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up. When I realized that not only did I not have the answers, I didn’t even know the right questions.”
    “I’m sorry,” Nate said.
    Aunt Aggie’s face grew haunted with memories. “It’s not me. It’s life. We get so set in our ways that it never occurs to us that our ways might not be the way things really are. I took it for granted my husband would live as long as I did, and his heart up and gave out. I took it for granted my sons loved me so much they would never up and leave me alone in this world. But that is exactly what they went and did.”
    They were well into the pass. Shimmering dust particles, raised by the others, hung suspended like so many tiny fireflies.
    “Now I don’t know what to think,” Agatha went on. “Except that I still have my nieces and my nephews. They adore me and I adore them, and I will be there for them when they need me, even if it kills me. Family is everything.”
    Nate studied her. “Is that why you’re here? For Tyne and her sister and brothers?”
    “And for Sully. He’s Peter’s brother, but he was as close Tome as if he were my own.” Agatha paused. “Sully always treated me nice. He was quite the backwoodsman, that one. Could live off the land if he had to. He knew all the wild creatures and their habits, and which plants were safe for people to eat.
    He told me once that he learned from watching the animals. If a plant was safe for an animal, it was safe for us. Smart of him, don’t you think?”
    Nate knew better, but he didn’t interrupt.
    “Sully brought me venison from time to time, and we would sit and have wonderfully long talks.” Her lips pinched together. “It worries me that we haven’t heard from him.”
    “Peter and Erleen should have come by themselves and left the children home with you.”
    “We’re a family. My boys aside, when one of us is in trouble, we do what we can.”
    “This isn’t the East.”
    “Meaning we don’t know what we have let ourselves in for? But we’ve managed to get this far without mishap.”
    “Have you forgotten the Blackfeet? That could have ended badly.” Nate sighed. “It is not the same here as back there. The animals are different. The plants are different.
Life
is different. Thing are not as tame. They call this the wilderness for a reason. It is wild and dangerous. And unless a person knows exactly what they are doing, their bones will be picked clean by buzzards.”
    “My goodness. And I thought I had become a bit of a cynic.”
    “I am telling you how it is.” Nate leaned over and touched her arm. “Be extra careful from now on. Keep watch over the children at all times. Once we are over the divide we are in unexplored country. We could run into anything. Anything at all.”
    “You’re scaring me.”
    “Good.”
    “Besides, I thought you said you have been here before. That hardly makes it unexplored.”
    “I was through this area once, yes, years ago. A few other whites might have passed through, too. But it’s never been fully explored. It’s as wild as wild can be, and it can bury you.”
    Aunt Aggie coughed and then smiled. “I am beginning to understand why Mr. Ryker speaks so highly of you. Your woman—what did you say her name was again, Winona?—is very fortunate to have you for her man.”
    The far end of the pass drew near. The others were waiting. Erleen was saying something to Ryker and Ryker didn’t look happy.
    “You said Winona is a Shoshone, correct?”
    Nate nodded.
    “Why did you marry her? Her being an Indian, and all.”
    “I never expected a question like that from you.”
    “No. Please. Don’t misconstrue. I don’t hate the red race just because they are red, like so many of our kind do.”
    “I married Winona because I love her. Because I care for her with all my heart and all my soul. She is the zest in my veins and the spring in my step. You could say she is the very reason I breathe.”
    “Oh my. That was practically poetical. I bet you have a work or