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The next thing Catta knew, she was almost at the doorway, her father holding her back from entering the ruined house. He was sooty and smelled of smoke. "You must stay by the wagon," he said.

"Mam!" Catta wailed. "Lily! Wallach!"

She did not know in her panic that her father's eyes were streaming tears as he looked over her head at Annie Blackpot, shaking his head at her unspoken question.

That night had been the last time Catta had cried. She felt like she had cried herself dry. Dry of tears, and sometimes she felt dry of hope. She had changed that night. Grown up. Pop had changed too. He was quieter now, and never seemed to smile. Sometimes it seemed like he couldn't let Catta out of his sight while at the same time he couldn't bear to look at her. They were rarely far apart, like now, in the small tent.

The stirring of the camp around them, and the smell of coffee finally became too much for Catta to resist. Well, that and the even more insistent call of nature. She quietly sat up, pushed her feet into her boots and wrapped the blanket around her to answer the call. When she returned, Pop was sitting outside the tent on a wooden box, warming his hands with a cup of hot coffee.

Annie put a steaming cup in Catta's hands as well, and stirred the porridge before putting a lid on the pot, and lifting it away from the fire. Kenit came around the edge of the lean-to he shared with his brother, Jerem. He had a warm woolen tunic on over his heavy shirt for warmth. Even now, in the late spring, the mornings were cool in the wooded mountains they traveled through.

Kenit held an axe. "That fallen oak is dry and I aim to chop us some before its nothin' but twigs," he said as he stepped out of our camp. He hadn't gone two steps before the sounds of chopping came from about 50 feet west of them. Kenit wasn't the only one with an eye on good dry wood.