Her voice sounded like a little girl's. "Thank you, Luke. Thank you, Pete. No, it's all right."

Cord saw a tear land with a splash on the back of one hand and wanted to carry her out of there, hold her and never let go, but she was soaked - cold, distraught, and wet - taking her home like that was asking for trouble. Anne glanced up, and what no amount of kindness from Martha, Luke, or Pete could accomplish the anguish in his eyes did.

She lifted her chin, straightened her spine, and forced a watery smile. "I'm fine, really."

It wasn't fine, but they got through the meal somehow.

When dinner was over, Martha placed a chair near the stove for Anne and fussed over her there. She also made it clear she wanted the men out of her kitchen. Unsure what else to do, Cord followed his brothers to the parlor, walked over to a window and stared out at the bleak, wet day. Coming to town today had been a mistake in every way; it would be a miserable trip home in the rain. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Ephraim, he supposed.

Another hand offered a small black cigar. Frank, not Ephraim. They stood there, smoking silently, side by side, watching the rain jump in the puddles in the yard, drip off the eaves, splash on the gla.s.s.

Finally, Frank spoke, "How do you feel about it?"

"Not good. She's been hurt enough."

"I didn't mean that really. How do you feel about a baby?"

Cord shrugged. "Doesn't seem real. Just words. I've never had much to do with one."

It wasn't an accusation but a simple statement of a fact Frank knew. Judith's obsessive fear had kept Cord from ever getting near any of her children when they were small, and her hysterical behavior after Beth's birth was what had driven him out of the main ranch for good.

"You know I'd have changed that if I could."

Cord made no answer. Nevertheless, Frank stayed there behind him, his silent presence a comfort of sorts.

Still, he was glad to hear Anne's voice, "I'm dry now. Can we go home please."

He helped her into her coat and slicker and they left without another word.

ONCE CORD AND ANNE WERE gone, Martha stopped bustling around and lowered herself heavily into a chair. When Judith poured her a cup of coffee and joined her, Martha started to lift her cup and put it down again. Her hands were shaking.

Judith noticed. "It's been an awful day. Are you going to be all right?" she asked.

"Yes, I just need a little more time." Knowing how Judith felt about Cord, Martha almost didn't go on, but then decided Judith should know. "When I went out to get them, they didn't hear me coming, and I saw.... I went back out and then called them so they'd know I was there because I saw...."

Martha took a swallow of coffee and started again. "It's been almost thirty years since our baby died. Jimmy. James." She smiled at the sound of her first son's name, remembering. "The pain is still there but most of the time now it's - softened by time, and I can remember the good things too now. But when it happened - the pain was so terrible I'd hold on to Ephraim so hard - because somehow the two of us could bear what neither one of us could alone."

Martha pulled out her handkerchief, mopped her eyes, and blew her nose. "That's what I saw today in the barn - two people trying to bear a grief too great for one alone. It brought it all back. We saw her hurt and recognized it, but because he doesn't show anything we think he doesn't feel it either. What Rob said was really directed at him. The Wells family doesn't think it's a tragedy that she's married and expecting a baby. They think it's a tragedy that she's married to him and expecting his baby. I've agreed with Ephraim about them, but now I don't know. No one can hurt that much unless they care."

"What does Ephraim think?"

"About the same as Frank - that she's strong willed and temperamental and is in love with him or thinks she is because he's so indifferent he lets her have her own way. That he feels he owes her and finds a wife a - convenience - and doesn't really care much so long as it's not too much trouble."

Judith nodded her head. "That's about what Frank says all right, but Martha...." Judith told Martha about what she had seen the morning after the race.

"Have you told Frank?"

"No. He'd say I may have seen something like that but I was reading things into it that weren't there. The strange thing is, after all these years - nothing ever helped the way I felt about him. It was just terror, and now I can't even see why I felt like that. It's hard to be afraid of a man who's capable of that much tenderness. Are you going to say anything about what you saw?"

Martha was thoughtful. "No, I'm not. You're right. Neither of them will believe us - at least our interpretation. If we're right, they'll come to it in time themselves. In the meantime, so far as I'm concerned a baby is good news, and anyone who doesn't think so had better keep quiet around me."

CHAPTER 36.

ROB WELLS KNEW WHAT HE had said to his sister was indefensibly, unforgivably wrong. His ugly attack on Anne disgusted even Rob himself. The joy that shone so brightly from her face and which seemed more obvious every time he saw her had not escaped him. It was also becoming more and more difficult for him to pretend to himself that he did not feel a grudging admiration for the quiet man who so affected her.

Unlike the Bennetts, Rob knew his sister would not talk herself into loving a man without reason. Somehow, in spite of the indifferent face he showed the world, Cord Bennett was meeting some deep, basic need in Anne, and Rob knew it.

Although Anne's slap had been no light blow, Rob felt as if he had given, not received, a beating. The memory of the light fading from her eyes, even as the smile faded from her lips, made Rob feel truly ugly.

The worst of it was that he had not meant his own words. They were his father's words, simply plucked from memory and parroted in the heat of the moment - because Anne's news had roused something approaching panic in Rob. He had a very good idea of how his father would react to the news that Anne was, after all, carrying the hated half-breed's child. Rob also was privy to, and more and more afraid of, his father's latest plan to rip Anne from the misalliance he had caused and now found so unacceptable.

At last Rob had begun to think for himself, at last he disagreed with his father over more than a minor matter, and at last he had come to the conclusion that his father was totally, tragically wrong. But Rob still could not oppose Edward more than mildly and still did not completely believe Cord's and Anne's version of the events at the Bennett Ranch the previous year.

In the end, he decided that if his father went ahead with his latest plan to get Anne away from her husband so that she would "come to her senses," at worst it would cause everyone some temporary unhappiness and inconvenience, but it would all come right in the end.

Rob Wells lacked the maturity to judge his father accurately and the courage to oppose his father openly, but he was cursed with an insight that sent dread coursing through him when his father greeted the news of Anne's pregnancy not with the expected rage but with a self-satisfied smile. "Well, well, now sooner or later that d.a.m.n Injun will come into town without her."

THE LATE NOVEMBER MORNING WAS heavily overcast with a sharp, cutting wind out of the north and the smell of snow in the air when Frank Bennett pulled into the yard with the team and wagon. Anne and Cord had not been to church or to the Bennetts on Sundays since the terrible scene weeks ago. Anne greeted Frank warily.

"Where's Cord?" Frank's engaging grin meant he was at least going to start the visit on his best behavior.

Anne just gestured. Foxface had sounded a loud alarm, and Cord was already on his way across the yard towards the house.

Warming himself in the kitchen over coffee, Frank explained his purpose.

"Everybody else seems to have something important to do," he said, "so I'm the one elected to go for supplies today in this d.a.m.ned cold wind. Thought I'd see if I could talk you into suffering along with me." He looked at Cord questioningly.

At this time of year no one with any commonsense traveled without equipment that would allow them to survive sudden severe weather. Traveling with company was better than traveling alone for the same reason. Even so, Anne now knew enough about the operation of the Bennett Ranch to be absolutely sure that there was no way Frank Bennett would ever be going for supplies in any weather unless he wanted to. What Frank wanted was to start patching things up with his brother, and Anne wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Cord regarded Frank thoughtfully. "Riley?"

"Riley got banged up a couple of days ago. Nothing bad, but his old bones would ache worse than usual over a wagon ride to town and back."

Cord raised his eyebrows slightly at Anne. Still unsure of her own feelings and knowing full well Cord preferred a difficult relationship with his family to none, she replied with a tiny shrug of one shoulder to let him know the decision was his.

"All right. I'm not working horses in this wind anyway."

When Frank started for the wagon, Cord held back a minute, gave her a quick kiss.

She went back to her work, humming.

THE TRAIN WAS NOW SPEEDING across darkening flat prairie. The whistle sounded, forcing Anne away from the comfort of the past back into the terror of the present. Her father had not yet finished his self-congratulatory speech.

"He wouldn't let Handler and his men pull you off the street under his nose because it would have offended his pride. I probably should have had them just try to buy you.

Redskins sell their women for a bottle of whiskey."

So Frank had sized up the situation perfectly those many months ago. The fight was a setup. Among the terrible mistakes she had made was underestimating the depth of her father's hate, the strength of his obsession. And because of her mistakes - her misjudgment - the future was no longer to be filled with laughter and love. Instead there would be only long, hollow years echoing with grief and regret. Of Cord's love she had no doubt, but the lying note went right to the heart of his inability to trust. For the rest of his life he would accept that she was so faithless, so shallow, she had been able to just walk away.

"Some of my friends thought I was crazy to wait so long, but a good military mind knows the value of patience. There's nothing any of them can do now, even the lawyer brother. If we'd had to hide you in town until we could get the train, but no, it was Friday, Friday. Two trains out of town a week, and it happened the day of the afternoon train. The storm was looking more and more like a blizzard by the time we left. We were lucky to get away when we did. No one can follow us until Tuesday, and there may not even be a train on Tuesday. That Ephraim, he's no fool; he won't pursue it. Of course, that ignorant savage couldn't find the City of Chicago with a map if he wanted to. I hope the other brother read the note to him. Then he didn't even bother Robert." He gave an ugly laugh.

Anne said nothing, ate nothing, drank little. Chicago came too soon.

CHAPTER 37.

CORD EXPECTED THE TRIP TO town to be awkward, hoped it wouldn't turn downright unpleasant. To his surprise, once they were underway, Frank began telling him the news in the latest letter from their sister, Hannah. After the death of her alcoholic husband, Hannah's life had begun to improve dramatically. The changes in Hannah's life were an easy subject. Cord was as pleased with the news as Frank.

After that, Frank asked about Cord's plans to cross Fortune on Red's daughters and perhaps vice versa, upgrading his whole herd in a relatively short time. Frank had similar ideas about improving the Bennett cattle. Conversation wasn't difficult after that, and the silences were comfortable. By the time they were almost home, Cord wondered if there was actually some small chance that things might someday come right between them after all.

Frank seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "You know, it occurs to me that if I got to know you, I might like you," he said. The words were light. The sentiment was not.

"Heaven forbid," Cord said dryly.

Frank laughed.

Good feelings evaporated the minute the house came into sight. In the bitter cold, no smoke was rising from the chimney. Cord was out of the wagon before Frank got it stopped. Anne wasn't in the kitchen. By the time he had checked both bedrooms and behind the house, Frank was inside, standing at the kitchen table holding a piece of pale blue paper.

"It was on the table, under that cup," he said, holding it out.

As Cord read the short note penned in blue ink, he felt a pain so intense, his vision blurred for a second. He crushed the paper, let it drop to the floor.

"Cord?"

He looked at his brother, feeling a yawning emptiness that made it difficult even to think what needed to be said. "Send Riley over here in the morning, will you, Frank? I'll leave you a signed authorization. Have him take care of the stock till you can sell everything." He headed for the bedroom.

Desperation laced Frank's words. "d.a.m.n it, Cord, don't do this again. You can't have ever thought she'd stay anyway. You can't be stiff-necked enough to throw your life away just because she's walked out. What about the baby? We'll raise it, but it's still yours.

Don't you even care about that?"

Cord spun around at the bedroom door. "Leave it alone, Frank. Just go. This time I'll send word."

Frank met his eyes for long moments, the desire to argue written all over him, but in the end he turned and left, cursing under his breath with every step.

Cord began packing for winter travel on horseback. It was only mid-afternoon now.

He would feed the stock early and leave before dark. South again, he thought vaguely.

He'd once thought he might like to see the country to the north, but not this time of year.

Ch.o.r.es done for the last time, he reentered the house. Keeper would need time to eat and then he'd saddle up and go. He sat numbly in the cold. Except for that one stab of intense pain, he felt only an empty disbelief, and as he waited for the time to pa.s.s, it came to him that that was just what he felt - disbelief.

When exactly had he stopped believing that she would leave? Was it the night she had turned everything upside down and accused him of feeling trapped by the coming child? An image flashed through his mind of silver eyes and soft parted lips, of her face laughing up at him from a blanket spread in the hay meadow. All right, d.a.m.n it, he cursed himself, you wanted to believe she'd stay and you convinced yourself of it, and now you can't accept you were right in the first place. She's gone. Gone like a thief in the night, stealing bits and pieces of your heart and soul. Gone without the courage to face you, gone leaving a d.a.m.n note....

And that, of course, was the hardest part to swallow. Even when he'd believed she would go, he had pictured her looking him right in the eye - I'm tired of you, tired of living here, I'm leaving, going back to a better life, my own kind of people. She was not a coward, not afraid of him, would not just creep away.

He picked the crumpled note up off the floor, smoothed it out, and read it again.

"Cord - We both always knew it was a mistake, and I am finally admitting it. I am going back to my family. My father will talk to Ephraim about the baby. Anne." Three sentences. Three sentences that could destroy a man. If he believed them.

He had only seen her handwriting on supply lists and recipes, but surely it was hers.

The cookbook was open on the shelf, and he went over to compare the writing against a handwritten recipe tucked inside. It looked identical. In his mind he heard her laughing, referring to the cookbook as her most precious possession.

Numbness dissolved as Cord looked around the house with growing awareness.

Nothing was gone, not even a coat. He studied the note again. Was there blue paper like this and blue ink in with her things? The only paper he knew of in the house was the white tablet he kept for bills of sale. The ink was black. She sometimes used that paper and a pencil for lists. The blue note had been folded he realized - as if to fit in an envelope. He refolded the note along the same lines and pocketed it.

Earlier he had distributed all the cash in the house, except the five hundred dollars he considered Anne's, in several different pockets. Now he went back to the hiding place under a floor board and took the rest. Then he picked up the saddlebags, canteens, and bedroll he had packed earlier and headed for the barn without looking back.

By the time Cord reached Mason, snow was beginning to fall in small, icy flakes. He tethered Keeper in the lee of the barn behind the Wells house and threw his slicker over the horse to keep as much of the saddle and the horse as dry as possible. Then he began a careful reconnoiter of the house.

From the outside, the two-story frame house looked similar to Ephraim's, but he knew from Anne the interior was quite different. Where Ephraim's house had a huge kitchen, here it was a small room where no one spent time except to prepare the meals that were always served in the formal dining room. The house was dark except for a single light in a room toward the back. The back door was locked. The front was not. Bedrooms first, he thought, slipping noiselessly towards the stairs.

ROB WELLS WAS UNABLE TO make himself even sit down anywhere in the house except the kitchen. Maybe because it was the only place he couldn't remember ever having had a discussion with his father. So he sat there, drinking coffee and staring at the bottle of whiskey he had set in the middle of the table with longing.

Rob's hero worship and unquestioning belief in his father had died a hard death that afternoon, but he was going to follow Edward's instructions to the letter tonight one last time. His contingency instructions, he thought, with a bitterly. His father really believed Cord was going to accept that note and shrug. All Edward was worried about was what Ephraim and Frank might do because of the baby.

Rob knew absolutely his father was wrong. He knew he was going to have to face Cord tonight as surely as he knew the sun would rise in the morning. What Rob wanted most in the world was to begin draining the whiskey bottle. He wanted to drink until guilt and memory were obliterated, until the images raging in his mind disappeared, but before giving in, he was going to pa.s.s on his father's lie.

And so he sat waiting, haunted by memories of his sister. He saw her as a girl, then a woman, saw her laughing and happy, sad and crying, but saw her always with her chin up, spine straight, taking whatever disappointments or constraints life offered with courage and pride. Then sickness flowed through him as he could not stop the pictures from this afternoon rising in his mind.

Through it all, interspersed with the images of Anne, was the picture of a lean, fierce man on a flame-colored horse, heading with increasing speed straight at the impossibly high undercut bank. Over and over, Rob saw again the man flattening out against the horse's neck and back, the stallion's muscles bunching and straining, felt again the awe he had felt that day as the horse landed atop the bank and went on. Cord would come, and Rob would tell him what his father had instructed him to say. And then Rob was going to tell him the truth.

Cord came out of the darkness of the house the way the torturing pictures came out of Rob's memory, first just a presence felt, then one shadow darker than the others taking form, coming to life. He materialized like a ghost, eerily, without sound. The hat kept all but the flat planes of his lower jaw hidden. Light reflected from the lamp off the snow melting on the dark wool coat. A rifle dangled loosely from his right hand.

As Rob gaped, unable to decide if this was the real man or another figure from his mind, Cord moved slightly and the flame from the lamp glittered from his eyes with a feral light. Cold fingers clawed Rob's spine. This was the sight that had destroyed Jack Hatch's bravado and sent him to the gallows gibbering. Indeed this apparition might be sending Rob himself to h.e.l.l before tonight was over, and knowing that, Rob still welcomed the vision. If there was a way to fix what he had helped his father do this afternoon, this man could do it.

Cord walked into the light, changing from devil to man. "Where is she?"

Rob knew then that Cord had already searched the house, and he answered with the words he had promised to speak. "She's on her way to Chicago with my parents. She doesn't want to see you again. My father will talk to Ephraim about the baby when he gets back."

The words had no effect on Cord. "Your Aunt Clara?"