The store was empty. Emily had abandoned the idea of opening it and returned to the cabin, picking up little Ben on the way. Ben suspected he should go and make it up with her after the fretful night he had caused but he was dimly cognizant there was more between them now, a gap he was not ready to cross. Instead he decided to open up, however late, and tend to business. She had replaced the goods on the shelf but not displayed them correctly; he rearranged them. She had discarded the spilled licorice but not refilled the jar, which he proceeded to do. It had remained whole; a small but happy mercy for which he was grateful. A pair of passersby glanced in and whispered as they passed. Gossip spread quickly in a town of that size and he was not sure but what it marked him as the one who had done the killing.
    For this reason or some other no customers came. He was leaning on his arm disconsolately, wondering if the loss would be permanent, when Aaron stopped in. He liked Ben as much as he liked anybody but the man could be the damnedest fool sometimes, and this performance beat anything he could remember. He ambled across to the chair Adolphus usually occupied and seated himself, as if meaning to lounge a while. This was so uncharacteristic of him Ben immediately put up his guard. For a long time neither man said anything.
    Aaron broke the silence, in the best imitation of casualness he could muster. "Remember how you got your start in this town?"
    "Sure. Workin' at your mill."
    "You were new. More than a few held you weren't to be trusted–penniless drifter nobody knew from Adam's off ox. But I had a feeling about you. I ignored everyone's advice, as I generally do, and it worked out fine all round. Later I provided you with the capital to set up here. You made quite a success of it." He smiled. "Had a feeling about that too."
    Ben thought he was on to him now. "You said I needn't fret about repaying you–that it was more important the town have a store. I had your word on that." Business was pretty good (till today) but so large a loss, he doubted he could sustain, and the prospect agitated him so much he scarcely heard Aaron's attempt to inform him he was missing the point. "If this is on account of what I did–leaving Obie lay and not telling anybody–you can fetch me up before the judge when he comes around and I'll take what's coming. Reckon there's some law or other against it. But if you're looking to get your money back–"
    This sent Aaron past the limit of his patience. "To hell with money!" he yelled, shooting to his feet. "To hell with the law!" An elderly couple strolling past who thought they recognized the voice peered in to make sure, the sentiments having sounded so unlike its owner. "You are the most vexing man," Aaron continued, "and in your mood the most impenetrably thick-headed, of my immediate acquaintance." He shook his head. "I suppose it's beyond your capacity to understand, but I'll make the trial. When you were an outsider here I gave you your chance–which is no more than any man deserves. I'm disappointed you were unable to extend the same charity to others." He studied Ben's face. "I guess it is beyond you. And that grieves me, Ben. It grieves me beyond telling." He seemed to have more to say and at the same time to have said all that could be said. So he left.
    Molly Pruitt was considering whether Ben might be an unreconstructed Rebel. She consulted her sister on the question as the two stood hulling peas for supper. Candy asked where Molly had heard the expression. "Papa used to say some Rebels would always behave as if slavery had never ended. Is Mr. Perkins one of them?"
    "No," Candy said, "he's just–" She stopped to determine how to put it most accurately. "Sometimes good people–sometimes very good people–are unaware of the attitudes they carry. They've picked them up somewhere along the way and held onto them without knowing. I don't believe Ben has ever had his attention called to his prejudices." Christopher had not yet given her an account of the events at the jail. "He's simply not had to think about it."
    This statement was true no longer. After his conversation with Aaron Ben had begun to consider that perhaps "the boys" had pushed him into a course that strayed too far from the one he had set for himself. He knew who could tell him–if she wasn't too mad to talk to him. Since the store was bereft of customers anyway, he closed early and went home to try his chances.
    The reason Christopher had not reported the news to Candy was that all afternoon he had been off devising a plan. She seemed to have guessed what it was, since at the first opportunity she forbade him to go visiting in Irontown till the trouble there was settled–an injunction he knew immediately he was going to ignore.
    The district was not forbidden to Joshua Bolt, and though not quite at home there he had visited the Browns often; more often than the breadth of his friendship with Obie had justified. Today he visited Lucinda alone. She was a handsome woman, he reflected, and too good for Seattle; now Obie was gone, she might return to San Francisco, a real city. More than once he had thought of moving there himself.
    She had been the victim of an arranged marriage but not known it till she had reached Seattle, whereupon she had quickly unarranged it; then she had met Obie and rearranged it again. He had admired her like a rare orchid and in so doing had exposed his young, gentle soul, with which she had found herself, despite herself, to be in love. Now she gazed around the cabin at the evidences of his presence so lately stolen from her: his hat, his axe, his gun, his books, his pipe–almost every object in the room was his. Joshua wondered for a moment where he was. On returning from town the others had taken the body to Jesse's to lie out of her sight for a little till it could be dressed.
    Joshua asked if she needed anything. "Oh, yes," she said. "I need everything to be as it was yesterday. Have you the power to bring that about? If not, then no, you have nothing I need." Her voice, always precise and musical, was now hollow too, like an African drum.
    "He died a man," said Joshua. "Probably died fighting. You can take pride in that."
    "Pride in what's gone is a ghost," she said, "nothing but a pale ghost." Joshua could not honestly deny it. "He was the first–the first of us to settle here–and the best. The young ones who come after–they'll never know."
    "They will," Joshua said fervently, "through you. You'll tell them the story and make it more than a story–make it seem like they're living it themselves. I saw you when you played the opera house. Always hoped for another chance." The performance had been her last. It had been part of a benefit to raise money for the building of a hospital (toward which the committee was still taking donations). "You told about Africa," Joshua recollected, "young as you were when you last saw it. The baking sun, the wide river, the noises rising from the palm forest at night. You sang and you danced, to the drum and the horn." He forbore mentioning that the dance had nearly caused a riot. The sinuous abandon of her bouncing steps, to the pulse of such approximations to native instruments as she could hire in the white Northwest, had led some members of the Ladies' League to walk out, or at least to threaten it. "And you told about the plantations."
    "I barely saw them. I was one of the lucky ones." Now her voice sounded less hollow. She knew she had been lucky in more than that, a woman of her beauty and vitality: to have passed through slavery without dishonor. But her owners had been French Catholics (late of Haiti), residents of New Orleans, and patrons of the arts, all of which qualities had led them to practice slavery on the most liberal terms imaginable, consonant with the nature of the system.
    On Sundays her master would take her, and later allowed her the liberty of going on her own, to Congo Square, one of the city's most famous sights, where blacks both free and unfree performed the dances of their birth lands. As a child she quickly picked up the steps and before she was grown had become one of the Square's premiere attractions. When the goings-on there became too unruly, her owners arranged appearances for her on the public stage, normally denied to blacks; her enthusiasts followed, and soon her name was known throughout the city. Then the War came and ended all such entertainments.
    At the Square she had met a man, rough but loving: one of the reasons her master had discouraged her from going. When freedom came they married. But before long the state became like a prison for the former slaves, some of its impositions reaching even to freewheeling New Orleans, and the couple migrated to California. There Lucinda became what Seattle found her, "Frisco's own African princess." Her husband had died in a fight over a liberty taken by an admirer–one of many such admirers, and many such fights. In respect of them, and notwithstanding her large following, the management had been about to abridge her contract when Seattle engaged her (in more than one sense). So that journey had been felicitously timed.
    "But you told about those days," said Joshua, "and you sang."
    "Slave songs." That was what Raphael called them. He believed they should have died with the institution that had spawned them, and he disapproved of her singing them. Also the African songs: "We're not in the old country now." She half-believed she agreed with him; one reason she had not performed again.
    Joshua saw it through different eyes. "Songs of hope," he said. "Songs that tell you the suffering will pass, that there's a life beyond it. I liked hearing you sing." He added hesitantly, "I'd like it now."
    For a moment she looked as if she were searching for the music inside her, waiting to feel it fill her throat. "I can't," she said. "Not today." Her black eyes glistened and tears traced a path down each cheek. But strangely, she gave something like a smile and laid her hand lightly on his wrist. He returned the smile and was close to returning the tears when Rafe walked in. He stopped on seeing the two of them together. "What's he doing here?" he asked.
    Lucinda lifted her hand away. "Paying his respects."
    "Respect?" He made the word sound like an oath. He did not take his eyes from Joshua.
    Lucinda straightened her shoulders. "What do you want, Raphael?" she asked.
    Rafe obviously did not want to speak in front of her guest but could hardly refuse the royal summons. "We found a place for Obie in the loggers' yard. I'll take you to see. If it don't suit–doesn't," he quickly corrected–"Bolt's offered you your choice. He set a lot of store by Obie. I'll give him that."
    "We all did," said Joshua.
    Rafe looked away stiffly. He knew he must be a man, to stand up for himself and his people. But to answer back now would be an affront to Obie's memory, and to Lucinda. The Bolts had shown her a kindness–yet here was one of them showing more than kindness. Trapped between moral imperatives, he did not know which to honor. His discomfort spread to Joshua, who worked the only possible cure by withdrawing. Lucinda wished him a farewell, behind whose formality he could detect gratitude and, he believed, affection.
    When he got back to camp Jason asked where he had been. "Offering condolences to the widow," said Joshua. He walked off whistling one of her songs. Jason recognized it, and recognized more than that in it. Brother mine, he thought, how little you know yourself.
    Ben was making his way home, wondering what Emily would have to say to him and what he could possibly say to her. He had forgotten the cabin's third tenant, almost incredibly, since that one was on his mind almost always.
    He paused at the door, searching for the words that would restore him to favor. Unable to find them, he momentarily considered sleeping in the woods again but knew it was too late for that. He would have to trust to Em's charity, his faith in which was considerable, but beyond whose limits he was becoming more and more certain he had strayed. He entered therefore in trepidation, with his fingers crossed behind him.
    Even if he had found the right spell it would have availed him nothing since it would immediately have been swept from his mind by the torpedo that hurtled toward him as soon as he appeared in the doorway. "Papa home!" it said.
    "Yeah, your papa's home," Ben repeated dully. As he removed his coat he looked across to the kitchen side, where Emily was slicing potatoes for the pot. She glanced at him but he had not time to read her face because the torpedo was by then nearly upon him. He spread his arms to receive it but at the last moment it changed course to the right and descended on the corner nearest the door. There it halted sharply and took up a large leather sphere in both hands, bearing which burden, it rotated 180 degrees and charged back at Ben. He put up his hands just in time to block a blow to the abdomen. "Pay bill!" the torpedo shouted. It meant "Play ball" but substituted a phrase it had heard more often from its father's lips.
    "Not now, Junior. Your mama and me have business to settle." That was another phrase that came readily to him. He realized at once it was not the most conciliatory he could have chosen.
    "Pay bill!"
    "Not now, I said."
    Emily turned from the cutting board. "Oh, Ben, go play with him. He so looks forward to it." Ben stared at her. She was smiling, apparently untroubled by anything he had done. He had the sudden hope that this was the case, that the disappointment he had read in her face that morning had been only a fit of pique on account of his confession that he had been making up a story to tell her. "Go on," she said.
    He looked down at the giant brown eyes looking up at his. He thought the boy favored him. Emily said her father. Either way he was a regular bull-roarer and might grow up to be–who could tell?–the biggest merchant in the Northwest. He knew Emily had other plans for him; the ministry perhaps. Well, one didn't rule out the other. The boy yielded the ball to him. "Take the field, Junior," his father said, "and get ready for a scorcher."
    "Not in the house!" Emily warned. Really, sometimes it was like having two children to mind. Ben obediently led his playfellow outside. The wind met them and lifted their hair. He had not noticed it going in. Not fully roused, it was only tickling at the leaves and sweeping random patches of loose dirt one way and another. But that was how it had begun yesterday.
    "Pay bill!" Having observed that patience was not a two-year-old's strong suit, Ben did as commanded, but gently; the ball was caught, and returned right into his hands. The boy was going to be quite an athlete. Soon Emily came out and sat on the garden bench to watch. Ben smiled at her. She returned a half-smile, distant and meditative; a soft throw.
    "French perfume," she said presently.
    "Huh?" The ball hit his stomach, dropped, and rolled away.
    "Pay bill!"
    "Your turn, Ben," she said mildly. Puzzled and a little unsettled by her manner, he went to fetch it. Junior ran after. Ben continued the game where they were standing to keep her within view.
    "Chinese silk," she said. "Irish linen."
    He gathered this was going to be one of her sermons. He did not mind them; not like those in church. He knew if he waited she would arrive at the point before long. "Anything I had a hankering for," she went on, "anything at all some man somewhere in the world was selling and shipping, you'd get for me. That's what you promised when you proposed marriage. And I told you...." Ben knew what was coming next and hoped he would not be called upon to confirm it. "...I didn't need any of that. All I asked of a man was that he be honest."
    "Papa! Pay bill!"
    "You admitted you hadn't always been honest right down the line. But you swore you would be from that day forward. And you have been."
    "Em–"
    "Haven't you?" Her eyes, so clear and grey (except for that tiny black spot in the left iris), seemed to hold all the world's virtue. He felt humbled before it.
    "Papa!"
    "Maybe it was an oath I oughtn't to have took. Maybe it ain't in my nature."
    "Oh, Ben. A dishonest man would never say that."
    "You don't know. The things that get into my head. Working out a way to fleece some drummer." He dropped that head. "It's 'cause I'm scared, is the thing–scared that otherwise he'll get the better of me. If I was a man like Aaron–"
    "Aaron!" she said, in something like horror.
    "Aaron!" Junior repeated in the same intonation. His desire to get on with the game had given way to the new attraction of his parents conversing in a manner he had never heard before. Though he understood none of what was said, he felt it to be intensely interesting.
    "He knows how to skin a man sooner than get skinned. That's the kind of man you shoulda married."
    "I didn't want Aaron–"
    "Aaron!" the child repeated.
    "–or Jason Bolt or any other species of sharp operator. I chose a man who dealt fairly and openly." Ben opened his mouth but discovered he had nothing to say and stood mute. She did not look angry, only puzzled and a little hurt. "Why did you do it, Ben? Surely not for that little bit of money?"
    "I don't know." He walked to the bench and sat wearily. "The boys would get to talkin' and–" He stopped himself as Junior reached them, having followed literally in his father's footsteps. Ben passed the ball to him. "Can't repeat some of the names they used."
    "I know all about that," she said. Ben raised his eyebrows. "You think you men are the only ones? Some of the remarks that have been passed in the ladies' sewing circle would rival the sentiments exchanged over a jug in your back room." Ben was twice shocked: he had not thought she knew about the jug. The look on his face made her smile. "You're forgetting your scripture, Benjamin. None of us is free from sin–none." The last word she addressed to herself.
    "Aaron!" Junior contributed; it was his new favorite saying. The two of them laughed.
    "I must get on with supper," Emily said. She stood and watched as her husband hugged their son to him. "What do you mean to do about it?" she asked off-handedly, as if discussing an account that was slightly past due. "If you mean to do anything, that is."
    Ben looked at the child, then at her. It was clear to him now. "Well, shoot," he said. "I got to make it right, don't I?" Emily smiled–the first full, heartfelt smile he had seen from her that day. "Reckon I'll be late for supper." She nodded and went in. He knelt before Junior and asked if he would be willing to stay home and look after his mama. Understanding nothing of the question but knowing from its tone what answer was expected, he gave a "Yes!" that rang with certitude. His mother re-appeared then with the coat Ben had shed and, she had no doubt, would otherwise have left behind. "We'll see another big blow tonight," she predicted. He agreed, and kissed her long and gratefully.
    "Aaron!" the onlooker commented. "Aaron, Aaron, Aaron...."
    Come suppertime, Ben was absent as predicted. He was going over his daybook and making a second tally, with a list of names, on a writing tablet. The total came to $8.47. He went to the safe, reached in through the back (which was open), and felt for a lumpy canvas sack, which he removed, carried to the desk, and partly emptied. From the mound of coins he counted out a number of smaller sums according with the tally and lined up the stacks in front of him. From the roll of wrapping paper beneath the counter he tore off an equal number of strips, bundled them, tied the bundles with string, and with a pen and a bottle of ink (which he took care not to overturn) labeled each bundle with a name from the sheet. He returned the bag to the safe, found another in one of the niches where he was prone to stuff them absent-mindedly, and packed the bundles into it. He deposited the tally sheet in his shirt pocket. Then he left.
    Unlike him Christopher was in place for his supper and for the cleaning up afterwards. Unusually, he was impatient to get to bed, but Candy hardly noticed it. He was always excited about something or other and she did not always have time to keep up. Molly did notice and judging from his watchfulness, which approached jumpiness, was willing to bet (or would have been if proper young ladies bet) that whatever he was anticipating was to happen that very night.
    Supper at the logging camp was unaccustomedly somber in view of the day's news. As the men were finishing up–most of them having taken only one helping, and most of those a smaller one than usual–Jason, in his customary place at the head of the main table, stood to address them. He had planned his speech out beforehand and confided it to his brothers, whom he had charged to watch the listeners' faces for signs of guilt. Jeremy opposed the stratagem. He never liked these bluffs even when they worked, and he was sure this one would not: the culprits would not be stupid enough to reveal themselves so obligingly. Besides, it was impossible they were from the camp; no one there would have hurt Obie. But he raised no objection, knowing the effort would be as useless as Jason's, and the speech proceeded as planned.
    Jason began by lamenting Obie's loss, from which the camp would not soon recover. "Some men leave a hole bigger than the biggest of these evergreens," he said, "and Obie was one of them." He recalled Obie's skill at his trade, his kindness, his honesty, his loyalty to his comrades, his readiness to pitch in on any job and see it through, his pride in winning the logging contests every year (every year but one, that is). Now all that was gone forever.
    "And one man here–one man," he repeated, his voice rising to a bellow, "had a part in it. Well, I know who you are–not much happens in this camp I don't know–and I know what quarrel you had with Obie. A small matter of color. And I say this to you: whatever befell last night–accident or no–you have till evening's end to make a clean breast of it. That includes the name of every man who rode with you. Otherwise I'll assume the worst. Then, by the saints, you will be standing alone–before your Maker–after I've shown you a new use for one of these saplings." He gave a smile the men had not seen from him before. "Law's not apt to raise much of a fuss–not when I tell 'em we've paid back Obie Brown's killer." His listeners were still. "That's all," he said roughly, and marched off to his tent.
    The men slowly cleared the benches. Those who could be sure of those next to them ventured sideways glances of fear mixed with relief; the only reactions Jason's brothers had observed. They reported so to him.
    A man from the camp shouldered past them into the tent. He was tall and sturdily built, and his broad brow was crowned with coils of black hair. "You hate us that bad?" he demanded. Jason, all at sea, looked to his brothers, who could offer no harbor. "'Obie Brown's killer.' Huh!" The man tried to pace but found the tent too small. His fist beat at the canvas with alarming force. "How do I know you didn't kill him? Or one of them?"
    "How dare you–"
    "Goes to show you can't tell a man from his outsides. But you knew that, didn't you? Don't fret, I'll be out of here soon's I pack my kit." On the promise, he began to leave.
    "You, Ephraim? Why?"
    Ephraim stopped with one hand on the tent pole. They feared he might uproot it. "'Matter of color.' How'd you know 'bout that? Obie swore he wouldn't tell. How he knew himself I can't make out. Most people take me for part Greek." The younger Bolts exchanged looks of dismay. "Hell, yes, we quarreled. Reckon you musta been up in one of your trees listenin'." Jason was too busy rearranging his mental closet to answer. "He cussed me up, down, and sideways for keepin' it secret. Said I'd no self-respect. If he'da heard you tonight, he'da changed his tune. 'Hang from a sapling.' Lowdown way of scarin' a man off so's you can keep your camp lily-white."
    Now Jason had it by the reins. "No, Ephraim, no–"
    "It's fittin', plumb fittin'. Why didn't I see it before? After all, white's the color of the veil–ain't it?" With a last glare, he tramped out.
    Jason ran to the flap and clutched Joshua by the shoulder. "Go after him, tell him he's got it all wrong."
    "Me? Why me?"
    "You've a way with words."
    Joshua could only gape at this. "And you don't?"
    "Mine just dug me into a hole the size of Noah's ark. Yours may–may–dig me out." Joshua glowered at him. He did as ordered but cursed the whole way. Jason retreated to the tent to do some cursing of his own. Jeremy stood shaking his head. Knew it was a bad idea, he said to himself. But he was wise enough to keep it to himself.
    He was gone when Joshua returned. To see Candy, Joshua guessed; the usual guess, but this time it was incorrect. Having eaten little while acting as Jason's spy, and having remembered that many of the men had also had small appetites, Jeremy had returned to scavenge some of their leavings. Jason was sitting on the bench outside the tent, staring toward what was left of the sunset. In this season he was seeing ever less of day and more of night. He no longer appeared angry with himself. Now he was ruminating on something else. "Ephraim understand I'm no bigot?" he said half-absently.
    "Think so."
    Jason nodded. It was no more than he had expected. "Hope you will too after what I have to say." Joshua could guess something of what was coming next and waited for it, silent in the growing darkness. "These woods are wide. Room enough for everybody in 'em. I don't deny that. I've known squaw men and their ladies that kept to the hills and to themselves and lost little enough by it." He paused. "But not you. It's only by chance you live on a mountain. You could never be happy cut off from your own."
    "And that's how it'd be?"
    "That's how it'd be. For her too."
    "You sound like you approve." Joshua knew that was unfair but he had no better rejoinder handy.
    "Not a question of approving." He thought a little before continuing. "Two people can stand together and fight the whole world–the two of 'em, taking all comers–and be the nobler for it. It's not in you to do that." Joshua began to object. "Not for long. And not for want of passion–I know every wild oat you've ever sowed, I guess." He had a side thought. "Jeremy, now...."
    "Never sowed any."
    "Ah. But those aside, of all the girls you've squired about town–must be close to the lot by now–tell me, how many of 'em you been familiar with?"
    At first Joshua did not or would not understand and when he did the callousness (or honesty) of it shocked him. "Jason, how can you–these are respectable girls!"
    "Ah. Respectability." Jason shook his head. "A commodity greatly overvalued in a woman. Well, respectable, then. How many of those respectable girls you been betrothed to? Or kept company with outside a month? How many have you stayed along with, Josh? A dozen? Half dozen? One?" Joshua began an answer that ended as a sigh. His brother was being foolish; this had nothing to do with–with anything. "You take a woman that's older, had herself a husband–"
    "Two," Joshua said involuntarily.
    Jason had not known that. "Two. Known two men–men–as well as a woman can know a man. How can you be anything to her but a boy? A fond boy, I grant you."
    "You're wrong! We...." But the protest dissolved before he could form it.
    "Oh, I don't doubt you could charm her into taking up with you, her being alone and you being what you are. And it's natural it would cross your mind–her being alone and...so forth. But don't you see, she'd be too easy won. And easy won is easy let go. Where would that leave her? Lonelier than before–lowered in other folks' eyes and in her own. That wouldn't be fair to her, Josh. Not fair at all."
    Joshua felt as if his heart would pull him down to the bottom of the mountain. He knew every word Jason had said was true, and there was no one he could rage at for it; not Jason, not himself, not all of Seattle. Some circumstances simply had to be borne. Jason, who had learned the same lesson when young, ached for his brother's pain of discovery. But he could do nothing, any more than Joshua could. Life was as it was.
    On the other hand, the illusion of boundless resource that extreme youth granted its possessors had encouraged one of them all that afternoon in devising a plan of escape. It was enabled by the late presence of an eyelet screwed into the wall outside his bedroom window, matching another at the far end. Between them they had held the rope from which the town had hung its Fourth of July banner. Through the nearer one he could thread another rope, borrowed from the shed behind the dormitory; one strong enough (he hoped) to bear his weight as he swung out the window and lowered himself down to the lawn.
    He had gone to bed dressed except for his shoes and jacket. He arranged his pillows to look as he imagined his body to look beneath the quilt. He was afraid the resemblance was insufficient–the hump looked more like an otter–but it would have to do. He reached under the bed and dragged out the rope. He was a little too noisy at it, for by the time he reached the window the chamber's other occupant was sitting up. "Where are you going?" she whispered.
    Straddling the sill, he leaned out to tie the rope into place using a half hitch he had learned from Captain Clancey. He hopped back inside. "Mr. Perkins saw the horse in Irontown. It might still be there!"
    "You can't. Candy said!" Ignoring her, Christopher continued buttoning his jacket. "They say it makes people die. No animal can do that. If he saw anything, it wasn't magic. It was just a horse."
    "Then it might still be there!" he said in triumph. She gave a sigh of exasperation. "'bye, sis!" He climbed out onto the sill and jumped off. "Chr–" she began, then covered her mouth. She threw down the covers and ran to the window.
    Evidently he had not practiced his knots enough, for the half hitch undid itself too soon and he rode the rope down the last few yards. It landed by him in the grass. "You all right?" she whispered down. He waved an affirmative reply, then got onto his legs and ran off into the night and the gathering wind. Oh my soul, Molly said silently, oh my soul, oh my grievous (which she pronounced "grevious") soul.
    By the time Christopher reached Irontown the wind was clattering the shutters and shaking even the largest boughs in the maple grove. He stopped there and looked out at the row of cabins, vivid beneath the big round moon. He was surprised to see Mr. Perkins at Mrs. Brown's. Maybe he had come looking for the horse too. He was standing in front talking to her, with Gabriel standing next to him like a parent. Raphael was standing next to Mrs. Brown. Most of the others were out as well, some at Mrs. Brown's, others watching from their doorways.
    The first words Christopher heard were "Evening" from Mr. Perkins, and from Mrs. Brown, "You said that already" in a cold voice. He sat down in the dirt to listen.
    "Came to pay my respects," Ben said.
    "Lotta respectin' goin' on round here," said Rafe.
    Ben did not understand what he was expected to say to that. But the crowd seemed to be waiting for him to say something. "Obie was a–a fine man," he stammered. "Fine man. Shame what happened to him. Fine man like that." Lucinda kept staring at him, Rafe was staring, the whole bunch was staring. He felt maybe he had better leave, after all. "Well, that's all I–" He turned nervously, shaking the change in his pocket.
    "You're janglin'," Gabe observed.
    "Huh?" He had almost forgotten the reason he was there. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah, well...." From the way they were looking he figured they must know what he had done. He felt sweat on his forehead, rolling down to touch the tops of his eyebrows. His heart was hammering. He was not sure he could go through with this. But, dang it, he had to! It was only right.
    "That's really why I came," he said. "Fact is, I been goin' over the books..." He pulled out the tally sheet and unfolded it one-handed against his shirt. "...and 'pears I owe you some change, Miz Brown. Not just you but quite a few here." He glanced over the list. "Gabe...Jesse...." Not Rafe; he had never dared to cheat Rafe.
    The air of the gathering changed. They stared at one another in some astonishment. All had been taken advantage of by white men, some more often than others, but none could remember having heard one of them admit it, let alone offer to make amends. Christopher took it more simply: Mr. Perkins was not very good at arithmetic. He wondered if Mr. Perkins had liked school any better than he did.
    A sudden gust of wind beat at them and set the iron cock spinning on the cabin roof. Ben clutched the bag tighter. Lucinda invited him to come in. "I would hate to see any of that money blow away."
    "Well, I don't know...." She froze. It had been an instinctive reaction, which he regretted at once. "What I mean is, I wouldn't like to impose–ma'am–Miz Brown."
    "A man bearing money can't ever impose," said Rafe with a grin. He touched Ben's shoulder lightly. "Come on in."
    "Who else is on that list?" asked Lucinda.
    "I see most of 'em." He handed it to her. "Can you–" He stopped himself, embarrassed again.
    "Can I read it? Yes, Mr. Perkins, I can read." She picked out the names of three who were absent and ordered Gabriel to fetch them. "Will you have a cup of coffee? With perhaps a dash of something stronger?"
    "The man won't say no to that," Rafe predicted.
    Ben laughed. "No, sir, I surely won't."
    When they had filed inside Christopher turned to his quest. He moved from the grove into the deep green salal bushes that ran parallel with the cabins along the border of the woods, and thence into the yews and hazels, looking and listening for the horse, treading as quietly as possible to keep from scaring him off if he should see him. As the talk and laughter from the cabin receded, other noises filled his awareness: leaves crackling under his feet, crickets creaking, an owl howling, unseen things scraping over the ground; he nearly stepped on a furry gold pillow he recognized in time as a sleeping fox; all these but no horse, either in the woods, as far as he could see by the light that filtered through the treetops, or on the road outside. He rested against a hazel tree.
    Behind him he heard a snort and the soft thump of a pair of hooves–no, many pair–and a stifled cough. A band of riders was on the other side of the tree; the same bunch that had killed Mr. Brown, he figured. He could not run without being seen but maybe he could crawl. He began slowly to sink down. As his body pressed against the trunk, the bark crunched–unheard, probably, against the chorus of rustlings and soughings forced by the wind, but he could not be sure. He did not move again; not with them waiting so near. He braced himself to run if need be; meantime he waited too.
    While Ben was sitting comfortably indoors, his wife was hastening through the street, shawl pulled about her, to bring him his hat before he left the store. That he seldom wore a hat even in winter did not discourage her; it was a wife's duty to keep at her husband about such matters. But alas, the back room was empty, and she had left little Ben alone. She must get back.
    As she reached for the door handle the window beside her crashed and splintered. She hid her face. Something shot past her to the floor. Emerging from her fright as she saw what had happened, she picked it up; it was a square black rock. She raced out to the street. A man's back was just disappearing between the doors of the saloon. She had made a vow to the spirit of her late mother never to set foot in that place, even to bring her husband home. Now she prayed to the same spirit to forgive her, for she was about to break that vow.
    The men at the tables were startled–all but one–to see her there after dark. Only an appearance by Lucy Dale, the chairwoman of the Temperance League, would have aroused greater dismay. But they did not have to wait to learn the cause of her visit, for she marched straightway to the nearest occupied table and brought the rock down onto it, shaking a bottle and two shot glasses that had been resting there. "Which one of you threw this?" she demanded. Now all understood and all averted their eyes.
    Lottie flew out from the rear, where she had been taking a late supper, to ask what the ruckus was. She halted at the sight of the new visitor. "Not often our little tearoom boasts the pleasure of your company," she said.
    Emily ignored the jibe. "A man smashed our window and ran in here. I'll be grateful if you'll be good enough to tell me who it was." Her embarrassment at being seen in those dingy surroundings showed only a little through the fire of her indignation.
    "I'd hand him over in a second, honey, but I've been in back." She surveyed the room. "How about it, gents? Can any of you assist the lady?" They stared into their drinks or at the sawdust and peanut shells on the floor. "Fine crop we're seeing this year," she observed acidly.
    One of the men–they could not be sure which because he did not look up–answered in a surly tone, "Obie was a friend of our'n." Others grumbled assent.
    "A friend," said Emily. "So you come and do your mischief by night with your face hidden. Just as those men did to him. What he would have thought looking at you–what any decent man would think. It makes me...." She stood for a moment, then marched to the bar, and asked the last question Lottie would have expected of her. "How much is a bottle of whiskey?"
    "A bottle of–? Four bits. I mean, one dollar." Emily searched for her change purse but it was not with her. "I'll put it on Ben's account," Lottie said helpfully. Emily had not known Ben had an account there. She thanked Lottie, and begged her pardon in advance for what she was about to do. As Lottie watched in curiosity she upraised the tall brown bottle–perpetual object of loathing to her–and brought it down against the counter with all the force she could summon, shattering it entirely.
    The men at the tables stared aghast. Proceeding from her, the act constituted a gross violation of their most basic proprieties. The bottleneck was the only piece remaining in her hand. She laid it down. "You think there's no wrath in me?" she cried at them. "Or malice, or envy? Toward people who have more than we do? Toward people I secretly disdain?" Not as secretly as all that, Lottie thought. "I could surrender to my feelings, and hate and break and destroy. But I won't–because I'm a civilized woman, and I want my child to grow up in a civilized community." The men were listening soberly. She approached them. "My husband made a mistake. Ask him, he won't deny it. But which of you hasn't made the same mistake? You can't tell me you haven't because I've heard you. A man's entitled to make an occasional mistake." She had not known before she believed that. "But none of us is entitled to...." Finding herself where she had deposited the rock, she picked it up. "...cast the first stone," she concluded.
    Lottie watched her with pride for all their sex. One of the men dug into his pocket and cast some coins on a table. "It was me throwed it," he confessed. "I'll set ye in a new window tomorrow."
    Emily said she would appreciate that and was sure Ben would too. She became aware that the men were looking at her with a kind of respect they had never shown her before. She suddenly felt shy. She returned to the bar and examined the gash she had made in the wood. "Sorry to have marred your counter," she said.
    "Honey, it was worth it to hear you. Don't believe I ever heard you say more than six words together before. You should speak your piece more often–it suits you. Jason Bolt couldn't have put it better himself. You ever want a job, you're welcome to one here any time."
    Not wholly comfortable with the terms of this praise, and anxious to be getting home, Emily yet could not leave without offering to mop up. "Wouldn't hear of it," said Lottie. "That's what barmaids are for." Emily bade her and the men good night and said she would look forward to seeing them at the store.
    The storekeeper himself had finished doling out what he had owed to a crowd that, verifying Raphael's philosophy, had grown downright congenial. Only one creditor was absent. Gabriel informed him Miss Rose Bell had moved to Duwamish to live with her nephew, who worked at the sawmill there.
    Lucinda hushed them. She had heard sounds outside, sounds like those that had frightened Christopher. She ordered Gabe to fetch the squirrel gun from the corner. "You won't need any squirrel gun," said Ben. Over their protests he ran out to the porch.
    No riders were to be seen. Danged cowards! "Hey, come out where I can see you!" he shouted. The others crowded out behind him. Gabe had brought the gun after all. "Okay," Ben continued, "then I'll talk to you where you're hidin'." He stepped into the road. "Now see here. I'm Benjamin T. Perkins, the proprietor of Perkins Mercantile, and I'm warnin' you to leave these people alone. They're my neighbors, see? And if you got a bone to pick with them you'll have to–to pick my bones first. So jist skedaddle outa here. You hear me? Go on, git!"
    A row of horsemen trotted out from behind the cabins. In the lead was Aaron Stempel. "Glad to hear you say so, Ben," he said. The men at his back included the new blacksmith and that logger who was part Greek. "Everything all right here?" Aaron asked.
    "Yes, sir," said Lucinda, "thank you for inquiring." She glanced at Ben. "Everything is fine."
    "We formed a committee to patrol a few nights, just in case."
    "Right good of you," said Rafe, in a tone that might have been ironic.
    "No more than I'd do for any other citizen," Aaron returned, in the same tone. "Ben. Ma'am." He and his men rode off. Christopher was desperate to signal them but could not work out a means of doing it without exposing himself to the men behind him. Once the patrol was no longer heard they left also, keeping to a slow walk and never saying a word. It appeared the patrol had routed them for the night.
    Ben made his goodbyes over the wind's attempts to smother them and asked Gabe how long it would take to get to Duwamish. On foot, as he had arrived, it would take most of a day's walk, and in that wind.... "It is a tad brisk," Ben admitted. But he had no such notion. He planned to borrow Old Tom's wagon and Adolphus's mule that pastured alongside it. The boys had offered him the use of them, and for tonight's errand he thought that especially fitting. He was sure the boys would raise no objection, since they were still in jail (he had passed them on the way), probably forgotten about by everyone except him.
    "If you're set on goin', I'll ride with you," Gabe offered. Ben thanked him but declined: this was something he had to do on his own. He looked at Lucinda as he said it. She nodded in understanding.
    Now that matters were straightened out except for what was owing to Miss Bell, to whose residence Gabe had furnished directions, Ben felt as if a yoke had fallen from his shoulders. He was glad of that and glad his penance had been no harder. Yet he felt there was more to be said, and if no one else would say it he ought to. Within the limits of his experience he hardly knew how to begin. Still, he had to, even if he did it badly; better that than not do it at all.
    "Ma'am, I...." He faltered. She waited. "You tended Junior that time Em was ailing. Didn't have to, you just done it. I was so worried about her I never thanked you properly. Mighta thanked Obie. I ain't sure." He tried to recall and then realized he was off the point. "Thing is, the two of you been mighty good neighbors to us. Then I go and...." He drooped his head. He felt as shabby as ever a man did and he took satisfaction from the feeling; it was what he deserved. "If you druther take your trade somewheres else, I wouldn't blame you none."
    She laid a hand on his arm. "Anyone can make an error...counting change. All one can ask is that he make the account come right. You've done that. Put it behind you."
    He looked at her with gratitude. "You're a forgiving soul."
    "No," she corrected him gently, "I'm a forgiven soul. I confess it. In the first part of my life I looked down on the rest of humanity. No matter that I was a slave. I regarded myself as a princess among commoners–a princess betrayed into bondage, but a princess. I believe that my servitude was laid on me to teach me humility. But it only drove me to cling to my pride. Otherwise I could not have survived, body or soul. It took freedom, and my Obie, to teach me the good in being one among many. I had had no friends. Now I have–and from tonight I count you as one. And I would not give them up for a treasure house full of brass and ivory. My airs and graces are all gone." Not all, Ben thought; not nearly. "My only care is to find the men who killed my Obie. Gabriel says it was an accident. If it be so, I accept it. But whatever measure of guilt is theirs, I want retribution meted out to them in the same measure. If that's vengeance...."
    "As a merchant," Ben replied, "I'd say it was a fair price." He wished her good night. As he started across the road Rafe called after him to watch out for the wind. Certainly it had grown stronger. Ben felt as if it might pull the coat off his back. But mostly it bypassed the valley where the mule sat and Ben was able to hitch her up with little trouble. It was more difficult to persuade her to leave that haven for the wind-wracked wilds above, but between the snap of the buggy whip and assorted commands, threats, and entreaties he soon had her on the road making south.
     Christopher waited till the residents had retired to their houses. He did not want them to see him, for he ought not to have been there and he supposed that, being grown-ups, they would know it. He ran out through the hedge into the road, which stretched both ways, stark in the moonlight. Past the line of cabins it followed a small rise that marked the start of the hills. He turned for a last look at it.
    He found the horse staring back at him.
    Standing at the top of the rise, weight tilted toward his forelegs, nose down, he kept his huge black eyes fixed on the boy. The snowy skin shone in the ethereal light. The muscles rippled along his flanks and down his long back and neck. He was not white everywhere, after all; here and there were daubs of grey and pink. Even so, he was the most beautiful horse Christopher had ever seen. And the most frightening, but not as Christopher had expected, not as a harbinger of death but as some fabled primeval being like a unicorn or a dragon; perhaps even an angel.
    With a low rolling snort, he whipped around and started off at a prancing lope, then halted and turned his head, eyeing the boy questioningly. Christopher looked toward home. He made his decision almost at once, if it had not been made already. He ran after the horse, ready to go whitherso he led. The rest of the town was indoors, nestling in cozy beds or at warm hearths. He was leaving them behind, even those in Irontown, at the outermost edge of the collective life, and entering the spacious, wind-swept hills, lightly pocked with the tops of farmhouses. Soon he passed beyond them into the wilderness, always climbing, so that before he knew it he was able, turning, to look down on Seattle as on a toy town, left out for the night where some child had been playing with it at the edge of a pond. The pond, he realized in a rush of awe, was the Sound. He had never seen it from God's perspective before.
    The stallion had disappeared, as he had at every bend, only to reappear farther on. This time he remained unseen for several minutes before re-emerging atop a steep slope. He must know a hidden path up, but Christopher could not search for it in the dark; his only way cut across the hillside. So rapidly did he scramble in fear of losing the trail that he tripped over the roots of a grey and dying fir. This hill was unworked, not like those at the Bolt camp; here the trees that fell did so by act of nature and lay and rotted where they had fallen. One of them lay in his path, its branches curving upwards like the ribs of a great ox. He grabbed one of the smallest and hoisted himself over.
    As he climbed, his shoes crackled the leaves under them and crunched down on chunks of bark and half-buried pine cones. The wind barked at his cheeks. The backs of his legs began to ache. He stepped on a severed branch, buried in detritus; its end popped up and knocked him in the knee. He stopped for breath against a spotted rock, on which he rested his hand; it landed on a string of wet moss. He immediately pulled it away and wiped it on his trousers, already smeared with dirt. He looked up. Now he was but a few yards from the top. He could not see the stallion but expected he would again.
    When he did he almost despaired. Behind him lay the angle of the hill amid a confusion of other hills at other angles, with the white-faced mountains leaning in from above. The view made him dizzy, though the thinner air no doubt had something to do with it as well. That lay behind; ahead stood what looked at first to be a sheer cliff face with the horse posed on its brow, looking as if he only needed wings to mount to the heavens. Again he must have known a passage up, but Christopher could not see it. He inspected the ascent before him, which was not as impossible as it had looked at first. There were trees jutting out from it, and the rocks made steps that would take him up partway. After that he would see.
    The face was nearly vertical but with a concavity in the middle like a gully stood on end, to which the rocks had gravitated. A trickle of water clicked between them and by its drips and splashes kept some surfaces permanently slick, as he discovered when he took a step, slid, and fell between the rocks to hit his shoulder on them. Ignoring the smart, he stumbled to his feet and nearly slipped again, this time for surprise, as a lizard darted out between his legs. He continued more carefully up the rockfall. It ended a little short of the crest, but by standing on the outermost protruding boulder he was able to grab onto the dipping bough of a small vine maple, whose trunk he shinnied up to a womblike cleft in the rock. This he inched up with care. A misstep could throw him out onto the rock pile or, if he missed it, all the way to the base, probably breaking his neck. But the luck of expeditionary boys was with him, and after safely negotiating the eye-shaped hollow he pulled himself up between two fringes of grass onto level ground. From the air soaring over him he knew he had reached the top. He lay there a minute or two, his face in the cool grass, smelling it, catching his breath, relaxing in his success, his feet dangling in the gap. Then he reclaimed them and sat up to see where he had got to.
    It was a new world. Under the brilliantly starred sky the mountains surrounding him were lower than before yet somehow seemed farther off. Between them to the forest at all edges stretched a meadow of tall grass rippling in the wind, which blew more gently here, though the air was colder. In the middle of the meadow stood the stallion. He lowered and raised his fine-boned head, tossed his mane, and cried out to the great round moon. Christopher began to creep toward him. The stallion snorted and ran off a few yards. Christopher stopped.
    "Careful," came a whisper behind him. The unexpectedness of it caused him nearly to fall over. He turned to see a man resting on his haunches under the trees. His face was the color of coffee. Against it his teeth showed white as the stallion himself. "You don't want to scare him," he said.

Part Three

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