"Why not?" Maeve said, determined to vex some answers out of her father. "is he a bad man?"

Harmon set the box down on the tail of the wagon. "I don't know what kind of man he is," he replied, his voice low. "Truth is, I don't rightly know that he's a man at all. Maybe... " he sighed.

"What, Papa?"

"Maybe I dreamt him."

"But I saw him too."

"Then maybe we both dreamt him. Maybe that's all Everville is or will be. Just a dream we had, the two of us."

Her father had told Maeve he wouldn't lie to her, and she believed him, even now. But what kind of dream produced objects and real as the medallion she'd just held in her fingers?

"I don't understand," she said.

"We'll talk about this another time," Harmon said, passing his hand over his furrowed brow. "Let's have no more of it for now."

"Just tell me when," Maeve said.

"We'll know when the time's right," Hannon said, pushing the box back through the canvas and out of sight. "That's the way of these things."

"These things, these things: what exactly were these things? For the next several weeks, as the wagon train wound its way through Idaho, following a trail forged by half a decade's westering, Maeve had puzzled over the mystery of all she'd seen and heard that day. In truth the puzzlement was a distraction-like the sewing together of dream-scraps-a distraction from the monotony of the trail. The weather through late June and July was mostly sweltering, and nobody had much energy for games. Adults had it easy, Maeve thought. they had maps to consult and feuds to fume over. And they had that business between men and women that her twelve-year-old mind did not entirely grasp, but that she yearned to comprehend. It was plain, from her observations, that young men would do much for a girl who knew how to charm them. they would follow her around like dogs, eager to supply any comfort; make fools of themselves if necessary. She understood these rituals imperfectly, but she was a good student, and this-unlike the enigmatic Mr. Buddenbaum-was a mystery she knew she would eventually solve.