Cecilia shook her head. "Nope. Ancient times, nota was a mark burned into a criminal's skin to brand him a lawbreaker. That way you always knew who the evildoers were. Bunch of desperadoes ended up over in this area; scoundrels deported to this country from England back in the mid-seventeen hundreds. Some reason all of them were branded; killers and thieves, pickpockets, fornicators-the worst of the worst. Once their indenture'd been served, they became free men and disappeared into the west, landing hereabouts. Their descendants went to work for the railroad, doing manual labor along with assorted coolies and coloreds.

Half the people in this town are related to those convicts. Must have been a randy bunch, though where they found women no one seems to know. Ordered 'ern by mail, if my guess is correct."

We'd reached the first of the cabins and she continued in much the same tone, her delivery flat and without much inflection. "This is Willow. I give 'em names instead of numbers. It's nicer in my opinion." She inserted her key. "Each one is different. Up to you."

Willow was spacious, a pine-paneled room maybe twenty feet by twenty with a fireplace made up of big knobby boulders. The inner hearth was black with soot, with wood neatly stacked in the grate. The room was pungent with the scent of countless hardwood fires. Against one wall was a brass bedstead with a mattress shaped like a hillock. The quilt was a crazy patch and looked as if it smelled of mildew. There was a bed table lamp and a digital alarm clock. The rug was an oval of braided rags, bleached of all color, thoroughly flattened by age.

Cecilia opened a door on the left. "This here's the bath and your hanging closet. We got all the amenities. Unless you fish," she added, in a small aside to herself. "Iron, ironing board, coffeemaker, soap."