis and Luke. I also see Old Man Cyrus, who never was worth the rope it’d take to hang him with. Blood tells, Annie. Isaac shows a few good tendencies now and again, so maybe he’s some kind of an outcross. But he’s still got enough Blackwood blood to taint him. Was I you, I wouldn’t waste any of my time feelin’ sorry for Isaac.”

“But I do, and I can’t help it.”

He gave her a worried look but said only, “Let’s go have some breakfast. I got lots of work to do today.”

They were cleaning up the dishes afterward when Petra went to the doorway and looked outside. “The soldiers go,” she said.

Annie hurried to her side. She saw several soldiers riding downriver, toward San Felipe. Her feeling of relief was dashed, however, when she discovered that two remained behind. She could see them and their staked horses, still down there in camp. “They’ve left a guard,” she said, “to watch over us, I reckon, and to see if James comes back.”

Petra gave her a concerned glance. “Will he?”

Annie shook her head. “It wouldn’t be smart.” She would have to admit, if pressed, that not everything James had ever done was smart. But Michael and Andrew had made it clear to him that he had better go to Louisiana, and that he had better remain there. He had seemed to accept their advice.

Andrew came up from the field at noontime, his brow furrowed. “Those soldiers look to me like they’re fixin’ up to stay. They’re buildin’ themselves a jacal out of some timber and brush.” A jacal was a rude type of shack, a shelter of sorts from the weather. “They must figure to watch till James comes home.”

Annie frowned, for sadness overtook her. “Then I hope he’s gone for a long, long time.”

THE CABIN was short of meat, except for salt pork Andrew and Petra had put up themselves. Andrew badly needed to go out into the forest and find some game, but he was concerned about leaving the two women and the children alone while the soldiers were posted down on the river. But days passed, and the soldiers made no untoward move. He decided at last that they probably would not, so he took rifle, powder, and ball and rode off west.

Evidently the soldiers had been watching. Not an hour after Andrew left, Annie saw them walking up toward the cabin. “Petra,” she said tightly, “we may be fixin’ to have trouble.”

Andrew’s rifle was gone from above the mantle, but Annie had her own in the room in which she slept. She loaded it quickly, for she had grown up in a family where the girls as well as the boys were taught a familiarity with firearms, along with the hoe, the ax, and the skinning knife.