Free Califia's Daughters by Leigh Richards Page B

and dogs. We can’t afford to have three women gone, and Laine really isn’t very good with the dogs.”
    â€œSo the question that remains is, when do you go?”
    Dian leaned on the frame of the window and glanced at her sister. “After the baby comes.”
    â€œNo!” objected Judith. “You can’t wait that long; it’ll be full winter by the time you’re heading home. You can’t travel in that kind of snow.”
    â€œOf course I can. You need me for the birth, Jude, you can’t tell me you don’t.” Judith was silent, but looked stubborn. “And it’s the only time that makes any sense. I can’t go back with them; they’d be sure to get a message to their people and any dirt would be under the rug by the time we got there. I could follow just a few days behind them, but I don’t know if it’s fair to arrive when their town is still in a dither from these folk coming back. I should see them when things are as normal as they’re going to be—like when winter is closing in.”
    â€œBut winter will close in on top of you. What about waiting until spring?”
    Dian stared unseeing into the brightness outside, thinking aloud. “We’ll have to tell them I am coming, don’t you think? They’re going to expect us to send somebody to check them out—surely they won’t believe we’re going to accept them with open arms simply because they’ve brought us two menfolk. If we tell them I’m going to come in the spring, they’ll either take it at face value or they’ll suspect that we’re being tricky and I’m actually going to be right on their heels. But nobody’s going to expect me to arrive after the snows start in November. I’d have to be nuts.” She turned to the room, a grin on her face. “So that’s when I’ll go.”
    â€œ
Nuts
is the word. Kirsten, tell her she’s crazy.”
    â€œShe isn’t, you know that, my dear. Your sister is quite capable of sitting out a blizzard in the woods, particularly with her dogs.”
    â€œBut what if something happened?”
    â€œSomething could happen a mile from home, or in the Valley itself,” Kirsten pointed out. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but it has to be done, and Dian is the one to do it. November or March, it’s a dangerous journey, but she will be careful. Won’t you, my dear?”
    â€œOh, yes,” Dian said fervently. “Really careful.” She didn’t care if she sounded like a child begging Mommy for permission; her heart was beginning to soar.
Away
, she thought—
away!
    After a minute, Judith stirred. “I don’t like it, but I guess you’re right.” She dredged up some humor and shook her finger at Dian, a gesture straight from their mother. “But if anything happens to you because you stuck around for the birth, I’ll never forgive you.”
    â€œIt’s just possible you may find the storms are not quite so hard this year,” said Kirsten mildly. Dian looked at the top of the white head, bent again over its work.
    â€œWhy do you say that? You been gazing in your crystal ball again, Granny?”
    â€œDon’t mock your betters, child. The winters are getting milder. You two are used to hard freezes and months of snow, but they aren’t normal for this area. When I was a child we never had snow in the Valley. Sometimes on the higher hills, but not down here, and the pond never froze hard enough to walk across. It was after the Bad Times that the weather began to go crazy, killed the redwoods on the ridges, changed the birds we get. The last few years, though, they haven’t been as bad. Remember last year, it was almost Midwinter before the pond froze solid? I can remember plenty of years we were snowed in by Thanksgiving.” She bit off a thread and mused, “I wonder if it’s possible