"Mrs. Slater! You must remember your child!" the major urged her, grabbing her arm.

"Please!" She shook herself free and stumbled through the wreckage that littered the floor. She found Mary, her body grotesquely twisted beneath a pile of boards. "Mary!" After clawing away the debris, Kristin knelt and felt for the other woman's pulse. Mary was alive. She opened her eyes. "Jo?"

"It's Kristin, Mary. Everything… everything is going to be all right." She squeezed the girl's hand and turned around, searching for someone, anyone. "Get help here!" Kristin shouted, suddenly choking back tears. Where was Shannon? The girls had all been together.

Several young medics rushed in. Kristin moved away as they knelt over Mary. There were clanging bells sounding from outside, and the sound of horses' hooves was loud as a fire hose was brought around.

"Mrs. Slater!"

The major was still trying to get her out.

"Shannon!"

An arm was protruding from a pile of lumber. Kristin began to tear away the planks. This was the worst of it. The woman beneath was dead. Kristin inhaled on a sob and turned away.

"Kristin!"

She looked up. Shannon, deathly pale, was clinging to a board that looked as if it were just about to give way.

"Shannon! Hold on! Just hold on a little longer —"

There was a cracking sound. The board began to break. Shannon's toes dangled ten feet over Kristin's head. "Hold on!"

"No, Miss McCahy, let go now! I'm here. I'll catch you!"

It was Captain Ellsworth. He stepped in front of Kristin and reached out his arms to Shannon-Shannon still clung to the board. "Come down, now! Please, before it breaks!"

Kristin saw the problem. If the board broke, Shannon could fall on a splinter in one of the beams that had been exposed, and she would be skewered alive.

"Shannon! Where the hell is your courage? Jump!" Kristin called out. She watched as Shannon's eyes fell on the splintered beams below her. But then Shannon looked down at her and she grinned. "What the hell! We can't all live forever, now, can we? Thumbs up, Kristin. Say a prayer."

Shannon released her hold on the board. She fell, her skirts billowing out around her, and suddenly, Captain Ellsworth was falling, too. He had caught her and the impact had brought him down with her.

"Get them both out of here!" Major Emery shouted. He picked Kristin up bodily and carried her outside. Captain Ellsworth swept Shannon up and followed. When they were finally out in the street, Kristin and Shannon hugged each other, sobbing.

"Jo —"

"Jo is dead," Kristin said softly. Then they

stared at one another as they realized how lucky they were to be alive. And they just hugged one another again and sobbed, and listened to the chaos as more women were carried from the building, some alive, some injured… and some dead.

A week later, Kristin and Shannon were in the home of Captain Ellsworth's sister, Betty.

Four women besides Josephine Anderson had been killed. Rumor had it that Bill Anderson had gone berserk, foaming at the mouth, when he had heard that one of his sisters had been killed and the other had been seriously injured. Many Confederates were saying that General Ewing had purposely ordered that the women be incarcerated in the ramshackle building so that just such a tragedy might occur. There would be repercussions. To make matters worse, General Ewing had issued his General Order Number Ten, ordering all wives and children of known bushwhackers to move out of the state of Missouri.

That night, Major Emery rode out to the small house on the outskirts of the city with Captain Ellsworth beside him. It was quite apparent that an attachment was forming between Shannon and the captain, and Kristin didn't mind at all. After all, the young captain had come valiantly to her rescue. Kristin liked him herself. He was quiet and well-read and unfailingly polite. And Shannon was eighteen, a young woman who already knew her own mind.

But though both the captain and the major were charming in Betty's parlor, Kristin knew that something was very wrong. The major called her onto the porch.

He looked at the moon, twirling his hat in his hand. "Quantrill attacked Lawrence, Kansas, yesterday."

"Oh, God!" Kristin murmured.

"It was a massacre," Major Emery said grimly. "Almost the entire town was razed to the ground. At least one hundred men were killed… one twelve-year-old boy was shot down for being dressed up in an old Union uniform. And Quantrill only lost one of his boys. A former Baptist preacher named Larkin Skaggs. He was too drunk to ride away with Quantrill. An Indian found him and shot him dead, and then the survivors ripped him to shreds." Major Emery was silent for a moment. "What is it coming to? None of us, not one of us, it seems, is any better than a bloody savage."

Kristin wanted to say something to comfort him. A lot of good men were experiencing the same despair, she knew. But she could think of nothing to say.

He turned around and tipped his hat to her. "You're free, young lady. I'm going to see to it that an escort takes you and your sister home."

"But how —"

A grin tugged at his lower lip. "Someone got through to your brother, and he raised all kinds of hell with the higher-ups. And then…"

"And then?"

He shrugged. His eyes twinkled. "Well, you see, Kristin, I know Cole. And a lot of other cavalry boys know Cole, so we know damned well that he isn't any outlaw. But people who don't know him, well, they're still convinced that he's a bad 'un. At the moment, that's all right, because there's a rumor out that he's heard about you and Shannon being held up here and that he's steaming. After everything that's happened, well… we can't have troops everywhere. Some folks are afraid he might ride in here and destroy the town just to get to you. I decided not to dispute that with any of them. I thought you deserved the right to go home if that was what you wanted."

Kristin stared at him a long time. Then she kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you."

"You see Cole, you tell him I sent my regards. You tell him I miss him. I never did meet another man who could ride or shoot like him."

She nodded. "Thank you. Thank you so much. For everything."

"Be there for him. He probably needs you."

Kristin smiled ruefully. "He doesn't love me, you know. You see, he only married me because he felt he had to. To protect me."

"Love comes in a lot of ways, young lady. You give him a little time. Maybe this war will end one day."

He tipped his hat to her again, and then he was gone.

                                                                  •                •               •

In retaliation for the attack on Lawrence, General Ewing issued General Order Number Eleven, which forced almost everyone in Missouri to leave. People were given fifteen days to leave their property. The exodus was a terrible thing to watch, one of the worst things Kristin had seen in all the years since the fighting had begun. Poor farmers were forced to leave behind what little they possessed, and others were shot down where they stood because they refused to leave. Because the McCahy ranch belonged to Matthew, a soldier serving in the Union Army, Major Emery was able to keep his promise and send Kristin and Shannon home, however.

The young lieutenant who escorted them was appalled by what he saw of the evacuation. Once he even told her that it was one of the cruelest measures he had ever seen taken. "This war will never end," he said glumly. "We will not let it end, it seems. The people who do not fight are ordered to leave, and the bushwhackers will come through here when they're gone, stealing whatever they leave behind!"

It was true, Kristin discovered. Even when they were home, when it seemed that they had returned to something like a normal life, Peter often came to her at night to tell her that he had seen another house burning somewhere, or that he had found cattle slaughtered, a sure sign that guerrillas had been in the area, living off the land.

In the middle of September they had a letter from Matthew. He was trying to get leave to come and see them, but so far he hadn't been able to manage it. He explained:

   But the Rebels are in worse shape than we are. I think that perhaps by Christmas I will be able to come home. There was a battle fought in a little town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg. Kristin, they say it was the most awful yet, but General Lee was stopped, and he was forced to retreat back to the South. Since then, there has been new hope that the war may end. Some of these fellows say that they will force the South to her knees. They do not know Southerners. I cannot imagine your husband on his knees, nor do I ever quite forget that I am a Missourian myself. But I pray for it to end. I watched another friend die yesterday of the dysentery, and it seems that we do not even have to catch bullets to drop off like flies. John Maple, who was injured in our last skirmish, had to have his leg amputated. Kristin, if I am caught at all by shot, I hope that the ball passes straight to my heart, for those operations are fearful things to witness. There was no morphine, but we did have some whiskey, and still, John screamed so horribly. Now we must all pray that the rot does not set in, else he will die anyway.


  Kristin, forgive me, I wander again into subjects that do not fit a lady's ears, but you are my sister. I am still so grateful that you and Shannon are home. Every man who heard of the incident in Kansas City was appalled, and none was proud. That you might have been killed there chilled me to the bone, and I waited very anxiously for the news that you were safe.