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“That’s my business. You just take my word—you don’t want her messing around in our family background any more than I do. You’re the Benedict, after all. I onlymarried into the family—though it’s been so long that I feel more a Benedict than I do a Seton like I was born.”
    â€œGranny—”
    â€œAnyway, you don’t wash your dirty linen in public.”
    â€œWhat dirty linen?”
    She folded her lips, staring at him.
    â€œIf you can’t supply a good reason,” he warned, “then I’m out of here and on my way to New Orleans.”
    It was a war of wills as they stared at each other. She hunched a shoulder. He stood perfectly still, watching her. She turned her head.
    â€œFine. I guess you want me to leave then.”
    â€œOh, all right!” she exclaimed in waspish tones as she shifted to face him again. “It goes way back, way back, to when the four Benedict brothers first came here. There was a woman with them, you know, one they all hankered after. Some say she led the way, but others used to whisper that it was on account of her that they came at all, that otherwise she’d have been taken from them.”
    â€œSo, she was a Native American. What’s so bad about that?”
    â€œNothing. If that’s what’s behind the story.”
    Luke stared at her, noting the doubt in her face. Abruptly, something clicked in his mind. “You don’t think it is. You think—”
    â€œI don’t know, but I don’t aim to have anybody poking around trying to find out exactly how it all went.”
    â€œThat’s crazy. There’s no reason to believe sucha thing, especially since nobody ever bothered to check out the story.”
    â€œThey won’t, either, not if I can help it. The only time it will happen is after I’m dead and gone.”
    â€œI could pay somebody to check the records. We could find out once and for all. Wouldn’t that be better than living in fear that somebody’s going to stumble across it when you least expect it?”
    â€œNo, no, no,” she said, her voice rising with every repeat of the word. “Didn’t I raise you, boy? Haven’t I always known what was best? Didn’t I show you how to go on in the swamps, what plants to pick, how to fish and trap and take your boat where nobody else can go? You mind me, now. Stay away from that girl.”
    â€œShe’s not a girl any more, Granny May. She’s a woman.”
    â€œAll the more reason. She knows what she wants, or will as soon as she figures it out. She’ll wring everything you ever heard about the family from you, turn you inside out, and hang you up to dry. When she’s through, she’ll know all there is to know about you and me and the whole lot of us. Then you’ll see it plastered all over the country.”
    That was inarguable, since he had reason to suspect she was right. “I’m not a boy anymore, either. Our sweet April may not find it quite that easy.”
    Granny May cocked her head as if listening to what he hadn’t said instead of the words he’d spoken. “What are you up to now?”
    â€œCould be,” he mocked her gently, “that she’ll have more to think about than writing stories.”
    â€œYou think you can keep her from doing it?”
    â€œI can try.”
    She stared at him as if assessing him for something more than normal ability. “Maybe so, maybe so. But you’ll have to be careful.”
    â€œI will be.”
    â€œYou don’t want to get caught again.”
    â€œNo. That’s the last thing I want.”
    â€œYou got something else up your sleeve, don’t you? There’s something you want from her that’s got nothing to do with me. I wonder now…”
    He picked up his bag and walked to the door, so she had to step back to let him out of the room. In the hall, he said, “We have