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Luke!” Ira laid the whip hard on the team as they struggled to tug through a bog along the opposite bank.
    “Give them time, man,” Rand protested. He’d never found it tolerable to watch the abuse of something helpless. The beasts were doing all they could.
    “We ain’t got time. That horse a yourn don’t stop pullin’ on my rig,I’ll shoot ’im and cut ’im loose. Had my fill a that critter. He’s draggin’ my mules down. Git on up, Luke! Git on, Curly. Git! Git! Git!” The wagon rolled backward into the mud, and Ira went harder with the black snake, snapping it against sweat-slickened hides, drawing blood.
    Rand reached for it, the action almost an involuntary response. “There’s no need of   —”
    An elbow caught him hard in the ribs, stealing his breath and rolling him sideways on the seat so that he hung bent over the edge and clinging on, the mud oozing against the wheel beneath him.
    “You’ll stay ’ere, ya know what’s good fer ya. Git on, Luke! Git on, Curly!”
    The wagon lurched, the mud releasing with a great sucking sound, and then they were rolling up the hill, Rand grimacing as he righted himself. At six foot four and consistently taller than his contemporaries, he’d always thought of himself as competent in physical combat. But the truth was, because of his height and the fact that he’d grown up among youths who were raised to become gentlemen, physical combat had never become necessary for him, other than the harmless play of boys.
    But this world, this mountain kingdom of questionable men and unforgiving landscape, was ruled by the play of life and death. A completely different game.
    He pondered this as he caught his breath. Beside him, Ira pushed the team hard for quite some distance before allowing them to settle, puffing and foaming, into a somewhat-slower pace. The white specks on the mules’ backs were pinked with blood.
    Rand didn’t apologize for going after the whip. “What was the trouble back there?”
    “Doin’s come ugly in the card game after while.” The old man’s eyes narrowed beneath a split leather hat that had seen better days. “The other fella won that pallermina stud horse Brown Horne’s so proud’a.”
    Rand quickly formed an image of the confrontation. “That’s a fine animal.” Actually, there had been three good horses in Brown Drigger’s corral. Rand had been tempted to try a trade for Puddinhead. “So they went to gunplay over it?”
    “Nosir. Fella swapped the horse back to Brown Horne fer the girl. But when Pegleg Molly hist out to git ’er, she’d done scat off. Gone. Fella figured Brown Horne’s at some trick. Says if’n Drigger don’t find the girl, he’s takin’ the stud horse and stringin’ Drigger up next’a them hogs. Right ’bout then, I got my wagon and got gone while they’s lookin’ fer her.”
    Rand’s impressions grew dark and murky. “What girl?”
    “The one was back by the smokehouse when we rolled in. Skinny, but a looksome thing. Black hair, blue eyes. Worth more’n that pallermina stud, if’n a fella don’ mind what she is. You didn’t git a look at ’er?”
    If’n a fella don’ mind what she is. What could possibly be the meaning of that? “But this . . . this is practically the dawn of the new century. Women can’t be . . . traded for horseflesh.” Morality aside, such things were not legal and had not been since the ending of the War of Secession, some eight years before Rand’s birth.
    “Not much but a girl, truth be tolt. Fifteen, sixteen, might be.”
    A queasiness awoke in Rand’s stomach, tasting of acid. Lucinda, the eldest of his three sisters, was just fifteen, preparing to make her debut into Charleston society. Her face appeared in his mind, and he swiveled in the seat. “We must go back, then.” But miles had been covered in their wild flight, and darkness had begun to descend. In truth, it was surprising that Ira hadn’t stopped to make camp. He was pushing hard