As they resumed their interrupted journey toward the mining camp, only a day and a half behind the expected delivery schedule, there was little talk among any of them, even the children. Once the goods were delivered and the payment broken into several lots to be carried as inconspicuously as possible the return trip began to seem anticlimactic. The mules content to carry the lighter burden back into town than they had struggled uphill to their destination at the foul smelling silver mine. Paul became accustomed to taking to his bedroll last, silently making certain the camp was in good order and the first watch set before he could relax in his vigilance. When he heard the soft footsteps pause, he tried to hide the fact that his Army Colt was already drawn and cocked before he realized they were coming from inside the camp circle. " Miss Gem, you startled me! "  He said in soft spoken rebuke.

             She raised an eyebrow and watched his hand move to replace the elongated gun barrel where it wouldn't discharge by accident. " Seems to me you got things well in hand, Marshall. "  She laughed as he turned beet red, but there apology in her words and her actions as she sat down beside him.

              He raised up on one elbow but remained in place under the buffalo skin blanket lest she mistake it for an invitation to slip under its warmth with him, Indian style. After a few moments of quiet conversation she got around to asking the question that had driven her here more than the concern for his health that she told herself was the cause. 

             " If you don't mind my asking, Paul Lee? How come you ain't never got married? "

             " Peers to me you asked it whether I mind or not, Miss Gem. "

             She weighed the quiet reflection in his tone and pushed again, needing to solve the riddle he presented to her.

             " You don't even carry a squaw. Did you used too? Are you like some kind of lone wolf or something? "

             " Or something. "  He agreed thoughtfully, raising the blue enamel cup to his lips without drinking from it. The moisture rose up and sealed themselves on the ragged silvered growth that outlined his upper lip, sparkling like dew drops by the flames of the campfire which had been built too high as a warning to man and beast alike. She resigned herself to not getting more of an answer as he pulled deep on the scalding brew whose odor seemed to cling to them in the cold of the desert night.

           "  It's a funny thing about wolves. Only the pair of them can be bosses of the pack. The rest are their children, several generations living together until its time to break off and form a pack of their own. The land will only bare so many wolves in one area otherwise life gets terrible thin for everybody and the pups start dying off because there ain't enough to eat, so they break out on their own where the hunting is good. But while Papa Wolf has to stay near his mate every moment when she comes to wanting a male, he's free as the wind if he comes across a female that's pup ready, and there ain't never no bitter bickering between them later thats the ruin of of a good union between a man and a woman. But if'fn she dies, he's as likely to be driven away by the younger, stronger wolves of his own blood and become a lone wolf. So I can't honest say I'm 'a lone wolf'. I loved four women in my life, and I love them still, in the season we shared, I was a whole man. "

              " And rightly so. "  Sapphire agreed in a low voice rather than risk knocking away from his thoughtful muse.

            " The first was a girl I loved for as long as I breathed, it seemed. But when I pulled and asked for a little rein, she up and married another man on the spot and died shortly after having his baby. When I heard she was dead, I turned bitter. I killed several men because I felt so mean inside. One just for his shadow striking me and he didn't take no more kindly to rebuke than I did. Being on the run wasn't no life I could offer a white woman. According to how shriveled my soul was and how badly I felt, I was a condemned man with no hope. Somewheres along the way I met the biggest, baddest, orneriest body what ever breathed and he whipped me solid until I couldn't stand up no more and didn't have no more spit to throw in his face. He took pity on me, seeing the boy he had been in the early years when only skunks, beaver, trappers and injuins bent down the grasses and as we stayed among the injuins  I learned some of their ways. They believe the Creator is in all things that He made, and he made me, so that means the Creator is in me, and I honor that. I found him to be the truest friend I ever knew, but his woman was cut out of the same cloth I was, and if'fn I hadn't been so young she might'tae undone all the good he did. But he loved her, total blind to her faults, and I stayed at his side, roaming the land like a tumbleweed with my roots cut off. I celebrated the birth of his son and then his daughter, I stood by his shoulder as he buried the woman and the boy. It was only right. Some how the days just fled me. Then one day, after Luke Cole came along side us to learn being a Ranger from the best, a deranged rancher killed his wife and his best friend in the delusion they were having an affair behind his back. Rolfe Fosse went to bring him in, and we brung him back in a pine box instead. I took Becka up behind my saddle and did what her pa would want done. I've tried to raise her in the White Eyes world because that's the one she's destined too, but where in all that, as satisfying for me as it was, was there a life I could offer a white woman, Miss Gem? "