He was awake at the dog's first shifting, but he lay as he was, listening. As he had been taught to do, as he had done for all of his life, he threw his senses forward into the dark, feeling the shapes there by their sounds. No need yet to reach for his rifle.

When she started toward him, he almost raised a hand to stop her, but then hesitated. Behind Elizabeth's back, the dog had come to a halt and waited, her head cocked. In the flickering light of the fire, Nathaniel could see her shape change as she relaxed.

Elizabeth did not see the red dog turn back, nor did she see Robbie rise, and taking his gun, slip into the shadows. Her face was a study in concentration.

"You're awake," she whispered. "Didn't you hear—"

She glanced over her shoulder, and started at the sight of the red dog at rest by the fire, head on her paws. Elizabeth sat up, supporting her weight on one arm.

"Traitor," she whispered.

The dog's tail thumped.

Nathaniel held up the corner of his blanket. "Now that you're here."

He saw her thinking it through.

"Please."

The small scowl still firmly in place, she joined him. She lay on her side with her back to him, her body tensed.

"What do you think it is?"

Nathaniel shrugged. "Don't know," he said. "Robbie will deal with it."

"What if it's your Windigo?"

He paused. "Not in this part of the bush," he said, brushing stray hair away from her neck. Her smells were strongest here, at the hairline and the crown of her head. He resisted the urge to bury his face in the soft skin between shoulder and ear.

Robbie came back into camp and made no comment about the change in the sleeping arrangements. "Naucht bu' wolves," he said, seeking out Nathaniel's gaze for a long moment. "They've found easier prey in yon beaver pond, and wilma bother us this night." But he spent some time building up the fire before he returned to his blankets.

Elizabeth lay awake, the sound of her breathing slightly labored, as if she had run a long distance. He moved closer, and she tensed slightly without moving away. Nathaniel breathed softly on her ear; she let out a small sigh.

"Thank God for wolves," he whispered. Her skin rose in response to the movement of his lips, but she did not turn to him. He pulled her back against him, and felt her resistance growing. "Don't," he whispered. "Don't, please."

She struggled, then, openly, and in one violent motion, Elizabeth turned to him to take his face between her palms. In the dark her eyes seemed overlarge, glistening, the fringe of dark lashes damp.

"I cannot ask you not to be angry at me for what I did to you," she whispered. He tried to speak, but she hushed him with a sound.

"Do not deny it, even to yourself. But I want you to promise me that you will never hold it up to me again like that."

In his arms she was all tension and terrible hurt; he could feel it writhing inside of her. Nathaniel flushed with remorse for what he had said so thoughtlessly in his anger.

"We've got tempers, the both of us."

"Do you not understand, Nathaniel? It's much more than that." Her eyes moved over his face. "You and I, we have a power over each other, it is like no other force in this world. Between us, words can do worse injury than—”

“Any rifle," he finished for her. "Yes." There was a churning in his chest that closed his throat and made each word painful.

"I'll try," he said hoarsely.

She let out a sigh. Her smells struck him forcibly, her anger and her arousal enveloping him, winding around him as he wound himself around her. Vaguely, he was aware of Robbie leaving his bed and disappearing once again into the night.

She reached for him with strong hands, demanding her due. Her roughness was new to him, her greed as arousing as her heat. At some point Nathaniel remembered the child and tried to pull away, to temper himself. But she would not have it, could not have it, and clung to him still riding the wave of her fury. He gave in, caring for her the best way he knew how. In the end she rewarded him with a shudder and a smile and deep, healing sleep.

Chapter 44

There was a two—day portage waiting for them when they finally reached the end of the long water the Kahnyen’keháka called Tail—of—the—Lake, known to the whites as Lake George. The walk westward to the Hudson drained Elizabeth of the last of her energy and her patience. She wanted to be home. She wanted a hot bath and Curiosity's special soap to rid herself of the accumulated vermin of the journey. She wanted to sleep in a bed; the last time she had had the pleasure of one was on her wedding night, so many weeks ago. She wanted to see Hannah, and get on with the business of being a mother to her. Elizabeth was struggling very hard to be rational and patient and reasonable, and her inconsistent success at these basic requirements of herself did not suit in the least.

Once they had come to the juncture of the Hudson and the Sacandaga, Nathaniel insisted on a full day's rest. Elizabeth thought she would die of wanting to get on with it: they were only days out of Paradise, after all. But Nathaniel was firm, and met her objections with calm reasoning she could not counter. To his credit, he bore her ill humor with equanimity which was neither condescending nor overbearing, and in the end she had to admit that the rest did her much good. She slept for the most part, dreaming strange, brightly colored dreams of Hawkeye and Falling—Day, Runs-from-Bears and Many-Doves and Hannah, Curiosity and Anna Hauptmann.