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fetch Curiosity. Hannah had banned everyone from the cabin while Selah Voyager slept, so Nathaniel left without asking her the questions she must know were coming her way. Hawkeye never saw the mysterious young woman, and only knew of her what Nathaniel could relate.
    Nathaniel was glad of the chance to talk things through with his father. Age made many people impatient, but at seventy-five years old Hawkeye was as steady as the sky overhead, never in a hurry to judge and hard to rile.
    Hawkeye listened without asking questions, but when Nathaniel finished he got to the heart of the matter without apologies.
    “I suppose you’re right; Curiosity is the place to start if you want to ask questions,” he said. “But I’m not sure you do. I’d think twice about that, son.”
    Nathaniel pulled up short. “Can’t avoid trouble if I don’t know what direction it’s coming from.”
    Hawkeye inclined his head. “You can borrow trouble, though, if you’ve got a mind to. The way I see it, as soon as the girl is well enough Curiosity and Galileo will help her on her way, and that’ll be the end of it. It ain’t any of our business if they feel the need to lend a hand. I wouldn’t be surprised if Joshua has a part in it too. Who better to help that girl than her own kind, people who been slaves themselves?”
    It was the very question that Elizabeth would have asked him this morning, if he had let her. Joshua Hench was free because the Bonner’s had taken an interest in his welfare, and if he saw fit to help others in his turn, there was nothing surprising—or wrong—about that. Nathaniel could admit to himself that he hadn’t been thinking clearly when Elizabeth first told him about Selah Voyager; later tonight he’d have to admit it to her too.
    “Maybe so,” he said, finally. “But I got a bad feeling about this.” And when his father made no comment, he finished: “I hate to think what trouble Curiosity and Galileo might be calling down on their heads.”
    They walked on in silence for a while. All around them were signs of the mountain coming back to life; another summer ahead, and with it the threat of disease. He was thinkingabout this so hard that at first he didn’t hear his father, and Hawkeye had to repeat himself.
    “Did you ever hear tell how it was that Curiosity and Galileo met?”
    Nathaniel nodded. “It was back before Elizabeth’s grandfather Clarke bought them free and they came to work for the judge. That’s all I know.”
    “They met on the auction block,” said Hawkeye. “Both sold as youngsters to the same farmer just outside Philadelphia.”
    Nathaniel paused. “Why haven’t I heard that story before?”
    His father shrugged. “They don’t talk much about the old days. Sixty years ago, but Galileo can tell you about that morning they sold him away from his mother like it happened yesterday. I suppose he’s willing to take his chances to help that girl, or anybody else who comes to him looking to get away. I would be, and so would you.”
    “I’m willing to give you that,” Nathaniel said. “But then there’s Squirrel’s role in all this. I won’t have her risking her own safety, no matter how good the cause.”
    Hawkeye stopped. There was an expression on his face that Nathaniel knew very well: a kind of sympathy mixed with disquiet that meant he had hard words to share.
    “I ain’t so sure she’s as involved as you seem to think. And even if she is, why she’ll be eighteen this summer, but you’re still calling her by her girl-name. You’re lucky she hasn’t gone off already, son. She’s more than old enough to start making her own decisions.”
    “Not if those decisions put the rest of the family at risk.”
    “You know better than that,” Hawkeye said, frowning. “That’s not in her nature.”
    “I’m not saying she’d do it on purpose.” Nathaniel rubbed a hand over his face. “But she’s headstrong and she’s young.”
    “She’s older than you