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from Yankee Stadium when we clinch the pennant.”
    Joe laughed. “Dream on, son.”
    “You be safe.” Jenna turned his cap around to lean down, kiss his forehead. “And you be happy. Don’t forget us.”
    “I won’t.” He turned, suddenly feeling a little shy, to Lil. “I made you something.”
    “You did? What is it?”
    He held out the box, shifting his feet when she pulled the lid off. “It’s kind of stupid. It’s not very good,” he said, as she stared at the small cougar he’d carved out of hickory. “I couldn’t get the face right or—”
    He broke off, stunned, embarrassed, when she threw her arms around him. “It’s beautiful! I’ll always keep it. Wait!” Spinning around, she dashed into the house.
    “That’s a good gift, Cooper.” Jenna studied him. “The cougar’s hers now, she won’t have it any other way. So you’ve put part of yourself into her symbol.”
    Lil bolted out of the house, skidded to a stop in front of Coop. “This is my best thing—before the cougar. You take it. It’s an old coin,” she said, as she offered it. “We found it last spring when we were digging a new garden. It’s old, and somebody must’ve dropped it out of their pocket a long time ago. It’s all worn so you can hardly see.”
    Cooper took the silver disk, so worn the outline of the woman stamped on it could hardly be seen. “It’s cool.”
    “It’s for good luck. It’s a . . . what’s the word, Mom?”
    “A talisman,” Jenna supplied.
    “A talisman,” Lil repeated. “For good luck.”
    “We’ve got to get on.” Sam gave Cooper’s shoulder a pat. “It’s a long drive to Rapid City.”
    “Safe trip, Mr. New York.”
    “I’ll write,” Lil called out. “But you have to write back.”
    “I will.” Clutching the coin, Coop got into the car. He watched out the back, as long as he could, watched the island in front of the old house shrink and fade.
    He didn’t cry. He was nearly twelve years old, after all. But he held the old silver coin all the way to Rapid City.

3
    THE BLACK HILLS
June 1997
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Lil walked her horse through the morning mists along the trail. They moved through high grass, crossed the sparkling waters of a narrow stream where tangled vines of poison ivy lurked before starting the upward climb. The air smelled of the pine and the water and the grass while the light shimmered with the delicacy of dawn.
    Birds called and chattered. She heard the burry song of the mountain bluebird, the hoarse chee of a pine siskin in flight, the irritable warning of the pinyon jay.
    It seemed the forest came to life around her, stirred by the streams and slants of misty light sliding through the canopy of trees.
    There was nowhere in the world she’d rather be.
    She spotted tracks, usually deer or elk, and noted them on the tape recorder in her jacket pocket. Earlier she’d found buffalo tracks, and of course, numerous signs of her father’s herd.
    But so far in this three-day jaunt she’d given herself, she’d yet to track the cat.
    She’d heard its call the night before. Its scream had ripped through the darkness, through the stars and the moonlight.
    I’m here.
    She studied the brush as the sturdy mare climbed, listened to the birdcalls that danced through the sheltering pine. A red squirrel burst out of a thicket of chokecherry, darted across the ground and up the trunk of a pine, and looking up, up, she spotted a hawk circle on his morning rounds.
    This, as much as the majestic views from the clifftops, as much as the towering falls tumbling down canyons, was why, she believed, the Black Hills were sacred ground.
    If you felt no magic here, to her mind, you would find it nowhere.
    It was enough to be here, to have this time, to scout, to study. She’d be in the classroom soon, a college freshman (God!), away from everything she knew. And though she was hungry to learn, nothing could replace the sights, the sounds, the smells of