A squeak broke into the ever-increasing birdsong. Another, then a familiar gurgle.

Ellen!

And if Ellen was nearby, so must Hattie be.

Ignoring the stiffness and pain, Emmet forced himself half-upright, pushing back the covering fur which he now recognized as Buff's bearskin.

No sooner did he move than the figure beside him did as well, turning to face him. "Emmet," Hattie whispered, "how are you feeling?"

Emmet Lachlan had not wept since his father died, for a man held his tears inside. But he wept, pulling Hattie to him, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her sweet mouth. Murmuring her name over and over.Safe , he told himself,she is safe .

She gave him back his kisses with fervor, whispering her thanks that he was conscious, was no longer burning with fever. And with her words, he remembered a timeless period in which he lay burning in a hell of his own making, regretting as much the sins he hadn't committed as the ones he had.

Ellen interrupted their mutual welcome, demanding sustenance. Emmet fell back onto his bed, closing his eyes. He still didn't know how they had escaped the renegades, or if they had, but he was immeasurably relieved to know that Hattie and Ellen were safe. For the time being, at least.

Experimentally he moved his shoulders again. He felt as if he'd been tied, somewhat in the same manner as William and Silas had been in the renegades'

camp. But he had not been a captive. How? And why?

No matter. As soon as he could move with any ease, he struggled to his feet.

Standing there, feeling himself sway like a pine in a high wind, he admitted that he'd felt better a time or two.

Hattie watched him as he worked his shoulders, attempting to ease the ache. "I was afraid you'd be sore," she told him, "but you were too far gone to hold on."

"Hold on?"

"You've spent the last two days tied on Odin's back like a big sack of cornmeal," she said, her smile flashing in the dawning light. "Your horse wouldn't carry you."

Emmet sniffed. He stunk like a pile of rotting beaver pelts. "Can't say as I blame him." He bent and stretched, wincing whenever he felt a pull on the wound in his back. "Have you been watching our back trail? They're bound--"

"They're dead," Hattie said, her voice tight and filled with satisfaction.

"Silas started a landslide and, well...."

He thought he'd dreamed the bounding, sliding, roaring, rockfall, but he hadn't.

"All three of them?" Baldy hadn't died under his knife, although he'd lost his urge to fight.

"Three?" Hattie sat up, pulling Ellen from her breast. The babe objected. "Hush, sweeting," Hattie soothed, guiding her nipple back to the questing little mouth.

"There were three of them?"

"We only killed three." He'd never slain in cold blood before. It had not been easy. It had been necessary. "I saw Pyzen Joe and one other... somewhere on a hillside?"

"That was when they caught up with us. Just before the slide." Hattie frowned.

"But you said three?"

"I cut one, but I don't know how bad." Emmet resolved to go back and find Baldy, make sure he'd never find them again. "The others... don't worry about them."

"Flower said she killed the man who... who found her," Hattie said, her fingers stroking across Ellen's head. "Oh, Emmet, she looked so fierce when she told me.

So unforgiving."

"Can you blame her?"

"Of course not. I'd want to kill anyone who did that to me, I think."

"You wouldn't have to, Hattie," Emmet vowed. "I'd kill him for you."

They rested. Emmet insisted he was able to stand--or sit--watch and allowed William to help him onto his horse. The wretched animal was perfectly tame and docile, now that its master was once more in command. He rode back up their trail early on, promising to shoot first and ask questions later. "That way you'll have some warning so you can get across the river," he told Hattie before he left. She watched him, concerned. He could hardly stand without support. What a stubborn man!

His wound had closed, although the skin around it was red and hard. She worried that it should be draining, despite Flower's assurance that the lack of fever indicated his body had defeated the infection.

Silas and William went downstream to bathe and wash their clothes, much to Hattie's relief. She'd gotten used to the way they smelled, but she couldn't imagine they were comfortable. Flower also bathed and washed her skirt and William's shirt. She was in the water a long time, so long that Hattie finally went to make sure she hadn't drowned. What Hattie saw nearly broke her heart, for Flower was scrubbing herself with handsful of sand, scrubbing so hard that her golden skin was red and raw. Hattie quickly slipped away, knowing this was a time to leave Flower alone.

"I'll watch Ellen if you want to bathe," Flower said when she finally returned to camp. Gratefully Hattie accepted her offer. She loved her buckskin clothes--true to Flower's promise, they stayed much cleaner than the wools or cottons she'd worn all her life--but she didn't much care for the body underneath. Too much exertion and fear had given her skin an acrid, musty odor.

She took Ellen's diapers with her and washed them in the icy water, beating them against stones until they were clean once more. She vowed to use moss and cat-tail down whenever possible in the future.

"I feel absolutely blue," she said later, warming her numb hands at the cookfire. "That water should have chunks of ice floating in it."

Flower almost smiled. "They probably got broken up in the canyon." She motioned upstream. "I don't think I have ever seen rapids like that." Crooning softly, she rocked Ellen, who stared up at her with wide eyes.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Hattie blurted, not knowing how to be tactful about something so awful.

Turning her head toward the east, Flower said, "No. It is done." There was infinite sorrow in her voice. "They are dead and I am alive. That is what is important."

Unable to imagine herself being so calm about rape, Hattie shook her head. "I wish we hadn't left you. Maybe...."

"If you had been there, they still might have caught us unawares," Flower said, again rocking Ellen. "Emmet would have fought--he is a warrior born--and possibly died. Or been sold as a slave to the Blackfeet, as they planned to do with Silas and William. And this one--" she touched Ellen's nose-- "would have been in great danger. Beasts like that have no use for children."

Shuddering, Hattie agreed. "It just seems so unfair." Nothing that had happened to her compared to what Flower had suffered.

"It is done," Flower repeated. "I do not want to speak of it." Nimbly she rose, handing Ellen to Hattie. "I will look for food. Today we eat well."

Hattie looked after her as she disappeared into the willows. "I could never be that brave," she mused, "or that strong."

Emmet guided his horse back along the trail. How could he miss it, torn up as it was by the passage of the oxen? He had not allowed himself to wince when he mounted his gelding, but he still felt the strain of two days on Odin's back in his shoulders and hips.

Worst of all, he was weak. It was an effort to stay upright. If the gelding should take it into its head to go in a direction of its choosing, it would go and that would be that. Emmet had no strength to turn it aside.

But the horse was obedient this morning. Emmet found a cluster of rocks just above the trail, giving a good view east and with a decent field of fire. If Baldy came after them--or if there were others in the renegade band he didn't know about--he would see them in plenty of time to warn his people. He settled in, not getting too comfortable. It wouldn't do to fall asleep.

He had failed again. Once more he'd been given the responsibility of others'

lives and once more he'd failed them. It was mere chance that William, Silas and Flower lived, not any of his doing.

Hell, it was pure fool luck that Hattie and Ellen had not been taken--and he knew all too well what would have been their fates if they had.

They'd be better off once they were shut of him, that was for certain. As soon as he had his strength back, he would take them back to get the wagon--to hell with the gold--and get them to Fort Vancouver as fast as he could. He'd give the money he had banked in St. Louis to Hattie to get her started, to make up for all the ways he'd failed her.

The day dragged by. Emmet grew thirsty, but there was no water nearby. Once or twice he found his thoughts wandering, saw things--people and sights--that could not possibly be there. His back hurt--Flower claimed she got the entire ball out, but he wasn't sure she had. The wound hurt like the very devil. And it was hot--he could feel the heat of it burning through his body, until he wanted to strip off the calico shirt and let the breeze cool him.

His little party was too vulnerable where they were, he realized. And he was in no condition to take them back to the valley of the Boise. Not yet. A fine protector he'd be, too feeble to walk, having barely enough strength to lift his rifle.

He raised it, experimentally, aiming at a crooked branch on a pine not far away.

The barrel wavered and swung, drifting away from his target and back again, but never long enough to allow him an accurate shot.

Fine guard he was! They should have sent the horse alone. He'd have done as good a job.

He was fighting sleep when something moved in the shadows where the trail was shadowed by tall firs. Starting, Emmet sat forward, keeping his head below the top of the rock which concealed him. He watched, wondering if he'd been seeing things.

Fevers often brought hallucinations to a man.

The flicker of motion again, still deep in the trees. Emmet waited, his hands sweating on the rifle. He would have one chance. Just one.

It was a dog--the ugliest dog he'd ever seen. Emmet stood, grabbing at the rock beside him when the world swam before his eyes. "Dawg!" he called, not too loudly. "Here, Dawg!"

The animal just kept coming, limping, clearly at the limit of its endurance. Its nose was close to the trail.

Again he called. This time Dawg lifted his head and looked ahead, but made no other move. Emmet wasn't surprised. Except for Hattie and William, the mutt paid little attention to humans, unless they stepped too close. Then he growled.

Dawg halted when he came abreast of Emmet. Sat down on the trail and looked, his yellow eyes questioning. Emmet wished he had food to offer, but he had none. Not even water. "They're on along there," he said, motioning. "Go on, now. Git!"

Dawg got, still moving slowly. Emmet saw traces of dried blood on his chest, near the left front leg he was favoring. His brindle coat was nearly obscured by mud, making Emmet think he'd probably been shot, then crawled off to die.

Except he was too mean to die.

Near to dusk Emmet heard a soft whistle. He waited. Soon Silas appeared skirting the trail, slipping from tree to tree. The lad was learning.

"Figured you'd like some supper," Silas said when he crouched beside Emmet.

"Flower snared a couple of squirrels and I caught some fish. What with the berries William and Hattie got, there's a pretty good feed laid on."

Saliva flooded Emmet's mouth. For the last couple of hours, his belly'd been growling fit to kill. "I'm obliged," he said. "You'll be all right here?"

"Figured I'd string this across the trail, get me some sleep." He showed Emmet a thin strand of leather, dark and nearly invisible in the dusk. "We cut it off'n that shirt William gave Flower. 'Twas too long anyhow."

"I'll see you come morning, then," Emmet said, handing the rifle to Silas.

Walking carefully, he headed uphill to where his horse had been tethered all day. The gelding, however, didn't feel like leaving the tiny meadow where the grass was green and tall. It shied away and Emmet nearly fell.

"I'll hold 'im," Silas said, grabbing the hackamore. "You need a foot up?"

Emmet grasped a handful of mane and told his legs to spring. They ignored him.

Feeling shame for his weakness, he said, "I'd thank you for it." Even with Silas's boost, he had trouble getting astride.

Tarnation! Would he never regain his strength?

Supper filled his belly, even if it didn't satisfy his craving for red meat.

Afterward Emmet sipped the coffee Hattie poured him, marveling at their good fortune. They had flour and coffee, an ax and two guns, a shovel, a bucket, and four knives. Everything, in fact, that he and Hattie had taken with them. It was too bad they'd not been more sparing of the flour. He doubted that they had enough to last for more than a week. And only one handful of coffee remained in the pouch.

"I'll be going back," he said, "to see if there's anything we can salvage."

"They had themselves horses," William said. "But the boss...."

"Pyzen Joe," Emmet said.

"Yeah, him. Anyhow, him and the Injun, Short Leg, took the horses off somewheres and we never saw 'em again."

"They hobbled them," Flower said, from the shadows where she'd made her bed. "I heard them talking. They hobbled the horses and left them in that meadow upstream. Do you remember the place, William? Where you found that big nugget?"

"I'll find them," Emmet said.

"You can't go back," Hattie said. "You can hardly walk!"

Emmet had to admit she was right, but only to himself. "I'll be fine," he assured her. "Give me a couple of days and I'll be good as new."

"I think we oughta go 'cross the river," William said. "They's a real nice place over there. I swum across this afternoon and looked it over. Areal nice place."

Since Emmet had been thinking how much easier it would be to detect pursuers if they had the river between them and their back trail, he said, "As big as this?"

He gestured around the small meadow in which they were camped.

"Oh, Mist' Em, this is a little piss-ant place beside what I seed. It's like a big pasture, bigger'n the meadow where I found that nugget. An'real nice," he repeated.

We'll move," Emmet decided, "first thing in the morning."

Hattie looked at the river and swallowed. She was a good swimmer. It was just that the last time she'd tried to cross running water too deep to wade.... Well, she didn't remember much of what had happened, but the aftermath had been painful. At least by swimming, she remained in control of her fate.

Emmet pulled his horse to a halt beside her. "Sure you don't want to ride behind?" he said. "Plenty of room."

She passed the cradleboard up to him. "No, I'll swim. Your horse doesn't like me." She watched as he slipped his arms into the straps of the cradleboard.

Ellen was asleep, completely unaware of the danger she faced. Hattie hoped she would stay that way.

William and Silas were already on the other side. They'd gone with the cattle, swimming alongside them, herding them around the end of the island that divided the river into two deep channels. She'd watched them until they were out of sight among the scattered trees.