"Hard to believe I'm goin' there," Silas said, a yawn interrupting his sentence.

"I'm beginnin' to see why you say you'll never settle. There's so much to see, so much to do." A rustle told Emmet he was settling in his blanket. "G'night."

"Goodnight, lad," Emmet said.Never again , he realized.I'm never going to see Hattie again.

He lay a moment, forcing himself to resist the urge to turn and twist in his blanket. The realization was as painful as the wound in his back had been but this was internal. Somewhere in the region of his heart.

Never see Hattie again!The very thought filled him with a desolation he'd never experienced before. Was this what William had felt, when Flower left?

"Did I know where she's at, I'd go fetch her," William had told him one day as they rested briefly from splitting rails.

"She'll be back," he'd said, not really believing but hoping, for his friend's sake, that Flower would return.

"Maybe she won't, Mist' Em. Maybe she think I ain't man enough for her."

William's dark eyes had been filled with tears. "I didn't do nothin' to keep them renegades from hurtin' her."

"You tried, William," Emmet had told him. "You did the best you could, but there were six of them and they took you unawares."

"Sometimes a man's best jest ain't good enough, I guess."

"Sometimes it ain't," Emmet had agreed, "but it's all a man can do."

"I loves her, Mist' Em. She's gotta come back to me."

William's words, spoken from his heart, echoed in Emmet's mind. He loved Flower, dreamed of the day she would return to him, so why would he suddenly turn to Hattie, who loved.... Who did Hattie love?

At that instant Emmet knew it was time for him to do the best that he could do.

He rolled to his feet. "I'm goin' back," he said.

"Wha...?"

He felt for the steel, struck a light. "I'm goin' back," he repeated. Quickly he gathered his few possessions, all but the bag of gold. That he dumped on the small desk built against the wall. "I'll need some of this for supplies, but you can take the rest. There's plenty more where it came from."

"But where... what...?" Silas was obviously confused.

"I'm through wandering. It's time for me to settle." As he said the words, he knew they were the truest ones he'd ever spoken. "I want to go home."

Home to Cherry Vale. Home to Hattie.What a fine sound that had.

Done dividing the gold, Emmet placed Silas's share in his poke, replaced the poke in the lad's pack. The rest he dropped into his own pack, hoping it was enough for the bolt of cloth and the wool blankets he'd take back to Hattie along with all the bacon and coffee he could pack onto a mule. It was time she had a real dress again, instead of wool trousers or buckskin skirts.

And some French-milled soap, if such were available from the HBC post. Soap that smelled of lilacs.

Silas rolled out of his bunk and stood as Emmet finished his preparations. "I'll miss you, Em, but I'm glad you're goin' back." He stuck out his hand.

Emmet took it, then pulled the boy into a bear hug. "You keep your knife close at hand, and remember what I taught you about watching your back, you hear."

Releasing Silas, he picked up his pack and slipped it on. "You come back this way, you be sure and come see us."

"I will," Silas said, holding the door open. "You can bet on that."

Emmet went ashore and was quickly soaked by the steady rain. It was raining here, so it was probably snowing in the Blues. He'd have a bitch of a time crossing, but no amount of snow was going to stop him.

It took him a day to find a boat heading back upriver. Emmet used that time to gather a load of supplies and gifts. By the time he reached The Dalles, he was fit to be tied at the slowness of travel. He purchased a decent horse and a big, rangy mule and set out the same day, pushing his animals as hard as he dared. It hadn't snowed enough to stick on the flats yet, but he wasn't trusting those low clouds.

It was a good thing he hurried. The season's first major blizzard struck when he was climbing Flagstaff Hill, all but through the Blue Mountains.

Hattie opened the shutters, shivering in the sudden inrush of cold air. She'd been restless all day, probably because there had been so little sunny weather lately. She didn't remember last winter holding so many dreary days. Despite the storms, there had been brief spells of sunshine, in which the crusted snow sparkled as if strewed with a million tiny gems. This winter was much stormier.

She had not seen the sun in better than a week and from the looks of those clouds, it could be another week before she did.

She pulled the shutters closed again, glad she had stored all the extra milk as butter, grateful that the rushes that abounded along the river were the sort that burned well after being soaked in butterfat. If she had a choice between butter and light, she'd take light every day.

Ellen reminded her that it was morning and she hadn't eaten since last night.

Hattie picked her up, rubbing the baby's nose with her own. "What a big girl,"

she crooned. "And such a good girl."

Ellen was a joy. Content to amuse herself by the hour, as long as she had the smooth wooden toys William had carved her, she babbled and sang to her busy mother for hours at a time. Settling in her chair--it always reminded her of Emmet, for he'd built it for her during his convalescence--Hattie put the baby to her breast.

She told the story of Cinderella to Ellen as the baby nursed, knowing she was doing it as much for the sound of a human voice as anything. Hattie hated to admit it, but she was lonely.

Perhaps she should have gone with Emmet after all. If she were in the Willamette Valley now, she would have neighbors to visit with. Someone to talk to other than William, whom she rarely saw except at meals.

The day wore on and Hattie's restlessness increased. When William came in at noon, he remarked that she seemed fidgety, and she admitted she was. And she didn't know why.

When Dawg started barking, along in the afternoon, Hattie immediately took the shotgun to the window. Easing one shutter slightly open, she looked out. The last time Dawg had sounded the alarm, wolves had taken two of Aphrodite's piglets. There were only three left--the others had succumbed to the cold before Hattie started bringing them into the cabin at night--and they could not afford to lose any more. Too much of their precious food had gone to feed those consarned pigs.

She saw nothing, but Dawg continued to bark. It sounded like he was down toward the river, a good distance away. And William, she knew, was hunting. The elk didn't come to the lower meadows much any more, so he was probably two or three miles away.

Hattie waited, noticing that snow was starting to drift to the ground. Would this be the big storm William kept anticipating?

A hint of movement far down the meadow drew her attention. When Emmet and William had felled the two big pines for making floor boards, they had chosen ones that would leave a gap through which she could see almost to the river. The sooner she could see intruders, they'd told her, the sooner she could be prepared to deal with them.

A mounted man emerged from the curtain of falling snow. He led a second horse, a loaded one. She pushed the shutter open a little farther, knowing he could not see her, the way the cabin was set under the trees. Checking the shotgun's chambers again, she kept her eyes on him.

William, come home, she cried silently, admitting her fear.Please, come home.

The man guided his horse across the meadow toward her, as if he knew where he was going. Hattie lifted the shotgun, even though he was still far beyond its range.

He sat the horse easily, seeming almost a part of it. Hattie was reminded of Emmet, who was the most graceful man on horseback she'd ever seen. And he was tall, like Emmet, but bulky, not slim. A broad brimmed had concealed his face, although he was much too far away from her to distinguish his features anyway.

Then Dawg dashed forward, leaping and cavorting about the horses. The rider pulled his mount to a standstill when it threatened to shy, leaned forward and reached a hand down to the excited dog.

And Dawg did not attack him.

The scene froze before her eyes. With utmost care, she pulled the shutters closed and latched them. She laid the shotgun on its pegs, next to the front door. And then she opened the door and walked outside, not allowing herself to believe what she desperately wanted to believe.

She didn't take her eyes off the rider as she carefully descended the ice-covered steps into the meadow. He waited, standing beside his horse, one hand on Dawg's head.

"It's a dream," she said to herself, needing to hear the words spoken aloud.

"I've imagined him coming back so many times that I'm dreaming."

But he didn't go away, didn't dissolve into insubstantial smoke. She forced herself to walk, not run as she desperately wanted to do.

Still he stood there, waiting for her, his broad shoulders in the sheepskin coat covered with drifted snow. Hattie stopped as soon as she was close enough to see that it really was him. "You're back," she said, her voice almost a whisper from a throat gone dry.

"To stay," he said, "if you want me to."

"Why?"

"Because there's nowhere on earth I'd rather be than here, with you. Because I love you, Hattie, girl." And then he was there, his arms around her, his mouth on hers.

But she pushed him away. "You can't stay," she told him, "unless it's for good this time. I won't be left behind again." And oh, for all the words tore her heart in two, they had to be said.

"It is for good, Hattie girl. It's forever."

This time she let him kiss her. This time she believed him.

EPILOGUE: 1848.

Emmet leaned upon the scythe handle and wiped his brow. Now if the rain would hold off for another week, they'd have all the hay they needed for winter.

Great God! Who'd ever thought he'd be fretting over the weather like any farmer?

But that was what he was, these days. A farmer.

With a sense of accomplishment, he looked across the meadows. The small patch of garden, with its high fence, looked straggly and abandoned now, but he knew there were carrots and turnips under those mounds of straw, braids of onions and clusters of corn drying in the rafters of the barn. Hattie's seeds had survived their two-year storage, giving them an ample harvest.

She'd mourned the loss of the black walnut, but they'd all celebrated the appearance of three spindly clusters of grapes on the single vine that had made it through the winter. Hattie still swore her precious lilac would survive, for all it had produced only a handful of leaves this year.

Rested, he shouldered the scythe and strode toward the bench holding their cabins. He wondered if he would ever walk this way without feeling as if he were coming home. Anticipation grew in him as he climbed the rise, passed the double cabin that had been their first home, that was now a barn and granary.

"Papa! Papa home!" Ellen met him at the door of the snug, two-room structure.

"Papa home!"

He swung her high, laughing with her. "Yes, indeed, Papa's home. You ready to help with supper?"

Ellen shook her head, curls like sunlight bouncing. As soon as Emmet set her down, she ran back to the corner in which her toys were stored.

"It's warming on the hearth," Hattie said. "Your son decided his supper was more important." She smiled from her chair, nodding at the tiny head half-concealing her bared breast.

Emmet knelt before her and touched a delicate ear. "How you feelin'?"

"A little tired," she admitted, almost as if she were ashamed. "I don't seem to have much energy."

"Great god, woman! You gave birth two days ago. You've got every right to be a little tired. Why aren't you in bed?"

"I was, until it was time to heat up the stew." Laughing, she pushed at his hands. "Emmet! Behave yourself!"

He continued to unbutton the nightgown until he could pull it off the other shoulder. "I remember how this tasted," he said, leaning forward to take with his tongue the tiny droplet that emerged. "Just checking to see if little Buff's getting the same quality."

Her hand caressed his cheek. "Liar," she accused, but the affection in her voice told him how she welcomed his touch.

Ellen pushed her way between Hattie and Emmet. "Buffo," she said, touching the baby's head much as Emmet had. "Mama. Papa." Her bright smile turned to an expression of great solemnity as she touched each of them in turn. "Mine." She nodded emphatically. "My Papa, my Mama, my Buffo."

Hattie was blinking rapidly as Emmet looked up at her. "My family," she whispered. "My loves."

"My home," Emmet said around the clot of tears that almost choked him. Embracing his wife, his son, his daughter, he said it again, for it could bear repeating day in and day out for the rest of his life. "My home."

THE END.