"...more savage than human, I say. Lord, but it makes me sick to the heart to see what's become of her...my own brother's flesh and blood..." Rufus Grey's voice rattled the cold morning stillness.
    Zara cringed at the suppressed tone of anger in her uncle's voice and the rapid report of his boots as he pounded back and forth across the length of the floor. Kneeling by the kitchen hearth, her back to the room, she fed more kindling to the wavering tongues of flame and steeled herself against her own uneasiness.
    "Hush, Rufus, please..." Aunt Ginny's whispered voice -- submissive, hesitating -- barely competed with the sound of his tread. "She can hear you."
    "Then let her hear!" her uncle roared. "What difference does it make? She don't understand a word I say."
    "Oh, but she does. Well, maybe not everything. But she does understand. You must be more patient with her."
    "I ain't got no more patience. As soon as we collect the inheritance--"
    "Oh, please, Rufus give her more time. She's been with us less than two months. After all those years! Can't you see? Everything's still so very strange to her. You can't expect--"
    "She'll do as I say, or God help me, I'll..."
    "Honestly, Rufus!" Aunt Ginny's voice held a placating edge. "What difference does it make if she comes with us to the settlement or not? After the last time, why--"
    Her uncle's boots made a sound like swift rhythms on a water drum. "She'll come I tell you!" The words were finished with a slam of his fist on the table. Crockery rattled.
    The ensuing silence quivered over Zara's nerves. Rolling back her head, she squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to keep her tears in check.
    How she wished she had never come to this house! How she wished the soldiers had not found her...that she had died instead. Of hunger. In the jaws of wild beasts. Even the worst manner of death would have been a far kinder fate than life with Rufus Grey.
    But hunger had proved to be her weakness. Hunger and the stirrings of memories from another life.
    At Fort Sullivan, the soldiers had brought a man to see her. Somehow, the man knew her name, the name she had been given in another time, another place. Zara Grey. He sparked a deep and painful longing inside her.
    "Grand...fa-ther..." she had said, the words gathering like storm clouds, rising inside her from the world where her dreams began. "Al-bany."
    They had promised to take her to her grandfather. They had promised to send him word. But it was Rufus Grey who had come for her. Rufus Grey who had brought her to this place.
    From the moment she had first set eyes on her uncle, she sensed something disturbing in his nature. His display of relief and affection had seemed forced and cloying when they met again after all the years.
    But he soon grew hostile toward her, criticizing her dress and manner, finding fault with even her most earnest attempts to please him. "You were the devil's own as a child," he often said to her. "It's no wonder you took to a savage life. No wonder they didn't butcher you like they did your ma and pa!"
    Those words had stirred up a fire in her heart. She hated him for those words.
    "What are you going to do, Rufus?"
    Aunt Ginny's voice jolted her from her thoughts. She tensed.
    "Beat some sense into her."
    "No, Rufus. Please. You mustn't--"
    "Out of my way, Ginny. I said, 'Out of my way!'"
    Zara turned with a start as Rufus Grey pushed his wife from his path. Aunt Ginny hit the table hard. The milk pitcher crashed to the floor.
    Zara pressed herself into the corner by the hearth.
    "C'mere, you!" His labored breath rasped on the air.
    She swallowed hard, bracing herself. Still, she was unprepared for the wrenching pain when he grabbed her by a fistful of hair and hauled her to her feet. She tried not to struggle, not to scream, but a whimper of surprise escaped her. He slapped her hard across the face. The impact stunned her. Despite the pain and the outrage, she fought back her tears and faced him with all the defiance she could muster.
    He struck her again. The strength of the blow sent her sprawling across the floor. Still, she would not allow him the satisfaction of her tears.
    He hauled her up by the neck of her longblouse, choking her with the pressure. He shook her, then pulled her close. His breath reeked of firewater. "Listen to me! Because, by God, what I say is law!" Wrapping his rough, beefy hands in her hair, he held her so that she could not turn away from his fiery gaze without jolts of pain tearing through her scalp. "You're going to marry Jabez, you hear me? You will marry my son. You do understand, don't you?"
    He shook her again. Her eyes burned as she resisted the cry of pain building inside her.
    "Now, get yourself upstairs. We're goin' into Englestown so you can meet with the Reverend Campfield. That means you'll be looking civilized, you hear? Fix up your hair and put on something...more proper." He eyed her quilled deerskin longblouse with scorn, and added, "I don't want nobody thinking my Jabez is fixin' to marry himself to no white squaw!"
    He released her slowly, yet continued to hold her fast with his eyes.
    A simmering rage boiled in her breast. She wanted to strike him, rip out his eyes. But she knew all too well the power of his fist. Already she felt the welt rising on her cheek.

    Ethan Caine paused in the doorway of Engles' Dry Goods shop. One of the women clustered around the table containing bolts of cloth glanced up. She elbowed one of the others, who said something behind her hand. The women's gossiping sputtered into silence. Children grabbed their dice and their tops from the floor by the door and sought the protection of their mothers' skirts as the women haggled with the proprietor over the price of coffee and molasses. Their mothers stopped dickering to give Ethan a wide berth as he made his way to the counter. The men seated around the tables by the blazing hearth suspended their discussions of politics and war, and, with leery eyes, watched him over their tankards of rum and ale.
    Ethan had long since learned to pay them no mind. It was his choice to keep to himself. He no longer cared what they thought.
    He had concerns of his own. With winter coming on, he needed provisions -- flour and corn meal, coffee and sugar, candles and nails, saltpeter and sulphur to replenish his dwindling supply of gunpowder. He needed to settle his account with old man Engles for the pelts he had left in the spring.
    He had neither the time nor the desire to trade in such pettiness as theirs. But a pint of ale was well worth the journey from his cabin in the hills, and he would allow no one to deprive him of that pleasure. And as his credit was good and the fulfillment of his list of requisites demanded a good while to complete, he bided his time in an isolated corner of the common room with a pint of Engles' finest brew.
    While he enjoyed his pleasure, he absently listened to the men at the table by the hearth.
    Otis McLaren, the blacksmith, was standing, pounding the makeshift table with his fist. "...what Brant and his Mohawks did at Cherry Valley and Andrustown is still fresh in our minds! I don't give a damn about General Sullivan and his so-called victories in the Iroquois lands! It isna over, I say, until every one of them heathens be dead."
    "So, you're saying we ought to keep a standing militia?" Levi Sparks commanded the militia and served as a leading member of the local Committee of Safety.
    In the glow of the roaring fire, McLaren's ruddy face beaded with sweat. "Aye! I say we should petition Governor Clinton for a detachment of regulars as well. And a field piece or two!"
    The stranger in the blue and buff uniform of a Continental officer stood up and smoothed the red facings on his coat. The colors were bright and new. Ethan knew his kind -- pompous and ill informed. "Far's that's concerned, gentlemen, you'll be told exactly what I've been saying, that the threat of Indian attacks in this region has been nullified. Where are they going to mount an attack from? All their villages have been wiped out, their food supplies destroyed. I'd say Joseph Brant knows when he's been defeated."
    "I agree with Major Hartswood." Jedediah McLaren touched his older brother's sleeve. "Besides, ‘tis nearly winter. Brant's goin' to have enough on his hands with keeping his people warm and fed."
    "Perhaps..." Otis concurred. "But if I know Brant, he's hatching some vengeful plot. And I tell you, we are na safe. Remember, my friends, the good people of Cherry Hill were massacred in the snow! Just a year ago...almost to the day. Lest we forget."
    Ethan took a long swallow of ale and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The talk of Brant and his Iroquois warriors made him uneasy. The merest thought of Indians unsettled him, bringing back memories he'd tried over the years to forget. He shifted his chair away from the conversation and fixed his attention out the window.
    Through the distorting panes of glass, a small detachment of county militia caught his eye. The soldiers, mostly young boys with stick rifles carelessly slung over their shoulders, made their way from the stockade toward the village green for drills. They laughed as they passed, feeding Ethan's uneasiness. Woe to the settlement if ever its defense were to fall into the hands of such children.
    Two boys at the rear of the column, their heads bent together in conversation, lagged behind their mates. One looked up and poked his companion as something caught his eye. They stopped marching and stared with mischief as Rufus Grey and his family passed in the opposite direction. A few of the other boys slowed their pace and turned their heads to look. The laughter sputtered into silence as the rag-tag column faltered to a halt.
    A prickly sensation sputtered up Ethan's spine. His first response was to turn away from the window and feign indifference to the boys' churlish attention. At second glance, he knew they weren't staring at him.
    Then he saw her, and he became aware of nothing else.
    Her appeal was in more than the way in which her ragged homespun garments defined every curve of her supple body. More than her hair -- smooth and honey-colored -- rippling like silk down the length of her back. No doubt he would have noticed the way in which the drab sunlight glinted off her hair. But how could he explain the sudden tightness in his chest, the rush of warmth in his groin, the surprising need that curled through him, muddling his thoughts?
    She was walking beside Ginny Grey, a short distance behind Rufus and his son, Jabez, but the boys' gawking caused her to halt. Clearly their stares intimidated her. Ethan's heart raced as she turned warily, as if fearful of leaving her back exposed.
    Ginny slid an arm around the girl's shoulders and attempted to pull her close. But the girl flinched at the contact and jerked away. She stood stock-still, hugging herself as if from cold, until the sergeant rounded up the strays and the column moved on.
    Ethan held his breath as Grey and his party made its way to the door of Engles' Dry Goods.
    A moment later, the door banged open, and Rufus Grey, in a booming voice, announced his arrival. All at once the atmosphere in the room took on a noticeable tension.
    The patrons all froze in midsentence, their eyes fixed on the young woman, who hesitated in the doorway. The circle of women around the bolts of cloth drew into a tight cluster. The men exchanged vulgar glances. The children whispered and pointed, laughing softly among themselves.
    The young woman lowered her head as if in shame. Agitation fluttered and leapt around Ethan's heart as he watched.
    "Come, Zara," he heard Ginny Grey whisper, and the young woman, her eyes downcast, followed at a distance to the display of cloth.
    The women nodded perfunctory greetings to Ginny. Then they gathered up their children as if in response to the worst sort of stench and withdrew enmasse to examine the shelves stocked with a variety of jars along the wall.
    The young woman glanced around with the wariness of a doe that had strayed from the forest and found itself surrounded by threatening scents and sounds. Ethan discerned a vigilance about her, as if, like a doe, she would have bounded away to safety had the opportunity presented itself.
    But Ginny took her hand and said something in a soft voice, to which the young woman responded by sliding free. Something had caught her attention on the counter above the barrels of salt pork and salted fish. The spool of multi-colored satin ribbon glowed like a rainbow in the dull light.
    Ethan could not help himself. Something about the young woman had so beguiled him that the need to be close to her had supplanted all reason. He made his way to the counter as she grazed the dangling bit of satin with her fingertips.
    "Allow me," he said quietly, and she glanced up at him with startled eyes.
    His hand brushed hers as he pulled a length of ribbon from the spool. The touch sent a tingle of excitement through him.
    She averted her eyes and took a step back as he cut the ribbon with his knife.
    "A beautiful woman should have beautiful things." And he extended it to her as an offering.
    Her head inclined, eyes barely raised, she considered the ribbon dangling from his fingers.
    But before she could bring herself to take it, she gasped and cringed away.
    Ethan turned as he sensed a presence behind him. Rufus Grey stood barely an arm's length away.
    "Mind your business, Caine," Grey said in a threatening voice, his jaw tight.
    Ethan straightened up and locked his gaze on Rufus's bloodshot eyes. "It has never been my intention to do otherwise."
    Ethan turned back to the girl. He reached for her hand, and stuffed the ribbon into her fist. "Put it on my account," he called to Engles behind the counter, then strode back across the room to his seat. He felt the stare of Rufus Grey boring into his back, but Ethan refused to acknowledge it.
    Not until he had resumed his seat by the window did Ethan look up. By then Ginny Grey and the young woman were making their way out the door. Rufus, hitching up his breeches, ambled to the table by the hearth, a look of self-satisfaction on his face.
    Ethan watched the two women wend their way up the dirt road toward the stockade and disappear through the open gates. For a long while, he kept his attention focused on the crowd of people milling around in the open square just beyond the fortified walls. Soon she would reappear. She had to! As irrational as it seemed, all he wanted was to see her again.
    The buzzing of voices had grown steadily into a boisterous clamor of laughter and friendly banter punctuated by the banging of tankards and table thumping. Only gradually did the din penetrate Ethan's thoughts, compelling him to tear his attention from the road and the image that had branded itself onto his thoughts.
    When he turned once again and the room came harshly into focus, he saw that the little gathering by the hearth had been transformed into a minor celebration. Those who had been seated now stood, hoisting their mugs amid toasts and playful teasing.
    Slouched against the hearthstones, young Jabez Grey looked pale and confused, his vacant smile giving off an appearance of mild enjoyment. His father had taken a place at the table between the McLaren brothers and swilled ale from two tankards at once, while the others laughed and urged him on. When he had finished, Rufus held the tankards triumphantly over his head, and, staggering slightly, his chin and shirt front glistening with spill, he bellowed for Engles to bring ale for all. Even Jabez was provided with a portion, as the next round of toasts and good wishes resounded from all sides of the table.
    "To Jabez, and good fortune!"
    "To the bride and groom!"
    "Here's to Rufus's new mansion!" Levi Sparks playfully slapped Grey on the back, and they all laughed and drank, conversing loudly among themselves.
    "To his coach and four!" another man teased.
    "To his servants! You'll be having servants then, won't you, Rufus?"
    One of the men clapped Jabez on the shoulder. "So when's the joyous event, Jabez?" The boy smiled absently and shrugged.
    Rufus Grey hoisted his mug. "To the old patroon! To Henry Van Gelder -- may he rest in peace -- for bequeathing his bounty. To my niece for making this possible. To General Sullivan for finding her when we'd given up hope, and for returning her safe and sound to her loving family. To General Washington for sending Sullivan on his glorious mission to deliver us from the heathen's hatchet. Here's to Zara Grey, gentlemen...my new daughter! My Jabez's wife!"
    Ethan's stomach squeezed into a knot. The woman was promised. To Jabez! He imagined that callow boy sharing her bed, touching her, feeling that silken hair upon his face. The image tore through him like a knife.
    You've been living alone far too long, he thought, and he smiled in spite of himself. He swung his legs out from under the table.
    "Caine! Ethan Caine!"
    Rufus Grey's voice stopped him before he reached the door. He turned, even though his better judgement advised him to continue on. The men at the table fell silent, watching. The entire room pulsed with a strained silence.
    "Ain't you going to join us, Caine? Offer your good wishes to my Jabez?" Grey smiled, but his voice held an edge, cold and sharp as an icicle.
    Ethan considered Grey's words, and nodded with forced politeness. "I thank you for the invitation, but I've already stayed too long." He called to Engles, "You'll deliver my goods, won't you, Samuel?" The man nodded grimly.
    "Not jealous, are you?" Grey baited him, his voice tinged with a taunting inflection. "Or, can it be, gentlemen, that Mr. Caine is afraid to drink with us?"
    Summoning his self-control, Ethan slowly turned back to the gathering. "Have I reason to be afraid?"
    "Rumor has it that you're a coward."
    Ethan bristled. It took all his concentration to keep his hands from balling into fists at his sides. "A man of integrity should know better than to believe everything he hears."
    Rufus snorted. "Rumor has it you ain't got no integrity!"
    A few of the men laughed uneasily.
    Ethan forced a smile. "As I said, I do not subscribe to rumor."
    Grey stiffened, drawing himself up to his full height. "You calling me a liar, Caine?" With his broad shoulders, thick arms, and barrel chest, he presented a daunting sight.
    "I'm saying you're misinformed." Ethan fixed his gaze on Rufus's eyes. Rufus returned the look with an air of smug satisfaction.
    The silence rippled with a palpable tension as Grey stepped out slowly from behind the table and approached Ethan with a swaggering gait. A few of his party began to murmur among themselves in discomfort.
    "The Coward of Clarkson's Mill. That's what they call you, Caine. Said you refused to fight. Said you cried like a baby and ran."
    Grey's words struck Ethan like a fist to his middle, depriving him of breath. The massacre at Clarkson's Mill had happened fifteen years ago, but its very mention triggered off a lightning train of images in his mind. The smell of burning lodges, the acrid odor of sulphur smoke and blood in the snow, overcame him in a wave of nausea. The night of horror was upon him again, ringing in his ears with the screams of the dying.
    Ethan pushed back the images, pushed back the nausea and met Rufus's smirking smile with a hard stare. "Whatever you say, Rufus. Now let me be." At that, Ethan turned on his heel and made a move toward the door. Grey was upon him in an instant, whirling him back around with a large hand to the shoulder, reversing their positions. Grey now stood between Ethan and the door.
    "They said you ran, Caine..."
    Ethan straightened himself up so that his eyes were level with Grey's. His muscles tensed. "I never ran from anyone."
    "...like you're running now!"
    "You're drunk, Rufus. Get out of my way."
    "Coward. Traitor."
    "I don't want to fight you. Now, let me pass."
    Hands on his hips, Rufus glanced back over his shoulder at the other men. "He says he don't want to fight!"
    "I have no reason to fight you."
    "No. You're too spineless, Caine. I wouldn't waste my time with you anyway."
    Rufus stepped aside, leaving the path clear to the door. With a mocking gesture, he waved Ethan out with a flourish.
    Ethan continued to hold him fast with his gaze. "Don't push me, Grey," he whispered so the others could not hear. "One of these days you'll go too far."
    "Is that a threat, Caine?" Rufus bellowed with laughter. "You threatening me? I believe this coward's threatening me!"
    "I don't make threats," Ethan said softly. "And I never make promises I can't keep."

    Jabez would never admit it aloud, but he admired the manner in which Ethan Caine had faced his father's challenge. No man had ever stood eye-to-eye with Rufus Grey without backing off in fear. Not a man in their company would have had the courage to stand his ground in the face of his father's accusations without paying the price. And although the confrontation had been gratifying to witness, Jabez secretly wished that Caine had responded to those taunts and gibes with his fists.
    Watching his father saunter back to the table, Jabez felt a wave of remorse sweep over him at having entertained such ignoble thoughts. After all, drunken bully that he was at times, the man was his father. Jabez skulked into the corner by the hearth to finish his ale. In the darkness there, no one would see his shame.
    At his father's return to the table, the celebration took up again where it had left off, without so much as a mention of the encounter. Jabez wondered why no one was willing to question his father's accusations or to say a word in Caine's defense. Maybe because everything he'd said was true.
    Maybe Caine was a coward; Jabez didn't know enough to form his own opinion. No one knew...except for the men who had been there with him when it had happened. Levi Sparks, for one, but they didn't talk about it any more. All he could say for certain was what his father told him, how Ethan Caine, then just boy of seventeen, refused to take part in the destruction of a small Indian town outside a place called Clarkson's Mill on the Oaks Creek. Some went so far as to call it a massacre. He'd heard that the Indians there had been harboring a war party of murdering Delawares -- marauding savages that had swept through the settlements back in 'sixty-three. The same Indians that had taken his cousin Zara and killed her family. But who was to say for certain?
    Jabez lowered himself to the floor. The strong ale had gone to his head. He felt groggy, but strangely not sleepy. A warm, comfortable feeling engulfed him. Listening with half his attention to the hum of men's voices, he willed himself far away, to another time, where all the talk of his impending marriage to Zara could not touch him.
    Six months ago, the valley had been fragrant with blossoms -- apple and cherry -- floating on a summer-like breeze. The hills had taken on the tender green of spring. The fields smelled of earth, freshly tilled. The little creek, swollen past its banks, sang a cheerful song as it rushed over rocks in the clearing, where he walked hand-in-hand with Rebecca Shoemaker.
    Becky... They had known each other since childhood. As a boy, he had pulled her yellow braids and called her names until she cried. Tall, gangly, awkward Becky, who one day, it seemed, awoke from a magical sleep, recast in shape and form, and captured his heart. Becky, whose smile was like laughter and whose blue eyes were a mirror wherein he would always see the reflection of his contentment. Or so he had hoped. For on that day in May they had sworn an oath. They had pledged their hearts and hands.
    He wished he could go back in time to that day! But all hope was gone now. It would never be. Never. His father had seen to that. His father...
    "...I say, boy!"
    Unsteady, trying to maintain his balance with one hand against the hearthstones, his father stood over him. He smiled down at Jabez. The others were laughing. As if they had read his thoughts and took pleasure in his pain, they mocked him with their laughter.
    "I say...it's time to go now. Time to go home."
    "Oh, let him have another, Rufus!" someone said. "It's his funeral!"
    The men laughed some more.
    His face grew hot and a fire burned in his belly, like nothing he had ever felt before. It made him tremble. As he stared up at the man with the reddened face -- the large, barrel-chested man whose expression conveyed an aspect of self-satisfaction -- Jabez realized how much he hated his father.
   

    Ethan stepped aside as the farm wagon, pulled by two sturdy oxen, lumbered past on the narrow road. He tipped his hat to Ginny Grey. Though he took note of the derisive smile on Rufus's face, he paid it little mind. He barely heard the words, contemptuous and liquor-slurred, rattling the icy silence, "Well, if it ain't the Coward of Clarkson's Mill!"
    He ignored the taunt, even though it would have given him great pleasure to wipe away that smile with his fists. The man was a drunken bully, and a fool to boot. But why take him on here in the road in front of his wife and son? Besides, something more pressing held Ethan's attention.
    Zara. Zara Grey.
    Her arms folded tightly across her chest, her gaze cast down, she sat in the straw of the wagon bed.
    Perhaps she felt his stare, for she glanced up at him as if startled, and then averted her eyes with the same sense of urgency. And once more, just before the wagon rounded the bend in the road, she peered up almost reluctantly from under her eyebrows, engaging his gaze with a long and searching look. He smiled and removed his hat while she continued to regard him with her wary doe's eyes until the wagon had disappeared into the slate-colored evening.
   

    Late into the night, Zara could not sleep. Long after her aunt and uncle had doused the lights and banked the fire, long after the night sounds had begun to fill the silence, her awareness centered on Jabez' restlessness. She heard him breathing in his bed at the far end of the loft, moving in restive fits under his blankets. More than once, he sat up with a start. She saw him dimly in the glow of embers filtering up through the open trap door. Once, he crept from his bed and, shivering from cold, crouched over the opening and contemplated the room below. Save for the sounds of his father's snoring and the occasional sputter and pop of the coals, all remained still.
    Dawn had not yet broken when he slipped quietly down the ladder and across the floor to the door. She heard him lift the latch, but he did not go out.
    She must have dozed for an instant, for in the next moment, Jabez was sitting on the edge of her cot. She bolted up, pulling the blanket to her neck, alarm hammering in her breast. He quickly slipped a hand over her mouth.
    "Don't be afraid!" he whispered into her hair. "I want to help you. Do you understand me?"
    She nodded slowly, uncertain. He released her.
    In the dingy dark, she made out the outline of a bundle on his lap. He slid it toward her, but she didn't take it. "Your old clothes," he explained quietly. "Pa thinks I burned them. And Mama's old cloak. She don't wear it no more. And here are your moccasins. I've undone the latch for you."
    Zara inclined her head and cast him a dubious look.
    "You can go," he said, an urgent note creeping into his voice. "No one will know. They won't miss you until morning."
    He paused and stared, as if waiting for her to reply.
    "You do understand, don't you? You don't want to be here. I know you don't want to marry me any more than I do you."
    Jabez fidgeted with the edge of the cloak and pressed the bundle into her lap. "I don't care about the inheritance. I want you to know that. It's wrong what Pa's done to you, what he's planning to do. It's Henry Van Gelder's money he wants. It'd serve you no good where he's figurin' to send you. So, you'd be best off to go now." He stopped talking and stared at her and waited. "Oh, Hell...maybe you don't understand me!"
    His words had come too fast. She could not grasp their full meaning. But she understood his purpose.
    She reached out tentatively and brushed his smooth cheek with her fingertips. He winced from her touch, and she withdrew her hand.
    He spoke again with heightened agitation. "I'm sorry, Zara. I wish it didn't have to be like this. But maybe you should just go back to where you come from. I don't mean that to be cruel. But you...you're not like us. You're one of them."
    Hot tears flooded her eyes as she looked down at the bundle in her lap. She fingered the rough woolen cloak.
    Jabez stood suddenly. He slipped the cloak from under her hands and arranged her quilled deerskin longblouse and leggings, and her skirt of broadcloth on the cot. "There isn't much time. You'd best get dressed now." And he disappeared into the shadows across the room.
    Zara ran her hands over the soft deerskin garments. She had made them from the skin of a deer that Nichus...
    Blinking back her tears, she glanced up at Jabez pacing in the dark. She pulled on the comfortable clothes over her shift, and fastened the leggings above her knees.
    "Agasyawnih," she said in a whisper, informing him that was finished.
    With a startled gasp, Jabez turned suddenly in the dusky light. Seeing that she was dressed, he motioned to her to follow, and started toward the ladder.
    She watched him until he was no more than a blur through the veil of tears. Go! she exhorted herself. Jabez was right. You do not belong here.
    But she could not go back to The People. She was dead to them.
    The witch Jiiwi is no more!
    "Pssst!" Jabez motioned to her from the top of the ladder.
    Often since coming to her uncle's house, she had dreamed of running away. To find her grandfather. But fear had prevented her. She was unfamiliar with the land, unsure of her ability to communicate in a language that no longer came naturally to her. But now that the opportunity lay within reach, it was a chance worth taking. The Creator had sent her a sign.
    East to Albany. East, where the sun rises, toward life. A good sign. She would find the creek flowing south into the Mohawk River and follow the river eastward. And then? Once in Albany, how would she find her grandfather? How would she know him? Too many seasons had passed, too many to remember.
    "It's getting late!" Jabez jostled her shoulder. "They'll be waking soon!"
    Gripped by a quivering uncertainty, she rose from the bed. Already a gauzy light had begun to dilute the darkness.
    Downstairs, she followed Jabez silently past his parents' bed, past the rough-hewn kitchen table, to the door. While she slipped into her moccasins, he wrapped something in a cloth.
    "Some bread and cold meat," he explained, thrusting the parcel into her hands. He hustled her out the door as the first light of dawn glowed red over the eastern hills.

    In spite of the bone-chilling blasts of wind, Zara pressed on, her feet burning with the cold. The threadbare cloak offered little protection against the gusts and squalls of icy rain that had turned to snow just past daybreak.
    It had taken longer than she expected to locate the creek flowing south into the Mohawk River. Keeping to the wooded areas, she tracked along the old hunting trail that wound a path paralleling the creek. But vast expanses of meadow and farm fields precluded the protection she had hoped for, as the wind picked up and the snow fell harder.
    But she would not suffer herself to stop. Not to rest, for to do so she would run the risk of being overtaken. She forced herself on, driving herself beyond endurance until her will and her body became one. And in that state, oblivious to discomfort, aware only of the thoughts impelling her on, she entertained dream visions.
    Throughout the years they had come to her. The ondinnonk, the dreams that needed to be acted upon, the desires of her soul. All too often, they had come as murky visions. At other times, they overwhelmed her with startling clarity. But she never knew how to interpret them.
    Often she dreamed of an old man whose hair was white as snow. His face was gentle, his eyes filled with smiles. Sometimes the visiting image was of a woman with hair like her own and eyes the color of a bottomless lake, whose touch could chase away her fears, and whose voice could bring an end to night.
    Sometimes she saw herself, a small child in a large room with shimmering glass reflecting the firelight, and the old man's arms were strong about her. His face was damp as he held her close and kissed her. And she clung to his neck and she wept.
    Please, don't make me go away!
    The wind picked up, generating a mournful whistling through the trees and over the scrub-covered ground. The sound jarred her from the visions that had served to block out her thoughts. And with the return of awareness, so too came the cold and fatigue that threatened to overwhelm her. Hunger gnawed at her insides.
    Well past midday the snow stopped falling. The air had turned colder, but the sky remained the color of slate. She did not know how long or how far she had traveled when the path opened onto a grassy plain sheltered by tall pines and sugar maples.
    Drawn by a force she could not resist, she trod slowly over the frozen earth. On a day long ago, in the Moon of the Harvest, the air had held the deep, mellow fragrance of newly gathered wheat. Somehow, she could smell it, even now. Vague and yet familiar, the scent sparked a succession of disjointed images to flood her mind. When she looked up, an empty vista greeted her where she knew a house once had stood. Nothing remained of the house, save a heap of stony rubble amid scrub and tangled weeds. Once, sweet-smelling herbs had grown in a well-tended garden just beyond the door. She could almost see it in her mind's eye.
    She found herself in a plot of earth studded with five stone markers. Words had been carved into the stones; she saw their impression through the thin layer of wet snow. Although she could not decipher the writing, she reached out with a faltering hand and brushed away the snow from one of the stones.
    While voices from the past filled her head, Zara sat on a rotted tree stump and regarded the stones. An odd comfort lulled her as she breathed the scents and allowed those long-gone sensations to stir inside her.
    Once this place had been her home.
    Closing her eyes, she could almost feel a hand on her face, the warm hand of a woman with pale-colored hair, whose touch could chase away all fear.
    A cold gust of wind moaned through the naked branches of the surrounding trees and rippled the cloak around her. She raised her head. A sound, too distant to discern yet too close to ignore, shattered her serenity, and an inexplicable fear closed around her heart. A moment passed before she realized that the approaching sounds were more human than spirit. Men's voices. The muted thud of horses in the snow. Rufus Grey!
    Zara! Run!
    On that cold day -- long since gone -- in the Moon of the Harvest, she had run. Blindly, seeing nothing for the smoke and her tears. Spurred on by the rattle of musket fire and screams more terrible than any she had known, she had stumbled toward the stand of pines on the rise above the creek, toward a child's perception of safety.
    Mama! Her own voice. The voice of the child she had been.
    But she would not run now. Perhaps she never should have run. Slipping from the stump to her knees, she pressed her cheek to the cold headstone, and shut her eyes and her ears to the sounds drawing closer.
    "Mama..."

    "Thank the Lord we found you!"
    A false note tinged Rufus's grateful acknowledgment. Zara sensed the insincerity in his forced kindness, in the way he wrapped his burly arms around her and pretended to be happy. His display was solely for the benefit of the other men, all of whom expressed relief that she was safe. Seated in front of her uncle on the bare back of the plow horse, with his arms enclosing her as he plied the reins, she felt the tension in his body. As they rode back together toward the settlement, she took a grain of comfort in the other men's presence. So long as they remained, Rufus controlled his rage.
    But she sensed the anger seething inside him.
    "Now, tell us, lassie," one of the men said, "what made ye run off like that?"
    "Weddin' agitation, I s'pect," another answered. "Some women get it bad."
    "Some men too!"
    The men laughed, Rufus loudest of all. But his laughter chilled the very blood in her veins.
    One-by-one, as they approached the settlement, the others took their leave and rode home. And with their dwindling numbers, Rufus grew more and more sullenly silent. By nightfall, she was alone with him.
    Rufus whispered tightly in her ear, "I'm going to make you sorry for what you done." He wound her loosened hair around his fist. She readied herself for a jolt of pain, but he merely tightened his grip and slowly pulled back her head. "You're gunna pay with your Injun hide."
    A dim light suffused the night as they neared the house, a lone candle in the window guiding them through the darkness. Rufus called out for Jabez, who came out on the run. Ginny followed close behind, holding a horn lamp aloft. She paused in the doorway, a hand to her chest.
    Rufus dismounted, pulling Zara down after him. "See to the horse," he called abruptly to his son. Without a word, Jabez led the animal to the barn.
    "Oh, Zara!" Ginny strode toward her. In the pale lamplight, her aunt's face bore signs of strain broken by a smile. "Thank the Lord you're safe! What a fright you gave us." She moved to take Zara under her arm. "Come inside. You must be cold and--"
    "She's coming with me!" Rufus turned and shoved Zara before him. She fell hard into the snow.
    Ginny bent to help Zara up, but Rufus blocked her. "Oh, no Rufus, please...!"
    "Stay away, Ginny!"
    His wife took a step back, her eyes wide, a hand to her gaping mouth.
    "Gi'me that lamp!"
    Lying in the snow, Zara felt him step over her. She jammed her eyes shut.
    "Get up!"
    She would not obey. She would not so much as look at him.
    His foot grazed her side, not forcefully, but enough to make her flinch. "I said, 'Get up!'"
    "Rufus, don't!" Ginny cried, "I'm begging you, please. Leave her be!"
    "Go inside, Ginny! Now!"
    "I cannot allow--"
    But her aunt's words were cut short. Rufus struck her, a resounding slap across her face. Zara winced at the sound. Then came an explosion of breath, a moan, and the hasty retreat of her aunt's steps crunching over the snow. Zara pulled herself up on hands and knees.
    But before she could summon the will to move, Rufus hauled her up under the shoulders, and half dragging, half pushing, propelled her toward the tool shed. "Next time you'll think twice before you make a fool of me!"
    He slammed the door open. The murky light of his lamp caused the cramped space to jump at her from the darkness. Shapes and shadows loomed up like ghosts, and she clutched at the doorjamb with both hands.
    "Go on! Git inside!" He pushed her in and closed the door behind him. The moldy, dusty smell made her eyes sting.
    Rufus hung the lamp and his coat on pegs by the door. From the darkened corner, he took a long, slender birch rod. As he turned slowly, he flexed it in his hands, his face distorted by shadows.
    "I'll teach you to run away from me." Drawing a small knife from his belt, he stepped toward her.
    She glanced about quickly for an avenue of escape. But there were no windows, and the only door was to his back. She pressed her back hard against the far wall, her fingers splayed against the rough wood.
    He reached out and tore the cloak from her shoulders. The force of his action spun her around, and he descended on her like an avalanche. With one hand gripping the back of her longblouse, his forearm pressed tight against her back, his weight crushing her against the wall, he methodically began to slit the garment open to her waist.
    "You've the devil in you," he whispered through his teeth. "But I reckon to do something about it."
    She tried to struggle, but she could not move, could barely breathe. The splintery boards scraped her cheek.
    "Willful you are, and stubborn to a fault. But I'll teach you a lesson you'll not soon forget!"
    Suddenly, he released her. Cold air poured in a rush over her back. She gasped for breath. Then birch rod whistled through the air and tore through the shift and into her skin.
    Zara whirled around with the shock of surprise and received the second blow across her chest. Gritting her teeth against the scream of pain and outrage, she tried to dodge the third blow, but the switch bit hard into her shoulder. She spun wildly away, fending off the rain of punishment with her arms, and collided against the upturned wheelbarrow. With all her might, she heaved it at Rufus. He dodged it, staggering in the effort. She darted for the door. But Rufus was upon her in an instant, and he hurled her, face down, to the floor.
    "You won't escape me so easily! Not when you're still in need of teaching." And he whipped her again and again.
    Choking on her own suppressed cries of pain and her tears, she dragged herself on hands and knees across the earthen floor. Her hair hung in her eyes, blinding her. Fire spread across her back, along with the warm, sticky ooze of blood.
    "I want to hear you beg!" Rufus breathed heavily, as he continued his assault. "I want you to beg me to stop."
    She would die first.
    "Call on Our Lord to help you. Call on God Almighty, because you'll be needin' His help before I'm done with you."
    "Tahahiawakon!" she whispered through her teeth. He-Who-Holds-up-the-Sky, fill me with the courage of a warrior. But she could no longer will herself to move.
    With that, the beating stopped.
    "What's this? Calling for your lover? This Ta-hahia-wakon? Your Injun lover? Squaw bitch! Whore!" And he threw himself on her, a knee on either side of her, so that she lay between his legs. "You like them red-skinned bucks, don't you? They mount you like animals in the woods. You like that, don't you?"
    He leaned forward and gripped her face. She moaned; she could not help herself. Panting like a dog, he bent closer still, and forced her to look at him.
    "How would you like it now?" With his free hand, he unbuttoned his breeches. "Animal-style..."
    He released her face and fumbled with her skirt, raising it above her hips. She closed her eyes, and clenched her jaw as he fondled her buttocks and the backs of her thighs. She wept, great convulsive heaves and sobs, as he thrust his coarse hands up between her legs and forced them apart.
    She clawed at the hard earthen floor, and braced her hands. And then she screamed, the sound rising from the depths of her fear and pain and humiliation. A renewed energy surged through her. Pushing up with all her might, she arched. And toppled him from her back.
    Free of his weight, she pitched herself forward. Oblivious to her pain, she thrashed out with her hands, and encountered a jumbled pile of ropes and metal on a shelf just above her head. The metal was hard, curved and pointed at the end. And sharp. She had it in her grasp, even as he hauled her by her ankles back across the floor. She struggled with all her remaining strength, struggled to right herself, to turn and strike.
    With a cry that ripped from her very core, she struck, slashing him with the sickle full across his chest.
    Zara scrambled to her feet and looked down at him in horror. He was on his knees, his hands to the wound, head bowed as the dark stain widened on his shirt. Blood seeped through his trembling fingers.
    Rufus labored for breath. He struggled to rise, hate flaming in his eyes. "Damn you!" he growled. "Damn you to Hell! I'll kill you for this!"
    She glanced at the sickle still poised in her hand and fought back the urge to slash his face, to finish him. Slowly, she lowered it to her side and let it drop to the floor. Then she plunged past him toward the door, scooping up her cloak as she ran.

    As he closed the barn doors, Jabez heard the sounds of struggle coming from the tool shed. A prickle of guilt tightened his stomach -- he had never wished such punishment on Zara. All he wanted was for her to be gone. Far away. It didn't matter where. Now there would be no stopping Rufus and his scheme.
    "Oh, Becky..." He rested his forehead against the rough wood of the door.
    A savage scream shattered the night, startling him from his thoughts. Wincing, he glanced up and listened. All was quite now. Ungodly quiet.
    Jabez waited, tense and expectant, for another sound. But as the silence deepened, along with his resignation, he set the latch in its cradle.
    As he turned to head back to the house, he caught a glimpse of Zara racing toward the thickest part of the night. He stopped and watched until she had disappeared into the darkness.

    "Zara..."
    Ethan awoke with the morning chill on his face. Snug in his bed beneath a mound of blankets and furs, he watched the white stream of his breath condense against the gray morning light. He rolled onto his side and pulled the covers to his chin. A moment more of blissful warmth, a moment more to bask in the dream that had carried him sweetly into wakefulness.
    He tried to will back the dream, to experience anew the joy he had felt, the sensation of fulfillment in the arms of a woman. He had resigned himself against ever attaining such serenity, such peace long ago. But it was still possible, even if it was only to be imagined.
    In his dream she was there, as if she belonged, as if she had always been and would always be -- there, in a chair by his hearth, a child at her feet. And when he entered the cabin, she smiled and kissed him. She brought him food, and they ate together -- he and she and the child. They talked and laughed. And when he took her to his bed, her kisses were deep and filled with love. She loved him. She told him so. She was happy to be his wife.
    "Zara." He said her name again -- savoring the feel and the sound -- even though the dream and his contentment had vanished with the light.
    In its place, the essence of a long-forgotten bitterness settled over his thoughts. It remained as he raked the embers of last night's fire and stoked them into a blaze. He splashed his face with icy water from the bucket on the washstand, then shaved and dressed in homespun shirt and deerskin breeches.
    The disquiet hummed on his senses as he smoothed the sheets and straightened the covers on his bed. Its essence hung over him in a strain of wistfulness as he laid his table with a single bowl and spoon, and, in silence, ate the cold leavings of last night's stew.
    For the first time in years, thoughts of Katherine McNamara invaded his mind. Painful thoughts. Long ago, he had placed all his hopes for a life of contentment on her promise that she would wait for him. But the wait had proved too long...or she had grown weary of sleeping alone. He hardly blamed her. But he could not deny the hurt. Or his shattered dreams.
    Even as he pulled on his deerskin jacket and charged his long rifle, Katherine's presence hung over him like a dark cloud, contradicting the dream in the way night contradicts the day.

    Zara stumbled over the crust-covered snow, but she did not slow her furious pace. A fire burned in her chest and searing pain tore across her back with every move. But she would not stop -- could not stop -- for each labored step carried her farther and farther from Rufus Grey.
    She focused straight ahead on the sheltering trees beyond the fields, on the low ridge of hills just beyond, and on the next crest and the next.
    At midday she found herself in a deep ravine nestled between steep, rock-studded hills. Shivering with cold, she regarded with dismay the wide ribbon of water that blocked her path.
    A glaze of ice shimmered over the surface -- a good sign. Tentatively, she took a step onto the frozen crust, and prayed the ice was thick enough to support her.

    Silently admonishing himself for setting traps in so secluded a place, Ethan edged down the snow-slick slope into the ravine. He lowered himself cautiously, positioning each step with care, clinging to the scrub peeking out through the snow.
    He was halfway down when something moved in the periphery of his vision. Anticipating a deer come to water, he quickly dug a foothold in the snow and, bracing himself, raised his rifle.
    Immediately, he lowered the weapon and expelled an impatient breath. Just his luck! Not a deer at all. A woman.
    And a foolish woman to boot! She had wandered out onto the thin ice, and now stood stock still -- as if in fear or uncertainty -- her faded brown wool cloak seeming to tremble all around her.
    "Get back!" he shouted. "The ice won't hold you!"
    She whirled around in alarm.
    And in that split second, he saw her eyes. Those startled doe's eyes. Zara Grey!
    In the next instant, a crack -- like a musket shot -- echoed through the ravine. She reeled as the ice heaved up beneath her amid an angry surge of black water. And then, her face frozen in a look of surprise, her mouth open in a semblance of a silent scream, she disappeared through the widening breach.
    His gaze fixed on the roiling chasm, Ethan hurled himself down the slope. She surfaced -- flailing arms and legs, and gasping desperately for air -- churning up the black water into an icy froth. She grasped at the splinters of ice.
    "Keep your head up!"
    Racing along the bank, he ripped off his deerskin jacket and hurled it, along with his rifle and belt into the snow. If she went under again, she'd be trapped. Already the current had taken her, sweeping her like a bobbing cork toward the opposite bank where the ice was thicker.
    "Keep your head up!"
    But the frenzied movement of her arms had slowed. She gasped at the water along with the air. She could barely keep herself afloat. As if she had made a conscious choice to surrender herself to a stronger power, he saw the spirit drain out of her. An eerie calm settled over her eyes as her gaze met his. Then she slipped under again without a struggle.
    Without stopping to think, Ethan tore off his shirt and moccasins, and dove through the opening.
    The frigid water jolted him, but he swam with determined strokes for the spot where she had disappeared. He stayed under until his lungs were ready to burst, then surfaced just long enough for a gulp of air.
    This time, a ceiling of ice loomed above him. He ignored the danger, for something just ahead seized his attention.
    Billowing like water-feathers, her hair brushed his face. She, too, appeared to undulate to a silent rhythm, her clothes swirling around her slender body in a strange and seductive dance. But she didn't move under her own power. Like a marionette, she danced to the will of the current. His blood quickened, hammering with exertion and something bordering on fear.
    She was trapped just beneath the surface, her cloak snagged on the submerged roots of one of the trees along the bank. He tugged once to release her, but the fabric of her cloak was hopelessly twisted around a snarl of root. He tore at it. Still, it wouldn't budge. If only he hadn't tossed away his knife! Once more, his lungs burning, he yanked. The cloak gave, a little at first, then a little more. Then it ripped away, launching them both toward the ice.
    He grabbed her hair as she drifted by. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he broke for the surface with the last of his strength.
    With Zara in his arms, he staggered from the water. He set her down in the snow and collapsed beside her, filling his lungs with stinging drafts of icy air. Blessed air.
    Then he rolled onto his side to look at her, and his heart wrenched at the sight.
    She hadn't moved! She lay exactly as she had when he set her down in the snow, streaming hair plastered to her face, arms stretched out at her sides. Neither did he discern a sign of life. He scrambled to his knees beside her and with trembling hands tore away the tangle of her hair. The deathly pallor of her skin, contrasted against the blue of her lips, stopped up his breath. Steeling himself against what he might not hear, he pressed an ear to her chest, and strained all his senses for a sound. Nothing! He lifted her limp hand, but there was no beat of pulse in her wrist either.
    Fighting back the sudden obstruction in his throat, he gently lifted her eyelids. The wide, dark pupils constricted in response to the light and a surge of heat rippled through him. He felt for a pulse in her neck. Something beat there in the vein beneath his frozen fingers. Or did he only imagine it?
    Slowly, so faint as to be almost imperceptible, a pulse!
    His own pulses racing, he propped her up against his chest, but her head and her arms drooped, like those of a poppet.
    "Come on, Zara!" he whispered through his teeth, as he struggled to hold her. "You can do this!"
    He bent her forward at the waist so that her head nearly touched her knees and tried to force the water from her lungs. Nothing! Again and again he tried.
    Shivering violently from the cold and the fear that had seeped into his bones, he turned her onto her stomach, head to the side, and with deft strokes, began pumping on her back. "Come on! Come on!" He worked harder, applying his full weight and trembling urgency to the task.
    She coughed, a feeble sound. He sat back on his heels as spasms seized her. Water spewed from her mouth and nose, spilling into the snow. She inhaled a jagged, rasping breath, and then she vomited. Quickly, he turned her over, and with his heart racing, he cradled her head in his arms. Her eyes fluttered open.
    Suddenly, the cold and his shivering dissolved into a rush of warmth through his veins. She breathed, and nothing else mattered. A brief moment of recognition flickered across her eyes, then they slid closed again.
    The deathlike stillness reclaimed her.
    He held her close. "I won't let you die!"
    But there wasn't much time. He needed to get her back to his cabin. Needed to get her warm.
    He retrieved his clothes and flintlock. After stripping away her tattered cloak, he wrapped her in his deerskin jacket, and pulled on his shirt and moccasins. Then he hoisted her onto his shoulder.
    Despite the weight of her sodden skirts, she was not heavy. For that he was thankful. But he faced a monumental task. The distance was far shorter up the steep slope of the ravine, but an arduous climb. The other way, upstream along the bank of the creek, was not nearly so difficult, but more roundabout and time-consuming.
    There was nothing to consider. He set his teeth and, using his long rifle for support, began to climb.