"Indeed, you can't imagine that he wouldn't come to our aid. That's easy to understand when you've been privileged to have your experiences. Wilson Stillwell--that's how I think of him, not as Uncle Wilson--we've never been on close terms. He was my mother's stepbrother. They were the same age and not particularly close themselves although they were raised together from the time they were eight. When my mother married, Wilson was already in the state legislature. By the time my sister was born he was a congressman and except for obligatory visits back to Ohio for campaigning and fund-raising, we rarely saw him." Ryder ran a hand through his hair.

"He never took much interest in us or we in him. It's not anything anyone's ever regretted. It's just the way it was .. . the way it is."

Mary was silent, waiting for Ryder to make his point.

"I know you think he was present for my trial because he cared what happened to me. Given your experiences, that's a reasonable assumption. But it's not an accurate one. He was a character witness at my trial; he testified on my behalf."

"Surely that-" He held up his hand.

"He needed to do it to absolve himself. Wilson Stillwell wields a lot of power in the Senate. He sits on a number of important committees and has the ear of the President. He was largely responsible for my assignment to the Colter Canyon patrol. He saw that I got good assignments, that I came to the attention of people who could further my career.

In fact, he had a lot to do with my favored status among the Army commanders."

"I don't believe that," Mary inserted quickly.

"If your status was favored it's because you earned it. I'll never believe anything else. Anyway, if there weren't some feeling on his part, why would he want to give you important assignments or see that you enjoyed any privilege?"

"To absolve himself of more guilt." Ryder sat in the chair behind the desk, turning it so he could stretch his legs out to the side. The curtains in their private car were drawn back. Sunshine filtered through the weather-stained windows and touched the side of Ryder's face, highlighting his austere, angled features.

"I hold Wilson Stillwell responsible for the death of my daughter, my wife, her family, and the thirty other Chiricahua who were massacred at Antler's Ridge." It was a horrible accusation, one that Mary did not fully understand, but she had little doubt that Ryder held it close to his heart.

"When my family was murdered by the Tonto, and I was abducted, there was no search, there were no reprisals by the Army. I find no fault with that. Someone, somewhere, had decided the killing should stop.

After all, the raid on our wagon train was a retaliation by the Tonto Apache for a previous Army attack on one of their camps. The only point I want to make is that my uncle saw no reason at that time to have the raid investigated or to put any pressure on anyone for revenge.

Instead, he used it. He accepted that we had all been killed and mourned our passing very publicly. It served his purpose very well; he closed the narrow margin that separated him from his political opponent and took a seat in the Senate."

"You cannot be so cynical," she said softly. It made sense to Ryder that she would see it as cynicism whereas he only saw it as truth.

"Years later, when I began to go on raids, and a rumor surfaced about a gray-eyed, white boy living among the Chiricahua, my uncle decided it was expedient to look into the matter."

"You can't fault him for that. It's natural that he would want-"

"He was running a close campaign for reelection. This time he was the incumbent and likely to be unseated. It would have been humiliating for him.

The investigation was a way to get attention off policy and the scandal-ridden administration and to play on public sympathy."

Ryder's smile did not reach his eyes, his grin was humorless.

"The Army found me," he said.

"Captured me, to be more specific. I ran away. Not once, but on three different occasions. I could not have made it more clear that I had no desire to return to my uncle or any other way of life. I had a wife, a daughter, and a family.

They were more real to me than an uncle I could barely remember.

I said as much to my uncle when he came West to convince me himself. He didn't recognize me, couldn't even be certain I was his nephew, but I couldn't keep the recognition out of my own eyes and it was enough for him. I was more of a trophy than I was his kin." Mary's hands were clasped tightly in her lap. She bit her lower lip to keep from offering any measure of unwanted sympathy.

"That was before I ran the third time. I was twenty years old.

I had been a man-a warrior-for years, and Wilson Stillwell convinced himself I didn't know my own mind. Or he was convinced I was wrong."

His jaw tightened, and Ryder's voice took on an unpleasant edge.

"Or he believed that his own needs were more important than mine." He caught himself and straightened in the chair, drawing back his long legs and leaning forward. He rested his forearms on his knees.

"The last escape was the easiest, I realized that later. But then I was confident, a little arrogant in my ability to fool all of the whites. I forgot what I had learned about caution or listening to the warnings in my own head.

I forgot to embrace the waiting and struck out when it seemed easiest."

Mary knew now what she was going to hear, and she braced herself for it.

"I was followed. Most unusual for the Army, they waited. They waited through the celebration of my return until a raiding party was formed days later. They let the men leave. Then they struck the unprotected camp. It was deliberate, and it was savage, and it was done at my uncle's behest. He couldn't get me to leave my family so he took them away from me. That's the kind of man he is, Mary. Don't ever forget that." She was staring at him, her eyes revealing horror. Ryder wondered at the source of that emotion. Was she horrified by what he told her, or horrified that he believed what he was saying?

She considered herself worldly, but she liked to think the best of others. She would have a difficult time accepting that he was not so inclined to give the benefit of the doubt. Ryder knew it would be her nature to try to change his mind rather than alter her own beliefs.

"You must be wrong," she whispered.

"You must have misunderstood." He merely shrugged. An argument could accomplish nothing. He had armed her with the same knowledge he had, the knowledge that evil could be embodied in a man who craved power.

She would have to make of it what she would.

"When I was captured again, I remained," he said quietly.

"I was numb with grief, too tormented to suspect the truth then. That came to me over time, over years of watching my uncle and learning what he had to teach me that he did not mean for me to learn. He sponsored me at West Point. I lasted two years, but it was long enough to distinguish myself as a troublemaker. I didn't fit in, and I didn't much try to. With the exception of Walker Caine, I had no friends and no desire to find any.

"There were professors who thought I had promise academically, but I wasn't interested in following in my father's footsteps. Some of the men there thought I had promise in other areas. That's when Wilson brought me to Washington and I began to take on special assignments."

Ryder raised his chin a notch and said flatly, "And that's when I read the confidential accounts of the Western Campaigns and satisfied myself as to my uncle's duplicity." Mary took in an uneasy breath. His eyes were so cold, so hard, it was difficult to look at him and recall he was capable of any kindness.

"What did you do?"

"I confronted him."

"And?"

"He denied it. It was no less than I expected but this time I saw the recognition in his eyes. He knew I knew, and it was enough for me."

"Yet you took the assignments. You accepted his help." There was no regret in Ryder's eyes.

"The assignments were dangerous," he said frankly.

"Of course I accepted them."

It was then Mary realized he had only been trying to kill himself.

The enormity of what he had been contemplating, the grievous nature of that sin, chilled Mary to the bone. She hugged herself. Ryder was watching her carefully. Her face was pale, the skin almost porcelain with its cool delicacy. Had he become a monster in her eyes? She could no longer be thinking that she understood him so well. She must be thinking that she didn't know him at all.

"I.

survived," he said, shrugging as though it were of little account.

For many years it hadn't mattered. He'd felt more anger about surviving than any sense of gratitude. Mary came up out of her chair.