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For a moment he thought she wouldn’t. She looked around for her husband. If Eisenhart had still been standing beside her, Roland thought she would have thrust the plate into his hands and run for the house and never mind if he cut himself on it, either. But Vaughn Eisenhart had withdrawn to the foot of the steps. The boys stood above him, Benny Slightman watching with mere interest, Jake with closer attention, his brows drawn together and the smile suddenly gone from his face.

“Roland, I—”

“None of it, missus, I beg. Your talk of leaping was all very fine, and certainly you leaped when you left your father and his folken, but that was years ago and I’d see if you’re still limber. Throw. ”

She recoiled a little at the mention of her father, eyes widening as if she had been slapped. Then she turned to face the barn door and drew her right hand above her left shoulder. The plate glimmered in the late light, which was now more pink than red. Her lips had thinned to a white line. For a moment all the world held still.

“Riza!” she cried in a shrill, furious voice, and cast her arm forward. Her hand opened, the index finger pointing precisely along the path the plate would take. Of all of them in the yard (the cowpokes had also stopped to watch), only Roland’s eyes were sharp enough to follow the flight of the dish.

True! he exulted. True as ever was!

The plate gave a kind of moaning howl as it bolted above the dirt yard. Less than two seconds after it had left her hand, the potato lay in two pieces, one by the stuffy-guy’s gloved right hand and the other by its left. The plate itself stuck in the side of the barn door, quivering.

The boys raised a cheer. Benny hoisted his hand as his new friend had taught him, and Jake slapped him a high five.

“Great going, sai Eisenhart!” Jake called.

“Good hit! Say thankya!” Benny added.

Roland observed the way the woman’s lips drew back from her teeth at this hapless, well-meant praise—she looked like a horse that has seen a snake. “Boys,” he said, “I’d go inside now, were I you.”

Benny was bewildered. Jake, however, took another look at Margaret Eisenhart and understood. You did what you had to . . . and then the reaction set in. “Come on, Ben,” he said.

“But—”

“Come on.” Jake took his new friend by the shirt and tugged him back toward the kitchen door.

Roland let the woman stay where she was for a moment, head down, trembling with reaction. Strong color still blazed in her cheeks, but everywhere else her skin had gone as pale as milk. He thought she was struggling not to vomit.

He went to the barn door, grasped the plate at the grasping-place, and pulled. He was astounded at how much effort it took before the plate first wiggled and then came loose. He brought it back to her, held it out. “Thy tool.”

For a moment she didn’t take it, only looked at him with a species of bright hate. “Why do you mock me with speech, Roland? What did my father tell thee?”

In the face of her rage he only shook his head. “I do not mock thee.”

Margaret Eisenhart abruptly seized Roland by the neck. Her grip was dry and so hot her skin felt feverish. She pulled his ear to her uneasy, twitching mouth. He thought he could smell every bad dream she must have had since deciding to leave her people for Calla Bryn Sturgis’s big rancher.

“I know thee spoke with Henchick today,” she said. “Will’ee speak to him more? Ye will, won’t you?”

Roland nodded, transfixed by her grip. The strength of it. The little puffs of air against his ear. Did a lunatic hide deep down inside everyone, even such a woman as this?

“Good. Say thankya. Tell him Margaret of the Redpath Clan does fine with her heathen man, aye, fine still.” Her grip tightened. “Tell him she regrets nothing! Will’ee do that for me?”

“Aye, lady, if you like.”

She snatched the plate from him, fearless of its lethal edge. “What would ye visit on us, ye gunstruck man?”

Eisenhart joined them. He looked uncertainly at his wife, who had endured exile from her people and the hardening of her father’s heart for his sake. For a moment she looked