"That's reason enough to suit me."

Kain had only a moment of warning before the terrible pain intensified and doubled him over. He went in a crouch to the end of the buggy, clung there and vomited violently. There was the usual mingling of blood in the vomit that spewed from his mouth. He heaved until there was nothing left and still the bile rose in his throat. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He wiped his brow with his handkerchief and sagged against the wheel.

"You got one, too, huh?" The doctor stood on the other side of the buggy looking at him. Kain didn't answer. "It's the reason I came out here. Slower pace, good air. I hung out a shingle, and if I get a patient, fine. If I don't, that's fine, too. I don't have to worry about it."

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

"My stomach ulcera"the reason I came out here. Mine was worse than yours. I was too busy, too tense, worried too much and ate the wrong meals at the wrong times. It gave me a jim-dandy ulcer, but I've about got it licked."

"I've got a cancer you stupid fool!" Kain yelled.

"You don't say?" The doctor walked over and looked at the vomit on the ground. "How long have you had this . . . cancer?"

"Two or three months."

"Hmm. What fool told you that? It doesn't look like any stomach cancer I've ever seen. If it was you'd be throwing up chunks of guts by now."

"I know what it looks like. I was with a man in Arizona who had one."

"Maybe he did. But it still looks like a plain old ulcer to me. Hurts like h.e.l.l, doesn't it?"

"I've already had the opinion of one brainless quack! He said I had worms. The stuff he gave me d.a.m.n near killed me."

"I can guess what it was. It would be enough to give you an ulcer if you didn't already have one. How much weight have you lost?"

"None. I've gained some drinking a lot of d.a.m.n milk. It kept my gut from hurting."

"If you had a cancer you'd be skin and bone, and yellow as a pumpkin by now. This quack is telling you that you've got an ulcer. I can give you a list of foods to eat that'll help it, and in time it will go away."

Kain gazed steadily at the doctor. He sure didn't look too smart, and there he was leaning casually against the end of the buggy, calmly discussing what was life and death to Kain. Hope blossomed, but he was afraid of it.

"You can't be sure. You could have a cancer, too."

"Nothing is sure. But from what you told me, and this," he kicked some dirt over the vomit, "I'm more than ninety-nine percent sure. Fact is, I'd say you're strong as a horse and stubborn as a mule."

Kain stared off at the mountains, not daring to believe.

"Are you sure you know what you're talking about?"

"I may not look too smart, but I graduated at the head of my cla.s.s from the finest school of medicine in the world. I've seen plenty of cancer and I know what I'm talking about. But d.a.m.n it, if you want to believe you've got a cancer, go ahead, believe it and worry yourself to death."

Relief washed over Kain like a tidal wave. He was not going to die. He was going to live! He would live . . . with Vanessa. Grow old . . . with Vanessa. Have children . . . with Vanessa. He would hear that stream of honkers return in the spring. He wanted to shout, and did. "Wha . . . hooo!"

"I know the feeling." The doctor laughed and clasped his shoulder with a tight squeeze of his hand. "One time I was sure I had consumption and would die. It was only a bad chest cold, and I was so grateful I didn't say a swear word for a week."

"If you're wrong . . . I'll kill you!" Kain said, and they both laughed.

The distant pounding of hooves on the road brought Kain's head around. When he saw the big horse, he knew immediately it was Vanessa on Big Red. Her bonnet hung by the string around her neck and her flaming red hair waved like a banner in the wind, stirred up by her wild ride. The dark skirt of her dress was up around her knees and her feet were firmly in the stirrups. She looked like a small red bird perched on the back of Big Red who was running all out.

"Kain! Kain!" Her voice came to him like the wail of the wind. He moved out into the track and waved his arms so she would see that he was all right. "Kaina"" There was a sob now in the cry that reached him.

Big Red slowed and skidded to a halt. Vanessa threw herself from the saddle into Kain's arms and they both tumbled to the ground. She was sobbing wildly and clutching him with fierce desperation.

"I thought . . . I thought . . . this was the day . . . I heard the shot." Her hands moved over him urgently. "Are you all right? Are you all right? Tell me, d.a.m.n you!"

"Yes, darling! Yes! Yes! Yes! I'm all right. I've never been so all right." He lay on the ground holding her. "Ta.s.s is dead. I killed him. You'll never have to worry about him again." He grabbed her face with his hands so she had to look at him. "And I'm not going to leave you. Listen to me, Van! It was all a mistake. I'll not leave you, ever. Did you hear that, darling? Do you understand? Shh . . . don't cry. I'll never leave you . . . we'll grow old together like in Lorna's song. If I'm lucky we'll have sons and daughters and I'll see this gorgeous hair turn gray."

"It's over? You're not leaving? Ever? There's no one else who's trying to kill you? Say it! Say it again, d.a.m.n it, or I'll hit you!"

"I'll be with you always, you funny, silly, wonderful, precious girl! You could have broken your neck riding Big Red!" he scolded between kisses.

"Tell mea""

"Later, I'll tell you everything, but look, darling." He held up the rope of flaming hair. "I got it back."

"Don't touch me with it! I hate it. Burn it. I never want to see anything he had or touched."

Kain tossed it over his shoulder. "Put a match to it, doctor. Burn it while I kiss my wife."

EPILOGUE.

The House was still called The House, although many people had forgotten the reason. A wide veranda now stretched around three sides of it and it was surrounded by a split rail fence and shrubs and fruit trees. It was a beautiful spring morning and this was a beautiful place. The snow was gone, the robins were back and the trees were budding.

Early that morning Kain had heard the honkers go over on their way north. For fifteen years he had heard them in the spring and again in the fall. And each time they pa.s.sed over The House he thought of the morning he had held his wife in his arms worrying that it might be for the last time, but it really had been the day they had begun to live.

He loved this place and left it only to take trips to Denver; either his wife went with him or his visit was brief. There was talk of him running for governor, but he hadn't made up his mind about that yet. On mornings such as this he was quite sure nothing could entice him away from his home.

A smile played around the corners of his mouth as a slim, flaming-haired girl of twelve ran out onto the porch and confronted him.

"Papa! I hate brothers! Jason is teasing me again about b.u.mps on my chest. Make him stop it!"

"Hmm, you are getting b.u.mps. I hadn't noticed."

"Papa!"

"You've been calling him a redheaded woodp.e.c.k.e.r, honey. You've got to expect him to strike back."

"But he calls me red bird. I hate this red hair. Why did K.V. get hair like yours and me and Jason got Mama's?"

"Someday you'll be proud of that hair, and beaus will swarm around you like bees after honey."

"Did they swarm around Mama?"

"If they had I'd have run them off with the shotgun. Yes siree, it sure looks to me like Jason is right. You're growing up."

"Janita!" The commanding call came from inside the house. "Get back in here and finish your ch.o.r.es before you take off on that horse."

"Yes, Mama, I'm coming." At the door she turned and glared at the back of her father's head and stuck out her tongue.

Kain had caught the defiant act several times before and grinned. His daughter hadn't discovered that her reflection showed in the shining window of the side door. She was going to be a handful, but he had no doubt Vanessa would be able to handle her.

It was possible they had made their first son the morning they really began to live. Kain V. DeBolt, called K.V. by his mother, had arrived exactly nine months from that wondrous day. She adored him. He was big and strong like his father and had dark brown hair with just a touch of red. The year before, when he was fourteen, they had sent him back East to school so he could have a taste of a different kind of living. In his letters he said he was homesick for the Rocky Mountains. Kain was sure he had his eye on Cooper and Lorna's daughter Maggie and was afraid someone would attract her interest while he was gone.

Kain stretched his long legs out before him and thought about Adam Clayhill, who had lived almost a year after his stroke. His body wasted away, but his tough old spirit refused to leave it. He never spoke again, but Mary Ben told of how his eyes followed Ellie wherever she was in the room and how a look of disappointment came into them when she ignored him. Ellie seldom spoke to him, but she saw to it that he was as comfortable as possible.

He died alone in the night and was buried on a plot overlooking Clayhill Ranch. Few people other than Vanessa and Kain had attended the funeral. Ellie, dressed in black, stood beside Henry and Mary Ben when his body was placed in the ground, ensuring that his dust would remain forever in the land he had fought so hard to possess.

Kain wondered if the old man had turned over in his grave when the new sign went up on the posts leading to the ranch. Ellie and Henry's names had been legally changed to Hill. She insisted that Cooper and Logan each take a third of the estate after it was discovered Adam hadn't left a will and she and Henry were to inherit everything. She persuaded them it was the only way she could be sure Henry and his family would be taken care of after she was gone. Horn, Parnell, Hill, the HPH Ranch, under the direction of Cooper and Logan, was prosperous and earned a good living for Henry and his family.

Ellie had married the man Cooper and Logan brought in to manage the ranch, and they lived in a new cottage. Mary Ben took over the management of the big house, and John Wisner had lived with them until he died the year before. Henry and Mary Ben had three boys and two girls. Mary Ben still adored her handsome husband, who wanted nothing more out of life than to be with her and to romp and play with his children. It had been years before the Parnells and the Horns would go to the ranch; but now the families met often, and the cousins raced from room to room in the big house until Joseph firmly put a stop to it.

Della had died in France. It was a violent death. She and her lover had been killed by his wife, who quietly disappeared. It was said she left a fortune to a half-breed Indian who was the only man Della had truly loved. He, in turn, turned it over to an administrator to be used for educating Indian children. Her solicitor never revealed the heir's name, and Kain didn't ask; but he was almost sure the Indian was Logan Horn.

"Kain? Why are you sitting out here on the porch this time of the morning?" Still slim and beautiful after three children, Vanessa came to stand beside him.

"I heard the honkers this morning. They're heading north. Get a wrap and come and sit with me."

"I don't need a wrap." She sat down beside him and pulled his arm around her. "Jason is getting out of hand."

"He's just like you, love. Stubborn, mouthy, willfula""

"You've got to do something about him."

"Right now?"

"Not right this minute. You can kiss me first."

"What're ya doin'?" The screen door slammed, and a redheaded bundle of energy stood before them with his freckled face screwed up in disgust. One arm was encased in plaster.

"I'm kissing your mother."

"Mush! I ain't never goin' to kiss girls!"

"That's fine with me. I'll kiss your share of the girls."

"Go wash, Jason. Dr. Warren is stopping by to look at that arm."

"That old quack!" he shouted, and ran off the porch.

"Jasons' right. He is a quack!" Kain looked down at his wife with a teasing light in his amber eyes because he knew she was very fond of the doctor.

"He's no such thing! If not for him I'd still be living with that terrible dread. d.a.m.n you, Kain, for putting me through that . . . h.e.l.l. I'm still mad about it. If only you'd told me. Even I knew enough to know you had an ulcer."

"It's been fifteen years, sweetheart. Aren't you ever going to forgive me?"

"I might, if you'd stop bringing up that thing about me calling you a puffed-up jacka.s.s, running you off with the shotgun and clobbering folks with the shovel. You've got folks thinking I'm a regular terror!"

"Don't forget about wearing britches, taking off to kill that bird, Ta.s.s, riding Big Red at breakneck speeda""

"Hush up and kiss me, you . . . puffed-up jacka.s.s. I've got work to do."

He pulled her to him lovingly, and she raised her mouth for his kiss.

"Are you too busy to go upstairs?" He breathed the words in her ear.

She drew back and laughed up at him. "Kain DeBolt . . . you're the limit!"

He laughed happily and hugged her. "Maybe. But there's no limit to my love for a pretty little red bird."

Books by Dorothy Garlock.

Almost Eden.

Annie Lash.

Dream River.

Forever Victoria A Gentle Giving Glorious Dawn Homeplace Lonesome River Love and Cherish Larkspur Midnight Blue Nightrose Restless Wind Ribbon in the Sky River of Tomorrow The Searching Hearts Sins of Summer Sweet.w.a.ter Tenderness The Listening Sky This Loving Land Wayward Wind Wild Sweet Wilderness.

Wind of Promise.

With Hope.

Yesteryear.