Three of them came from out of the shimmering heat, one astride a pony, pulling a sled. On this lay the second man, inert, eyes rolling in his head – eyes which, when Elisabeth first saw them, she recognized as holding the look of someone close to death. It reminded her of the look her father gave her before Mason bundled her into the wagon. And as she stepped down from the porch and bent over to study this stricken man, thoughts of her father loomed up in her mind and she wondered if he died that day. For a moment, she could not speak, the memory too powerful, too distressing.
Behind the sled stood a woman, very beautiful, with huge, black eyes, dark blue hair scraped back from her olive skinned, oval-shaped face. A fierce expression, one of pride and bravery, caught Elisabeth"s full att
