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her hair. The gallop had loosened a few red gold tendrils from the French pleat. She tucked them back in place.
    "There's nothing like a brisk gallop to chase away the tensions, is there, Pasha?" She laughed throatily in satisfaction as she patted the hunter's neck again. "And the weather is perfect. It feels like spring is here already, and it's only the end of February."
    The sky was a brilliant blue with not a cloud or jet trail in sight. The temperature, too, was that of a balmy spring morning. The ribbed, knit of her black turtleneck sweater was, ample coverage, even during the cooling gallop that had carried Lara deep into the pecan orchard.
    Reining the horse at a right angle, she turned him toward the distant fence and the connecting gate to the next field. Her gaze studied the outstretched branches. Although the dogwood trees growing wild in the pines had begun to show signs of budding, the pecan trees remained dormant. They generally waited until around the first official day of spring to begin budding. Yet always it was an event for Lara when the first shoot was seen.
    As she neared the adjoining field, the decreasing rows of trees enabled her to catch a glimpse of the fence. A telltale, patch of brown black contrasted with the green, rye grass in, this orchard, pasture land for the cattle, until the autumn harvest when the nuts began falling from the trees. The furrows of brown in the next field answered the question that Lara had been wondering about since she had started out.
    Touching the riding crop to the hunter's flanks, she urged him into a rocking canter. Plowing had started in the next orchard to prepare the field for the hay crop to be planted. All the orchards served dual purposes, first to grow pecans, and second as grazing land or cropland.
    Where there were freshly furrowed rows of dirt on Alexander land, Cato could not be far away. With a quick smile, Lara corrected the silent thought — Cato and his mules couldn't be faraway. It was one of the traditions that hadn't been cast aside. No matter how many tractors and modern farm machinery there were in the sheds, the plowing was always done by Cato and his mules.
    As a child Lara had not questioned the custom, spending many hours tagging along beside the tall, spare man as he walked behind his mules, always talking to them as if they could understand every word he said. Officially the mules were Alexander property. Unofficially they belonged to Cato. For sixty-seven of his eighty-two years, he had taken care of the mules and walked behind them as they plowed the fields.
    Despite his advanced years, his body was not encumbered by age. He could still walk as long and as far as he had when he was thirty. With a smile, Lara remembered that last fall Cato had planted a strawberry bed for his ninety-eight-year old mother, grumbling that the cranky old hen would probably live to see it bear fruit.
    Not until Lara was sixteen did she question the wisdom of letting Cato plow the fields when tractors would be so much faster. The occasion had been brought about by the discovery that the seemingly ageless man was in fact seventy-four. She had argued with her father that surely something else could be found for Cato to do. To this day, she could vividly recall her father's response.
    "Cato doesn't know anything else, pet," her father had explained patiently. "His mules are his life, and his work is his prides. After the loyalty he has shown us, surely we can return it by letting him keep his job for as long as he's capable of holding it."
    "But he's worked all these years. Why don't you give him a pension and let him retire? He's certainly earned that right, too," Lara had pointed out.
    "To take away Cato's mules and his pride?" He had shaken his head. "I might as well give him a gun to shoot himself with, because he wouldn't have anything else to live for."
    The white boards of the fence gate glistened in front of Lara. Without dismounting, she unlatched the gate