There was a long silence. Ketti put her hand into her father's.
"I'm going to take it down," Nils said. "The chimney. I'm going to take the stones out and put them back where they were. I don't know how they went. Gudny knew how they went. I don't. But you might, or your sister might. And if nobody knows, then we put them back as best we can and that is better than where they are."
"Winter is coming," Tukweyit said.
"I know when winter is coming."
"You will have no chimney."
"I'll build another one. There's rock enough on this claim that isn't anybody's grandmother." He heard his own voice crack on the last word, and did not care. "I should have done it two years ago. I didn't, because I was afraid, and because I told myself there was no one to do it for. That was a lie I told myself. There was always someone to do it for. I just didn't have to look at him."
Tukweyit was quiet for a time. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled, the same sudden lifting smile his sister had, only on his face it went crooked because of the scar on his jaw.
"My sister said you would say something like that," he said. "I told her she was a romantic, which is a word I learned from a Canadian policeman who had read too many books. She said, he gave a horse to an old man in the dark in a war. What kind of man do you think he is? I said, a man who was frightened that night and has had two years since to think better of it." He took a breath. "I am glad I was wrong. I was not looking forward to telling her she was right. She is unbearable when she is right."