The curls that Delila had skillfully combed before Anne's ears that morning now clung to her cheeks in plastered strands. Brant's yellow oil skin slicker, which he had draped over her when the torrential downpour erupted again that dawn did nothing to relieve her acute misery. Oh, to feel again the perennial warmth of Barbados' sandy beach beneath her bare toes! "Mr. Powers," she called above the drizzling patter of the rain. "Mr. Powers!" The man's wide brimmed sombrero also sagged with the weight of the rain, but the granite face was comparatively dry. "Ma'am?" he asked coolly, reining in until she caught up with him. "How much longer? Until we catch up with the wagon train?" "If you weren't in such a hurry, Mrs. Maren, you could wait this weather out." Anne looked around her. On both sides of the San Bernard River were great stands of post oak and sycamores. Brant was right. If they had only taken refuge in one of the groves instead of plodding along the wagon-rutted track that paralleled the wide, shallow river, they would have been spared the weather.
