"I'm going." O'Brien threw up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Don't want to give Bonner an excuse to toss another man off this mountain."

Liam's color came up in a rush. Elizabeth put a hand on his shoulder and pressed.

"He's going now," she said softly. "Steady on."

At the door, O'Brien pulled on his cap. "I'm heading home to Albany, but I'll be back in the spring if that gold hasn't showed up in the meantime."

"Pray do what you must," Elizabeth said tightly. "And so shall we."

* * *

After a simple meal of stewed beans and squash, when the chores had been seen to, Elizabeth sat down to read aloud in the hope that it would calm them all after an eventful and emotional day. Falling—Day and Many-Doves joined them, bringing along the last of the corn for shucking and braiding.

Aunt Merriweather had brought Elizabeth a great many books, but when she suggested them one by one there was no particular excitement in the room.

"Hamlet," suggested Liam.

"Again? But we just finished it."

Falling—Day agreed with Liam. "It is not often we have tales of O'seronni ghosts."

Many-Doves and Hannah were quite willing to hear the same story again—Elizabeth thought that perhaps they could listen to it many times without tiring——and so she settled down near the hearth and began to read by the bright light of a pine knot, always with one ear turned toward the porch. Nathaniel and Runs-from-Bears had gone out to check trap lines and they had taken Will Spencer with them.

Full dark, and inside the cabin there was only the sound of the wood hissing softly in the hearth and the gentle crackling of corn husks. Elizabeth read the conversation between Hamlet and his father's ghost, and hands slowed at their work as they were caught up in the familiar story.

There was a step at the door. Elizabeth put down the book while her heart picked up an extra beat. It seemed to her, as it always did, that the men brought the forests in with them: the quiet room was transformed suddenly by the mere fact of their size, and the energy with which they moved. Everyone was up: there were traps to be put aside for cleaning and repair, a brace of fat snow geese and one of grouse to be hung, bowls of stew and rounds of corn bread to be provided, dry moccasins to fetch, damp heads to be toweled.

Will Spencer looked truly relaxed for the first time since he had come to Paradise, and let himself be drawn into the normal flow of things without protest. While they ate, Nathaniel and Runs-from-Bears told of their day, and the things they had seen: a moose in rut; at dusk, a flock of ravens at roost that numbered in the hundreds; a single gyrfalcon on the cliffs above the falls. Falling—Day drew in air between her teeth at this last bit of information.

"Winter pushing hard from the north," was her explanation of such a rare sight.

"How was tea with your aunt?" Nathaniel asked Elizabeth, looking up from his bowl.

"Eventful," Elizabeth said. And seeing Hannah ready to tell all, from Kitty's story to what had passed with O'Brien, she said: "We have been reading this evening."

"Oh?" said Will. "Do you read aloud, then?"

Hannah brought him the worn volume, and he looked around the table with an expression of mild surprise.

"What do you think of the Danish prince?"

This question had been directed at Many-Doves , who sat to the side with her lap full of corncobs.

"Revenge is a bitter meal," Many-Doves said, without looking up from her work. "It is not one to linger over."

"He takes too long to get down to business," agreed Liam.

Falling—Day said: "He is like most of the O'seronni I have known."

"And how is that?" Will asked, looking distinctly unsettled.

"He thinks when he should act, and acts when he should think."

No one laughed at this, because Falling—Day did not mean it to be funny.

* * *

Nathaniel left a short time later with Will to show him the way down the mountainside to the judge's, and the rest of them returned to their work. Runs-from-Bears stretched expansively, working the muscles between his shoulders.

"How was Will in the forest?" Elizabeth asked, too curious to wait for Nathaniel's opinion.

"He moves like a cat," said Bears. "He knows how to listen."

"Ah," Elizabeth said, pleased with this, the highest of praise from Runs-from-Bears. "Nathaniel thinks him strange."

"Oh, he is strange," said Bears. "For an O'seronni."

Falling—Day said: "There is more than one kind of man in the world."

"And what kind of man is Will Spencer?" asked Elizabeth, intrigued.

"A rich one," said Liam.

"That is not what my grandmother means," Hannah chided him softly, and Liam dropped his gaze to the corn in his great red—raw hands.

"He is a dreamer," said Many-Doves for her mother. "He lives in other worlds and comes into this one only when he has some purpose to serve."

Falling—Day nodded. "Among the Kahnyen’keháka he would become shaman, if he survived at all."

* * *

Nathaniel walked Will Spencer as far as the village, and agreed to have a drink with him in the tavern. Axel had been dozing near the hearth while his customers served themselves, but he roused himself when he heard Nathaniel's voice.

"There's a rumor," he said, pouring their ale.