Curiosity stood just a few feet away, holding Martha to her, rocking the child silently.

“You don't know that,” Lily said, and heard the tremor in her own voice and, worse, the lie threaded through the words. But when she opened her mouth nothing else would come out. “You can't know that.”

“But I do,” Callie moaned. “I do.”

Elizabeth had always thought that she would one day make a sharp old woman, quick of wit and tongue, unflinching; silly young women would fear her, and with cause. She would model herself on her aunt Merriweather, she had always told Nathaniel. He had smiled at that and never corrected her, no matter what doubts he had. Now she wondered if she could live up to her aunt's stern example; it seemed to her that with every year she was a little more scattered, softer, unable to strike out, even when it was necessary.

To her daughter she said, “Tell me again what Nicholas said.” Supper had come and gone and they sat together around the hearth. Many-Doves was sewing moccasins to send to Nut Island for her son; she never spoke of Blue-Jay, but she never stopped working either, and Elizabeth had the sense that soon she would just leave the mountain and walk north, until she found him.

Something Elizabeth thought of doing, now and then, without any real hope that such a thing might be possible.

Lily took a deep breath and rubbed her forehead with three fingers stained indigo blue. “I wasn't there,” she said again. “But what Curiosity told me was, Nicholas is going to find Jemima. Because of the child. Otherwise he would just let her go, that's what he said.”

“But Curiosity didn't believe him,” Nathaniel said, to no one in particular. “I sure don't.”

“No,” Lily agreed. “Curiosity didn't believe him and neither did Callie nor Martha.”

Gabriel sat at Nathaniel's feet, uncharacteristically quiet, turning a bit of wood in his hands one way and then the other. Elizabeth saw Nathaniel taking the boy's measure and coming up short.

He said, “You've been sitting on something all day, son. You might as well spit it out.”

Elizabeth knew her youngest child's expressions as well as she knew the shape and texture of her own hands, and she did not like what she saw in his face. Nor did she like the uneasy looks Annie was sending his way.

He said, “Didn't Jemima go south?”

Elizabeth caught Nathaniel's eye and saw that he knew where this was going, though she herself only suspected.

“She did,” he said. “Mr. Stiles saw her in Johnstown.”

Gabriel raised his head and looked at his father. “Nicholas went west,” he said. “I saw his tracks all the way over past the Big Slough. Fresh too. Maybe a couple hours old.” And then, in an afterthought he turned to Many-Doves. “I was by myself,” he said. “All day.”

If not for the seriousness of the situation, Elizabeth might have been charmed out of her worry by her son's courtly manners: he meant to absolve Annie, and spare her the trouble he was calling down on himself. Annie's tense expression was replaced by something new: satisfaction, thankfulness, affection.

It was an old problem: Gabriel roamed far beyond the boundaries that had been set for him. He was not a rebellious child by nature, but there was something in him that just could not comply with restrictions on the way he moved through the world. Many-Doves looked up from her sewing, looked directly at Elizabeth, and inclined her head.

If she were to speak now, Elizabeth knew what she would say: You can no more fence this child in than you could a young wolf. It is in his blood.

It was true that more than any of the other children, Gabriel had his grandfather Hawkeye's wandering ways. It would take strong rope to keep him on the mountain, and knots as yet unknown to man. Nathaniel was thinking the same thing; she could see the resignation and a little pride, too, in his face.

Lily just looked confused, and very tired. There were circles under her eyes, and a trembling in her hands when she reached for her teacup. Elizabeth saw those things and understood them, or thought she did. She reminded herself of her resolution to stay out of Lily's affairs of the heart.

Nathaniel said, “Headed west, was he?”

Gabriel pushed out a relieved sigh, and he nodded. Now that he had confessed to his wandering without causing an outcry, he perked up. He said, “I followed him a few miles, and he never turned south. He was headed into the bush. Why did he lie about where he was going?”

This question he directed to his mother, but she had no answer for him, or none that she would speak out loud. Elizabeth leaned over and brushed a pine needle from Gabriel's hair.

“I'm not sure,” she said. “But tomorrow your father will see what he can find out.”

Lily jerked out of her daydream at that, hearing the things Elizabeth had not said, had scrupled to say out loud.

“Da,” Lily said, but he only shook his head at her, gently.

“We'll see what we see,” he said quietly. “It's time you were off to your bed, Lily, and sleep. And correct me if I got this wrong, but ain't tomorrow the last day of school?”

It was almost comical, the way Gabriel and Annie tried to hide their pleasure as they assured him that he was right, school was about to go into recess as it always did at planting time. If not for fear of hurting their teacher's feelings, she knew they would be dancing around the room.

What they didn't realize, what she wouldn't tell them, was that she was looking forward to the end of the school term as much as they were, maybe more.