"Thanks, Alice, but ..."

"Who's that?"

I looked around. There was a white man, gray-bearded and dusty, riding around the side of the main house toward us. I thought at first that it was the Methodist minister. He was a friend and sometime dinner guest of Tom Weylin in spite of Weylin's indifference to religion. But no children gathered around this man as he rode. The kids always mobbed the minister-and his wife too when he brought her along. The couple dispensed candy and "safe" Bible verses ("Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters ..."). The kids got candy for repeating the verses.

I saw two little girls staring at the gray-bearded stranger, but no one approached him or spoke to him. He rode straight back to us, stopped, sat looking at both of us uncertainly.

I opened my mouth to tell him the Weylins weren't home, but in that moment, I got a good look at him. I dropped one of Rufus's good white shirts into the dirt and stumbled over to the fence.

"Dana?" he said softly. The question mark in his voice scared me. Didn't he know me? Had I changed so much? He hadn't, beard or no beard.

"Kevin, get down. I can't reach you up there."

And he was off the horse and over the laundry yard fence, pulling me to him before I could take another breath.

The dull ache in my back and shoulders roared to life. Suddenly, I was struggling to get away from him. He let me go, confused.

"What the ...?"

I went to him again because I couldn't keep away, but I caught his arms before he could get them around me. "Don't. My back is sore."

"Sore from what?"

"From running away to find you. Oh, Kevin ..."

He held me-gently now-for several seconds, and I thought if we could just go home then, at that moment, everything would be all right.

Finally, Kevin stood back from me a little, looked at me without letting me go. "Who beat you?" he asked quietly.

"I told you, I ran away."

"Who?" he insisted. "Was it Weylin again?"

"Kevin, forget it."

"Forget ...?"

"Yes! Please forget it. I might have to live here again someday." I shook my head. "Hate Weylin all you want to. I do. But don't do anything to him. Let's just get out of here."

"It was him then."

"Yes!"

He turned slowly and stared toward the main house. His face was lined and grim where it wasn't hidden by the beard. He looked more than ten years older than when I had last seen him. There was a jagged scar across his forehead-the remnant of what must have been a bad wound. This place, this time, hadn't been any kinder to him than it had been to me. But what had it made of him? What might he be willing to do now that he would not have done before?

"Kevin, please, let's just go."

He turned that same hard stare on me.

"Do anything to them and I'll suffer for it," I whispered urgently. "Let's go! Now!"

He stared at me a moment longer, then sighed, rubbed his hand across his forehead. He looked at Alice, and because he didn't speak to her, just kept looking, I turned to look at her too.

She was watching us-watching dry-eyed, but with more pain than I had ever seen on another person's face. My husband had come to me, finally. Hers would not be coming to her. Then the look was gone and her mask of toughness was in place again.

"You better do like she says," she told Kevin softly. "Get her out of here while you can. No telling what our *good masters' will do if you don't."

"You're Alice, aren't you?" asked Kevin.

She nodded as she would not have to Weylin or Rufus. They would have gotten a dull dry "yes, sir." "Used to see you 'round here sometimes," she said. "Back when things made sense."

He made a sound, not quite a laugh. "Was there ever such a time?" He glanced at me, then back at her again, comparing. "Good Lord," he murmured to himself. Then to her, "You going to be all right here, finishing this work by yourself?"

"Go' be fine," she said. "Just get her out of here."

He finally seemed convinced. "Get your things," he told me.

I almost told him to forget about my things. Extra clothing, medicine, tooth brush, pens, paper, whatever. But here, some of those things were irreplaceable. I climbed the fence, went to the house and up to the attic as quickly as I could and stuffed everything into my bag. Somehow, I got out again without being seen, without having to answer questions.

At the laundry yard fence, Kevin waited, feeding something to his mare. I looked at the mare, wondering how tired she was. How far could she carry two people before she had to rest? How far could Kevin go before he had to rest? I looked at him as I reached him and could read weariness now in the dusty lines of his face. I wondered how fast he had traveled to reach me. When had he slept last?

For a moment, we stood wasting time, staring at each other. We couldn't help it-I couldn't anyway. New lines and all, he was so damned beautiful.

"It's been five years for me," he said.

"I know," I whispered.

Abruptly, he turned away. "Let's go! Let's put this place behind us for good."

Please, God. But not very likely. I turned to say good-bye to Alice, called her name once. She was beating a pair of Rufus's pants, and she kept beating them with no break in her rhythm to indicate that she had heard me.

"Alice!" I called louder.

She did not turn, did not stop her beating and beating of those pants, though I was certain now that she heard me. Kevin laid a hand on my shoulder and I glanced at him, then again at her. "Good-bye, Alice," I said, this time not expecting any answer. There was none.

Kevin mounted and helped me up behind him. As we headed away, I leaned against Kevin's sweaty back and waited for the regular thump of her beating to fade. But we could still hear it faintly when we met Rufus on the road.

Rufus was alone. I was glad of that, at least. But he stopped a few feet ahead of us, frowning, deliberately blocking our way.

"Oh hell," I muttered.

"You were just going to leave," Rufus said to Kevin. "No thanks, nothing at all, just take her and go."

Kevin stared at him silently for several seconds-stared until Rufus began to look uncomfortable instead of indignant.

"That's right," Kevin said.

Rufus blinked. "Look," he said in a milder tone, "look, why don't you stay for dinner. My father will be back by then. He'd want you to stay."

"You can tell your father-!"

I dug my fingers into Kevin's shoulder, cutting off the rush of words before they became insulting in content as well as in tone. "Tell him we were in a hurry," Kevin finished.

Rufus did not move from blocking our path. He looked at me.

"Good-bye, Rufe," I said quietly.

And without warning, with no perceptible change in mood, Rufus turned slightly and trained his rifle on us. I knew a little about firearms now. It wasn't wise for any but the most trusted slaves to show an interest in them, but then I had been trusted before I ran away. Rufus's gun was a flintlock, a long slender Kentucky rifle. He had even let me fire it a couple of times ... before. And I had looked down the barrel of one like it for his sake. This one, however, was aimed more at Kevin. I stared at it, then at the young man holding it. I kept thinking I knew him, and he kept proving to me that I didn't.

"Rufe, what are you doing!" I demanded.

"Inviting Kevin to dinner," he said. And to Kevin, "Get down. I think Daddy might want to talk to you."

People kept warning me about him, dropping hints that he was meaner than he seemed to be. Sarah had warned me and most of the time, she loved him like one of the sons she had lost. And I had seen the marks he occasionally left on Alice. But he had never been that way with me-not even when he was angry enough to be. I had never feared him as I'd feared his father. Even now, I wasn't as frightened as I probably should have been. I wasn't frightened for myself. That was why I challenged him.

"Rufe, if you shoot anybody, it better be me."

"Dana, shut up!" said Kevin.

"You think I won't?" said Rufus.

"I think if you don't, I'll kill you."

Kevin got down quickly and hauled me down. He didn't understand the kind of relationship Rufus and I had-how dependent we were on each other. Rufus understood though.

"No need for any talk of killing," he said gently-as though he was quieting an angry child. And then to Kevin in a more normal tone, "I just think Daddy might have something to say to you."

"About what?" Kevin asked.

"Well ... about her keep, maybe."

"My keep!" I exploded, pulling away from Kevin. "My keep! I've worked, worked hard every day I've been here until your father beat me so badly I couldn't work! You people owe me! And you, Goddamnit, owe me more than you could ever pay!"

He swung the rifle to where I wanted it. Straight at me. Now I would either goad him into shooting me or shame him into letting us go - or possibly, I would go home. I might go home wounded, or even dead, but one way or another, I would be away from this time, this place. And if I went home, Kevin would go with me. I caught his hand and held it.

"What are you going to do, Rufe? Keep us here at gun point so you can rob Kevin?"

"Get back to the house," he said. His voice had gone hard.

Kevin and I looked at each other, and I spoke softly.

"I already know all I ever want to find out about being a slave," I told him. "I'd rather be shot than go back in there."

"I won't let them keep you," Kevin promised. "Come on."

"No!" I glared at him. "You stay or go as you please. I'm not going back in that house!"

Rufus cursed in disgust. "Kevin, put her over your shoulder and bring her in."

Kevin didn't move. I would have been amazed if he had.

"Still trying to get other people to do your dirty work for you, aren't you, Rufe?" I said bitterly. "First your father, now Kevin. To think I wasted my time saving your worthless life!" I stepped toward the mare and caught her reins as though to remount. At that moment, Rufus's composure broke.

"You're not leaving!" he shouted. He sort of crouched around the gun, clearly on the verge of firing. "Damn you, you're not leaving me!"

He was going to shoot. I had pushed him too far. I was Alice all over again, rejecting him. Terrified in spite of myself, I dove past the mare's head, not caring how I fell as long as I put something between myself and the rifle.

I hit the ground-not too hard-tried to scramble up, and found that I couldn't. My balance was gone. I heard shouting-Kevin's voice, Rufus's voice ... Suddenly, I saw the gun, blurred, but seemingly only inches from my head. I hit at it and missed. It wasn't quite where it appeared to be. Everything was distorted, blurred.

"Kevin!" I screamed. I couldn't leave him behind again-not even if my scream made Rufus fire.

Something landed heavily on my back and I screamed again, this time in pain. Everything went dark.

The Storm.

1.

Home.

I couldn't have been unconscious for more than a minute. I came to on the living room floor to find Kevin bending over me. There was no one for me to mistake him for this time. It was him, and he was home. We were home. My back felt as though I'd taken another beating, but it didn't matter. I'd gotten us home without either of us being shot.

"I'm sorry," said Kevin.

I focused on him clearly. "Sorry about what?"

"Doesn't your back hurt?"

I lowered my head, rested it on my hand. "It hurts."

"I fell on you. Between Rufus and the horse and you screaming, I don't know how it happened, but ..."

"Thank God it did happen. Don't be sorry, Kevin, you're here. You'd be stranded again if you hadn't fallen on me."

He sighed, nodded. "Can you get up? I think I'd hurt you more by lifting you than you'd hurt yourself by walking."

I got up slowly, cautiously, found that it didn't hurt any more to stand than it did to lie down. My head was clear now, and I could walk without trouble.

"Go to bed," said Kevin. "Get some rest."

"Come with me."