By morning the snow was over and with one of the quick turns of weather for which Kansas is famous, a bright sun and a warm wind were already melting off the previous day's accumulation. Cairo and Festus left soon after breakfast, the Potter family fortune hidden at the bottom of a can of axle grease tucked up under the seat of the buckboard. Caleb did not turn out to see them leave.

Kitty went out to the barn mid-morning and found both her husband and her childhood friend standing in worried silence over a small dappled-grey mare with blood dripping down her back legs. Kitty went to stand by the mare's head and stroked her soothingly. "We going to lose this one?" she asked.

"Maybe," her husband replied.

"I doan think so, Miss Kitty. It's early. But I think maybe I pull it through. I done this before."

Kitty returned to the kitchen where Hattie and Carolina were sewing and cracked several eggs into a bowl. She measured in a few spoons of oil. "Come on upstairs with me, Carolina. I want to do something about your hair." The girl looked at her mother, but Hattie just kept sewing steadily putting the last seams into a dress that was almost ready to wear. Kitty took her arm and they went upstairs to the bathroom. There was water steaming in a bucket on the small stove next to the door, and Kitty ran water into the tub. Carolina bent over to feel it and was surprised to find it no colder than the room.

"There's a reservoir in the kitchen," Kitty said. "So it stays pretty warm." She poured the bucket of heated water in with the water running from the tap. "You get in the tub and I'll get this ready for your hair." She spent another minute or two on her mixture and then tucked a towel over the front of her dress and turned around. Carolina, looking pleased, was already sitting in the tub with her hair wet.

"Did they show you how to wash your hair at the Lily, Carolina?"

"No, ma'am. But they had a big tub like this, and first thing I did when I got there was have a bath."

Kitty knew what had happened after the bath, but she didn't know yet whether Carolina felt read to talk about that. She rubbed the egg mixture into the girl's hair, separating it strand by strand and working it in. "I'm a little surprised. When I was there they started me right off with how to keep my hair thick and shiny."

"You are a white woman, Miss Kitty. You show your hair. I have never been able to show my hair since I was a little girl and my mamma did it up in short braids all over my head. From the time I was ten I had to wear a tignon."

Kitty just kept rubbing and kneading in the gooey concoction. "Well, you're not going to do that anymore are you, Carolina? So I guess you need to know how to care for your hair and how to put it up."

Kitty rinsed her hair with pitchers of water, and when it was clean she did one final rinse with another pitcher of cold, chamomile tea that she had prepared the night before. Carolina dried herself, enjoying the thick cloth towel, and then Kitty wrapped her in one of her own robes – a fancy blue silk one with wide ruffles – and the two of them sat in front of the stove combing out her hair to dry.

"Did you know what was coming, Carolina? When you went to the Lily?"

"Yes, ma'am. Colored girls are not innocent of such things." Carolina turned to look at her. "Did you know, Miss Kitty? When he took you there?"

Kitty nodded. She'd lived in a gambling house that was not precisely a brothel for several years. Panacea had kept men away from her, but hadn't attempted to keep her apart from the talk of working girls with whom she lived. "But you see, Carolina, my father didn't take me to the Golden Lily. I had never even met him – at least that I could remember. He just sent a carriage, and a note for the lady who was taking care of me, and off I went. Oh, I knew pretty quick what was happening, but I didn't think it was my father who had done it." She made a small chortling noise that showed very little humor. "I thought for years that my father would find out and come rescue me."

"Did you need to be rescued, Miss Kitty?" she asked hesitantly after a few moments of silence. "Did you not like it there?"

Kitty sat back in her chair and handed the comb to the girl who was, by some remarkable circumstance not only her sister but the only person she now knew who had shared her own early experience. "You keep on combing. Let me think a minute." Eventually, she went on. "Oh, I liked it fine. At first. They work mighty hard to be sure the girls do like it. I learned a lot. Not just about men, but about cards, and gambling, and the good things in life. I liked the clothes, and the rooms, and the furniture. And the food. I surely did like the food. But I did not like not havin' a choice about who I slept with or what we did. Still, I can't say I wouldn't have stayed if they had paid me. But they didn't."

Carolina stopped so suddenly Kitty thought she was going to drop the comb. She had caught the girl's full attention at last. "They did not pay you?"

"No, Carolina. They did not. At first it didn't matter, and by the time it did matter, there didn't seem to be anything I could do. They showed me a contract – not that I ever signed one, or that it would have been valid if I had – that said I wouldn't be paid until I was twenty-one years old. I was an apprentice. My wages were my clothes and room and board. Do you think it would have been any different for you?"

Carolina sat facing her now. Her eyes were wide with distress. "Yes, ma'am, I did. I still do. That's why I didn't want Caleb to take me away. I thought I could make more money there than doing anything else in New Orleans. And Michael…"

"Michael?"

"Michael O'Rourke. He worked there. He showed me how to… do things with men." Carolina's stubborn face stared boldly at Kitty. "And how to enjoy myself while I did it. Michael said he remembered you. That you were one of the best paid girls they had. That is just what he told me. That you were one of the best paid girls and that I could be too."

Kitty stepped behind her and took the comb from her hand. "Well, I do remember little Mikey O'Rourke. He was an errand boy around the place when I was there. Several years younger than I was. But I would certainly remember if I was ever paid, Carolina, and I was not. Now, you're about dry here. You need to remember to brush your hair one hundred strokes every morning and every night. You can braid it at night, but you need to learn to put it up during the day. Only children wear their hair down, and you are far from a child. Come on over to the mirror. I have some hairpins and I'll show you how to do it so it stays up firm. We'll try something easy first."

But Carolina wasn't done yet. "You think Michael was lying to me, Miss Kitty?"

"Yes, Carolina. I do."

There were tears rising in the liquid blue eyes, but Carolina dashed they aside. "You are not just telling me this because you want to discourage me from being a prostitute?"

Kitty's lips lifted a little at the formal phrasing, but she shook her head. "I am not. If that's what you really want in life, Carolina, I'll help you find a place where you can do it without being owned, but I'm hoping you can learn to want something else."

Carolina held her determined little mouth grimly straight. "I will have to think on this. Michael… I knew better than to love him, Miss Kitty, but still… he was the first white person who ever let me call him by his name. He was important to me."

Kitty put a hand under her chin to tip the familiar face up to look at her. "Well, we can fix that by you callin' me Kitty. And I will do everything I can to help you have the kind of life you want - if you can figure out what that is."

"Why would you do that, ma'am? You don't even know me."

"Well, first because, although we aren't supposed to talk about it, you are my sister. And then, well, I suppose because I wish there had been someone to help me out when I left the Golden Lily. There wasn't, and I had some hard years. I would like to spare you that."

Carolina looked at her intently for a full minute and then went over to the mirror. "Can you show me how to put it up like yours?"

12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12

Kitty spent the early afternoon partly in the barn watching as Matt and Caleb helped a weak and tiny white foal from its mother's body and then held it up to nurse. Partly she moved about the yard gathering eggs, sweeping the wide porch, and keeping watch down the road to Dodge. It was nearly two o'clock when the sound of wheels alerted her and she grabbed Matt's hand to draw him out to the front of the house. They were both there to meet Doc's buggy when it pulled up to the front porch.

"I was pretty sure you would be here today, Doc," Kitty greeted him. "I was a little surprised that you didn't show up yesterday."

Doc tied his horse to the hitching post. "I would have been, but we had a spot of trouble in town."

"Oh? What happened?" Matt asked.

"Nothing too serious." Doc took a swipe at his moustache. "Fella over at the Lady Gay seemed to think he could fly and was intent on proving it. Took me most of the day to get things fixed up." He headed up the stairs to the porch. "Now I'm here to take a look at Carolina."

Kitty stood herself in front of the door. "No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean it's not going to happen, Doc, so let's just agree to that. Then you can come round to the kitchen and have a cup of coffee and a nice visit."

"Kitty, that's just not sensible. I need to check her out…"

"No, you don't." Kitty interrupted him. "If it makes you feel any better I had her in that big tub upstairs this morning and I can tell you she's not injured in any way."

"You trying to tell me she spent ten days at that brothel and nobody touched her?"

"No, I'm not. I'm trying to tell you she hasn't been raped or abused."

Matt stepped in at that point. "Have a seat here, Doc, and let's have a word about this."

The doctor let himself be seated in Kitty's rocker and she sat beside him on a bench. Matt leaned his tall form against one of the doorposts. "I guess you figured Doc would be out here soon as he could didn't you, Kitty?"

"I did. But he's looking for a problem that's not there. And I'm not going to let him disturb Carolina any more than she already is."

"Well, what is it that makes you so sure she hasn't been… injured?"

"Two things. First, she told me. And second, I took a good look at her this morning. I've been around working girls for a long time, Matt, and she's just fine."

Doc was trying to be patient but was clearly getting angry. "Kitty, you're an experienced woman, but you're not a doctor. Now I need to examine that young lady."

Kitty sighed loudly then drew in a long breath. "Well, Doctor Adams, if you know so much, then you tell me what you think happened to her."

Doc's familiar dry voice replied evenly. "I think she was raped. She may not have been beaten, if she didn't fight them, but she was certainly abused."

Kitty considered that a moment. "So every time we have a wedding in Dodge City you go barging in to check out the bride?

"That's a different think entirely, Kitty, and you know it."

"Well, thinking about how little sense some of our young men have, I'm not entirely sure that's true. But you are wrong about Carolina. She went willingly into that house. She knew what was going to happen. I'm not entirely sure she was a virgin, but I suppose she might have been. I was. But she wasn't raped. That's not how a place like that works. It's not the start you want for a woman that you're investing a site of money in. She was seduced. By someone with a lot of experience with women. Someone who made her feel mighty pleased with herself."

"Kitty, you don't know what you're talking about."

But at that point Matt stepped in. "Doc, hold on there. Looks to me like maybe Kitty is the only one here who does know what happened. Why don't you tell us, honey."

The smile his wife gave him paled the winter sun. "I don't know how to make you understand. Let's try it this way. The first time you had a woman, what was the very next thing you wanted to do?" Kitty ignored Doc and directed this at her husband.

Matt's face reddened a little but he came up with the answer she knew he would. "To do it again."

"Is it so hard for you men to believe that a woman would feel the same way?"

Doc rose and started down the stairs. "Guess I'll head back to town." But Kitty caught his hand. "I wish you'd stay, Doc. Come have some coffee. And I baked a pie for lunch. And Doc," He looked up at her standing above him on the porch, "I do want you to take a look at Hattie. She doesn't seem well to me."

Matt opened the front door and the three of them went in.

12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 12

Later that evening, with Doc already settled up in his room, and with Matt making the final rounds of the ranch without which he did not seem able to sleep, Kitty wrapped herself in a shawl and slipped out to the barn. Caleb was on his knees in the straw holding the little body of the foal up to suckle. He smiled at her. "That baby going to live, Caleb?" she asked.

"I think so, Miss Kitty. He's just kind of weak, and his bones aren't quite set yet. Every day we keep him alive he'll get stronger."

Kitty watched in silence for a while. "You want to stay here with us, Caleb?"

He kept his attention focused on the little horse, but he answered her readily enough. "Yes, ma'am. I do."

"Even if you have to sleep in the barn?"

"I've slept in barns most of my life, Miss Kitty, but I gots an idea about that. When Mr. Dillon was showin' us around yesterday, I saw this little house down by the creek most hidden by those cottonwoods. They usin' it for hay right now, but it's built tight. It's just one room, but it's all I need, ma'am. I could move that hay and fix things up with no trouble at all. You think Mr. Dillon might let me do that?"

Kitty had to think a minute to realize what he meant. It was the old foreman's house. It was the place where Rose Kincaid had wanted her to live when they'd first made their bargain about Jake fifteen years before. She smiled with great satisfaction. "Yes, Caleb, I'm pretty sure Mr. Dillon would agree to that. I'll ask him tonight."

Caleb turned his warm brown eyes up to her, "Thank you, Miss Kitty. That would be jus' fine. I ain't never had a place all my own. Not in my entire life."