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they had seen on the school bus that for years had arrived at the end of their driveway twice a day. She gave something called the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services the permission to do criminal background checks on herself and her husband, and to make sure that neither was a known child abuser.
    The irony was not lost on her: Her husband was a sergeant with the state police. In less than two years his lieutenant would retire, and in all likelihood he would be promoted and given command of the barracks--one of the reasons they'd decided to stay in Cornish after the flood.
    She was the possible wild card in their minds. Not him.
    Two weeks later, a woman from SRS came to their house at the end of the day, and she and Terry were interviewed together in the living room about child-rearing practices and discipline. About how their daughters had died. The woman tried to make sure they understood the program, and--depending upon the child--what they might be in for. She wanted to make sure they were ready. A few days after that another lady from the state came by for a visit, and this one wanted a tour of their home. It was clear to both Terry and Laura that she was impressed. She observed that the bedroom they would give to the child was airy and bright, and that one of the two windows was over the front porch and therefore could serve as an exit in the event of a fire.
    She noted that Terry's guns were locked in a metal cabinet, and that the ammunition was kept in a separate sideboard--also locked--and she said that was proper. For a moment Laura feared that Terry was going to say something defensive, but he didn't. He simply nodded.
    They both knew as soon as the woman left that they would get a child. It was, as Terry said, a slam dunk. A sure thing.
    They even assumed their child would be a girl, though they decided she'd be younger than Hillary and Megan had been when they died. They envisioned her at six or seven, and they imagined almost daily how gentle they'd be with her. After all, who knew what scars the child would be carrying inside her?
    They told themselves they were silly to anticipate with tangible certainty who their child would be, but it was hard not to hope for someone who might resemble the daughters they'd lost--especially after all they'd endured--and that this child would, as the SRS folks clearly hoped, be a youngster they would someday want to adopt. Still, when they discussed what sort of child would wind up under their roof, they were always careful to remind each other that this person might be nothing at all like their dreams.
    Nevertheless, they were caught completely off guard when, barely two months after they had entered the system, they were offered what was described to them as a quiet, slightly troubled ten-year-old boy with skin, they would see, as dark as their mahogany headboard.
    "Only a few braves went, but Lone Bear was among them. They took horses and mules from the ranchers, maybe some livestock. I don't remember. It's only the horses I can see now. The currents were always strong where the Pecos and the Canyon Creek met, but the men had been able to cross it before the thunderstorms. Then the rains came and the water rose. Two days it rained. Otherwise, the soldiers would never have been able to catch them. They were that close to the village."
    VERONICA ROWE (FORMERLY POPPING TREES),
    WPA INTERVIEW,
    MARCH 1938
    *
    Terry
    Terry Sheldon--not tall in reality, but trim and athletic and with posture so impressive that he looked considerably taller than five-eight--watched the woman adjust the deer on the metal scale, pushing its haunches back onto the platform so she could get a more exact reading. The platform--a wire-mesh grill, actually, that dangled a good four feet off the ground--was hitched to a brace that extended out like a diving board from the red clapboard outbuilding just to the side of the general store.
    Beside him, his younger brother was sipping a beer and