As soon as he'd spoken, he regretted his words. Hattie recoiled as if he'd struck her.

Chapter Eight.

"I'se Weeyum," the black man said, once he'd been persuaded that all Hattie wanted to do was doctor his feet. His eyes were huge in his face, whites gleaming in the flickering firelight. He shrank back against the peeled wood of Buffalo's chair but didn't try to bolt.

She doubted if he'd get half a mile if he did. Last night the immediate thing had been to warm him, to keep him alive. Now it was time to doctor the torn, bloody feet he'd wrapped in ragged cloths. Again she shuddered at the magnitude of his journey, across God only knew how many frozen, empty miles without shoes.

It was a wonder he still had his toes.

"Well, Weeyum, you just put your feet in here and they'll get better much faster." She set the basin of warm water before him. Into it she poured the hot infusion of boneset, wondering if she would find replacement for it in this new land. She only had a scant handful left.

While his feet soaked, Weeyum was persuaded to tell his story, although his accent was so thick that Hattie missed much of it. He was, as Emmet had suspected, a runaway slave. His journey had begun somewhere in the South, where moss hung on the trees like old men's beards. Traveling alone and at night, he had somehow avoided all contact with human beings. Hattie suspected he was barely into his twenties, although she had no way of telling for sure. She hadn't seen more than four or five people of his color up close in her whole life.

This was the second winter since Weeyum had walked away from the cotton fields.

Hattie silently marveled at his persistence. His goal? To reach a place beyond the mountains where "nobod' gone whup me." She wanted to promise that he'd found that place, but how could she? This cabin was merely a way station to somewhere else for both of them.

Emmet hovered--that was the only way to describe how he stayed at her elbow--still suspicious of Weeyum. He said little to her, not much more to Buffalo all that day. Hattie wanted to challenge him, to tell him she was no man's shackle, but she kept her peace. She'd not have Buffalo witness their brangling, nor poor, frightened Weeyum, either.

Sooner or later, though, she'd catch him alone and they'd have it out. She was tired to death of being blamed for the things his sense of honor demanded of him and she intended to tell him so in no uncertain terms.

As he regained strength, Weeyum insisted on being given something to do. He took over the feeding, hobbling to the corral several times a day to murmur to the oxen, with whom he seemed to feel more comfortable.

His feet healed well, with no sign of infection. Buffalo gave him some old moccasins to cover his bandaged feet, the first shoes he'd ever had, he said, tears in his wide, dark eyes. His distrust of humans remained strong. As soon as he could, he built himself a shelter of woven willow branches and river rock in the cottonwood grove beyond the corral. After that Hattie rarely saw him, unless she went to the corral.

Nor did she see the dog, although she knew he was still skulking about. He took the table scraps she set out for him every night.

The cold intensified over the next week, until Hattie went outdoors only when she could not avoid it. Buffalo kept her company in the dark cabin, moving slower, eating less each day. She worried about him, but said nothing, knowing how he hated for her to notice his weakness. He often sat beside the fire all day, staring into the flames, speaking occasionally, dozing often.

They had light now, for Buffalo had taught her to use the bulrush that grew in stiff clumps along the river's edge. Soaked in rendered butterfat, the rushlights burned slowly, if smokily, giving off a yellow light. But enough of them could light the cabin, much to Hattie's delight.

"Yon babe's gettin' purty big," he said one afternoon, startling her. She'd thought he was asleep.

Hattie kept her hand on the mound of her belly, feeling the small but vigorous movements of her child. "She's getting more active every day. I'm wondering if she won't grow up to be a trick rider or something like that." Neither Buffalo nor Emmet had ever spoken of her pregnancy. It was almost as if they were ignoring it.

"Gonna be hard on you, birthin' that babe with no womenfolk about." Buffalo's voice seemed weak today, a sure sign that he was in pain. "I've pulled a couple into the world, but Ol' Em, he ain't. And there's no tellin' if that lad o'yours ever got to Lapwai, let alone he'll be able to talk my leetle Flower into comin'

back here with him."

Since Hattie had often thought the same thing, she merely nodded. She'd trust Buffalo to help her when the time came, and said so.

"But I'm not likely to be here, gal."

"But where...?"

"Hattie, gal, I'm dyin'. The gnawin's gettin' worse every day. I doubt I'll see spring."

"Oh, no, Buffalo! Surely you'll feel better soon."

"Don't be lyin' to yourself. This here's gonna be my last winter."

He fell silent, while Hattie tried to think of something to say, to do, to give him hope. To reassure herself.

"Y'know, gal, my leetle Flower, she's a good gal, but she don't know nothin'

about money," he said after a long time. "Her ma's folk ain't got no use for gold."

Hattie thought of Karl's gold, lost forever. Would that she had no use for it.

As if reading her thoughts, Buffalo said, "Em told me about your man's gold. How he missed findin' it when he sorted your load."

"It wasn't his fault," Hattie said, quickly, not wanting Buffalo to think she blamed the man who'd saved her life.

"O' course it warn't. But that'll be no never mind when you get out there to the Willamette. You'll need yourself some cash money 'cause that's the way the world is."

"I'll manage," she said, wondering if she really would. Again her hand went to her belly. She could take care of herself. She had no doubt of that. But could she take care of this tiny, precious life?

"I'm a'gonna think on it," Buffalo said, and fell into a doze.

Emmet stamped inside shortly thereafter. "Gettin' colder," he said, his breath a cloud in the gust of icy air he brought with him.

"Where's Weeyum?"

"He wouldn't come in," Emmet said. "Says he's snug as a bug."

Hattie doubted that. The last time she'd gone out to the necessary, it had seemed like her breath froze in her nostrils. "Can't you let him come inside?

He's apt to freeze out there."

"Tried," Emmet said, shrugging out of his bearskin coat. "He's got a fire burnin' in his lodge and near a foot of snow piled up on top. He'll do just fine."

"Told him to move into my leanto," Buffalo said. "Wouldn't do it neither. Don't know whether he's afeared he'll wake up with chains on or just leery of white folks in general."

Hattie poured hot coffee into Emmet's tin cup and handed it to him. "Well, at least I can put my foot down with you," she told the old man. "You're staying in here tonight."

"She's right," Emmet said before Buffalo could do more than sputter. "The wind's rising and your leanto leaks like a sieve. I'll fetch your bedroll soon's I'm warm."

Even through the thick cottonwood logs that formed the outside walls of the cabin, Hattie felt the cold. In bed that night, she prayed that both Weeyum and their livestock would survive the bitter cold and the biting wind.

Emmet woke in the night. Rolling over, he dropped from the upper bunk with a soft thud. Hattie murmured in her sleep but didn't rouse. He was pulling the bearskin coat across his shoulders when Buffalo spoke softly.

"Varmits?"

Emmet could see him as a dark shape in front of the flickering fire. He'd been aware, in a kind of half sleep, that Buff had twice added wood. "Nope. Just want to check the stock." He picked up his rifle and slipped quickly through the door.

Great God, but it was cold! The inside of his nose was dry and raw, as if the very air held sharp, cutting ice crystals. He squinted, afraid that his eyeballs would freeze. Even in the high mountains where he and Buffalo had spent the winter two years ago, he had never felt cold like this.

The crusted snow held his weight, creaking and groaning under his feet. He went first to the corral, slipped between the poles. The horses and cattle were in the far end where young cottonwoods and willows formed a dense thicket which provided shelter from the elements. They were huddled together, heads hanging, mingled breaths crystallizing around nostrils and on muzzles. He moved among them, giving a pat here, a scratch there, a word to each.

It was only then he realized how well he could see. The sliver of moon he'd noticed as he came in for supper was long gone, but there was still a paleness about the night. He looked up. And caught his breath.

The sky was alive. Great streamers of red and yellow reached past the zenith.

Even as he watched, another ribbon of brilliant crimson arched overhead, cutting through the blackness, dimming the stars. The mountains behind the cabin loomed in shadowy silhouette, looking as if they were afire with leaping, arctic flames.

Heedless now of the cold, he returned to the cabin and went inside. "Wake up, Hattie," he said as soon as he was kneeling beside her bunk. "I've something to show you."

She came awake immediately. "What? Is something wrong?"

"No," he soothed. "Nothing's wrong. Just put this on." He held out his bearskin coat. "Come outside with me for a few minutes."

Moving clumsily, not entirely awake, she did as she was told. At Buff's questioning grunt, Emmet said, "Northern lights," and the old man subsided back into his blankets with another grunt.

Emmet put on Hattie's heavy wool coat before he led her outside. It wasn't as warm, but it would do for him. She needed the warmth of his fur more than he did. "Shut your eyes," he told her, opening the door. "I'll lead you."

Following him, unquestioning, Hattie's perfect trust reminded Emmet again of the responsibility he had assumed.

He led her away from the cabin, away from the corral and the cottonwoods. When they were well clear of anything that would occlude their view, he turned her to face north and said, "Now. Open your eyes and look up."

"Oh! Oh, it's so beautiful!" Her face, rosy in the cold light, was filled with wonderment. Emmet wanted to kiss her.

Wrapping his arms around her from behind, Emmet murmured, "Don't want you to get cold." She made a small sound. Of protest?

No, for she snuggled back into his embrace.

She smelled of woodsmoke as they all did, cooped up for so long inside the cabin. But underneath was a faint, lingering scent of lilac.

A vision bloomed in Emmet's mind. A woman, naked in the moonlight, her wet skin gleaming. Arms lifted, full breasts crowned by erect nipples, a patch of shadow at the apex of her thighs. Thus he'd first seen her. Thus he'd first wanted her.

He leaned his head against hers, still wanting her, aching with need of her.

Knowing there could be no appeasing that need tonight.

"I saw the Northern Lights once before," she said, sounding on the edge of tears.

Emmet remembered his first sight, from the deck of a ship on the north Atlantic.

He'd been enthralled, so much so that he never noticed the cold or his lack of sleep. When he was relieved of his watch, he'd stayed on deck until the pale light of dawn concealed the bright curtains of green and yellow that had undulated across the sky for so many hours.

"It was the night they all died." Her words hung in the night.

"They? Who?"

"Mama. Papa. Lizzie and Harry and Tilda and Sarah." She sounded almost childish.

"Harry had the croup and Mama was up with him. I couldn't sleep and was looking out the window. The lights were so bright and I hadn't seen anything like them, ever before."

He turned her in his arms, pulled her close. "What happened?" He didn't want to know. Sharing her grief would be one more burden added to the many he reluctantly carried.

"I went out to the haystack. I wasn't supposed to be there, but it was so soft and so nice smelling. And the lights--they moved like ribbons in the wind. I watched for a long time."

One of the animals snorted, but otherwise the night was silent. Emmet felt the cold creeping into his feet, through the thick leather and wool socks--Karl's socks, for he'd had none when he married Hattie. He should take her inside, but he delayed, wanting to keep her in his arms, to feel her warm breath on his chin.

"Mama had been leaving the light on in the kitchen--that was where she had Harry's cradle, because it was warm. I could see it, through the window. But she must have gone back to bed, because the next time I looked at the house, there was fire in the window. There was fire in all the windows. Oh, God, there was fire everywhere!" She turned and burrowed against him, her voice high and strained. "There was fire everywhere, and I watched it burn."

He cupped the back of her head with one hand, reached inside her coat and rubbed along her spine with the other. Words failed him. How did one give comfort for the loss of everything?

"They must have all been asleep," she said, after a few minutes. "The neighbors looked for them and found them all in their beds. They didn't suffer. That's what the preacher told me. They didn't suffer."

But you did, Emmet thought. "How old were you?" was all he asked.

"I was eleven," she said. "And I would have gone to the poor house--Papa was a hired man and everything we had burned. But the preacher wrote to Mama's brother, my Uncle James. He sent money for me to go downstate, to live with him and Aunt Nettie."

"Is that where you met your... Karl?" He had to get her to talk of something else. He couldn't stand hearing the pain in her voice.

"I didn't meet Karl until the day I married him," she said, sounding, if possible, even sadder than before. "Uncle James owed him money, so when his wife died in childbirth, he took me to care for Annie."

Emmet was aware of anger such as he'd seldom felt. "But he did marry you?" God!

She'd been all but been sold to the man!

"Oh, yes. He was a good Christian man. He wouldn't have me in the house--I was fifteen, and a woman grown--without marrying me."

Her voice was steadier now, and she no longer rested her face against his chest.

With a careful hand, he lifted her chin so he could see her eyes. Tears glinted on her cheeks. He wiped them away with his thumb, thinking, as he did so, that he'd never felt anything so soft as her skin.

"He was a good man," she said, as if she were reassuring him. "Karl was a good man, and I loved Annie like she was my own."

No matter how good Rommel had been, he had still bought her like a slave at auction. Just like Emmet's sister, Hattie had traded her body for food and shelter. But at least Hattie received kindness in return. The last time he'd seen Sheila, her face had been bruised, but still stubborn, still angry.

Without thinking, he did what he'd been wanting to do for weeks. He bent his head to hers and kissed her.

Hattie felt the heat of his lips on hers. She should stop him. Oh, she should, for each time he kissed her, the hunger inside grew more demanding.

But she did not. There was something unworldly about the setting, about the situation. Perhaps it was the flickering of the lights in the sky, perhaps the glitter of the snow, ever changing as rays and curtains flowed and shifted across the night.

Whatever it was, she knew she didn't want him to stop kissing her. As his tongue slipped between her lips, she met it with her own. As his hands found her tender breasts under the heavy fur, she leaned into his grasp. She forgot the beginning numbness in her feet, the iciness of her fingertips. All she knew was the wonder of his caresses as his hands rubbed the heavy linen of her gown across nipples grown incredibly sensitive.