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He ht--" She hesitated, glanced at hiht maybe that hy it’s--why you and Mama…" Her skin was so clear, he could see the blood bloom under it She took a deep breath, hands braced on the rock

"She’s like that too She doesn’tbadly to knohat made her say so What had Claire’s life been in their years apart to give her that knowledge? It was so; Claire knew the flavor of solitude It was cold as spring water, and not all could drink it; for some it was not refreshment, but mortal chill But she had lived daily with a husband; how had she drunk deep enough of loneliness to know?

Brianna could maybe tell him, but he wouldn’t ask; the last name he wished to hear spoken in this place was Frank Randall’s

He coughed instead

"Well, it’s reed cautiously "I’ve seen women--and hts, and they ood"Maybe they don’t"

The s of jealousy eased So she had doubts about this Wakefield, did she? She’d told hi, about her search, the death notice, the journey frohaire!--and about theeverything there, he thought, but that was as well; he didn’t want to hear it He was less bothered at the prospect of a distant death by fire than by the -lost daughter

He drew up his knees and sat quiet Much as he wanted to recapture his sense of tranquility, he could not free his ht of Randall

He had won Claire was his; so was this glorious child--this young wo at her But Randall had had the keeping of them for twenty years; there was no doubt he had set his mark on them But what mark had it been?

"Look" Brianna’s hand squeezed his araze and saw the just under the shadow of the trees, not twenty feet away He didn’t move, but breathed quietly He could feel Brianna beside him, enchanted into stillness too

The deer saw the for scent After a h, one doe stepped out, dainty, nervous footsteps leaving streaks in the deet grass The other followed, cautious, and they grazed along the grassy strips between the rocks, turning now and then to lift their head and cast tranquil eyes on the strange but hare

He couldn’t have come within a s kent hat a raze, with the innocence of perfect wildness, and felt the sun’s benediction on his head This was a new place, and he was content to be alone here with his daughter

"What are we hunting, Da?" He was standing still, eyes squinted as he scanned the horizon, but she was reasonably sure he wasn’t looking at an aniaood many animals in the course of the day; the two deer at dawn, a red fox that sat watching on a rock, licking dainty black paws until they ca like a blown-out flah the treetops, playing hide-and-seek past the tree boles Even a flock of wild turkey, with two , chests puffed and tail fans spread for the edification of a gobbling harelad She had no objection to killing for food, but would have been sorry to have the beauty of the day soiled by blood

"Bees," he said

"Bees? How do you hunt bees?"

He picked up his gun and s downhill toward a brilliant patch of yellow

"Look for flowers"

There were certainly bees in the flowers; close enough, and she could hear the hue black bumblebees, a smaller kind, striped with black and yellow fuzz, and the sers

"What ye want to do," her father told her, slowly circling the patch, "is to watch and see which direction the honeybees go And not get stung"

A dozen tiers they followed, lost in the broken light over a strea into brush too thick to follow Each ti another patch of flowers

"There’s so to a flash of brilliant red in the distance

He squinted at the his head

"Nay, not red," he said "The wee hubirds like the red ones, but bees like yellow and white--yellow’s best" He plucked a srass near her feet and handed it to her--the petals were streaked with pollen, fallen from the delicate sta closer, she saw a tiny beetle the size of a pinhead crawl out of the center, its shiny black ar-throated flowers," he explained "But the bees canna get all the way inside They like the broad, flat flowers like this, and the ones that grow in heavy bunches They light on them and , till they’re covered over wi’ the yellow"

They hunted up and down the ed the bo telltale patches of yellow and white The bees liked the h to see over, too dense to pass through

It was late afternoon before they found what they were looking for A snag, the reood-sized tree, its branches reduced to stumps, bark worn away to shoeathered silver wood beneath--and a wide split in the wood, through which the bees were crowding, hanging in a veil around it