For a moment she though he was not going to answer. When he did, his voice was low and full of sorrow. "It could hurt your child."

"I don't think so," she said, having more than once heard other women speak of their husbands' demands, no matter how heavy with child they were, or how tired from their daily toil. "But I thank you for stopping. It just wouldn't be right, somehow." She couldn't tell him why it would not be right, for he was not a man who wanted to hear he was loved. Hadn't he already told her he wanted nothing to bind them, beyond his promise to her?

Emmet forced his body into repose, waiting while desire ebbed and was replaced with anger.

Anger at Hattie, of being so tempting.

Anger at himself, for wanting her.

Anger at fate, which had led him here and kept him here.

As soon as he'd felt the swell of her belly, he'd remembered his mother's tears.

Again and again, from his earliest memory, he'd heard her weeping for children who would never be born. As he grew older, he understood that she had lost them, one by one, brothers and sisters of his, long before they were old enough to be more than a bloody smear on her linens. Always she'd cursed his father, for his male desire, for his inability to control his baser urges.

He would do nothing to make Hattie grieve as his mother had.

Nothing, even if he had to sleep in the snow every night.

Would it be breaking his word, he wondered, if he were to leave her in Buffalo's care through the winter. He could go into the high country, run a few traplines, and return with the spring.

Buff knew about babies as well as he did. Maybe more, for at least Buffalo's child had grown and thrived, while the child in his care had died.

Buffalo didn't come home that night, or the next day. The snow continued to fall sporadically, until nearly a foot lay on the level. Hattie worried about the old man, but Emmet told her she was wasting her energy. "He's a savvy old coon," he said, "and likely laid up in a cave or a blowdown somewhere, waitin' out the storm."

That was about all he said to her beyond informing her he'd take care of the stock. He went out early, taking a pack of food, and she didn't see him again until well after dark.

She set the morning's milk near the hearth to clabber, then went back to her sewing. By dinnertime she had two tiny sacques made and a pile of soft rectangles set aside to be hemmed for diapers.

As the afternoon lengthened, she began to wonder when Emmet would return, where Buffalo was and if he was warm and well fed. No matter how she tried to think of other things, her thoughts kept returning to her situation. What would she do if neither man ever came back to her?

A familiar terror welled into her chest, until she could hardly draw breath.

"Please," she prayed. "Please let them come back. I can't do it again."

It was a long time before she could pick up her sewing again and go on.

If she were to be left alone again, she told herself when she finally conquered the awful feeling of panic, she would do what had to be done. She would get herself and her livestock to Fort Boise, insist that they give her a place to stay until spring. Once the passes were open, she'd go on.

That was all she could do. Go on.

A stamping outside announced Emmet's return. Even as she turned, the door opened wide enough to allow the milk bucket to be set inside. "I'll be along directly,"

he said, closing the door again.

Despite her determination to keep her self heart-whole, his voice sent shivers through her. She wanted to go to him, to welcome him home with open arms and sweet kisses. She wanted him to hold her and caress her and lead her to the delights his mouth and hands and body had promised her.

What she did was turn her back and scoot the spider full of sliced cornmeal mush over the fire. "Supper will be ready by the time you're washed up," was all she said when he returned.

Hattie guessed she should be grateful he was a strong-minded man. She just wished he could see the difference between affection and lust, for she had a powerful need to be hugged.

Emmet drove the oxen and the milch cow down to the river's edge, where there was still some dry grass for them to graze and the snow was thin enough for them to scrape aside. This latest fall didn't show any signs of melting soon, and he hadn't put by enough hay to feed the stock indefinitely. His horse and the mules could forage, hobbled, but the cattle could not. They were too prone to wander, and Goat Runner's people were not likely to resist that kind of temptation.

Damn! He wished he had a dog.

While the stock grazed, he cut wood. He'd felled a big dead cottonwood just before he went looking for Hattie's gold and wanted to get it sectioned and as much split as he could while the weather held. Three days now of bright sunshine, and he couldn't count on much more. There'd been a ring around the moon last night. Likely they'd have more snow tomorrow.

He wished he could let Hattie watch the livestock while he tried to backtrack Buff. He hadn't admitted it to her, but he was becoming worried himself. The old man hadn't taken much food with him and his snowshoes were still hanging on the wall of his leanto. If he'd gone anywhere near the mountains--and Buff was always one to go up, not down--he'd have a hard time of it without the rawhide-and-withe contraptions that let a man stay on top of the snow instead of sinking to his knees or beyond.

Buff could take care of himself. Unless he'd managed to bust a leg or somewhat.

Even then Emmet could not imagine his old friend lying on a snowing hillside, patiently waiting to die. No, Buff would be crawling along on bloodied hands and knees, determined to decide his fate until there was no more breath left in him.

He stopped cutting when the cold white sun was overhead. Hattie had packed him a lunch, looking relieved when he once again said he'd be gone all day. Cold roast venison and biscuits. He sniffed. The meat was getting a little old. Time to hunt again. If Buff were here, he'd head up the river a ways, to where the elk came down to winter. The tender meat of a yearling elk would be a welcome change from tough and gamy venison.

When Buff came back, they'd have to have a little talk. He didn't want Hattie troubled like she was with worrying over his extended absence. Buff was going to have to let them know where he....

Damn that woman! Emmet tore off a chunk of meat and chewed fiercely. She had him so tamed he was actually thinking of telling an old he-coon like Buffalo to ask permission before he took off.

If he had the sense God gave a goose, he'd take her to Craigie and let the Hudson's Bay factor take care of her for the rest of the winter. She'd be better off there anyhow. There were women at Fort Boise--Paiute and Bannock women, but women anyhow. She had money, even if he had thrown away her gold. The credit from those seven oxen was only half used. The rest would outfit her to cross the Blues, if she was willing to do it on horseback. And that'd be the only way she'd get across with him, so she'd better be prepared.

She could leave the rest of her oxen with Craigie, have him send her their price after he'd sold them to next year's emigrants. By the time the trains got to Fort Boise, there were many who needed replacement stock and Hattie's would be in prime condition.

Emmet picked up his ax, confident that he'd figured out a way of getting free of the trap into which he'd worked himself. This time next week he'd be on his way to Fort Vancouver, thence to China. No more lying awake, listening to her soft breathing. No more fighting his body's reaction to the rustles and whispers of her dressing, back there in the darkest corner of the cabin, while he sipped his morning coffee and tried to ignore the pictures his mind created. And no more standing guard, resolutely facing away from the thicket surrounding Buff's bathtub, while she soaked her leg, buck naked in the shimmering hot water.

He was halfway through the next cut when he recalled the feel of her swelling belly under his hand.

Hell and damnation! The ax fell, uncontrolled, and came close to cutting off his toes. Emmet stood, staring across the clearing, breathing as if he'd run a race.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't abandon her to the precarious life at the fort, nor could he leave her behind in Buff's care, even if the old man were to volunteer.

She was pregnant, and he could not leave her. He would not bear the guilt of another child's senseless, needless death.

It was snowing again, the third fall in as many days. The fresh white powder lay thick on the growing pile of split wood against the cabin wall. Hattie stood at the door, watching Emmet as he drove the cattle into the corral. She'd offered to help unload the sledge he'd made from her wagon bed, but he'd refused. He was particular about what work he would let her do, telling her he didn't want her taking a chance on losing her child.

She didn't think moving a few chunks of firewood would cause her any harm, but she'd learned better than to defy him when he got that stubborn look about his mouth. There was more to his care of her than he'd say. She wondered, once again, what his life had been before he chose the solitary life of a trapper.

What had happened to him that he believed a pregnant woman to be so fragile?

One of the mules brayed. Emmet had brought them in with the cattle, although he usually left them out. Their hobbles prevented them from wandering far.

Another bray, the sound coming not from the corral but from the west. Quickly she stepped inside, picked up the shotgun that always stood just beside the door. Without showing herself, she held it ready at her waist. She would have called a warning, for Emmet likely hadn't heard the mule, but she knew her voice would carry to whomever approached as well.

She waited, watching through the narrow slit of the partially open door. Another bray, answered by one of the penned mules. Then a third mule came into her field of view, black and rangy. Familiar.

She set the gun inside, snatched her coat from its peg. Throwing it across her shoulders, she hobbled to meet Buffalo, not bothering with her crutch.

He was hunched over the neck of the mule, his wrists tied together by a thong that looped around the mule's neck. His face was white as the snow that covered his bearskin coat, cold as the air she breathed. He opened his eyes when she took hold of his hand, sobbing.

"Hey there, missy, don't you be takin' on. I'm just a mite tired." His voice was weak and his eyes closed as soon as he stopped speaking.

"Emmet!" she screamed. "Emmet!" With one hand on the saddle, she limped beside the mule as it plodded toward the corral. Before they reached the pole enclosure, Emmet was at her side, cutting through the thong that held Buffalo on his mount, catching the old man in his strong arms.

She was of little help as Emmet carried Buffalo inside, so she tended to the mule, wiping him down, giving him an extra portion of their precious hay. When she went inside, Emmet had Buffalo propped in his chair, was working him out of the heavy coat. Despite his inner clothing being dry, he was shivering uncontrollably.

"Move him closer to the fire," she told Emmet, tugging on his sopping moccasins.

"I've got a better idea," he said. He lifted Buffalo in his arms, tendons straining and jaw set, for the old man was a big as he and much broader. "Open the door."

"What are you...? Oh, of course." Hattie pushed the door open and stepped back to let him pass. "I'll bring blankets," she said as he walked out into the snowy night.

She took time to set some cherry bark to steeping. She didn't know what ailed Buffalo, beyond being half-frozen, but he'd rest better for a dose, once they got him warm. Besides, he'd get warm sooner with heat inside as well as out.

Pulling the quilts from her bed, Hattie wound them around her shoulders. She hoped the new snow hadn't made the path to the tub too slick. Stepping carefully, testing each position of her crutch, she started down the path.

Emmet had Buffalo in the tub, both of them fully clothed, when she got there.

The old trapper still shivered occasionally, but the constant shuddering had ended, nor were his teeth still chattering. She laid the blankets under a willow, far enough away that they were unlikely to be splashed, yet still close enough that Emmet could reach them. "What can I do?" she said, thinking that the blueness of Buffalo's lips was less pronounced.

"Go make up some broth. He's cold clear through." Emmet was working to peel the wet buckskin from Buffalo's upper body.

Rabbit fished from the stew she'd fixed for supper went into the soup pot, along with a few shavings of bacon--this was almost the last of it and she wanted to save enough for a meal--and slivers of dried salmon. She dipped a spoon into the cherry bark infusion and tasted it, making a face at its bitterness. There was just nothing on earth more bitter. But it would do him good.

Emmet carried Buffalo in and laid him on the pallet she'd made up before the fire, blanket and all. Then he tucked the quilt Hattie handed him over the blanket.

Buffalo's eyes opened when she knelt beside him. "Aww, missy, I didn't mean to be troublin' you like this."

She shushed him. "You're no trouble. We're the ones who are putting you out of your own house." Tucking the blankets more firmly about him, she pulled the soup pot toward her. It hadn't cooked long, but there was bound to be some nourishment in the broth. "Can you eat?"

"I can," he said, "but it won't do me much good."

The spoon at his mouth prevented him saying more. She got several sips inside him before he turned away. "No more," he said, "else I puke it up." His eyes closed.

"All right," she told him, "but when you've let that settle a bit, I want you to have some of this." She tested the infusion's temperature with the back of her hand. Too hot to drink, but it would cool.

Emmet knelt beside her. Laying his hand across Buffalo's forehead, he nodded.

"He's warm now." He shivered. "Got some more of that soup?"

Guiltily, she scrambled to her feet. In a moment she had supper sitting before him--hot coffee, rabbit stew, and a bowl of cottage cheese. He sipped the coffee carefully, emptying his cup slowly. He was no longer shivering when he took the first bite.

Hattie filled a bowl for herself and sat on her stool, placing it where she could keep an eye on Buffalo. The old man rested quietly, unmoving except for the even rise and fall of his chest.

"I hadn't counted on anybody's bein' hyar." Buffalo spoke into the silence that accompanied supper. "An' I figgered on it being longer before I had to stop huntin'."

"What are you talking about, old man? You're going to be huntin' for a long time yet," Emmet said.

"No, I ain't." Buffalo turned his head and stared into the fire.

Hattie saw lines of pain on his face. Had she not noticed them before?

"This was the worst time yet," Buffalo said, after a long silence. "I didn't think I was gonna get myself back hyar." He winced. "There's a critter gnawing at my vitals, Em, and nothin' I can do seems to make it stop." Again the wince.

"Sometimes it hurts so bad I jest want to take a knife and cut it right out. I ain't never had anything hurt so bad in all my born days."

Hattie looked across the table and saw her fear reflected in Emmet's eyes.

Buffalo was a fine storyteller and not at all averse to telling of his adventures. His favorite--but not hers--was the time he'd been half-scalped. If this was more painful than that, he must be in great pain indeed.

"I ain't a'gonna be doin' much of anything no more. The reason I went up there to Lapwai to see my leetle gal was to tell her good-bye. I was hopin' to run into you somewheres along the way, 'cause I wanted to give you somethin' and to ask you a favor."

He moved restlessly, his mouth tightening again. "What I'm tryin' to say, boy, is that I had me a reason for showing up here like I did. I've done come home to die."

Chapter Seven.

At first Hattie didn't believe Buffalo. He seemed so alive, so healthy.

The morning after his homecoming he was up at dawn, stretching the three skins he'd brought in, scraping the flesh from their undersides, then rubbing in a mixture of fat and brains. Weasel, Buffalo named them, but Emmet told her they would be called ermine in the fur markets of the world and would bring a good price.

Buffalo talked as he worked, telling her of his younger years when he'd trapped the empty land west of the Missouri with men whose names even she had heard: Williams, Fitzpatrick, and the legendary Jedediah Smith.

"Ol' Jed, now, he was a smart 'un. I was with him when he headed down thar to California back in '27. He'd been thar the year before and figgered he'd go back and stay awhile. Wal, we got to the Colorado and ran into a band of Injuns--Mojaves, they was. Jed had met up with 'em before, but this time they wasn't feelin' hospitable. Lost ten men and most of our supplies afore we got away."

He set the third skin aside after inspecting it. All three now leaned against the wall, stretched on circles of supple willow.

Hattie finished hemming a diaper while Buffalo stuffed his pipe. He lit it with a splinter from the fire and puffed in silence.

"What happened then?"

He chuckled. "Seems like luck warn't with ol' Jed that time. He'd plumb wore out his welcome the year before, I reckon, 'cause the next thing we knowed, we was in a greaser jail. Didn't get out 'til a fella there in Monterey made bond for us."

He went on to tell of their trapping along the Sacramento River, describing the broad, flat valley between the mountains that abounded with beaver. Hattie's hands ceased their motions as she listened, trying to imagine the places Buffalo had been, the sights he'd seen.

"We taken a good haul of beaver out of the Sacramento. Jed was allus one to look for new trails to walk, so we headed on up north, figgering to make our way to Fort Vancouver. It took us a while to git thar, though." Again he paused, puffing on his pipe.