He nodded.

"That's where our passion for rebellion as you call it could prove our undoing," she said in a somber way. "There are people in the east-mainly in New York and Boston-who call themselves abolitionists. They want to do away with slavery completely. The south can't afford that. There's trouble coming-you can tell even by reading the papers out here."

Boston, Amanda revealed, was the city in which she'd grown up. She had lived in a splendid house owned by Gilbert Kent, her father, a well-to-do printer of books and newspapers.

Gilbert Kent had died at a relatively young age, leaving Amanda in the care of her pretentious and somewhat unstable mother, Harriet. Gilbert's widow had made a poor choice of a second husband-a wastrel named Piggott. He had succeeded in gambling away most of the family's assets, including the printing house, Kent and Son.

"The loss was probably no accident, I learned later. My cousin Jared-the son of my father's half brother Abraham-served in the navy in the 1812 war. There was an officer aboard Jared's ship-Stovall, his name was-who fancied boys and men in preference to women-"

Cordoba snorted in disgust.

"Jared got in a scrape with Stovall. Injured Stovall's face-scarred it. Permanently. The man never forgot. After the war, he came to Boston in secret. He was the one to whom my stepfather lost Kent's."

"You think this Stovall planned it? Maneuvered your stepfather into a game and cheated him?"

"I'm almost certain of it. Anyway, my cousin had a terrible temper in those days. He set fire to the printing house and shot and killed Stovall's general manager, a man called Waltham-Walpole-something like that."

"In heaven's name, why take vengeance on some flunky?" Cordoba exclaimed.

"Jared didn't intend to-he was aiming for Stovall."

"And so those tragic circumstances marked the end of the family business?"

"I've no way of knowing. Books are fairly scarce out here-especially among poor people. Now and then I've asked questions. No luck. Besides, if the firm burned to the ground, it might not have been rebuilt at all. But I never heard that Stovall had any connection with publishing. His family operated an iron works of some kind."

"How about the fellow himself? Is he living?"

"There again, I've been too busy staying alive to look into it-and I'm not trying to be clever saying that. It's God's truth. I haven't had the money-or the necessary eastern contacts-for making an inquiry. I know our family employed a Boston law firm, but the name is another of those details that's completely slipped away from me. Sometimes, I think I'm much better off leaving the whole question alone. I'm afraid that if I learned Stovall was still alive, I'd spend all my energy on schemes to repay him."

"You have a deep hatred of him, obviously-"

"Without ever having set eyes on him. If he hadn't lured my stepfather into a gambling game with the firm at stake, my mother might have lived. She died the same day Jared burned Kent's and shot the general manager."

"How did she die?"

"She was run down by a dray right in front of our house on Beacon Street. Everyone called that an accident too, but my mother's second husband caused it. My mother had a fight with Piggott. He told her he'd lost the printing house. She rushed out, intending to go straight to the firm. She stumbled on the curb-the drayman couldn't stop in time-"

Amanda paused, reliving the scene in her mind. Cordoba whispered a word of sympathy. She let a shudder work itself out, then went on.

"That same night, Jared crept back to Beacon Street and told me what had happened. That he'd set fire to the firm because he couldn't stand the thought of someone like Stovall taking over what the Kents had worked so hard to build."

"This Jared sounds like a headstrong sort. Did he have no one to discipline him?"

"No. My mother tried, but she and Jared despised one another."

"What became of his parents?"

"Abraham, his father, tried to homestead in Ohio. Jared's mother was killed there. By Indians. Abraham gave up and came home. A few months later, he disappeared completely. On the very night I was born, in fact. I remember hearing very little about him except that he was a noisy, quarrelsome man. He was drunk most of the time-anyway, the night the printing house burned, Jared convinced me that we had to leave Boston together. We had no one except each other, and he was afraid of being arrested for murder. We started for New Orleans. I can't remember much about the early part of the trip, except that it was winter. We were always half frozen and half starved. We met a few kind people. I recall one little girl named Sarah, in Kentucky-her mother and father were farmers. They treated us well and helped Jared recover from a sickness. We didn't get far after we left Knob Creek, though. Only to Tennessee-"

From the pain of the past, she summoned the rest of it: her rape and abduction by the bogus preacher Blackthorn, who sold her in St. Louis to a trader named Maas. He in turn sold her to a warrior of the Teton Sioux, a young, not unhandsome man whose Indian name translated to Plenty Coups.

"Some of this you've already heard-"

Cordoba grinned. "How you were experienced with men at age twelve, for example? I'm certainly fortunate to have the benefit of all that training-"

She pinched him. "I didn't ask for it, Luis! I was pretty well filled out by the time I was twelve-"

He rolled his tongue in his cheek. "That is not hard to imagine."

"Oh, be serious! Do you want to hear this or don't you?"

"I do. Please continue."

"Being a woman was the only weapon I had when I was sold to the Sioux. If I hadn't used it, I would have been treated a lot worse by Plenty Coups."

"How long did you stay with the Indians?"

"Eight-no, closer to nine years. Like you, I never had any children. For some reason, Plenty Coups couldn't."

"I'd say you were lucky to survive such an experience."

"I've told you before, it wasn't all luck."

"Ah, yes. The old chief's compliment when you left-"

"Determination was only part of it. Something else helped me get through those years-and the ones since. Somehow I've always been blessed with almost perfect health. I never realized how precious that was-how rare among women especially-until I saw all the sick squaws in Plenty Coups' village. Work and childbirth and white men's diseases killed more of them than I can remember-"

She told him the rest on succeeding evenings: how Plenty Coups had been injured in a fall from his horse as he rode in to strike a huge bull buffalo with his coup stick during a hunt. Three weeks later-just about the time, they figured out, that Iturbide had been at the height of his power as Emperor Augustin I of Mexico-she was a widow.

A month after Plenty Coups' death, a party representing John Astor's American Fur Company had visited the tribe.

"Jaimie de la Gura, my husband, was one of those men. The American and French winterers and the Delawares who worked with them called him Spanish Jim. He was very handsome-"

Cordoba pulled a face. "More handsome than I?"

"Just about the same." She leaned up to kiss his lips.

"You told His Excellency your husband came from New Orleans-"

"That's right. His father was quite well off. Ran an elegant coffeehouse. But that was when he was older. Civilized, you might say. There was a wild streak in the de la Gura family. Jaimie's father came by most of his money running slaves with the Lafitte brothers. He wanted Jaimie to enter the clergy or perhaps study law. Jaimie wouldn't do either. He didn't like town living very much. He ran away up the Mississippi when he was eighteen, went to work for a fur trader in St. Louis, and traveled west from there-"

"To find you in the Sioux village."

"Yes. I was allowed to be seen by white men after Plenty Coups died. Jaimie took a liking to me. He asked me to go with him-and he was willing to pay the old chief in trade goods for my freedom. My life with the tribe had come to a kind of ending, so I said I'd go. Jaimie was ten years older than I was. A good man."

"And obviously one of impeccable taste."

She laughed. "We were married in St. Louis. We spent our honeymoon in a real hotel, with solid walls, and beds with the most marvelous sheets and blankets-I'd forgotten what that sort of existence was like. Jaimie still didn't care for it, though. And he was too independent to work for one employer very long. He didn't keep on as a trapper because he felt the life was too hard for a woman. We went south. He worked at odd jobs-we covered a lot of territory before he finally decided we should come to Texas and try farming."

She described the events that had led to Jaimie's death and her subsequent venture with the hotel.

"So you can see I've done a good many things in thirty-three years, Luis-some of which I'm a little ashamed to talk about."

He brushed his mouth against her cheek, as if to dismiss her concern. Then he shifted his position so she could lie more comfortably. He asked, "This Jaimie-did you really love him?"

"I think so. He was kind to me. I never felt any great outpourings of emotion when he was alive. But I liked him-I enjoyed being with him-at least until things went sour for us. I mourned a long time when he died. If that's love, then yes, I loved him."

The major touched the rope bracelet. "Did he give you this?"

"No, my cousin Jared did. He made it from cordage on the Constitution, the frigate he served on during the war."

"Do you know where your cousin is now?"

She shook her head. "That day in Tennessee was the last I ever saw of him. He may be dead. He might have gone back to Boston, though I doubt it-"

"You sound sad when you speak of this Bos"-he had trouble pronouncing it-"Bos-ton. Do you miss it?"

"I miss never being hungry, or cold, or worried about tomorrow. I sometimes feel Boston's where I belong."

"Because of the comforts?"

"No, that's not it. My father came of a very independent, idealistic family. I can still see him in the front sitting room one night when I was little. He was speaking to Jared. I can't recall the exact words, but I understood his meaning, and it made a great impression. My father said anyone who belonged to the Kent family had a duty in this world. A duty to give, not just take-"

Lost in the reverie, she closed her eyes. The images in her mind-a flickering hearth, her cousin's tawny hair and blue eyes, her father's sallow face and frail body beside the mantel, a long, polished muzzle loader, a gleaming sword, a small green bottle-were incredibly vivid.

"I can hear his voice to this day. And see the things above the mantelpiece. A little bottle of dried East India tea my grandfather collected when the colonists dumped the shipment in Boston harbor. There's a sword my grandfather got from the French general, Lafayette-and a Virginia rifle-"

She opened her eyes.

"Those things were important to my father. I remember him saying they had to be preserved, as tokens of what the Kents stood for. I have no idea what's become of them-"

"Would you like to go back and try to discover that?"

"Yes, I would. Everyone has one special dream they cherish, I suppose-a dream that doesn't stand a chance of being fulfilled. Going back to find those things is mine." Her smile was rueful. "I expect they were sold for junk years ago."

"If you have such a consuming desire, I would have expected you return to Boston long before this. You've had opportunities-"

"After Jaimie died?"

"Exactly."

"I thought of it. But there's a funny kind of pride involved, Luis. I think I told you the Kents were once a wealthy family. I promised myself I'd never go back unless I could be worthy of the name."

"You mean go back as a rich woman?"

"At least well off. So I could properly face anyone who might remember the family. Especially that son of a bitch Stovall or his heirs-" She paused a moment. "You probably think I'm crazy."

"To be truthful, I should prefer to say unrealistic."

She snuggled against the muscle of his naked arm. "I admit it."

"Then again, perhaps I'm the one who is unrealistic. I listen to you, and I can believe you will go back one day."

"I don't think I'd be a very good caretaker of those things my father prized. The Kents are supposed to be people who contribute, remember? I've done nothing much but keep myself alive-"

"Nonsense, Amanda! You're a generous, loving woman. An honorable woman! You made that clear when you faced His Excellency-"

She laughed softly. "I love you for saying things like that. But I'm afraid it's your heart talking, not your head."

"It's the truth!"

"Oh, Luis, we won't really find out what we are until it's too late to do anything about it. The Sioux believe the only honest verdict on a human life comes when it's all over."

"Are you saying that trying to live honorably is useless? I can't accept that."

"I can't either-but I do believe the Sioux are right when they claim we see ourselves imperfectly. Untruthfully. And only someone else can judge us-"

Quietly, Cordoba asked, "Do you mean God?"

"The name isn't important, is it? The Mandan Sioux, for instance, believe that when you die, a great vine sprouts from the ground near your body. A vine that's invisible to everyone else. The vine leads straight up to the sky-to paradise. Your spirit rises and begins to climb. About halfway up is the critical point. Either you go all the way unmolested-or great hands reach down from paradise and break the vine, and your spirit falls back to earth, denied heaven because you lived an unworthy life." Amused, she added, "Can you guess who those hands belong to?"

"Why, to whoever those Mandan call their God."

"No, to an agent of the high spirit. An intermediary."

"An Indian Christ?"

Merrily, Amanda said, "A very formidable woman."

"A woman? That's blasphemous!"

"I think it's delightful. I must say your attitude's typical of men, Luis."

They laughed again, and then he returned to the original thread of the conversation. "Well, I can't worry about the afterlife-I have enough problems with the present."

"And no dreams?"

There was a long moment of silence. Then: "None that will come true. You, though-you have your Boston. Hold onto that, Amanda. You may still see your home before that remarkable vine appears. You have the will-" He began to stroke her hair. "Right now, though, your home is here. If only for a short time."

"I sometimes wish it could be for a long time, Luis."

He pulled her closer.

"I wish that constantly, Amanda. Constantly."

When she fell asleep against him, his cheeks were wet.