To her surprise, Nathaniel dropped her hand and stood up to look out over the lake. "You're avoiding your swimming lesson."

"I want to know about Sarah," Elizabeth said, a little surprised at him. He was looking down at her with an impatience she hadn't anticipated. He didn't answer her; she could see a muscle fluttering in his cheek.

"Nathaniel?"

"What?" he asked sharply. "What do you want to know about Sarah? She was my wife, and she left my bed for Richard Todd's. Isn't that enough to know?"

Shocked, Elizabeth rose to face him. She felt herself flood with anger and embarrassment and then with more anger. She cleared her throat. "But—”

“I'm damn tired of questions," Nathaniel snapped. "Maybe we could get to the end of them one of these days?"

Elizabeth's hands were trembling, and she pressed them against her sides under her arms. "You have been telling me all along that I need to know this story."

"Well, you don't," he interrupted, his face suddenly blank and unreadable. "You're a clever woman," he said. "But there's a blindness in you for some things, Elizabeth. There's no easy answers here. Nothing I can tell you about Sarah to make it all clear to you. She's dead, let's leave her lie in peace."

"But what about you, what about your peace?"

He grimaced. "Well, I suppose I've got some coming to me now, maybe. Or at least I will once Todd has been dealt with and the Wolf can't be taken away from me anymore."

"I see," Elizabeth said tightly. She was turning away, pulling on her clothing, jamming her legs into her leggings and yanking at the ties.  "As long as you've got Hidden Wolf."

"Where are you going?"

"For a walk."

"You can't run off."

"I'm not running off." she said hoarsely. "I am going for a walk. You seem to need some time to yourself, and so do I."

Suddenly his anger left him visibly, flowed away from him like a breaking fever. They stood there almost nose to nose, each breathing heavily. Sweat ran down Nathaniel's face, although they stood in shadow.

He said, "I had one wife who ran away, and I wasn't counting on another one."

Elizabeth blinked in surprise at this. He was afraid, Nathaniel was afraid of telling her what she wanted to know. It made her curious and angry and sad, all at once.

"Nathaniel Bonner," she said quietly. "It is you who don't want to talk to me."

He was mute, his jaw working in a tight circle as he stared at her. Nathaniel leaned in toward her then, his face a mask. "Maybe you're sorry you took me, then," he said. "Maybe you're wondering if you should have listened harder to Todd."

Elizabeth drew herself up. "I didn't want Richard Todd, I never did. And I'm not taking his side here, or Sarah's. Do you understand that clearly? For as long as you have known Richard he has been trying to gain advantage over you. Unfairly, and in ways which are insupportable." She took a deep breath. "I do not need to know the details of what went on between him and Sarah. But I am very distressed by the fact that you don't trust me enough to tell me the whole story and let me decide for myself—”

“Decide for yourself? Decide what? If I was at fault, if I drove her off?"

She shook her head slowly, and then began to turn away, but Nathaniel took her by the arm, held her there where she did not want to be.

"Goddamn it, I listened to you and now you listen to me. I can tell you another truth, Elizabeth, and it's the one that should concern you most. I wanted you from the first and I want you now, and that has nothing to do with Sarah or with Todd or with anybody in this world but with you, and me."

"I want some time on my own," she said, not meeting his eye.

"It ain't safe."

"I managed well enough while you were gone," she said sharply, pulling away. "I can manage now."

He hesitated. She could feel him thinking, and then suddenly he stepped back.

"I'll wait for you here," he said at last, his voice sounding as strange and hoarse as her own. "Don't go out of shouting distance."

She nodded without looking at him, and set off into the woods.

Chapter 30

Once she was lost, there was nothing to do but admit it to herself. Elizabeth had been walking uphill for what must have been an hour when she stepped out of the woods and found herself on the edge of a meadow; it wasn't until then that she realized that she had bypassed the turning which would have led her back to Robbie.

There would be a price to pay for her preoccupation, but she could not contemplate that at the moment, not when she saw what she had in front of her. The world lay revealed, in a way it hadn't been since she had gone into the bush with Runs-from-Bears. There was an expanse of mountain meadow in tender greens and patches of unfurling bracken, spotted with blossoming goats beard in gaudy yellow. The edge of the meadow was framed by a low wall of sedge grass, and beyond that the rolling hills gave way to the mountains.

And on it all, light and shadow moved in a complex dance, the clouds throwing down great ragged fists of deep indigo to be swept suddenly away by slanting shafts of sunlight. Every touch of moisture on every evergreen needle seemed to spark. The world was layers of glowing color and light and a soft, warm breeze like a caress against her face. Elizabeth sat down, simply, and with her knees tucked under her chin and her arms wound round her legs, she let herself take it in.