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Epilogue

1990

Katherine Maria Huerra, named for her two grandmothers, decided to be born the night before Thanksgiving, two weeks early, in Dallas, Texas, at the hospital where her mother, who had at long last found her career home in pediatrics, practiced medicine.

Anne had been busy at her workbench when she admitted to herself that Katie was determined to make an appearance. She'd had time to put the finishing touches on the latest of the engraved copper plates that once again fascinated her, and to stack it with the others she had been almost driven to complete during her pregnancy. And then she reached for the telephone to call David.

David had returned to the Dallas P.D. Pete Tompkins hadn't taken his badge. Instead, when Pete had retired he'd recommended David for promotion, citing intuition, integrity, and common sense among his numerous qualifications for the job. Now he found himself more often corralling reports and officers than criminals. But that was okay. That job was a necessary part of police work, too. And if it bought him more time with Anne, it was better than okay.

David let himself into the house through the garage door before Anne had finished dialing. He grabbed the bag they had already packed, bundled her into the car, and hurried her to the hospital. He didn't tell her that the reason he had come home early was that for the first time in five years, he had heard the cats. Grumbling, fussing, but not angry. Not this time.

He might never tell her that.

He thought more often than he wanted to admit about Walter and Lucy, and about the warrior they had reburied. All of those involved did. That was obvious from their silence about it when they got together at the Hansom house in Allegro for their annual Thanksgiving dinner.

Only Blake would be sharing the meal with them tomorrow. Because of Anne's advanced pregnancy, their regular dinner had been held a month early this year. At that time Frances had quietly given him a copy of the legislation that had been introduced the year before giving federal protection to Native American funerary and sacred objects. It was too early to tell just how this legislation would develop and how it would work in actuality, but maybe, just maybe if the warrior were ever found there would be protection in place for him and because of that, for those who found him.

Frances Collins, on leave from the University of Oklahoma where she taught anthropology, heard the wind rising and looked out the window of her grandmother's house, toward the line of trees that marked the curve of the river, then farther, to the lights of the lock and dam, and then to the west, toward the park where the warrior lay buried. Her stomach tingled. Something was happening. Something completely unrelated to her grandfather's funeral, which she had attended that morning. She felt it. And then she saw the glow. Golden. Hanging low over the mounds. Circling them.

Wayne Samuels looked up from his woodcarver's bench as wind rattled the windows in the glass-walled room adjoining the kitchen in the house he and Margaret had bought from Anne. He didn't like living in town, even one as small as Allegro. He might never like it. But here at least he could walk in the woods when people crowded him too much. And Margaret needed to be here. She still worked at the clinic, keeping it open for the doctor who came three half-days a week. There was talk—just talk so far—of the possibility of a nurse practitioner license for registered nurses in rural areas of the state. Maggie would like that. And because she would, he would.

The house was big, too big for just the two of them. So, surprising himself, he had suggested they invite Nellie and Lilly to share it with them while Nellie finished high school and then began work on a degree at the community college in Fairview. And Nellie, surprising herself, he suspected, had agreed.

But right now, the house wasn't big enough. Wayne put down his carving and walked to the back door. Something was happening. Something he had to investigate.

In Dallas, caught in the grip of a powerful contraction, Anne clutched her husband's hand. He was there for her. Always. As he had promised.

Near Spiro, Frances climbed over the stile into the park and walked toward Craig Mound. Yes. The cats were there. Visible. Pacing, but not anxious.

The wind whistled down from the river, lifting the edge of her coat, then hesitated and with a sigh, stilled.

In Allegro, Wayne followed the wind to the restored barn on the rear of the lot. Lilly had discovered it and used it as a playhouse, coming and going through a loose board beneath the rear window. She thought no one else knew about it. He thought that maybe she was what he heard in the barn tonight.

But that couldn't be. Lilly had gone into Fairview with her mother and the young man Nellie was dating.

So what . . .

Wayne opened one of the doors to the barn and stepped inside. The wind followed him, grabbing the door and banging it back, then hesitated, and with a sound as gentle as a sigh, left the barn in silence.

In Dallas, at 11:59, Katherine Maria gave her first triumphant cry. The lights in the hospital flickered once, probably because of the wind that had whipped itself into an almost unheard of frenzy for Dallas in November, but then steadied. David took his daughter from the doctor and held her in trembling arms. Little Katie was as beautiful as her mother, and Anne was so beautiful he sometimes wondered how he could have been so blessed. Not trusting himself not to drop her, he laid her on her mother's breast. Anne lifted one hand to Katie's back and the other to David, asking for his touch. She smiled at her daughter and then at him through a shimmer of tears.

She heard them, too. He knew she did when her hand tightened on his and her eyes widened, but not in fear. Not this time. Maybe never again. Against the backdrop of the hospital noises, the conversation between doctor and staff in the room with them, the bleeps and gurgles and thunks of machinery, and their awareness of the tiny miracle of Katie, the two of them heard the unmistakable sound of the cats. Not angry. Far from it. Not even fussing. The sound they heard could almost be described, if ever they dared describe it, as a contented purr.

THE END

 

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Framed