And then he ran at her, jaw set, waving his arms, windmilling the air as he charged her. “Git,” he yelled. “Git. You go and git,” thrashing at the air and stomping the ground, yelling like she was a steer that had gotten at the garden. He took Ola May by the arm and pulled her, and Sallie held on to her, and for a few seconds they were having a tug of war with Ola's limp body. Then Sallie let go, and John gathered Ola May to him, picked her up in his arms, and carried her to the bed, dropping her there, too hard, Sallie thought.

Then he turned back to her. “Now you get out. You get out of here and don't come back, or I'll let the Old Man have you, and you won't like that. Now go on.”

She was still in the unbuttoned shirt, and now she nodded toward her clothes spread out in front of the fire. “I'm naked,” she said. He said nothing, just looked from her to his sister on the bed. “She could be hurt bad. Let me stay with her.”

“No,” he said. “You go on. Don't you never come back here again.”

Ola May let out a low moan, and they were both quiet and watched her. She did not wake or make another sound.

“I'll go for a doctor. She's hurt bad.”

“No. No doctor.”

“You hurt her, John Power. She's bad off.”

“It's what you done. You done it. You and her all naked. That's wrong. What's wrong is what you done. I just tried to set things straight. I was just making things right.” He picked up the hatchet they used for splitting kindling and raised it to her. Sallie ran out the door.

He knelt beside Ola May, smoothing the hair away from her face exactly as Sallie had done. “You done wrong, Ola. You done real wrong. I'm sorry, but the Old Man would have done a lot worse than I did.”

It was nearly dark when Jeff Power began to wonder about Ola May. They were working a small vein of gold that had promised to lead to a lode, though in the days they had worked it, it had shown more signs of playing out than paying off. Ola May should have been there an hour ago to fetch them their supper so they could get on up to bed and out early the next morning to have at the vein again.

He called John over. “You saw her this morning?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And she was all right?”

“Yes, sir. Said she wasn't feeling too well, but she looked all right.”

“Not feeling well? Where?”

“In her stomach. And head.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“She just didn't seem sick.”