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on the other side of his father’s. The two animals effectively offered concealment to the wary boy, while permitting him to observe the man who entered through the tall door. Of average height and build, the man wore stiff blue Levi’s and a heavy jacket lined with sheepskin, buttoned to his throat, and the collar turned up to brush the brim of his hat. Hawk recognized the man, Rawlins, with his muddy-brown eyes and quiet face, a face that always reminded Hawk of a calm stretch of river where the strength and swiftness of the current was hidden from looking eyes.
    There was the briefest hesitation in the man’s stride as he entered. “You finally made it back. I was beginning to worry about you, J. B.”
    The man’s eyes, unadjusted to the dimness, did not immediately see the second, smaller horse. His father didn’t respond as he dragged the saddle off the horse’s back and carried it around the animal to set it upright next to an inner wall. When he straightened, Rawlins had stopped only a few feet away and was watching him closely.
    “How was … everything?” Rawlins hesitated in the phrasing of his question.
    A long silence followed in which his father stoodmotionless, looking at the man. Then Hawk saw the great shudder that vibrated through his father.
    “She’s dead, Tom. The little one, too. She’d been to her uncle’s and left just before the storm hit.” The words spilled from him in a soft, swift rush, like the force of running water that backs up behind a dam, then finally breaks free. “The buckboard broke an axle. She unhitched the horse and must have decided to ride it home. Evidently, she was thrown. There was blood … a gash on her forehead. Tom … they froze to death—her and the baby. I—” Something choked off the rest, because Hawk saw his father swallow and turn to his horse, lowering his head and spreading his hand across his eyes.
    The man, Rawlins, leaned toward his father, then shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket and looked away. “I … I’m sorry.”
    “Yeah.” It was a rasped word that didn’t mean anything. His father brought his hand down, roughly wiping something from his cheek, then breathed through his nose. It made a noisy sound, the way it does when the cold makes the water run inside it.
    “What about the boy?”
    Halting in the act of pulling the saddle pad and blanket off the horse, his father glanced over his shoulder at Rawlins in faint surprise, then looked across his horse’s back at Hawk, and quickly bounced away.
    “I brought him back with me,” he stated gruffly and took the saddle blanket and pad, draping them over the saddle on the floor. He must have seen Rawlins’ head jerk, because he added a terse, “I couldn’t leave him there.”
    Taking his horse’s reins, his father led it to the opposite side of the wide, long room, thereby exposing the chestnut horse Hawk was unsaddling. The instantRawlins’ eyes focused on him, Hawk quickly bent his head to the task, staying behind the shield of his horse and keeping to the shadows. His father led his horse to a place on the other wall where there was half a door. Opening it, he unbridled his horse and slapped it on the rump to send it through the opening.
    “J. B.—” Rawlins’ voice sounded urgent, yet hesitant.
    “Dammit, I couldn’t leave him there, I tell you. He needs an education, more of a chance at life than he’d get on the Reservation. And … I want him near me.” The last declaration was tempered to a taut softness.
    “But—” Rawlins was frowning, troubled by his father’s words.
    “I know.” His father issued a long sigh and glanced at Hawk when he pulled the saddle from his chestnut and set it against the wall, staying behind the horse. “I can’t take him to the house. Katheryn would…” He appeared uncomfortable and didn’t finish that sentence. “I thought—that is, I hoped—you and Vera would take him in.” Rawlins said nothing, but his eyes