"JACQUES, please don't go!" Elizabeth struggled to sit up, wincing with the effort. Her face contorted and she lay back in the gloom of the cold room, defeated. Her little sigh lingered as a tiny, white puff of warmth in the wintry air.

Jacques smiled and reached out to smooth her hair, gently, as one does for a child who has had a nightmare.

Merde, things get so complicated! He'd never intended for it to go this far. He shrugged, characteristically hunching his shoulders for just a moment. The fine, strong wool he now wore still felt uncomfortably heavy and rich on his shoulders. Just as this enormous house still seemed much too big, too elaborate. But those were feelings he'd enjoy getting used to.

But would he ever get used to the rest? His stomach twisted fleetingly into the familiar knot. Did he really belong here, in this strange place, with Elizabeth, and the child that was growing in her womb? Everything here would be so different for Maman and the girls when they arrived -- especially Elizabeth. They wouldn't even be able to talk to her. How would they ever be able to accept her? And his son?

And what would she think of them -- his little band of poor immigrants from the Old World?

"Don't worry, my Little Bit, I won't be gone long." As he'd hoped, his pet name for her forced her lips into the beginnings of a smile. No matter how colloquial his English got with time, her name still sounded to him the way it did the very first time he heard it. She'd laughed and laughed when he told her how odd he'd thought it for someone as tall and strong as her to be called Little Bit. "E-LIZ-a-beth," she'd repeated slowly for him several times, punctuated by her laughter. But to him, she would always be his Little Bit.

"Do you have to go today?" she pleaded. "Can't it wait?"

Now it was his turn to wince. Time had become his enemy. Even now, when things were going so well -- better than he could have hoped for, better than he'd ever dreamed of back on the boat from France. No, he couldn't wait. The Americans had been tolerant so far of all the foreigners flooding the gold hills in search of their fortune; but from things he'd heard, Jacques suspected that the Californians' willingness to share was wearing thin. They were beginning to resent all the foreigners and the gold they were removing from the California hills. Soon, it would be very difficult for him to hold on to what he'd found, or created. And as it was, Maman and the girls probably wouldn't get the letter for another six months. Around the horn or over land, it took forever. If they lived in the capital, they would know so much sooner; but Paris was a lifetime away from Guilers. And even though the boats passed Brittany long before arriving in Paris, their precious cargo of thoughts and lives and greetings, the mail, wasn't unloaded until it reached Paris. His mother and sisters would have to wait months for his news.

But it would be worth the wait!

"Non, ma chérie, it cannot. Don't worry, I won't be gone long. I've prepared the fires, they will burn for hours. There's water, you can make tea, and the bread bag is still full. Like you!" He smiled and patted her large, round belly lightly, as if to make light of his absence. But he knew she fretted awfully when he was gone, especially now, in her vulnerable condition. The memory of her late husband reinforced that fear. He had failed to survive here because he was careless. From what she'd related to Jacques of his habits, he had never really learned to be careful enough. Jacques knew better. The gold hills were no place for a man who couldn't watch his back.

"I'll be careful. And you'll see -- I'll be home for supper."

THE DRY snow seemed to absorb sounds, muffle them and magnify them at the same time. It was as paradoxical as the rest of this strange place, this California. Not at all what he'd expected.

Like life.

He hadn't counted on a son, at least not yet. Of course it would be a boy; what else could one have, up here in gold country? This was a rough place, a maker of men, not soft little girls. This was the place for a son.

He hadn't actually married Elizabeth, just in case. A little technicality he could always fall back on. But what he hadn't counted on was feeling the way he did when he thought about leaving her behind somewhere. Life would have been terribly lonely up in the hills all year without Elizabeth. But his original plan didn't include anyone else, at least not until his own family had arrived or he had gone home to get them. Lately, though, he found the prospect of going back without her, or living here without her, more and more disagreeable.

And now....

He patted his pocket once more, and couldn't stop a smile from taking hold of his face. He let it, enjoying the scene that played itself in his head as he let his mare, Pâquerette, follow the silent road that twisted through the trees. The gaiety that would fill the tiny, dark house! He could hear his sister's shrieks as his mother read them his letter. Séverine would grab Marie-Claude's hand and dance around the dim kitchen. Annick would sit still, smiling, but she would be the happiest. Annick, the quiet one, who seemed to feel everything so much more intensely than everyone else. She and Maman, who never complained -- they deserved this. They all did.

The sudden sound of his laugh startled his mare, who snorted and shook her head. In front of them, snow fell from the bare branches of a dogwood, dusting the lower needles of a digger pine before it hit the ground next to the path in an eerie, soundless movement. The shapeless pine shook and swayed its long, graceful arms. Pâquerette stepped carefully around a fallen log that half-blocked the path.

He looked about him, still amazed by what he saw -- weird digger pines, rivers with no water most of the year, sand instead of dirt, and air just as dry. Women as gentle as Elizabeth in a place wilder than he'd imagined. La Californie never stopped surprising him -- as it would his family. He pictured his mother's pale, creased face. What would she think when she got his letter? -- not only riches, a fine mansion, but a grandson in the bargain!

The next movement he saw was also soundless. Before he could completely awaken from his reverie, three shapes sprang from the woods and stood blocking his way. The instant his eyes registered the movement, he knew he'd done what he swore never to do here: let down his guard. And he knew what that meant.

One of the men took hold of his horse's bridle; the others flanked him. The one in front smiled, showing a great gap where teeth should have been and other smaller spaces here and there as his smile got broader. He smelled so bad Jacques was surprised Pâquerette hadn't smelled them coming.

"Well, well, if it isn't the rich little Froggie," he said in an exaggerated theatrical tone. "Look here, boys, we are in the presence of greatness."

The mare danced about, shifting her weight from leg to leg. She began to rear as the three men performed mock sweeping bows, but the toothless one in front held her fast. She neighed nervously when a hat swept past her head as its owner bowed.

Jacques smiled. "What do you want? I am going only to the Post Office." He left the reins slack but within easy reach of his fingers, sure that he could rein her in and out of Toothless' hands in one hard jerk when the time came.

"Ah, the Post Office, now, is it?" His voice had a lilt to it that Jacques couldn't identify, not a French accent, not American -- whatever that was. "And would that be perhaps to send yer money along home to the missus?" His two partners obviously found his remarks the height of wit, and roared with laughter. Their hands never left their sidearms.

"I do not have a missus. Or any money."

"Ah, but we've heard otherwise, haven't we, laddies?" The other two nodded vigorously, muttering something.

"I only have a letter... here, let me show you." With deliberate slowness, he reached as if to unbutton his greatcoat so he could pull out the letter. And his gun.

Instantly three gun barrels we repointed at him. "Hands in the air! Get down off there. Now."

For several endless seconds Jacques looked directly at the toothless man. In the dull, opaque eyes he saw nothing hopeful. He felt the injustice weigh down on him, making him move even more slowly.

Finally he rose in the stirrups to shift his weight. As he slid off Pâquerette, he twisted and lashed out with a fierce, savate kick. Another. He felt something crunch under his heel. He heard metallic clicks, but knew it was his only chance. As the man on the mare's left fell to the ground, stunned, Jacques leapt onto her back. He kicked with all his strength as he landed in the saddle, and they plunged forward, the mare leaning into her stride and Jacques lying on her withers.

The gunfire sounded more like logs cracking, muffled by the snow. The ones that whizzed past his head made a sickening thwack as they embedded themselves in tree-trunks. The one that didn't, hardly made any sound at all.

THE SNOW was so warm. How could that be, now that he was no longer wearing the woolen coat? His stockinged feet should be cold, too, but he couldn't feel them at all. Through the straggly, gray-green needles of the digger pine, he could see clouds the color of snow after horses had trampled it into the mud. It was going to snow again. The two fires he'd left her wouldn't be enough until tomorrow.

The breath he sucked in tasted thick and salty. He tried to find the clouds again, but his eyes would no longer obey him. All he could do was allow them to shut. In the resulting darkness he saw Séverine and Marie-Claude. They were no longer dancing. Maman's face was lined again with wrinkles and sadness. Would it indeed be a son? He was wrong not to have told anyone about the gold. How would his son know?

He needed to know. And he had to know who his father was, and his grandmother -- his wise, wonderful grande-maman across the ocean.

They would never know! Ah, maman, you would have been so happy! So proud, so warm, so happy. Et monfils -- my son -- you could have had everything! Oh, my Little Bit, please forgive me....

The snow started shortly after. And when it was done, all around the strange lump of snow-drift spread a moat of brown-red. One tiny rectangular island of white stood out from the puddle of raw sienna, adorned with flourishes of blue ink. As the winter night approached, wind filled the envelope again and again, until finally the flimsy, dream-filled paper took flight, above the snow-mound, across the silent path, and into the even more silent woods, where it came to rest against a rotting stump and became part of a snowdrift that wouldn't disappear until summer.