Later that same day, Jeweldean woke up feeling completely refreshed. She sat up in bed, and looked out her window, and saw it snowing against the black sky. Black sky?

             "It can't be that late already. I just went to bed at 11 this morning." Jeweldean said to herself. Before making her way downstairs, Jeweldean put her hand up to her forehead. She didn't feel warm at all. Deciding she felt good enough, Jeweldean made her way downstairs.

            She walked down the hall and walked into Cody's room. Cody was laying in his bed, and Carver was sitting in a chair beside him, reading him something from the Bible. They both looked up at Jeweldean.

           "Ma!" Cody said and jumped out of bed, and across the room to his ma. Cody gave Jeweldean a hug, and Jeweldean hugged her son back.

           "Happy birthday, honey."

          "I thought you was gonna sleep through my whole birthday." Cody said. Then pulling back and stepping away from Jeweldean he said, "Are you still sick?"

       Jeweldean smiled. "I feel a lot better. I think my fever is gone, thanks to Clint's orders to go back to sleep. Who knows what would've happened if he hadn't found me and taken me to the doctor."

         Cody looked at Carver. Carver cleared his throat and said to Jeweldean, "We need to talk." He motioned for Jeweldean to meet him in the hallway. Carver closed the door behind him.

         "How are you feelin'?" Carver asked Jeweldean.

         "A lot better. I think my fever is gone, so that's good."

         Carver lifted his hand, but then quickly put it back down.

"May I?" He asked.

"What?" Jeweldean asked back.

Carver blushed. "See...if your fever is gone."

Jeweldean smiled at his politeness. "Sure."

Carver lifted his hand to Jeweldean's forehead, and nodded his head.

"Feels to me like it is gone." Carver said, quickly putting his hands into his pockets.

Jeweldean turned serious. "Now what did you need to tell me that you couldn't say in front of Cody?" Jeweldean asked Carver.

Carver sighed. "Let's sit in the living room."

"Okay. But first, what happened to your face? It's all bruised."

"I will tell you in a bit; let's go sit down."

Several minutes later, Carver had explained to Jeweldean everything that had happened last night, and today with Clint. Jeweldean said she was shocked; she never expected Clint to do or say anything like that.

Jeweldean was very sad, but also very grateful that Carver told her everything. She gave Carver a hug, a 'thank you,' and some leftover cornbread before sending him to his bunkhouse.

Once Jeweldean closed the door, she took a deep breath and went upstairs to get Cody's birthday gift that she had made for him. She had knitted him a new hat and a new pair of socks to wear with his boots.

Once Jeweldean was about five months pregnant with her new baby, Sonny would never let her do any strenuous work outside, or inside for that matter. On cool, but not too cool, days, Sonny and Jeweldean would go on short walks around parts of their property. There was a certain place that they always went to that was on a hill that overlooked almost all of their land. It was one of the most beautiful things that Jeweldean had every seen. Sonny's parents said that that view was one of the deciding factors of buying this particular piece of land.

On warmer days during Jeweldean's pregnancy, Sonny always made sure Jeweldean stayed inside, and that she was plenty cool enough. During the hottest days, Sonny would frequently come inside to check on Jeweldean, Suzanne, and Cody. Once he made sure they were all okay, and after giving them each a kiss, Sonny would make his way back outside to start working again.

During Jeweldean's most recent pregnancy with her new baby, Sonny was a little more lenient on letting Jeweldean do certain things. He even let her ride a horse, walk only of course- no trot or loping, and definitely not galloping, until she was about five or even six months pregnant. But once Jeweldean was about seven months pregnant and the weather became more and more unpredictable, Sonny made Jeweldean stay inside more. She knew better than to protest with Sonny. Staying inside gave Jeweldean more time to knit. Given this extra time, Jeweldean knit all the ranch hands new gloves, a hat, and a scarf to give them on Christmas. She also sewed a shirt for Sonny, and she would always get worried that one day he would come in from working outside and see her working on it, but fortunately he never caught her making the new shirt.

Jeweldean grabbed Cody's gift and walked into his room. Cody was laying on his bed with half of his covers off his body and sleeping soundly. She covered him up and softly kissed his cheek, then set his gift beside his bed. She then crossed the room to the babies cradles. She picked up her new baby, who was awake, but not crying, and held her close. Jeweldean took her precious new baby, and her cradle upstairs. Once upstairs, Jeweldean changed into a clean, older nightgown and fed her baby.

Looking at her baby as she drank her milk, Jeweldean realized for the first time how much her new baby looked like Sonny. She had Sonny's dark, wavy, brown hair, and flashing blue eyes. She also had Sonny's nose, which Jeweldean always teased Sonny saying it was "cute." Sonny would tease her back and say, "Oh yeah, well yer pretty cute yourself." And then he would usually kiss her.

Looking at the striking resemblances to Sonny in her new baby, made her miss Sonny even more. She missed everything about him.

After her baby was done eating, Jeweldean burped her, then sat her back down in the crib next to her bed.

Jeweldean was very thankful to be recovering so quickly from her fever, she thought as she made her way downstairs, and back into Cody's room to get Suzanne and Suzanne's crib.

Since she could not fall asleep, Jeweldean thought about everything that had happened tonight. She was still processing everything that Carver had told her about Clint. Jeweldean felt more surprised then anything. She always thought that Clint had a crush on her, ever since they were kids, but it seemed that more recently that crush had gone away, and now it was more friendly affection.

Jeweldean felt disturbed by some of the things that Carver had told Clint, such as he was committing adultery by having a crush on Jeweldean. Jeweldean had always been nice to everyone, unless someone gave her a reason to be mad, which was not very often, but now she wondered if her kindness toward Clint had come across as flattery.

Jeweldean turned to God for a decision as to what to do about this dilemma. As Jeweldean prayed more and more, she felt more and more recovered; not only from being sick, but also from her decisions about Clint.

By the time morning came shortly later, Jeweldean felt completely rested, and she knew exactly what she had to do about her little dilemma.

                                                                  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sonny heard another few gunshots, and the sound of pounding hooves as he lay in the snow. He opened his eyes and looked around him. He heard Tucker's distorted voice running towards him, and he saw a horse with a man holding his right shoulder galloping away. A short ways away, he saw a man lying face down in the snow.

Sonny felt something on his face. He looked up and saw Bronco looking down at Sonny. Then Sonny felt something hot on his left shoulder. Sitting up, Sonny saw that he was bleeding on his left shoulder. He groaned. "Not another one." Sonny mumbled as Tucker came running to his side.

"Are you...okay? Goodness gracious, Sonny." Tucker said, looking at Sonny's left shoulder. "I can't believe he shot you."

Sonny stood up, his shoulder hurt but the cold snow and the cold air around him numbed the gunshot wound enough that it didn't hurt too bad. He was now able to get a better look at the wound. The bullet didn't just graze Sonny's shoulder, it went all the way through just below his collarbone. Sonny looked down at the snow where he was just laying. It was red with blood. His coat also had a hole in it that was surrounded with blood as well.

"I'll be fine. You got any leftover cloths lyin' around?" Sonny asked Tucker.

Tucker seemed more worried and anxious about Sonny's gunshot wound then Sonny was.

"I...killed...Fulton, and shot Butch, but he got away." Tucker said suddenly.

Sonny was surprised by Tucker's comment. "I'm sorry I didn't get over here sooner. I should've stayed by your side rather than riding ahead. You okay?" Sonny looked Tucker up and down to see if he could find any wounds on Tucker.

"Yeah fine. It wasn't your fault. I told you to ride on ahead, and my plan wouldn't have worked anyways." Tucker said with defeat and walked over to Fulton's body.

"Here's your cloth you were lookin' for." Tucker sounded completely serious as he ripped off Fulton's shirt and tore it into pieces. He walked back over to Sonny and handed him the pieces of cloth.

"Thanks..." Sonny said. He didn't believe Tucker the first time he said that they take clothes from the dead people that they killed, but now Sonny saw what Tucker was talking about.

Sonny didn't feel right using the strips of worn out, dirty cloth on his wounded and limp shoulder, but he took the strips of cloth anyways. He had to stop the bleeding and prevent it from getting infected. Sonny took off his right glove and reached down to pick up clean snow to put on his shoulder to clean it out. As he picked up snow, he realized that his wrist was beginning to scar from the rope burns he had received from the first day when he got dragged off his horse.

Just as Sonny finished wrapping his shoulder, Tucker walked over, hands full of stuff that used to be Fulton's.

"I didn't bring my big saddle bag, because I left camp quickly, and my horse kind of took off, so can I put this stuff in your saddle bag?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah. Go ahead." Sonny replied.

"Oh, but I did manage to get your rifle back for ya, and I also got what's left of your rope, and your revolver that was on you when they- well you know. I would give them to you now, but they are with Daybreak, and she's gone off to who knows where."

"That's fine. I would rather get home then get that stuff back." Sonny said.

"I know. We are almost to the cave that I was trying to get us to originally. Do you want to steer Bronco or do you just want me to give you directions?"

"I will let you take the reins." Sonny replied. "And once we get to the cave, I will ride out and follow Daybreak's tracks to see if I can find her."

"You'd do that? I would really appreciate that."

"Sure."

Tucker mounted Bronco, and Sonny slid up behind the saddle and behind Tucker. Sonny grabbed hold on the seat of the saddle as Tucker led Bronco to the left.

A couple minutes later, Tucker and Sonny arrived at the cave. Once they got there, Sonny let Bronco rest for a while then he took him back out to look for Daybreak.

After about an hour of following tracks in the deep snow, Sonny had to turn back because it was becoming to dark to see. But just as Sonny was about to turn back, he clearly saw Daybreak's tracks going across something that could be his ticket home.