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crowd had a lot to say about Horace Johnson, and for a while their voices were louder than the mayor’s. It seemed that many were thankful to Jimmy Murray for relieving them of Mr. Johnson’s company.
    Elizabeth worked her way from tree to tree, shouting the boys’ names up into the dark and fragrant tangle of evergreen branches.
    “And so!” bellowed the mayor. “You have been indicted, tried, and found guilty. The court has sentenced you to death by hanging. Do you have anything to say?”
    Murray did indeed have something to say. Elizabeth hoped he would entertain the crowd for a good long while, as she hurried from tree to tree.
    “He was a right bastard,” Murray shouted, and the crowd agreed with him at length.
    Elizabeth slipped between trees too young to support the weight of two boys and almost ran into someone she never expected to see here.
    “Annie,” she said. “What—”
    But she could see what, and why, and understood that they had all been sent on a fool’s errand. Nathan and Adam wouldn’t be found anywhere nearby; most likely they were still someplace in Mrs. Kummer’s barn. It had all been Gabriel’s doing, and Annie’s.
    Her youngest son came out into the open without being called, his expression carefully neutral. Twenty years old, the tallest of all the Bonner men, taller even than his father by a few inches. The most stubborn of all the children, which was saying quite a lot. Nothing of embarrassment or regret nor even a trace of remorse.
    “What exactly is it that you were planning?” She heard the tremor in her voice but could do nothing to stop it.
    “We were married not an hour ago,” Gabriel said. “By the dominie at the Dutch Reformed church.”
    Elizabeth drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, Gabriel.”
    “You
eloped,” Gabriel said.
    “The circumstances were very different,” Elizabeth said. A conversation they had had many times, and were about to have again while behind them a hanging ran its course.
    “You and Da wanted to get married and your father disapproved,” Gabriel said. “Seems pretty much the same to me.”
    “But I didn’t object to you getting married,” Elizabeth said, her voice rising and cracking. “All I was asking—”
    “You ask too much, Ma,” Gabriel said.
    Elizabeth tried to gather her thoughts. She turned to look at the girl. The youngest daughter of Many-Doves and Runs-from-Bears, a child she had helped deliver. On her deathbed Many-Doves had askedElizabeth to look out for this daughter’s welfare, and Elizabeth had sworn to do her best. What she had never imagined was that her own son would get in the way.
    “Annie. This is what you wanted?”
    The girl raised her head. She was so much like Many-Doves that the sight of her always gave Elizabeth a jolt, joy and sorrow intertwined.
    “Hen’en.” Yes. “I
left the school.”
    “Of your own free will?”
    Gabriel began to protest and Elizabeth shot him her sternest glance. He scowled, but stepped back.
    “Annie.
Kenenstatsi.”
Elizabeth switched to Kahnyen’kehàka, because it was the language the two used when they talked together. It was a language she spoke imperfectly, but she needed every advantage at her disposal.
    “You must say what it is you want. It is your choice. Not Gabriel’s, not mine. It is not too late.”
    A flash of anger lit up Annie’s face. She said, “Aunt, I know who I am. I am Kenenstatsi of the Kahnyen’kehàka Wolf clan. I am the daughter of Many-Doves and the granddaughter of Falling-Day. I am the great-granddaughter of Made-of-Bones who was clan mother of the Wolf for five hundred moons. I am the great-great-granddaughter of Hawk-Woman, who killed an O’seronni chief with her own hands and fed his heart to her sons in the Hunger Moon, in the time when we were still many, and strong.”
    Her voice never faltered, but she paused, as if to gather her thoughts. Gabriel stood behind Annie, his posture stiff and his jaw set hard.
    “Gabriel wrote to me