Epilogue
As we passed north of the Tiller place, I angled toward Turtle Crick. The coming task of breaking through the frozen earth required more than Bird’s war hatchet. Maybe there was something left at the farm to serve. If not, I’d have to go to Andre.
The snow on the north side of the hill that had sheltered my cabin was too deep to mount, so we passed between the hillock and the fields. Although covered by a few inches of snow, the soil had obviously been tilled this past season. When we rode into the farmyard, I pulled up in amazement. My outhouse had been restored alongside a rebuilt forge. And in the stead of the burned-out hulk of my cabin, a proper stone house stood in its exact spot. I recognized rock from the quarry near Teacher’s Mead. How many hundred-mile round trips h
