He loved her until he could stay his own release no longer. Plunging into her, he forgot everything else in the timeless cadence of love. And all too soon it was over. He collapsed atop her, exhausted, satiated, but still unsatisfied.

Into his numbed mind a single thought crept. Would he ever find this sense of belonging again?

Holding her close, Emmet stared into the star-filled sky. Hattie slept, having fed Ellen and tucked her again into her little nest at the edge of their bed.

He held her and wished to slow the turning of the planet, the advance of night.

But morning came, and nothing was the same. Hattie was withdrawn, almost as if she were afraid to let herself touch him. Ellen was cranky, hating the cradleboard in which she'd spent so little time this past week. Even Bessie gave him trouble, attempting to kick him as he milked and swiping her tail across his face until he was tempted to take his knife to it.

At least Odin and Hero were their usual placid selves, even when he loaded their panniers heavy with gold.

It seemed to take twice as long to get back over the ridges as it had to come, even though Emmet knew, from the sun's position, that they were making good time. They stopped for nooning in a grove of enormous firs, at the summit of the highest ridge. Emmet left Hattie feeding Ellen while he moved ahead, checking out the trail, looking for any sign that others had come this way since their passage.

The trail showed no sign of having been used since they had trod its dusty surface and he was relieved. Still, he had a feeling that something was wrong, a faint prickling at the back of his neck, as if the hairs were wanting to stand on end. He'd be doubly cautious as they descended into the basin where they'd left the rest of their party.

They were still in the woods when he became certain something was not right. It was quiet in the meadow. Too quiet. Quickly he went back to where Hattie waited with the livestock, a good hundred yards behind. "I want you to take the animals and go off trail. Find yourself a place to hide--but not someplace you'll be trapped in. And stay there!"

"But...?"

"Hattie, don't argue. Something's wrong and I want to know you're safe before I see what it is."

She looked at him for a moment, a straight, measuring look. "How will you find me?"

Gesturing at the cattle, he said, "They'll leave a trail a child could follow."

"Then it won't do me much good to hide, will it?"

She was right, damn it. And what could he do for the others now that could not be as well done after he got Hattie to safety? Hattie and Ellen.

"Let's go." He led her back the way they'd come, to a faint game trail he'd noticed when they passed it. "Keep 'em in line," he instructed, leading Bessie, the least docile of the cattle, by her halter. The thick pine needles would make it easier to conceal the animals' tracks. With luck anyone who followed would see nothing beyond the expected elk and deer sign.

They found a hidden glade, a place where, under other circumstances, he would have been tempted to while away the afternoon loving her. Surrounded by young trees no more than thirty feet high, with branches still brushing the ground, it was green-carpeted and sunny. An elongated mound of soft and rotting wood, the carcass of a tree fallen long ago, filled the center of the glade.

Emmet unloaded the cattle, then scouted up the hill beyond the glade. To his great relief, a continuation of the game trail led that way and down into the next drainage. Hattie could follow it until she found the creek where they had lived for the past week.

If she had to. If he failed to return. "If I'm not back by tomorrow," he told her, once he was satisfied she had a bolt hole if needs be, "forget the gold. Go back along the way we came and...."

"If you're not back tomorrow, I'll be coming to find you," she told him, glaring up into his face.

"Will you risk Ellen, then?"

Her expression told him she had not considered the danger to her child. "Look, it could be that they've moved camp. Gone upstream maybe, because they'd taken all they could from the creek." He didn't mention the spiral of smoke he'd seen, coming from a willow thicket a good mile below where they'd left Silas, William and Flower. It bespoke a far larger fire than they would have made.

He wondered if they were still alive.

Hattie didn't argue this time when he showed her, pointing, how she would find the way back to the trail they'd followed coming in. "When you figure it's safe--a couple of weeks ought to be enough, you come back here. Follow this creek on down to where the little stream comes in from the west--remember?"

She nodded, frowning.

"Take your time," he told her, his hands busily checking the leather bags of gold. It wouldn't for her to lose them. They might be the only future she had.

"You can live on roots and berries if you have to. And water." His belly clenched at the thought of her having to live off the land. At least it was late spring, and there would be berries ripe soon.

"When you get to the head of that creek, you should be able to see where we came in. I raised a marker there, pointing the way."

"I saw it. I wondered..." Her voice trailed off, but her chin was firm.

Keeping his face averted, he slapped the faithful Odin on the shoulder. "Take care of her, he whispered." Aloud he said, "Once you get to the ridge, you'll see the trees along the Boise. Head for them, and follow them down to Fort Boise."

She made a small sound of denial.

Emmet turned and faced her, taking her chin in his hand. "Hattie, girl, you've got to. Buff's cabin won't be safe for you, if you're all alone. Promise me you'll go to the fort."

"I promise," she said. "But what if...?"

Emmet laid a finger across her lips. "This is because I'll feel better for knowing you'll be able to take care of yourself, not because I think there's any danger," he said, knowing he lied. He handed her his Henry. With it and the shotgun, she'd have a decent chance to defend herself. "You rest here and I'll be back before you know it."

She nodded again, her lower lip quivering. But she met his eyes straight on, chin high. If there was a woman alive who could get herself back to the Boise River alone, it was Hattie.

He kissed her once, a hard kiss, then walked away. Had he stayed a second longer, he could not have gone.

The smoke still climbed toward the sky. Emmet crept around the margin of the meadow, approaching the campsite carefully. He stopped several times, to listen, to sniff. Finally he heard voices. Unfamiliar voices.

Moving even more cautiously now, Emmet continued his stalk. When he was no more than fifty yards downstream, he stopped again and sniffed. The smell he'd noticed a ways back was stronger here. Meat. Cooked meat. Beef.

He went to ground, crawling and slithering among the tightly packed willow stems. And then he was only feet from the clearing.

There! The thin screen of willows allowed him a full view. Directly across from him, William lay upon the ground, his arms above his head. Looking closer, Emmet saw the rope holding them to the nearest willow. Another stretched loosely from his feet to other willows. A dirty rag was stuffed into his mouth, held by a leather thong tied wickedly tight around his head, cutting into his dark cheeks.

His clothing--the buckskins he was so proud of--was torn and muddy, although the mud was dry. So he'd been there at least a day.

Where was Silas? Ah. There, a quarter of the way around the clearing, gagged and tied hand and foot just like William. He looked to be in worse shape, his face bloodied and one pants leg dark with moisture, probably more blood.

Only one man sat by the fire, a big, hairy man whose rank smell Emmet could detect even at this distance. Three others were doing something off to the left, one crouched over something on the ground, the others standing above him, watching.

Wondering if he could find an opening in the willows wide enough to ensure that his thrown knives would not be deflected, Emmet crawled a few feet in that direction. He could pick off two of them quickly, but if either of the others had a gun within reach, his action would be for naught, for he had but three knives. And where was Flower?

One of the standing men kicked at the one on his knees. "Hurry it up, Wilb. If Short Leg and Pyzen get back anytime soon, I ain't a'gonna have my turn."

The leafy branch before him barely moved as Emmet touched it with a cautious hand. Great God! There were two more of them! Six altogether. And him with but three knives and no gun.

Then the man's words registered, and Emmet saw what he was doing.

It was not a leather bag or a pack the crouching man was working with. It was Flower, her clothing half off, her body bruised. The crouching man was pumping himself into her, using her roughly, his face an ugly mask of lust.

Emmet's hand clenched around the handle of his Bowie knife, but he forced himself to be still. There was nothing to be gained by haste, and everything to be lost. He could attempt to save the woman, but to do so would sacrifice both Silas and William.

He watched until dusk, watched the four of them take Flower in turn, and was enraged. He saw blood on her thighs, dry blood, and hoped it was from the rending of her maidenhead and not from their brutal use of her. And he saw that she was passive rather than defeated, for her movements when at last they left her alone were slow and painful, but deliberate and self-protective.

More than once he tensed, preparing to leap into the clearing and each time he reminded himself that he wanted all three of his people safely free, not just Flower.

And there was Hattie, too, waiting for him, trusting in his return.

So he waited. Two more men appeared as the sun was sinking behind the hills to the west, Indian and white. Emmet recognized the white man. Pyzen Joe, he called himself. A vicious, lazy man who'd not lasted his first season on the traplines, who had turned to preying on the weak and the helpless as a better, easier way.

As Emmet listened, he realized that Pyzen Joe's companions were cut from the same cloth. Their conversation confirmed his suspicion that they were the renegades Goat Runner had told him about. Raiders of isolated Indian villages, probably robbers and murderers of solitary travelers of any color. They were more dangerous than the panther that had taken Buff's mule, more deadly than the silvertip grizzly respected by all who wandered the western mountains. And more treacherous than the rattler that struck from concealment.

The renegades ate, not bothering to feed Silas and William, or even loosen their bonds so that they might relieve themselves. Afterward they again took their turns with Flower, all six of them this time, leaving her limp and possibly unconscious before they were finished with her.

Emmet buried his face in the dusty detritus under the willows and worked to contain his rage. He would kill them all, he swore. Slowly. Painfully.

At last it was dark and silent. The creek's soft murmur was the only sound besides the almost soundless scratch of willow litter against Emmet's buckskins.

For what seemed like hours, he crawled, slithering along on his belly, rarely rising to elbows and knees.

At last he reached William. Quickly he sliced through the braided rawhide rope that bound William's legs and arms. "Don't move," he breathed. "Just lie here and let the blood get movin'." He knew the black man's pain would be great when life returned to his limbs and hoped he would be able to contain his moans.

"When you can, sneak off to the west. Follow the trail me'n Hat took."

William nodded, his mouth already tightening with the anticipation of pain.

He repeated his actions and instructions when he freed Silas, glad the renegades had chosen to doss on the other side of the fire, where the ground was less damp. Before he left Silas, he felt of the lad's bloodied leg, making sure it was not broken.

Once he was sure Silas and William were capable of taking themselves to safety, albeit slowly, Emmet began the patient crawl that would take him around the perimeter of the clearing to where Flower lay in a crumpled heap.

It took him nearly an hour, an hour in which the big Indian--Short Leg, he guessed from the man's limp--woke twice and raised up to look around. But he did not see Emmet, who had used mud to hold twigs and leaves to his pale hair and more mud to darken his face and who kept to the very edge, under the overhanging willows.

"Give me your knife," Flower said, her words little more than a breath, as soon as he reached her. "I will kill him."

Her passivity had been deliberate. So must her unconsciousness have been feigned. But Emmet had only three knives and he had a need for all of them. He shook his head. "Go," he mouthed, not making a sound. He pointed into the willows behind them, toward where he had spent the evening.

She shook her head. "I will kill him," she whispered again.

"Not with my knife," he said, hoping she would be sensible.

"Then with my hands." Flower began creeping, every bit as silently as he had, toward Short Leg.

Emmet twisted, reached, and pulled the knife from his high moccasin. Silently he held it out to her.

She took it and resumed her crawl. Emmet crawled beside her, Bowie knife in hand.

Chapter Fifteen.

Hattie tied the cattle and Emmet's horse to trees, afraid they would wander.

Then she fed Ellen, even though the babe was barely awake. A baby's hungry cry was nothing like an ordinary forest sound and she didn't know how far it would carry.

After that she waited. Ellen was wakeful for a while, but Hattie didn't leave her out of the cradleboard. What if she had to move quickly?

She waited through the waning afternoon, through twilight. When it grew too dark for her to see farther than a foot or two, she fed Ellen again, returned her to the cradleboard, then settled against a tree. She would sleep, for she might need her strength tomorrow.

She did sleep, though she had no idea how long. Or what woke her. But suddenly she was wide awake, entirely alert.

The sound of something heavy moving through the woods came to her ears and she held the rifle at ready. Emmet had made sure she knew how to use it, but she didn't trust it as she did Karl's shotgun. How could she possibly hit a moving target at night with only one bullet?

Before she could bring the rifle to her shoulder, she recognized the snorting, panting, tromping noise of running oxen and breathed a sigh of relief. She stepped from behind the tree and onto the edge of the trail. "Whoa," she called softly. "Whoa, boys. Whoa, now."

The second animal halted immediately, bless his great heart. "Oh, Jupe," Hattie felt the torn ear rather than saw it as he snorted against her chest. The other two had halted too, and now stood, panting, on the trail. Hattie laid a hand on Jupe's shoulder and led him back into the glade, wondering where her fourth ox was. And who had been driving them? Surely they wouldn't have taken it into their thick heads to stampede up that particular trail for no reason at all. She stayed with the livestock for a few minutes, until the newcomers seemed to settle down. Then she returned to her watching post beside the trail.

No sooner was she concealed again in the skirt of the giant fir than she heard human footsteps. Faltering, limping, and more than one person, if she was not mistaken. She held her breath as they came nearer, peering through the branches.

It was dark as pitch, here under the trees.

But she recognized them, no matter that they were only darker shapes among the shadows. William. Silas. And no one else. Again she stepped from her hiding place, holding her breath at the smell of them.

"Here," she called, barely above a whisper, before either of them could react.

"In here." She led them into the glade, now crowded with restless animals and smelling of the barnyard.

"Miz Hattie! I'se sure glad to see you!"

"You all right?" Silas said.

"Of course, but what about you? Why were the oxen running? Where's...."

"Renegades got us. Caught us yest... no, the day before."

William was rubbing his arms, massaging his wrists. "They had us tied up tighter 'n a hog at killin' time. Mist' Em, he cut us loose, but we couldn't hardly move, we was so stiff."

"Took us better than an hour to find the oxen," Silas said, "'cause we had to get our blood movin' again. We were lucky they'd wandered this direction. Then we had to move 'em real slow, so we wouldn't be heard." Silas looked around.

"Where's Emmet?"

"You don't know?" The fear Hattie had successfully held at bay was no longer manageable.

"Haven't seen him since he cut us loose."

"He was goin' after Flower. They done...."

"Shut up, William," Silas snapped. "Flower was on the other side of the clearing. He had to crawl real careful. It probably took him quite a while, 'specially if one of 'em woke up and Em had to wait 'til he got back to sleep."

"Do you mean he was crawling around in the dark, at the mercy of a bunch of murdering thieves, and you just left him?"