Cord watched her fleeing figure with a sinking feeling. This was not at all what he had intended, and he had no idea how to undo it. With a sigh, he returned the shovel to the shed and saddled up one of the three-year-olds he was now working for a long ride.

Anne was angrier than she'd ever been before, not exactly refusing to speak but coldly distant. That night there was no cheek against his shoulder, no fingers curved around his arm muscles, but a s.p.a.ce between them and her back toward him, accusing.

The next morning through the kitchen window he noticed a small patch of turned earth in the garden area. On his way to the barn he gathered up every implement that might be used for digging and buried them in the hay in the hay barn. He was now feeling as stubbornly furious as she was.

Two days later they were still stalking around each other in almost total silence. Cord waited for the fatal words - I've had enough of this, I've had enough of you, I want to go to Grenerton, I want to go home, I want to be anywhere but here.

His mood didn't improve when Foxface sounded an alarm, and Frank rode into the yard. He had arrived at lunch time, and Anne politely invited him to eat with them, but it was only minutes before Frank sensed the angry currents swirling around the room.

"I'd say you two aren't getting along too well," he said.

Anne showed no more inclination to respond to this than Cord.

Frank's sympathies, of course, all went in one direction. "Anne, if you want help to...."

He got no further. Anne's fists banged on the table, making the dishes rattle, then she was on her feet, absolutely screaming, days of pent up fury exploding all at once.

"Don't you say it. So help me if you say it, I won't just run you out of the house, I'll shoot you. We're having a fight, and it's none of your business. Don't you tell me in over twenty years of marriage you and your wife never had a marital quarrel. I'm so mad at him I'd like to beat him worse than Meeks did. I'd like to shoot him so full of holes he could be a sieve. I'd like to cut off his head and bury it somewhere far away from his body, but I'll get over it. We'll work it out and life will go on, and in the meantime, it's none of your business."

Feelings vented, Anne ran out the front door, slamming it so hard the whole house seemed to quiver.

Frank actually looked shaken as he asked, "Does she get like that often?"

"Nope, you seem to rile her." Cord knew quite well how very few women had ever disconcerted his brother.

" I rile her? She wants to kill you, dismember you, and disperse your body parts, and I rile her?"

"You kind of rub her the wrong way."

Glancing at his brother now and then as if to keep alert for further lunacies, Frank got busy finishing his lunch.

Cord ate the rest of his food without tasting it, his spirits rising steadily. These past days of h.e.l.l were not the end of everything, they were a "marital quarrel," and they were going to work it out. He wanted to say the words aloud and taste them. He had vague recollections of Judith walking around the big house looking stiff and steely-eyed and Frank banging and cursing, of Martha and Ephraim acting the same way. A marital quarrel.

Frank got around to what he had come for. "Look, Cord, you know Eph and I would like to have you come to the house Sundays. You know why you can't."

Cord felt irritation at having to think about something else right then. "Yeah, I know.

Don't worry about it."

"They're our sons."

"If they want it bad enough, they'll get it sooner or later, no matter what you do. You know that."

"Maybe not. I'm not going to sit by and watch you beat my son to death, brother or no."

"I'm not going to kill your d.a.m.n son, Frank. If you don't know it, you should."

Frank stood up, conflicting emotions showing in his face. "I don't know it. I don't believe it. I wish I did."

Cord shrugged and didn't reply as Frank walked out. There was no sign of Anne anywhere as he walked to the barn. He didn't look for her but just threw work harness on Keeper and headed for the carriage shed, starting what he had intended to do days ago.

Anne was sitting behind the barn with Foxface curled beside her and a lap full of barn cats. She had stopped crying, and her anger was beginning to dissolve. Having Frank Bennett of all people catch her fighting with her husband and letting him goad her into losing control made everything worse.

She was ready to put it all aside and try to forget about the garden. She would give the seeds to her mother next Sunday and be done with it. The trouble was that as the months pa.s.sed, she liked Cord more and more, and this was spoiling things. She would never like him quite so much again. If he'd said something when she first mentioned a garden, but to wait and then pull what she could only see as an exercise of power over her. She really had been foolish to believe he wasn't like that. Well, as her mother said, it was her bed of thorns.

The shadows were lengthening. She could hear noises in the barn that told her he was beginning evening ch.o.r.es, but she went back to the house, avoiding him as she had for the last several days. Tomorrow morning, she thought, I will get up and act as if it never happened and it doesn't matter. There will be other times like this over the years, and I'm going to learn to handle it.

Anne was alone in the bed when she woke in the morning. She knew Cord didn't expect her to come to the barn with him anyway and had not bothered to wake her. But today she was going to stop the childish display of temper. So determined, she went out to the kitchen and started preparing breakfast.

Glancing through the kitchen window, she caught sight of the garden area. For the past days the sight had been an aggravation, but now she stared unbelieving. Then she walked slowly outside to stand at the edge of the plot. It's not just plowed, she thought, he's done something more. I couldn't rake it any finer. She swallowed hard, feeling all at once very small.

Cord was almost finished in the barn, pouring milk into low pans for the cats. He became very still as Anne approached. For once she was having trouble meeting his eyes.

"Cord?"

He leaned over and filled another pan, not answering.

"I don't blame you if you're not feeling very forgiving. I did the same thing your family always does, didn't I? Took a fast look at things and jumped to the very worst conclusion possible."

"I could have explained."

"Maybe you would have if I hadn't been so busy calling you names." Anne's voice was a husky whisper. "I'm sorry, really. I wish I could promise it won't ever happen again, but I can't even do that. I'll try. Trusting seems to be the hardest part."

"Just grow something worth eating in the d.a.m.n thing after all this, will you."

She gave him a small watery smile. "Are you still angry?"

"No, I'm not angry."

Her smile broadened a bit. "There might not be room for anything for us to eat after I plant all the carrots."

They walked to the house together, at peace for the first time in days, both convinced they were never going through anything like that again.

CHAPTER 22.

THE NEXT SUNDAY CORD WATCHED Anne's unforgiving glares have the usual effect on Reverend Pratt with amus.e.m.e.nt. Maybe he ought to point out to her that the stuttering meant the service took longer, more time having to pretend to listen to Pratt's hypocritical plat.i.tudes.

When church finally let out, he headed back to where they had left the buggy, leaving Anne with her mother under Rob's surly guard and the Bennetts watching over Luke and Pete as if they were baby chicks and a hawk was visible in the sky.

He pulled off his jacket and tie and folded them across the buggy seat, drinking in deep breaths of the spring air, admiring the pale yellow-green halos on the trees that were just beginning to leaf out. Maybe today they'd stop somewhere on the road on the way home to eat the lunch Anne packed instead of eating in the buggy as the horse clipped along the way they had been doing. The day was too pretty not to take time and enjoy it.

A short scream from Leona brought him out of this reverie. A quick glance in that direction had him transferring the knife in his boot to the back of his belt, and starting back toward the church.

When the big man pushed her mother to the ground and circled her throat with a dirty arm, a wave of fear so intense her vision blurred swept through Anne. She struggled for breath, the memory of Lem Samuels' a.s.sault leaving her frozen and unable to react. The brute dragged her up onto the wooden sidewalk in front of the first shops close to the church. He stopped by two other big strangers, and said, "He's coming. He heard the mother."

The men stood there, waiting, and then Anne saw him. Cord. At the sight, she found herself able to breathe again. He walked to the center of the street, then stood stock-still, didn't move even when the man holding her pulled a knife and used it to rip her hat off and loosen her hair until it fell around her shoulders.

As Anne's panic receded, she realized the man holding her had started to breathe hard and fast, as if he had exerted himself, but he had not. He's afraid, she thought, and he should be.

Cord's stillness was that of a crouched predator. The hard, flat look that came around his eyes when he was irritated or angry was accentuated a hundred-fold, leaving the skin stretched too tightly over his bones, his mouth a thin, straight line. His eyes burned like live coals.

Her captor began waving the knife, taunting, making the same kind of threats Samuels had about what he was going to do to a "Injun's wh.o.r.e." He pressed the knife blade against Anne's mouth, then waved it to the side as if to make sure it could be seen, did the same thing on one side of her face, then the other. The third time he stretched his arm to the side, waving the knife, Cord's arm blurred with motion.

Anne never saw Cord's knife in his hand or in the air, only heard the thump as it buried itself in the fleshy part of the big man's forearm. The force was so great his arm thudded back against the wooden front of the store behind him, held there by the blade through his muscle embedded in the wood. He began screaming and loosened his grip on Anne. She stamped on his booted foot as hard as she could, twisted away and ran towards Cord.

As she ran, she heard Cord, yell, "Ephraim!" And suddenly Ephraim had her by the arm and was pulling her away, pulling her into the middle of the whole Bennett family.

Anne turned back and saw the two strangers who weren't wounded, stepping into the street, putting distance between themselves so that they could come at Cord from opposite sides.

Pulling against Ephraim's tight grip on her wrist, she tried to get away from him, desperate to get to Cord or to get his d.a.m.ned family to help him. " Shoot them!" she begged. "Do something! Don't just stand here. Help him!"

None of the Bennetts seemed even concerned. Frank said, "I sent Gil and Martin back to Eph's for guns. Calm down, Anne. You don't need to worry about him."

Frank moved behind Luke and Pete, who were watching what was happening in the street avidly, and said, "Listen you two. You can watch what happens with one eye but start right now searching the crowd with the other. This is a setup if I ever saw one. Look for another stranger. When we find him, we make sure there's no backshooting."

Backshooting! Anne started to scan the crowd herself, then gasped as she saw that the two men were closing in on Cord in the street. He didn't wait for them. He charged the man on his left. Knowing she couldn't help him herself in this kind of fight, Anne stopped pulling against Ephraim's hold. Although the other men both had an advantage in height and weight, she could see that Cord was much faster and much more agile.

Behind her she heard Gil and Martin's voices and knew the men were all arming themselves. She glanced around for a second and saw Luke and Pete moving through the crowd with purpose but wasn't willing to take her eyes off Cord long enough to see where they went.

Both heavier men wanted to close in on Cord, but the best they could do were occasional glancing blows. He used feet, fists, and open hands in strange ways. When he slammed both knees into one opponent's chest, the force of the blow took the man out of the fight long enough for Cord to concentrate on the second man with devastating effect.

The man fell with one leg angled between the road and the sidewalk, and Cord launched himself at the barely rising, winded first opponent off the second man's knee.

The leg bent backward as it was never meant to do with sickening popping noises. A chilling wail rent the air, falling to a thin moan that provided background for the rest of the fight.

The man who had started it all had freed his arm and was wrapping it with a dirty handkerchief. Anne watched Frank walk over to him, thinking he was going to keep the man out of the fight, but Frank just picked up both knives. He grinned cheerfully at the brute and said, "If you want to let my brother cripple you, go right ahead, but I'll keep these."

The big man growled, "I'm going to smash that d.a.m.n Injun to pieces. You watch."

Frank tipped his hat, "Yeah, sure you are."

Anne couldn't believe what she was seeing and hearing. What was the matter with these people?

The monster was barely off the sidewalk before the second of his friends was out of the fight for good. He went down again with the breath knocked out of him. This time several hammer like blows of his elbow against the rock-hard clay road surface produced the same heart-stopping wail his friend had made - until he pa.s.sed out.

Cord rolled out of the way barely in time to avoid the kick the third man aimed at him. The two men circled slowly, the difference in size making a David and Goliath picture.

Anne had all but given up thoughts of getting out of Ephraim's grip. Now she heard Noah Reynolds' voice, "You fellas got any idea how we're going to stop him?"

Frank was standing beside her now. He said, "The only way is with a rifle, I guess.

He'll still be beating on the poor fool an hour after he's just meat if we don't."

"It's dangerous."

"Yeah, I don't like it much either, but it's the only way without taking a chance of getting killed ourselves. I'll do it."

Anne listened with disbelief, never taking her eyes off what was happening in the street. She saw the third man almost falling steadily backward, Cord driving him back with vicious, cracking blows. He seemed to recover and smashed Cord twice, once in the body and once in the face, throwing him through the air and slamming him on his back, but when the huge man tried to close again, Cord's boots jabbed into his midsection and rolled him in a crashing somersault. Then it was all over, Cord on his knees rocking the man with blow after blow.

The men behind her were quiet now. Anne took a quick look over her shoulder and panicked at the sight of Frank hefting his rifle thoughtfully. If she couldn't pull out of Ephraim's grip, there were other ways. She pivoted to face him and brought her knee smartly into his groin. He released her wrist and doubled over towards her with a strangled sound.

Anne turned and ran, crying, "Cord, Cord."

She ran to him and grabbed him by the arm, pulling and gasping. "Stop, stop. They're going to shoot you."

Cord came to his feet as if she were another enemy, one fist still pulled back, then recognized her. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?"

Without waiting for an answer he took her upper arm in a vise-like grip and marched back to the Bennetts.

"What the h.e.l.l's the matter with you, Eph? You too old, too slow, and too soft to keep hold of one d.a.m.n woman for the s.p.a.ce of a fight? I'm taking her down to your place to clean up."

Anne noted with satisfaction that Ephraim was only just barely standing upright again and not capable of a reply, but Cord had a harder hold on her now than his brother had had. He shoved her up the street toward the house. She struggled against his unrelenting grasp.

"Let go of my arm. You're hurting me."

There was no answer. He kept right on walking.

"Cord, you're hurting my arm. Let go."

Still no answer. Furious, she stopped walking and braced her whole body, digging in and absolutely opposing his forward push. He could either drag her off her feet or stop.

He stopped.

"You can either drag me or you can let go of my arm and ask, and I'll go anywhere you want."

Cord did look like the devil some called him. One eye was beginning to blacken and swell. There were thin lines of blood from each nostril and one side of his mouth, and his cheek had split again right where Anne had sewed it the previous October. For the first time she could understand someone describing his eyes as wolf-like.

Cord glared back at her for several seconds and then let go of her arm. "Get your a.s.s down the street to Ephraim's please."

Chin in the air, she turned and went. Cord followed, and she was aware of the rest of his family and her own mother behind him because she could hear the murmur of their voices.

At Ephraim's house, Cord walked right in and kept going through the kitchen towards the back of the house.

"Where are you going?" Anne asked.

"There's mirrors and stuff in the spare bedroom. I'll get Martha to bring you what you need."

Anne stopped in the middle of the parlor. "What I need is to go home right now. I don't want anything from Martha or any of the rest of them. They were going to shoot you."

"No, they weren't."