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Chapter One

On the day that cleaved my life into before and after, I started work before dawn. If I had known it would be the last day, none of the ordinary things would have been worth my time. I like to think that I would have let the rest of the world fend for itself and kept to what was important. I might have tarried beside Grandfather's chair for one more story of the old days, one more prayer, one more breakfast eaten in companionable silence, one more embrace so tight that I might lose my breath.

I did not know, however, and so I set about the normal, everyday things that used to seem urgent. I fanned the fire, and coaxed the sleeping embers to life with the aid of stout wood-and-leather bellows that made my shoulders ache. Grandfather sighed when I used them, a deep, heavy, regretful sound. It told me well enough that he remembered when it had been his job to ply them, make them puff in rhythm to "Fair Annie" or "The Gypsy Laddie." I danced for him while he worked, my skirts flung out as grand as any queen.

I allowed him to sleep late because the day before had been a harsh one, heralding the onset of winter. Cold and blustery winds chapped his weathered cheeks as he brought in the last of our wood, but he hadn't complained. "Let me do for myself as long as I can," he often said, and I indulged him.

I padded past his bed next to the hearth, where our dogs kept him company. I smeared bear grease on the rough, red patches to make them heal faster. The dogs had licked some of it off during the night. I made a mental note to ask Gray Wolf if he would put some bitter herbs in it the next time he came by.

Thoughts of the old Iroquois reminded me to count the coins in the squat blue and white speckled jar on the mantel. Grandfather called it my dowry, though I used it for more practical purposes; a new pair of shoes, a handful of nails, a bit of precious sugar to tempt him to eat. He protested that, but as his trips to town grew fewer, it was my decision. Gray Wolf and his family preferred a knitted scarf or a crock of apple butter to money when we traded with them, but coins were better when we went to town. Especially if we wanted anything from Master Sims' store. Master Sims took nothing but cash.

My breath puffed in the morning chill. I put on Grandfather's coat over my own as I went out to tend the chickens. I stamped through the dusting of snow on the ground, and glanced up at the heavy clouds that promised more of the same. Rahab, our spotted hound, followed after me, snapping at my skirts as I walked.

At six months old, everything was a game to her; exciting and not to be missed. I pulled the coats tight against my body and ran back to close the door again. Our other dog, Samuel, was far more seasoned at the great age of three. He remained where he was, and flapped his black plume of a tail against the blankets.

I scratched Rahab's head and hurried her on in front of me. She ran back and forth in the snow, and yipped to herself as I scattered dried corn and checked for eggs. There were three that morning, small and brown, likely the last of the season. I tucked them into my apron.

When Grandfather did not stomp outside or bellow for me to bring his coat back, I slipped into the shed. He needed the rest, as he got precious little of it of late. His body was failing, true, but his heart was as strong as that of a much younger man. An extra hour of sleep would give him strength for the rest of the day.

There was still enough tea in the tin that we could both enjoy a warm drink with our meal. It would be worth the extra effort to coax milk away from our only cow. I approached Athaliah with a determined but cautious step.

Even Rahab knew enough to wait at the entrance as I came close to the cow's hindquarters. Great white puffs emanated from Athaliah's nose and mouth as I took the milking pail down from its peg. She dipped her head, took a sloppy mouthful of hay and regarded me with one brown-marble eye.

I squinted back at her. "Stop that." I eased closer. "I am not afraid of you. I know all your tricks." I chafed my hands together, hooked my foot around one leg of the milking stool and took two teats in hand. Grandfather had long ago introduced me proper to Athaliah. "Grandfather is right about you, you know. Stubborn, recalcitrant bovine. All full of milk, yet you still fight us. Just a bit of your surplus, that's all, and I will leave you be for the rest of the morning."

The straw rustled. Rahab growled as four pairs of bright golden eyes appeared. The cats, half-grown and a uniform mottled gray, sat in a perfect line. Their double paws shifted with undisguised impatience. I rubbed my hands together once more, and began to squeeze.

After I had satisfied cats, dog and cow, I took the full bucket and hurried back to Grandfather. He was out of bed by then, wrapped in two blankets, with his new tricorn perched atop his head.

I kissed his cheek. He tasted of bear grease and rough stubble. My hand lingered on his shoulder before I set the bucket down on the table. We never spoke for the first hour or so of morning, not until the animals were tended and breakfast begun. It was his way to do that, say nothing for however long it took him to ease out of sleep. The process that used to take him only minutes now required half an hour or more, and a nap after his midday meal. If, these days, he even ate it. He had only poked at the stew I gave him yesterday, and most of his supper went directly to the dogs.

I shrugged out of the coats. Samuel sniffed the air, then rested his head on his massive paws, ears flopped forward with dejection. Rising, he seemed to say, was not worth the effort until somebody had been to the smokehouse. On mornings like that one, I tended to agree with him. My belly rumbled for a rasher of bacon.

Grandfather put his own coat on like a cape over the blankets, letting the door shut behind him before Rahab could dart out. She joined Samuel on the bed instead, and I took the dishes down from the shelves, to busy myself until Grandfather could return with the water. He never did.

"He is slow this morning," I said to Rahab. "He forgot to take the pick to the pond." My word rang hollow as I separated the cream from the milk, and set it aside in a lidded stoneware crock.

Samuel's nails clicked from the bed to the door, his body crouched low, nose to the ground. Rahab went after him, tail wagging. I climbed the ladder to the loft, fingers shaking as I gripped the rungs. Samuel's bark was insistent. Rahab mimicked him. I snatched the top blanket from the bed, and wrapped the faded blue wool around my shoulders before I could climb down.

Fine white flakes drifted down as I pushed the door open. They seemed to spin instead of merely fall, twisting and turning their way down to earth. From the shed, I heard Athaliah warn the cats away from her, but the door was shut just as I had left it. The only tracks that led to the shed were Rahab's and mine.

Grandfather's footprints diverged from the path halfway between cabin and coop. They struck out in a bold, precise line, away from our land and into the woods. Samuel pushed ahead of me. His blunt nose made a furrow in the piling snow. He looked back at me once, and set off along the trail Grandfather had left. I clucked my tongue and snapped my fingers. "Rahab! Stay with me."

The sun had not yet reached the forest floor. It was dark within the stand of the trees and cooler yet than the open air. Samuel led us onward, nose to the ground. Rahab ran back and forth between the two of us, her barks sharp as ice in the silence.

I snapped my fingers. "Rahab, hush! I want to hear Grandfather, not you." He saw something, perhaps, heard a friend call for him. Were it not important, he would have told me where he was going, called for me, or at least cried out. Yet his tracks were evenly spaced, walking steps, not running.

Gray Wolf had said he would come back at the full moon, but it was too early for that. The moon was half a pie last night, not full. My heart clutched. If Grandfather came into the wood to see Gray Wolf, they would be talking loud and long by now, trading stories about whose work was harder, Grandfather's hearty rasp a gruff counterpoint to Gray Wolf's quiet tones. They would both laugh, and I would have heard them from inside.

I drew the blanket tighter about my shoulders. "Grandfather? Gray Wolf?" Nobody answered.

Bits of dirty snow clung to fallen leaves and pine needles here and there, but Samuel's nose was the best tracker I knew.

With each step farther in, a strange sense of doubt crept into my mind. If Gray Wolf came this way at all, he would have gone to the pond with Grandfather, not off into the woods. He would come toward the house, not away from it. He would put down his packs to help with the chores, the sooner to sit down to a breakfast of bacon and porridge with dried apples on top, and debate with Grandfather over some point of theology, merely for the sake of conversation.

Samuel barked, his feet planted solidly on either side of a fallen branch. Rahab danced about him as though the bigger dog were a maypole, some unseen ribbon connecting them both. I ran to them as quickly as I could, though I tripped and stumbled over roots and stones. Next to the log was Grandfather's hat.

It sat there neatly, as though its placement were deliberate. The front corner pointed north. The braided trim and red ribbon cockade on the left side stood out in brilliant contrast to the black felt. I picked it up, ran my fingers over crown, brim and along the inside. To my relief, I felt nothing but a lingering warmth from Grandfather himself. Barely that, of course, as the morning chill was sharp. There was no blood, a fact that gave me courage. I waved the hat under Rahab's nose. "Shoo! Follow Samuel, and earn your keep."

The black dog continued on in the direction the hat pointed. He looked back at me every few steps as though to check that I was still with him. Rahab cocked her head at me with a quizzical look, but stayed close. She was silent as well, which I found exceedingly odd.

From the time I carried Rahab home from the blacksmith's litter, she was ever a noisy thing. She yipped at squirrels and chipmunks, and each day greeted the barn cats with a guttural growl. Grandfather laughed the night before, when Rahab had first howled at the moon, her eyes wide with surprise that she could. "See, Tabetha, even Rahab can make a joyful noise." Her puppy conversation was part of our everyday noise, so much so that we counted it as silence.

The wag of her tail slowed from its usual frantic whirligig to the rhythm of an open gate in the wind. As we pressed onward through the trees, our feet silent on brown pine needles, her tail drooped between her legs, giving only an occasional twitch.

Samuel crossed the fallen trunk of a dead maple with a nimble leap. Rahab approached the obstacle with more caution. She made three attempts to scale it before I swallowed an unkind word, picked her up and deposited her on the other side.

I paced the length of the trunk twice, hoping to go around it, but to no avail. One end disappeared into a tangle of pricker bushes that would catch me surely as a hunter's trap. The stump on the other was too high, and jagged besides. I crammed Grandfather's hat on my head, gathered blanket and skirts high about my knees and clambered over.

My heart sank. There were no more footprints. My muscles ached. Rahab started a subdued version of her hungry whine, then stopped short as though she thought better of it. I closed my eyes for but a moment, to pray for direction both spiritual and practical. "Dear God, which way?"

Grandfather had told me stories of his life before I came, of how his own parents built their nest egg by drawing syrup from the maples further up on the hill. He had courted my grandmother here, carved "JB loves FW" into one of the trees when he should have been tapping its syrup.

Frances White Bedlowe was a name in the family Bible to me, and a lock of chestnut hair that could pass for my own, which Grandfather wore braided round his wrist. As a child, I used to imagine how she might have slipped through the trees to meet a young version of Grandfather. She would run quick and silent as an Indian princess to meet him after a Sunday meeting or daily chores.

I knew not how much truth there might be in that fancy I had of them, but it kept me from dwelling on the legend of Friedrich Van Haskell. The boys at school liked to tease the girls about the mad Dutchman who killed his family and haunted the woods with his violin and his axe. Mad Friedrich hated English and Indians both, though he was too crazed to tell the difference by any means.

Grandfather was always quick in those days to thunder at the boys whenever they told it. He would assure us all that there was no Van Haskell family anywhere nearby, and certainly no ghosts to play them music. The story had been told when he was a lad, and was so old that it probably came over on the boat itself.

They were neither of them here with me now, Frances nor Friedrich, though I would be glad of the company of either. They would know the forest better than I would.

Samuel barked again, a sharp scold that sent Rahab scurrying under my skirts. I flapped my petticoat at her, brushing her cold, wet nose away from the hole in my stocking. She ran back to Samuel, who growled at her, low and strong until she sat. He stood still as the statue in the town square, a taut line from nose to tail, his ears pricked forward.

He stared at a large gray boulder, one I'd played on when I was small. It was easier to climb over now, though my skirts got in the way. There was a faint smear of rusty red on top, and a bit of blue wool snagged on a jagged spot on the other side.

I heard a rustle and crash as Samuel propelled himself through the bushy growth next to the boulder. He came out through a small hole in the prickers, tan burrs stuck in his black fur like cloves in a Christmas ham.

Rahab's nose stuck into the opening, then pulled back. She would not go through the prickers. Her nails scrabbled at the side of the rock, her frustrated whimpers called for me to fetch her.

Over the rise of the hill, a flash of black darted between the trees. "Grandfather?" The flash neither stopped nor answered. Rahab cried and clawed so that I thought I would weep. "Oh, have done with it!" I shoved Samuel back through the hole. "Go on, fetch Rahab."

A moment later, she appeared as though shot from a cannon, Samuel close behind, nipping at her tail. I ran after them, panting up the hill and weaving between skeletal maples until my foot caught in a hidden root.

I fell flat on the ground, inhaled dead leaves and dirt. Sharp stones scored my cheek, and I tasted blood from a split lip. A man's hand grabbed mine, strong, weathered and steady. Not Grandfather's. The hand that reached down to me was white, but had all of its fingers and was marked with a branded T.

T for thief. I swallowed hard, and pressed the back of my free hand to my mouth as I allowed him to help me gain my feet.

---

All the world shrank down to the size of the man's hand in mine as he pulled me to my feet. My eyes were fixed to the puckered white scar branded into his flesh, and my knees weakened even as I snatched my hand away. "Thank you," I said to quiet the pounding of my heart. "I need to be on my way now. Please, sir, step aside."

Samuel and Rahab were silent. They sat in the fallen pine needles, their wide brown eyes trained on me. Their tails wagged like the slow swing of a pendulum, all quiet expectation. I wiped my hands on my apron and reached for the blanket that I had lost in my fall.

He held it. I had the notion then of calling the dogs and turning away. I would move quickly, back down the trail, once I had reached it, and into the cabin, to bar the door. But I would not go without Grandfather.

I stood high on my toes, peered left and right, but saw no sign of him, the odd, questioning whimper from Rahab the only thing to break the silence.

Something warm and soft passed over my cheek. My hand flew up as though of its own will, to capture the thief's wrist. He held a cloth, mottled and worn, but clean, against the spot where the rocks had scraped me. Without a word, he relinquished the cloth, and draped the blanket loosely about my shoulders. His touch was gentle, caring. It was only then that I could bring myself to look at him.

The thief was taller than Grandfather, and younger as well. His face was unlined, and framed by shoulder-length hair of an indeterminate hue. I wondered how long it was since he'd last had a bath all over. His shoulders were wide, his back straight. Polished bone buttons held his buckskin coat closed. Clear green eyes looked back at me and his breath escaped in a reluctant sigh.

"This way," he said, as he executed a quarter turn. His moccasins made no sound at all. The dogs rose to obey him as he took his first steps away.

I found my voice. "I need to find my..."

"I know. Your grandfather. Let me take you to him." His voice was rough, a low rumble that belonged in the forest. He brushed aside a low-hanging branch of pine and stepped over a log. He held out his hand, even when I hesitated. "Please. There isn't much time." He swallowed the last word, and his eyes welled with tears he didn't bother to wipe away. "He needs you."

"He is ill. He needs to be home. To rest." My throat became too tight for words. The world spun around me. Dear God, this was the day. "What have you done to him?"

A pained look pinched the man's features. "Only given him shelter, and followed his wishes. He is comfortable."

I set my jaw firm. "He was comfortable at home. Why would he come find," I let my eyes size the thief up and down, and finished with a cluck of my tongue, "you?"

His cheeks flushed. "Come and ask him yourself."

Rahab and Samuel jumped over the log, and looked back at me with tilted heads. There was a trail there, short and narrow. At the end of it was a small hut, its door halfway open. "Is my Grandfather in there?"

The thief nodded.

I took his hand once more and allowed him to help me over, pulling my fingers away as soon as I had cleared the obstacle.

I pushed past him and ran down the path. The blanket flapped about my shoulders. The dogs came after; Samuel overtook me, Rahab close behind. The door swung easily beneath my hand and banged against the wall.

Inside, it was dark and smelled of smoke, apples and bear grease. The only light came from a small fire in the hearth. There was one table, small and scarred, one chair with a pillow on its seat, and one bed where my Grandfather lay.

"Grandfather!" His name sprang from my lips even as my hand flew up to keep it inside.

I dropped to my knees. Samuel jumped onto the bed, and found his customary spot by Grandfather's side. There was an ashen tone to Grandfather's face. His eyes were unusually bright and focused on something far away. His palsied fingers reached out to tug at a lock of hair that had come loose from my cap.

"Tabetha." He paused for a cough that shook his shoulders and rattled his bones. "Everything is all right, child. Trust my friend."

"Friend?" My voice dropped to a frenzied whisper. "You know him?"

There was the scrape of flint against steel, then a circle of light and the smell of tallow. I looked over my shoulder to see the thief fitting a long taper into a candleholder. Thick lashes dipped over his eyes as he stepped back.

I pulled the blanket from my shoulders, and spread it over Grandfather. His chest rose and fell in a slow, irregular motion, catching for a moment, then continuing on. His mouth curved into a child's sleepy smile, his lips tinged faintly with blue. Rahab whimpered and thrust her wet muzzle against my hand.

Surely, there was something to be done. I smoothed Grandfather's hair, his brow, his blankets. He had already begun to lose the warmth of the living. I took his hand in mine and chafed it with desperate speed. It did no good.

"Oh!" Grandfather's mouth made a perfect O of childlike awe. "Oh, how lovely. Child, look there." He pointed a gnarled finger at the bare wall. "Do you see the road? See them all coming? Oh, so very lovely." Samuel laved Grandfather's face with frantic kisses. "Frances, my love, I've missed you so..."

"Let him go," the thief said.

I could not. I had no words. All my thoughts, a lifetime of memories, caught in my throat. Grandfather's hand clasped mine, though his eyes remained fixed on the wall.

"Oh, so lovely. Nathaniel, my lad!" His lips curved up as he formed my brother's name. "He wants me to come play."

Rahab climbed onto the bed. Her pink tongue darted out to taste the spot where our hands joined. I rubbed my finger over the stub of Grandfather's missing thumb. "It's all right," I said despite myself. "You can go, Grandfather. Know that I love you." I dropped a kiss on his forehead and swallowed the urge to call him back.

His grip on my hand loosened, and finally grew slack as he slipped away, a final "Frances" borne on his dying breath. The dogs knew Grandfather had gone, and quit the bed for the floor when the last breath whispered out of his lungs.

I looked at the thief and he looked at me. "My Grandfather is dead."

"So is my friend. We have that much in common."

I nodded. "So we do." The numbness crept over me like the chill of a dying fire. We sat still as statues while Grandfather's body grew cold.

Weak dapples of light painted the floor under the single window by the doorframe. The floor itself was worn in spots, a path from threshold to table to bed to hearth. There was not much else. Wooden pegs above the bed held a shirt and breeches of sturdy material.

A round-topped chest, painted with flowers, birds and berries occupied the space opposite the bed. Above it was a shelf, unpainted, but carved on its edge with figures of squirrels, trees and ducks. A small collection of books rested there, along with a clay pipe and a battered violin.

When Rahab whimpered and stretched out her front paws to lay down her head, the thief rose to stoke the fire. His feet dragged along the floorboards. He looked as though he performed his actions by rote instead of any conscious effort, a puppet in the hands of grief. He poked the coals with a plain iron rod, stirring them until he made sufficient spark.

Samuel snored. The thief let out a ragged sigh, shoved a hand through his hair, scrubbed over his face. He looked at once lost and hopeful; the same as Samuel had when Grandfather first brought him home from the Mellon's farm. "He is at peace now."

"He looks it." I closed his eyes and lay his arms straight by his side. The part of him we had always known was gone, and too many thoughts rushed in to fill the space he had left. "We have to move him. I need to lay out his body at home, wash him, change his clothes. We need a shroud sewn, the grave dug." I ticked off each task on trembling fingers. "Someone has to sit with him while I go to town." It would take hours to make the rounds of church and friends to bear the grim news, then return home and face what would come next. The fact of it sat in my stomach like a musket ball, cold and heavy. No single woman lived alone. I dropped my face into my hands with a wrenching sob and took in a deep breath. "I am alone now."

Rahab rolled onto her side and pointed her belly toward the fire. Flickering light danced across her speckles. I wound my hand in my apron, unable to move more than that. "No doubt, they'll send someone back from town to stay with me. Some older woman, a widow, most like. What if they send Mistress Haddon?" The name gushed out in a rush of dread.

The thief grunted. "Mistress Haddon, of the red petticoat? Does she still talk without ceasing and smell of sour ale?"

"More often than not. Do you know her?"

"I remember her sharp tongue and unpleasant temper."

I let out a heavy sigh. "It makes no difference. She is a widow, I am alone. There is every chance she'll be the one to fill Grandfather's bed tonight." Under other circumstances, the image of Mistress Haddon in Grandfather's bed would have made me laugh. The woman had set her sights on him when I was eight years old, after her eldest son married. Grandfather would have none of her then, and I prayed I would have none of her now.

The thief tapped me once on the shoulder, then handed me a strip of pemmican. "Eat this while I go outside."

I stared at the dried meat as though I had never seen such a thing before. "Why?"

The thief took in a deep breath and scrubbed his hand over his mouth. The puckered white T stood out against the ruddy tone of his flesh. "I need to rig something to bring Josiah home."

I blinked at his use of Grandfather's name. "You knew him?"

The thief opened the trunk, sifting about inside until he came up with a coil of rope. He unwound an arm's length and measured out the space between Grandfather's feet and the end of the bed. He tied a knot, then measured again. "Josiah was a kind man."

I felt a flutter in my heart. "He never mentioned you," I said, before realising I had no idea of the thief's name. Perhaps he had. Grandfather's waxen face gave me no clues. Instead, I ran a list through my mind, of all the names I could recall Grandfather saying.

Thomas Moss and George Cooper and James Park were all familiar names. They were near Grandfather's age, men I had known for most of my life. I listed off casual acquaintances, counting on my fingers and stealing glances at the thief at every count of five.

Were there any names without faces? Only Indian names that Gray Wolf brought with him when he came to trade. That could answer for something. One Indian could have many names, but the thief was as white as I. I spread my hands. "Or he may have," I added, "and I have forgotten your name."

He smiled with one corner of his mouth only, his eyes darkening. "My name is Dalby," he said, "but I asked Josiah not to mention it in polite company." He took a piece of pemmican for himself and bit down on it as he turned for the door. When his hand wrapped around the door's handle, he looked back at me over his shoulder. "And you are most polite company, Tabetha."

"Dalby." I could only say his name aloud after he left. The thief had a name, and he knew mine. I stood, feeling the cramps in my legs from running too fast, then sitting too long.

Dalby. It was a smooth name, a pleasant one. Dalby. I tasted it on my tongue like maple sugar. Dalby. It was a name Grandfather never spoke in my presence, but one he might have said as companionably as the thief--as Dalby--said "Josiah."

There was a wash pitcher half full by the bed, so I gave myself a task to keep from thinking about what lay ahead. I dipped a cloth in the water, and stroked it with gentle care over Grandfather's face.

From outside, I heard the sounds of wood being chopped, dragged; of Dalby muttering to himself as he worked. Ordinary sounds that I would hear from Grandfather no longer. I finished his face and moved on to his hands.

Grandfather's fingers were neither short nor long, blunt-tipped and square-nailed. He had no thumb on his left hand; a reminder, he told me, that he should never trust his brother, Jesse, with an axe.

He had told me the story enough times that I could say it with him, supply the words that age made him forget. How Jesse would not wear the spectacles their father had bought for him, not when any of the fairer sex might see. The story was all mine now, but there was nothing to do with it, no one to tell. Except for Dalby.

When I finished washing Grandfather's hands, I went on to my own. I poured a little of the tepid water into the chipped blue basin and splashed one hand with the other.

I would not cry. I told myself I would not cry, forbade myself to do so, and yet I did. The man who raised me and loved me and gave me my home no longer inhabited the still form on the bed, and yet I still drew breath.

I thought of the food we had left at home; eggs and milk that would surely be curdled. Athaliah would need to be milked again, and the cats would want their share. There was still ice to break, water to draw, but first I would help a thief take my Grandfather's body through the forest.

Rahab snuffled and snorted. Her speckled legs twitched as she chased dream squirrels through her mind. Samuel snorted awake, yawned and stretched. He cocked his head as though trying to remember exactly what in his world was not right. He nudged Grandfather's hand, a plaintive whimper accompanying the gesture.

Samuel had always been Grandfather's dog, his hunting companion and bedmate. Samuel's mother was Grandfather's dog before him, and her mother before her. Samuel himself should have gone to Ruth Metcalf, but even as a puppy he refused to be taken from Grandfather's side. Ruth took his sister instead, and Samuel had stayed.

He looked bereft now, the same as I felt. He pushed his nose into my palm. The tentative strokes of his tongue stung my scraped flesh.

The door creaked open. Bits of dried leaves and pine needles clung to Dalby's hair and coat, the scent of pine strong. Rahab woke, blinked and bared her teeth to growl at him. She thought better of it after a moment and trotted over to him instead. He scratched behind her ears, the way she liked best.

"We can take Josiah outside now," he said, and nodded at Grandfather. "I can take him back to your land and wait while you get someone, but I will have to come back here before you return."

I thought to ask him why, but the answer was plain. The white of his T was a stark contrast to the dark fur of Rahab's head. "You could wear a glove," I heard myself say, my voice small like a child's. "Or wrap your hand in a bandage."

He shook his head, patting Rahab on her side with a solid thump. "I have tried that," he said. "It accomplishes nothing. Some people have long memories."

We approached Grandfather's bed together, hesitating to move him. I watched a muscle twitch in Dalby's jaw, his face tight, brows knit together. I tried to move Grandfather's arms, to fold them across his chest as I had seen at funerals before. He was too stiff now. I let out a small gasp and stepped back.

"Tabetha." Dalby spoke my name quiet and firm, calling me back from my fear. "It's all right. He'll lose the stiffness later. Better to carry him like this."

I could not speak just then, so I nodded. I helped Dalby wrap the body tightly in the red and gray striped blanket, tucking the ends securely around the feet. I tried to surpress my sob when Dalby closed the flaps of the blanket over Grandfather's face, but I knew he had to do it.

"We count to three and then we lift," Dalby said. His eyes held mine as we counted. "One, two, three. The body shifted, and I stumbled, knocking into Samuel. "Let me carry most of the weight. You watch the door."

It was a comfort to be told what to do. There was not as much weight as I had thought there might be, but I did as I was told and allowed Dalby to bear more of it. "One step to the left," I told him as we lurched forward, the dogs trotting behind.

Dalby grunted an acknowledgement to all my instructions. Left, right, back. Duck your head.

When we were outside, it was his turn to be the leader again. We lowered Grandfather onto a wooden frame lashed with canvas, just the right size to hold the body. Stout loops of rope were at either end, more rope along the length of the frame. It looked like a litter Gray Wolf brought sometimes. Very much like it.

"Do you trade with a Mohican named Gray Wolf?" I blurted out the words before deciding if I should.

"I trade with him," Dalby said. "Sometimes."

---

We spoke little as we travelled down the mountain. It seemed longer, going back this way. Dalby led and I followed, the litter carrying Grandfather's body between us. It whispered over the level ground, and bumped over stones and fallen branches. When we came to an obstacle, we lifted on Dalby's count of three, and then set the litter down again.

The dogs ran before us, circled back, then trotted ahead once more. Even Rahab was unusually somber, her long spotted tail making only the most perfunctory of swings. Samuel kept apace with me for most of the time, his soft black muzzle pointed at the ground. I caught his eyes a time or two, and knew in my heart that dogs could mourn. At least they had nothing to lose by giving vent to their grief. "I need your level head, Tabetha," Grandfather's voice whispered in the back of my mind. My level mind. He'd need that still.

By the time we neared the edge of the forest, the day had faded into twilight. It looked for the briefest of moments as though I might step back into my life as I had left it that morning. The yard and buildings looked much the same, the sky streaked with traces of light. Athaliah lowed from the barn, accompanied by an incessant chorus of mews. Chickens milled about in their yard outside the henhouse, beaks and feet raking the ground for forgotten food. It was all as I had left it.

Then Dalby groaned and stretched and I knew that nothing would be as I had left it again. He raised clasped hands high above his head, stretched his neck and arched his back. Hair and fringed buckskin blew in the cold wind that knifed through wool and linen, snaked up my skirts and sleeves. I watched him adjust his hat, place his hands on his hips and turn in a slow quarter circle to look at the outbuildings.

"Too late for town now," he said.

My stomach tightened. Dalby was right. There would be no light at all left by the time I walked even halfway to town. Snow still fell, and looked as though it would only continue to do so through the night.

I found it impossible to believe that an entire day had passed. Yet it had. My footprints from the morning were already filled; those that remained after the dogs and the litter came through. Fine white flakes settled on top of Grandfather's blanket, and prints of cats and racoons decorated the snow in front of the door.

I rubbed my temple where it began to throb. "Racoons."

Dalby gave a bitter laugh and a shake of his head. "Opportunists." He looked back to the barn, a muscle twitching in his cheek. "Josiah mentioned an empty stall of late, since the calf sold."

I nodded, still unable to connect my Grandfather to a thief. If that were what he truly was. "Can we take him in the house?" I shuddered at the thought of Grandfather's body locked in with the cats and Athaliah with no one to watch him. "If Athaliah kicks down the partition between her stall and the other, I can't lift it alone." I clenched my teeth and gave a decisive nod. "I'll bring the cats inside for the night. At least he can rest without them crawling all over him."

"I can take care of the cow."

I was too weary to argue with Dalby's offer.

We manoeuvred the litter into the empty stall by fits and jerks. The outside doors stuck at first, the hinges squealed in protest. Grandfather would have oiled them today after breakfast; another job for me on the morrow. They gave way on the second tug. They swung back in so quickly that they caught the back of my skirt, and yanked off the blanket I had wrapped around my shoulders. Dalby pulled my skirt free of the door with a gentle touch. He stepped back then, and though it was dark inside, I imagined his eyes cast down while I wrapped myself again.

Athaliah's tail flicked in wide, angry arcs. One round brown eye caught the fading light, stubby white lashes standing out in contrast. She snorted and stomped, her full udder swayed. My eyes drifted to the empty peg on the wall.

"The milk bucket...it's still in the house." My voice sounded coarse and cracked. Images of thieving racoons came to mind, masked bandits washing their paws in the fresh milk with no one to tend it. I ran to the house, skirts gathered in one hand.

The door had not been closed all the way after all. It gave way without so much as a push. Inside was chaos. The bucket lay on its side, empty again, but for a thin layer of frozen milk along one side. Eggshells were scattered about the floor, the blankets from Grandfather's bed strewn in haphazard fashion.

"Can they leave me nothing?" My voice tore from my throat in a plaintive wail, lost and shrill. Even Grandfather's good shirt, the one he wore for church and trips to town, was crumpled on the floor, decorated with wet, muddy racoon prints and sprinkles of black and gray hairs.

I dashed forward and knelt to retrieve it. Brushing the hairs off, I buried my face in it, trying to smell past cold air and wet animal for sweet cider and lye soap. It was too late.

The silence of the room told me that the racoons were long gone. It must have been a fine game for them, opening, scattering and knocking over as they would. They played, romped, rested, ate their fill and went home.

At the whisk of a straw broom moving over the floorboards, I sat back on my haunches, shirt still clutched beneath my chin. The broom stopped, and I looked up. Dalby gathered shards of the cream crock into one cupped hand. He deposited them in an orderly pile on the end of the table, while righting the milk bucket with his foot. He looped two fingers through the bucket's handle and stood for a moment, still as a statue.

"Milk" was all he said, not so much a word as a thought given voice. "You'll need milk. We'll need milk." The door shut behind him with a soft thud.

I forced myself to stand, shake the racoon hairs from the shirt and hang it back on its peg. Gray Wolf would want it the next time he came. If not in trade, then as a mourning gift. Gray Wolf and Grandfather were better friends than many I'd seen, brothers not in blood, but in heart and spirit. I knew he would have come if he knew he were needed, but passing on the shirt was the best I could do.

"At least we have the fire." I dashed the back of my hand against my forehead and moved to the hearth. Cinders still glowed a hopeful red-orange. I retrieved the poker from under the bed and kicked Grandfather's pillow away from the toppled fire screen. With the fire properly encouraged, I returned the poker to its rightful place next to the screen and looked up to the loft.

Whatever havoc the racoons had managed to wreak there would have to wait. I moved at a brisk pace, swept the floor and closed barrels and cabinets, stripped Grandfather's bed down to the bare mattress before I put on clean sheets. My hands smoothed over a quilt my great-grandmother had made, fingers traced the faded blues and pinks and greens. I lingered over the odd washes of varying shades of brown that bespoke of some spill or mishap.

Grandfather told me often how the quilt was his beginning and would likely see his end. It covered his mother's bridal bed, received him as an infant, and kept him warm every night of his life, to the very last.

I decided I would keep the quilt for myself, rather than give it to Gray Wolf for his herbs. No, the herbs were for Grandfather, not me. I could take the shell combs that Gray Wolf's sister carved, if he still had any. He would take a blanket for those.

"Such a thought." I chided myself aloud, and felt the shame color my cheeks. There was no time to daydream about vanities. I needed to think of more practical matters.

Samuel's nose nudged the door open, ushering in a crowd of dogs, cats and Dalby. At another time, I might have laughed to see them that way. The cats slicked through his legs like a river of fur and bright eyes. Rahab yapped as her tail waggled back and forth. Samuel sniffed at the bucket and sack balanced in Dalby's arms. He had not only milked Athaliah, but been to the smokehouse besides.

There was a flicker in his eyes for a moment, as though he wanted to turn around and run from me. His lips thinned, his face paled. Mews and barks broke the silence. A growl, a hiss and a yelp played out in the space of a second. My stomach rumbled.

I willed myself to favor Dalby with as broad a smile as I could, and prattled my thanks for his thoughtfulness until the wildness left his eyes. "Surely" I told him as I drew cuts of bacon and venison from the sack, "the Good Lord sent an angel to remind you I wanted meat for our supper."

"Our supper." He said the words to himself. A man alone might be much used to thinking aloud, I imagined. "Our supper."

"Whose else would it be?" His forehead pinched at my careless words. "Beg pardon." I gave him a bowl to take the place of the broken crock. He pressed the bowl back into my hand, the callused pads of his fingers touching my scraped palm. I took a breath and we changed places. He was close, too close, the heat and the breath and the warmth of him filled the space the way Grandfather never had. His eyes took in the humble appointments of the single room like a small child suddenly transported to fairyland. The table, the benches, the bed, the loft, they were all something to linger over, drink in, consume. I dropped a spoon when I felt those eyes linger on me.

One of the cats jumped into the center of the quilt. She kneaded the neatly tucked fabric with her double paws and stuck one striped leg high in the air to wash with quiet ceremony. Her siblings spread out, tested each knot in the floorboards with questing paws; swiping at Rahab's nose; or angling a pointed face to catch droplets of milk from the bucket Dalby still held.

"I'll need to set that aside. For the cream." Why were those the only words I could find?

"Then this will be my task." Dalby raised the sack from the smokehouse. I nodded and left the meat to Dalby's minding, letting him sneak bits of fat and gristle to the pets beneath the table.

It was only after we ate that I was able to think of anything intelligent to say. We spoke little enough as we prepared our meal. A short instruction here or there, a request for dish or pot or spoon. We had reprimands for the dogs when they were underfoot, or praise when they stayed where we wanted.

Beyond this day, we had no common experiences to relate. I knew nothing of his life before our meeting, and had no wish to share mine. What privacy I had, I cherished. We fell silent after Dalby blessed the meal, though I heard him say the blessing over again in my mind as I ate.

"Heavenly Father, giver of all life, bless this food to our bodies and our hearts to Your service. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen."

"You sound like Grandfather when you pray."

"I should. He taught me. A man should be able to talk to a friend at any time."

I made note of that, registered it as though I had chance to listen to him address the Creator often, instead of just once. "Then was God your only friend, except for Grandfather? How lonely that must have been..." I bit down on my lower lip at the shadow behind his eyes. "Though solitude can be peaceful at times. When one wants it." Dear God, why could I not tame my tongue? First I say nothing and now this? I took a long drink to keep my mouth occupied before I said anything worse.

Dalby sat in Grandfather's place, his back to the fire, a halo of light around him, like a saint or angel's portrait. His chair scraped as he moved it back from the table. A tear on the knee of his breeches told me that Grandfather never had fixed that protruding nail he'd promised to fix last week. "I welcomed the visits," was all he said.

I mopped a crust of bread through a puddle of venison broth in the center of my plate. Those were two more chores to tend in the morning. Pound the nail in fully, stitch Dalby's breeches, and fix the latch. The list grew so long in my mind that I could imagine it written out and running the length of the table. And still there was Grandfather.

I set my spoon down, pewter clanking on pewter. Dalby looked up from his plate, a piece of bacon halfway from plate to mouth. When I looked away, he chewed, swallowed and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

That ordinary gesture startled me. His manners were finer than I had come to expect from one as isolated as Dalby. He used his napkin frequently, kept his mouth closed while chewing, and took his time with each bite, swallowing one before taking another. Perhaps he had been something else long ago.

He caught me staring, and my cheeks flushed. "Is something wrong?"

I cast about, willing myself to find a reason to leave the table. "Pie. There is half a pie left, and I forgot to put it out. Will it be all right cold?" I made myself rise slowly from the table, a courteous smile on my lips. "Grandfather always said apples like me, and so they behave when I bake them." I fumbled with the latch on the cupboard, releasing subtle scents of nutmeg and cinnamon into the air as Dalby's eyes gleamed.

"Cold will be fine. He was right about the apples. They do like you."

Images came to me, disjointed memories of Grandfather heading outside of an evening, packing a small leather pouch with tobacco, bread, and an apple or two. "He took them to you."

"Not often enough." He drew the pie plate closer to his and stabbed his fork into the crust before his eyes met mine and pushed the pie back into the middle of the table. "It was a rare treat." There was a little-boy wistfulness tugging the corners of his mouth. I cut myself a sliver and gave him the rest.

"Then you shall have more now." I opened my mouth to ask what else they spoke of on their visits, but my hand stuck a spoonful of pie in it before I could speak. More words would change things, and I had known enough of change for one day already.

When we both had our fill, Dalby sat back in his chair, eyes closed. A sigh of contentment belied the tired set of his features before he remembered where he was. He stood, gathering plates and utensils together, then looking about uncertain what to do next.

I cleared my throat. "Grandfather usually has his pipe after supper when we sat together. That is, he used to. He is out there now, alone," and held my hands out for the dishes.

Dalby gave them to me, warm from the fire, warm from his touch. "I can sit with him." He fingered the seam of his sleeve. "If you can spare some blankets..." he nodded at the mound of cats and dogs on the bed.

"A moment." I pulled my skirts to one side and headed for the ladder to the loft. It was less trouble to climb up there than getting the animals to disentangle themselves to move. Once I could reach it, I plucked a fresh blanket from the end of my bed.

A sharp pinch of wind blew through a chink in the wood. I had spent enough nights up there, huddled in my quilts, to know what that meant. This was a hot brick night. No, more than that. A hot brick at the foot of the bed and a dog on top of the covers, perhaps even under them. I knew it would be a fine trick to coax Rahab out of her furry pile below to join me here. I grabbed my good pillow, the one stuffed with duck feathers, and tucked it under my arm.

Halfway down the ladder, I stepped on my hem; the pillow fell to the floor. I shuddered at the keening sound the wind made. The barn was plenty warm, I told myself. Athaliah made enough heat to roast a pig. Grandfather always said that was why we never dared pen one with her. He would tap my nose with a finger after that and go on his way.

Even Gray Wolf preferred to sleep in the barn when he came. Houses were not for him, he said, and the straw was soft. Athaliah snored like his wife, only a little louder so that he would not mistake one for the other in his sleep. He had only to stamp down the hay in the empty stall and invite the cats to join him before he could sleep.

I placed one foot on the floor, then the other, and bent to retrieve the pillow. Dalby, I saw, had found the bricks while I was in the loft, and had them warming in the fire. I held pillow and blanket out to him as an offering and walked with him to the door. It opened to a swirling wall of white.