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hand rested on her brow, and it took all her concentration to blot out the intensity of his feelings for her. “I’m all right!”
    “And the pain?” he asked.
    “Fading,” she lied. “I just got up too quickly. It is nothing.”
    “Get some salt,” Meredith told Jeremiah. When he returned, Meredith poured it into her outstretched palm. “Eat it,” he commanded.
    “It makes me feel sick,” she protested, but he remained silent, and she licked the salt from her hand. Jeremiah passed her a mug of water, and she rinsed her mouth.
    “You should rest now,” said Meredith.
    “I will, soon,” she promised. Slowly she stood. Her legs took her weight, and she thanked both men. Anxious to be away from their caring glances, she moved to Jeremiah’s wagon and climbed inside, where the wounded man was still sleeping.
    Isis pulled up a chair and sat down. Her illness was worsening, and she sensed the imminence of death.
    Pushing such thoughts from her mind, she reached out, her small hand resting on the fingers of the sleeping man. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to fall into his memories, floating down and down through the layers of manhood and adolescence, absorbing nothing until she reached childhood.
    Two boys, brothers. One shy and sensitive, the other boisterousand rough. Caring parents, farmers. Then the brigands came. Bloodshed and murder, the boys escaping. Torment and tragedy affecting them both in different ways, the one becoming a brigand, the other
 …
    Isis jerked back to reality, all thoughts of her illness forgotten as she stared down at the sleeping man. I am staring into the face of a legend, she thought. Once more she merged with the man.
    The Jerusalem Man, haunted by the past, tormented by thoughts of the future, riding through the wild lands, seeking … a city? Yes, but much more. Seeking an answer, seeking a reason for being. And during his search stopping to fight brigands, tame towns, kill the ungodly. Riding endlessly through the lands, welcome only when his guns were needed, urged to move on when the killing was done.
    Isis pulled back once more, dismayed and depressed—not just by the memories of constant death and battle but also by the anguish of the man himself. The shy, sensitive child had become the man of violence, feared and shunned, each killing adding another layer of ice upon his soul. Again she merged.
    She/he was being attacked, men running from the shadows. Gunfire. A sound behind her/him. Cocking the pistol, Isis/Shannow spun and fired in one motion. A child flung back, his chest torn open. Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!
    Isis clawed her way free of the memory but did not fully withdraw. Instead she floated upward, allowing time to pass, halting only when the Jerusalem Man rode up to the farm of Donna Taybard. This was different. Here was love.
    The wagons were moving, and Isis/Shannow rode out from them, scouting the land, heart full of joy and the promise of a better tomorrow. No more savagery and death. Dreams of farming and quiet companionship. Then came the Hellborn!
    Isis withdrew and stood. “You poor, dear man,” she whispered, brushing her hand over the sleeping man’s brow. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”
    Outside the wagon Dr. Meredith approached her. “What did you find out?” he asked.
    “He is no danger to us,” she answered.
    *   *   *
    The young man was tall and slender, with a shock of unruly black hair cut short above the ears but growing long over the nape of his neck. He was riding an old, swaybacked mare up and over the Gap and stared with the pleasure of youth at the distant horizons, where the mountains reared up to challenge the sky.
    Nestor Garrity was seventeen, and this was an adventure. The Lord alone knew how rare adventures were in Pilgrim’s Valley. His hand curled around the pistol butt at his hip, and he allowed the fantasies to sweep through his mind. He was no longer a clerk at the timber company. No, he was a Crusader