"Yes?"

"Varia said I won't get old either, till I'm maybe ninety. And that's kind of how it seems. If she was right, then in fifty years I'll still look about twenty-five."

It was Mary's turn to introvert now. After a long moment she responded: "And I'll look about sixty-eight."

They walked on till they reached her front steps, then stopped. "I have a lot to sleep on tonight," she said. "Perhaps even more than on Saturday. Kiss me again, Curtis. It will help."

Again they kissed, a kiss cool but slow. "Than you," she said. "Stop at Sweiger's tomorrow when I'm at work, and we'll make another date." They stood a couple of feet apart, holding hands between them. "And before you go to sleep tonight," she added, "remind yourself that I love you."

He did. He also told himself that each woman he'd loved had been very special-better, it seemed to him just then, than he deserved.

The next day dawned drizzly. He arrived at Sweiger's just before 2 PM, and walked Mary home, both of them wearing raincoats. This time when they reached her porch, she didn't offer to kiss him. Instead she looked him in the eye and said, "Curtis, will you marry me?"

He stared. "Do you mean it?"

"Dammit, if I didn't, would I ask? Let's try it again. Will you marry me?"

It took him a moment to answer. "Yes, Mary, I'll marry you. I just it's hard to believe this is happening. I'll be very happy to marry you, and I'll be a good husband." As I was to Varia and Melody. Oh God, let this one last. Let it go on a long time.

"When?" she asked. "When will you marry me?" Now she didn't seem like a determined young woman at all. She stood like a young girl, straight-backed, brave, hopeful, vulnerable.

"Soon," he said. "We need to get the license, the blood tests, a preacher… You need to decide whether you want a lot of people there, a big party-keeping the expense in mind. It could be in a week, I'd think, or maybe a month."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I'll meet you after I get off tomorrow. If you can get off, too."

Then, though it was daylight, she kissed him before turning and going inside.

Curtis went back to the courthouse and told Fritzi he thought he was coming down with something and wanted to go home to bed. He lied about feeling sick, but he did go straight home to bed, and slept for ten hours without waking.

He went to Doc Wesley for his blood test. They were already acquainted; Wesley had examined him before Macurdy had been signed on as a deputy. The doctor drew the necessary blood, then said, "You laid with a woman recently?"

"Not for quite a while."

"How Iong?"

Macurdy looked back to that night when Omara had come to his room at the palace in Teklapori. "Most of a year." Not really so long, he realized, but a world away.

"A prostitute?"

"Nothing like that. A good friend. A nurse."

The doctor grunted skeptically. "Drop your pants. You were a logger till recently, and even you might not know what you did in Tacoma or Portland or Medford, some Saturday when you'd been drinking."

Macurdy dropped them. The examination took only a minute. "Well, that looks all right," the doctor said. "Look. I won't beat around the bush. I suspect your blood tests will be clean, too. But this whole community knows Mary Preuss. And we like her. A lot. We want her to be happy. What do you know about ladies? Beyond your mother and sisters? I'm talking about ladies now. This girl is no floozie that hangs around drinking in blind pigs, waiting to be picked up. Odds are a thousand to one she's a virgin. She's hardly out of school! Does a roughneck like you know how to treat a girl like that?"

Macurdy bristled a bit. "I think so," he said.

"Well let me tell you some things, because I don't think you do. Your intentions may be good, but I don't trust your knowledge, and the instructions are free."

Then he gave the would-be bridegroom a lecture, with diagrams, on how to deflower a virgin gently. Macurdy left embarrassed and grateful.

Under "Announcements," the Nehtaka Weekly Sentinel reported that on October 5, 1933, a marriage license had been granted to "Miss Mary Preuss and Mr. Curtis Macurdy, both of Nehtaka. Miss Preuss is the daughter of Sheriff Fritzi Preuss. Mr. Macurdy is a deputy in the sheriff's department." Word had gotten around quickly, even among those who didn't read the announcements section, and since Macurdy was a local hero, the general response was more enthusiastic than Doc Wesley's had been.

Two days later, Macurdy went into Sweiger's Cafe for a late supper, his duties having precluded taking it at the boarding house. There was only a handful of customers drinking coffee and eating. Hansi Sweiger waited on him, and when he brought his food, sat down to visit.

The first thing he did was to thank Macurdy for saving his life that early August day in Severtson's messhall. He had no doubt at all that Hannigan was about to shoot him. Now he was in town for the winter. After the fire, Lars Severtson had promoted him to choker setter. It paid better than whistle punk, but setting chokers on a burn was the dirtiest job in the world. Usually he had to lie down in the ashes and dirt, to poke the cable knob under the logs, while to hook them up, he often had to lie on their charred bark.

So finally he'd quit-his father hadn't been happy about that-and come home to help out in his family's restaurant. He doubted he'd log again. With so much burned timber to salvage, it'd either be more of the same, or he'd have to go somewhere else.

In fact," he said, "I'm thinking about going back to the old country. Things were really bad there for a while-a lot worse than here-but they've gotten a lot better recently. My cousin Karl's been writing me about it; a guy named Hitler got elected chancellor, and he's putting everyone to work. He's better than Roosevelt any day." Hansi paused. "Roosevelt's a Jew, you know. His real name is Rosenfeld.

"My old man really blew up when I told him what I might do. He says Hitler will ruin Germany-that he'll start another war. Geez! Hitler's not crazy; he doesn't want a war! I tried to reason with dad, but it's like arguing with a brick wall. He got wounded four different times in the last war, you know" Hansi's expression turned thoughtful. "I never thought I'd want to go back, but now-maybe I'll give it a try. I can do it. I put more than enough money away working for the Severtsons."

He changed the subject. "Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, because you're marrying her, but I had a crush on Mary since the eighth grade. In high school, a couple times, I asked her to go out with me, but she never would. She never went out with anyone. People thought she might end up in a convent, but I guess all she needed was to meet the right man."

The door opened, jingling the bell, and Hansi got up. "Sorry I talked your arm off," he said. "Congratulations on getting engaged." Then he went to the counter to wait on the new customer.

Helmi Dambridge had come to Nehtaka from Finland at age five. By age seventeen she was an exceptional beauty who had scandalized her family and their Lutheran pastor, and titillated the rest of Nehtaka. The young men of the community found her particularly interesting, but she was interested only in those with "prospects."

Her first marriage was to the handsome young owner-skipper of a sealing ship, who arrived back from an expedition to the Aleutians to discover her gone. She was living with a sawmill owner in Longview, a man equally handsome and with even more money, who didn't sail away and leave her for months on end. Her husband promptly filed for divorce, and when the decree was final, his rival married her. But now, with a legal claim to her fidelity, he too became jealous, on one occasion to the point of blackening her eyes and loosening some teeth; she thanked him by plunging a letter opener into his abdomen.