Jamie thought about that for a moment. "No," he finally said. "Let them forever be cased. It's time to unite the country. Let's go home."

  Kate stood on the porch as her husband rode up. "Well, you look familiar," she told him. "I guess it's you. I'm surprised you remembered the way home."

  "You still have a mighty sharp tongue on you, woman."

  Kate ignored that. "Well, get down, old man. I have hot coffee and hot food inside."

  "Is that all?" Jamie questioned, stepping out of the saddle.

  "Hell, no!" Kate told him with a smile, then walked into the house.

  Jamie stepped inside and closed the door behind them.

  Book Three

  Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

  — Mark Twain

  29

  Those who had left the valley to fight in the war were beginning to return — all those who were coming back. Igemar returned minus his left hand. It had been blown off in Tennessee. Tomas returned and told his parents where Jorge was buried. Wells and Robert were buried with several hundred others in a mass grave in South Carolina, along with their white officers.

  Falcon and Matthew came riding in from Texas together, arguing and fussing about the war.

  "The both of you shut up!" their brother Ian told them. "Before I whup the pair of you."

  Louie Huske and his family pulled in and were made welcome by all. The old soldier promptly bought some land from Jamie and settled down to farm during the summer and opened up a small saloon to run during the fall and winter.

  Little Ben Pardee immediately started sparking one of Ellen Kathleen's daughters and began changing his mind about wandering.

  Doctor Tom Prentiss opened his office in Valley, Colorado, and for a time, everybody put the war behind them. All around them the Indians were going on the warpath, but never against any of those who settled in MacCallister's Valley.

  Union troops visited the twin valleys several years after the war's end, and they were received warmly — much to their surprise, for they knew all about Colonel Jamie MacCallister and his Marauders — and stayed for several days. They were stationed at Fort Lyon — located on the Arkansas River, just below the mouth of the Purgatoire — and were on a scouting expedition.

  "Any Indian trouble?" the major in charge asked Jamie.

  "We don't have trouble with the Indians," Jamie told him. "We live with the land and those who inhabit it. There are some tribes the white man will never get along with, but with most, they're peaceful if you give them a fair chance to be."

  "You sound as though you really like the Indians," the major said.

  "I do," Jamie said simply.

  "I have never seen so many blond-haired and blue-eyed children in one place," a young lieutenant remarked. "And adults, too, for that matter."

  Kate smiled at the young man. "Most of them are our kids, grand-kids, and great-grandkids."

  The young officer blinked at that, for Kate, like Jamie, did not look her age. "You have great-grandchildren?" he blurted.

  Jamie laughed at the expression on his face. "Son, me and Kate got married when we were both fourteen. Our oldest twins are forty years old and they married young. You figure it out."

  Truth was, if pressed on the issue, Jamie could not begin to name all his grandkids and great-grandkids . . . but Kate could, of course.

  The major leaned forward. "Sir, our trip here was twofold. One, we wanted to see this peaceful place in the middle of hostile territory, and two, I wanted to warn you that you have powerful and influential enemies back east."

  Jamie smiled. "Major, I've had powerful enemies since I was about six years old and taken by the Shawnees. As far as my enemies back east, I can just about tell you their names: Olmstead and Layfield, to name two of them."

  The major studied Jamie for a moment. "That is correct, sir, as far as you took it. But there are others just as powerful, or more so. Do you know a man named Newby?"

  Both Kate and Jamie chuckled. "The Newbys again? Good Lord.

  Talk about a name from the past. Uneducated trash, the whole lot of them."

  "One side of the family, yes. The other side, no. But the educated and wealthy side is much more devious and dangerous. Then we have the Saxons — "

  Kate groaned. "Is it never going to end, Jamie?"

  "Doesn't look like it, does it, Kate."

  "You killed a man named Bradford down in the Big Thicket country years ago, Jamie," the major said.

  "I might have. The name doesn't ring a bell."

  "Some of his relatives have struck gold and silver in the Colorado mountains, and have become quite wealthy. They are also your sworn enemies. Be careful, Colonel," the major used Jamie's old military rank. "These mountains abound with men who have sworn to kill you."

  "That's going to take some doing, Major."

  "Yes," the major said drily. "I just imagine it will."

  Matthew had taken over his old job of sheriff. Back before the war, there had been precious little to do, but since the discovery of gold and silver, all sorts of trash and human vermin were flooding into the state, and Matthew found himself staying busy. Sometimes those types even made the mistake of entering MacCallister's Valley. They usually did not linger long, but as more and more people pushed west, there were those who tried to settle in the lushness of the twin valleys. Jamie sold land to a few people, but most he turned away.

  Most went quietly, but a few kicked up a fuss about it. One of those who got all up in Jamie's face was a man who called himself Grover Ellis.

  "You can't own the whole goddamn area, MacCallister!" Grover blustered.

  "Oh, but I do," Jamie said. "Check it out. You'll find it all legal and proper."

  "You can't keep me from prospectin' up yonder in the mountains, MacCallister!"

  "I don't own the mountains, Ellis," Jamie told him. "Prospect all you like." Jamie pointed to one of the small peaks in the distance. "I would suggest you look there. At the base on the southwest side."

  "Huh! Fat chance I'll do that. You'd have me diggin' there for the rest of my life and findin' nothin'. Hell with you, MacCallister. I'll move on, but I got kin. I got kin. And you ain't heard the last of Grover Ellis."

  If Ellis had gone where Jamie had told him to go, and worked hard at it, he would have found a small vein of the yellow metal, enough for the man to live out the rest of his life in some degree of security. But instead he chose to dig on the other side of the peak, and got himself killed because of it.

  Cort Woodville never returned to Ravenswood Plantation, and it was two years after the war before Anne found out what had happened to her husband. Cort had been wounded during the battle of Spotsylvania, taken prisoner, escaped, and was wounded during the escape. It was presumed he died in the timber around the Union encampment; but his body was never found, and no one really knew what happened to Cort Woodville. Bodies of hundreds of men, on both sides, were never found.

  Since Anne Woodville owned bits and pieces of many factories up north, a fact that was quietly passed on to Union commanders around Richmond before it fell, Ravenswood came through the war unscathed. And while Anne was a ruthless and cunning woman, she was also a very smart woman. She doled out parcels of land to the most trusted of her slaves, and they began farming the land on shares. The South was hungry, and Ravenswood stopped growing cotton and began producing tons of vegetables to feed the hungry. Ravenswood's ex-slaves were content to own and farm land on shares, the Federal government was content with what Anne was doing, and Anne was making money hand over fist. She was probably, at the time, the richest woman in the state of Virginia.

  Page Woodville had grown into a beautiful young woman, even more beautiful than her mother. She was just as intelligent as Anne, but twice as cunning and devious and dangerous . . . when she wanted to be. Page had dark hair, and dark eyes, and a figure that turned men's heads wherever she walked. But when angered, her eyes could be as cold as frozen black water.

  Anne's brother, Ross, had done well enough on his own. He had married the woman he'd gotten pregnant (the daughter of a wealthy Southern family), and was the father of fine young boy the couple had named Garrison; Gar, for short. Just before the South had exploded in war, Ross fathered another child, this time a girl. On the afternoon of the birthing, Ross sat in the parlor with a loaded pistol by his side, ready to blow his brains out if the child was born with Negro features. The girl was born white, with dark hair and dark eyes; but definitely white. Ross breathed a sigh of relief and put the pistol away. The girl was named Chastity.

  When the South began to fall, Ross' wife simply could not endure the thought of those horrible Yankees taking control, and she took to her bed, forbidding Ross to ever touch her again, which suited Ross just fine, since his sexual appetites certainly leaned the other way. Ross' wife succumbed to the vapors and drifted peacefully off to that great cotillion in the sky just before Lee's surrender, and Ross was left with a huge plantation and two kids to raise. Being no fool, Ross followed his sister's actions and parceled out the plantation, which met with the smiling satisfaction of the reconstructionists (Ross eventually bought back all the property from the ex-slaves, as did his sister), and began producing vegetables to feed the South.

  "What a joke," Ross said to his sister one afternoon as the two of them were having lemonade on the porch of Ravenswood. "Two half-breeds running the two largest and most profitable plantations in the whole damn state. God certainly must have a sense of humor."

  Anne glared at him, but said nothing. She sighed as Ross said, "What about that field hand you whelped, sister? Do you have any idea what became of him?"

  "Yes," she replied, startling her brother. "It took some doing, but I did it, with a lot of very discreet help. His name is Ben Franklin Washington and he lives in Boston. He graduated from a fine college and is now a writer for a newspaper. He's doing quite well, but has learned, somehow, that the family that raised him was not his own. He's beginning to make inquiries."

  "What can come of it? Georgia Washington is dead. Selma and Tyrone are both gone; outside of us, they're the only ones who know the truth. Cort was killed in the war. What can come of his inquiries?"

  "I don't think Cort is dead. I never felt that he was dead. He's out there." She waved a hand. "Somewhere."

  Ross was silent for a moment. After a huge sigh, he said, "I never thought he was dead, either, sis. Cort was more of a man than either one of us thought. I think he survived the war and headed west, to start all over. To put all this behind him. And I sure as hell don't blame him."

  "His holdings were quietly liquidated," Anne said. "I went to his attorney just a few months ago and tried to find out something, anything. He told me it was a closed book; Cort was dead. I didn't believe him. I didn't like the way he smiled. He was smug. He was lying." She looked at her brother. "You haven't been out here in a long time, Ross. Why did you choose this day to come visiting?"

  "You are aware that Page has been seeing a young man from the university?"

  "I heard. So?"

  "He's a fine young man."

  "I've made inquiries and discovered that. You think I would let my daughter see anyone who wasn't a proper gentleman?"

  Ross smiled and Anne braced herself. Her brother had a wicked sense of humor. "Do you know his name, Anne?"

  "His name is James William Haywood. I'm going to meet him this weekend. There will be a gala here at Ravenswood. You're not invited."

  Ross chuckled. "I'm told the young couple appear to be very serious about each other. And they do make a lovely couple. So I'm told." Ross laughed out loud.

  Anne glared at her brother. "Page kept it a secret from me for months. I don't know why. She's . . . devious about things like that."

  "Sneaky is a better word for it, and she certainly comes by it naturally."

  "You're a fine one to talk about being sneaky." She sighed. "Will you, for God's sake, get to the point of all this, Ross? You're beginning to bore me."

  "A Western young man, I'm told, Anne."

  "Yes. From Colorado." Anne froze in the lifting of the glass to her lips. "Oh, shit!" The word exploded from her mouth.

  Ross smiled. "He's quite the handsome man, I'm told. Tall and muscular, with blond hair and blue eyes. Not my type at all. Much too virile for my tastes. He'd be rough, I'm afraid."

  "You miserable son of a bitch!" Anne cussed him.

  "You sure have that right," Ross said with a laugh.

  "Say it all, Ross. You know much more than you're telling."

  "Of course, I do, sister dear. And you'd better put a stop to this romance right now. The young man courting your daughter, my quarter-breed niece, is the grandson of Jamie Ian MacCallister."

  30

  "Falcon is bringing that Indian girl to supper Saturday night," Kate told Jamie.

  "Do I detect a note of disapproval?" Jamie asked, looking up from the newspaper.

  "Oh, no! Jamie! You know better than that. I ought to slap you for even thinking that of me." Kate removed her reading glasses and gave her husband a very dirty look.

  Jamie smiled and tickled her ribs with a blunt finger. She slapped his hand away. "Son marry Cheyenne princess," Jamie said. "Have heap many papooses."

  "You are disgusting!" Kate said, moving her chair away from his. They were sitting on the front porch enjoying the warmth of early spring in the valley.

  "Besides, she's only half-Indian," Jamie said. "Her father was French. Marie Big Wind."

  "Gentle Breeze!" Kate said with a giggle.

  "Well, that's not quite it either, but close. She's a beautiful girl."

  "Yes, she is. And I'm happy for Falcon."

  Spring, 1869. Kate and Jamie were in their late fifties, and their ages were beginning to show, although neither of them looked as old as they were.

  "Has anyone heard from James William?" Jamie asked. "That boy sure doesn't like to take pen in hand and write home."

  "Ellen got some letters posted to her this morning. I'm sure one of them was from James. There she is now, coming up the way."

  Down the street, Ellen waved an envelope at her parents.

  "She heard from him," Jamie said. "Kate? How old is Ellen Kathleen?"

  "She and Jamie Ian were born in 1827. She'll be forty-three this summer."

  "Forty-three," Jamie spoke the words softly. "It doesn't seem possible. Kate, we're old!”

  She moved her chair closer to him and patted him on the arm. "We certainly didn't behave as old folks last night, dear," she reminded him.

  Jamie grunted.

  "You can still work younger men into the ground, Jamie. I think we have a few good years left us."

  Ellen Kathleen climbed the steps to the house and sat down in a chair beside her mother.

  "Heard from James William, did you, dear?" Kate asked.

  "He's got himself a girl, Ma. Sounds serious to me." She handed her mother the letter.

  Kate began silently reading the letter.

  "Am I supposed to read your mind?" Jamie asked. "Read it aloud."

  "Hush," Kate told him, thoroughly engrossed in the letter from Virginia.

  "I'll get you a cup of coffee, Pa," Ellen said.

  "That would be nice. Your ma and I are gettin' on in years. Especially your ma." That got no response from Kate. "It's nice to have someone wait on us from time to time." He jerked a thumb at Kate. "The old woman here is gettin' down in the back. I'm goin' to have to get her a cane, I reckon."

  Ellen gave her father a very queer look and, with a shake of her head, walked into the house for coffee.

  "Old woman, you mind telling me what that damn letter says?" Jamie asked.

  "Don't curse in front of the children," Kate said, not lifting her eyes from the letter.

  Jamie looked around for children. "What children?"

  "Ellen Kathleen."

  "Ellen! Hell, woman, she's a grandmother!"

  Kate reread the letter while Jamie sipped his cup of coffee, Ellen reading over her mother's shoulder.

  "It sure is nice to be so well-informed," Jamie groused. "I'll be practically a well of information after this morning."

  "Then go do it," Kate said, without looking up. "But don't overdo it."

  Jamie blinked. "Do what?"

  Kate looked up. "You just said you had to dig a well, didn't you?" Jamie's tongue started to get sharp until he noticed the twinkle in Kate's eyes and realized she'd been funning him all along. "Very funny," Jamie said. "Very funny."

  "James has him a girl and he's in love," Kate told him.

  "In heat, more than likely," Jamie said.

  Kate frowned and Ellen Kathleen giggled.

  "They want to get married," Kate added.

  "He's too damn young. Besides, he's got his education to finish."

  "He's nineteen years old, Jamie," Kate said. "And he's been out there in Virginia two years. We were fourteen, remember?"

  "That's different. It was a different time, different circumstances. Tell him he can't get married, Ellen. You and Bill forbid it."

  "Pa, telling a MacCallister they can't do something is like tossing grease on a fire. You know that."

  Jamie handed her his empty cup. "Get me some more coffee, girl. Your ma and I have to talk."

  "Yes, Pa. I guess when you get feeble it's nice to have a lot of kids around to wait on you."

  "What?" Kate asked.

  "He said the both of you were getting on in years. You especially, Ma. He said you were broke down in the back. Said you wanted him to get you a cane."

  "Oh, did he now?"

  "Well, now, that's not exactly what I said," Jamie vocally backed up.

  "I think it's time for you and I to have a little chat, Jamie Ian MacCallister," Kate said, her eyes flashing.

  "I think it's time for me to go home!" Ellen said, handing her mother the coffee cup and exiting the scene.

  Jamie chuckled. "What else did the letter say, Kate?"