Buck strode the main street of the northern town, eyeing the open carts for fresh produce, and the 
best brand of oats.  He sauntered up to a cart brimming over with ripe, red, succulent, apples. 
Ignoring the sour expression of the wagon owner, he lifted one of the smooth round fruits, and inhaled the sweet smell of it.  He opened up one of the canvas bags he carried, and put a few of the sweet smelling apples into it.  His entire body tensed, as he caught a furtive movement from the corner of his eye.  Narrowing his gaze on the movement, he relaxed.  A tiny, grime covered hand stretched from beneath the brightly painted and stiff fabric that made up a skirt of sorts that wound around the pushcart.  Curious, Buck watched a little arm emerge, and still being too short to reach its booty, a shoulder appeared.  Finally, a head of matted, dingy brown hair bobbed around outside of the cart’s covering.  The cart owner, a round, ruddy faced man, began to follow the direction of Buck’s stare. 

He leaned around the corner of his mobile business, and wrenched the small arm away from the 
wagon.  Yanking at the child as if he were a truculent, weapon-baring highwayman, the man screeched at the lad about what they do to little boys in jail.  Disk-like blue eyes fringed in impossibly long lashes filled with pure horror, as the man began to drag him away from the fruit filled place of business.  The boy was, Buck surmised around three or four.  He was definitely not old enough to be away from his parents.  His tiny overall clad body writhed and squirmed to get away.  Chunks of unevenly hacked hair wobbled in clumps about his dirt smeared face. Buck noted the pitiful shape his filthy overalls were in, as well as the lack of a shirt beneath them.  The weather wasn’t cold yet, but it was certainly brisk enough to merit a shirt.  Ribs were clearly defined along the child’s back and sides.  He looked more skeleton than child.  The sweet doughy curves of childhood had been starved from his pint-size frame.  The child used his free arm to latch hold of the wagon, but the blaring man jerked him away with bone splitting force.  The boy’s tiny face contorted in agony.  No sound did he make.

“Wait,” Buck called.  “You’re hurting him!”

“He’s a thief,” the man grumbled.

“He’s a child,” Buck countered.

“A thief child!” the man hollered.

“A hungry child,” Buck retorted as he moved to confiscate the painfully twisted arm.  The apple man wouldn’t let go.  Buck eyed him.

“He didn’t steal an apple.”

“Yeah, but he was gonna!”

“But he didn’t.”

“But he was gonna!”

 Buck took a deep breath.  This was getting him nowhere.

 “Do you know this boy?”

 “No, why would I know some dirty little thief?”

 “What I meant was, is he from around here?  Do you recognize him?’

 “No.”

“Oh.  Well. You could try to find his parents, and talk to them.  There is no reason to drag a three-year-old to jail.  That’s ridiculous.”  Turning from his captor, the boy gave Buck a huge gap toothed grin.  He held up four fingers.  Apparently the would be thief was four.  His grin was immediately removed by a resounding thud, as the cart man kicked him in the hip.

“No, standing here arguing about my business practices with a half breed is ridiculous.  Now, move 
out of my way.  I’m taking this little rat to the law!”

 “He’s just a kid!” Buck railed.

 “A kid who will steal me blind!”

 “What if he promises not to do it again?”

 The man gave Buck an incredulous look.

 “Uh-huh, and I have a bridge I wanna sell you!”

“I’ll give you a horse.”  Before Buck could even censure his words, they flew out of his mouth.  The man’s face grew redder.  He looked like an oversized version of his prized apples with gray mold growing out of its top.

“Let me see if I understand you right.  If I let this here boy go, you’ll give me a horse.”  The man gawked at Buck, incredulous.

Annoyed at himself, Buck blew some hair out of his face.  “Yes,” he ground out.

“Well now, that sounds good to me.  How ’bout I stay here with the kid, and you go get me my horse.”
Nodding, Buck dumped the apples he’d picked out back into the pile, and headed to his rig. 

As he urged his team into a faster gait, Buck wondered just where, between his house and town, he
lost his mind.  He was hoping he might find it before he gave up one of his prized stock to the obnoxious apple man.  Then he realized what had incensed him so.  It wasn’t just that the lad was 
being treated badly, it was the scrawny, silent, blue eyed ghost of Ike that had riled him so powerfully.  The boy was much smaller than Ike had been when they met, but he was so much like him that the image of those huge blue eyes made his chest burn.  Heaving a long sigh, Buck decided to give the man his most ornery stud, Rattlesnake.  The name was perfectly fitting for the varmint.  He was mean as a hungry rattler! He was so mean in fact, that he couldn’t be used to fulfill his purpose.  The mares that were brought in would have nothing to do with him, no matter how they were pushed to do so. Buck also knew that if Rattlesnake was treated badly, he just take it out of the mistreater’s hide! 

Buck grinned; maybe this deal wasn’t so bad after all.

Upon re-entering town, with Rattlesnake in tow, Buck noticed the apple vendor going about his daily business.  The boy was not in sight.  Quickly reigning in his horses, Buck jumped from the wagon and strode swiftly to the cart. 

“Where is he?”  Buck didn’t bother to try to mask the venom in his voice.  If that hateful old man had gone ahead and dragged that poor child to the Marshal, Buck was going to tear off his head, and shove an apple down his throat!

Shrugging at Buck’s tone, the apple vendor pointed toward the ground at his feet.  Buck came around to see what he had so nonchalantly pointed at, and saw that he had trussed the child, like a hardened criminal, to a spoke of one of the wagon’s wheels.   Enraged, Buck yanked out the knife he was never without from the sheath attached to his boot.

“That ain’t right,” he scolded, as he cut the boy’s restraints.  “What did you think he was going to do, mister, make off with your wagon?  He isn’t even big enough to make off with a mosquito!”  Fury burned all the brighter in Buck’s gut when the welts from the overly tight bonds sprang up on the lad’s minute wrists. 

Taking note of Buck freeing his hostage, the vendor demanded, “Where’s my horse?”

“You’re not getting one!” Buck nearly shrieked. 

“Now, you wait a minute, Injun!  You promised me a horse.”

“After what you did to this boy, you won’t be getting that horse.  Even Rattlesnake is too nice for you!”  Focusing on the terrified boy, Buck smiled at down at him.  “I’m Buck.  I’m here to help you.” 
Taking less than a minute to consider Buck, the boy threw up his arms in a classic “carry me” 
posture.  With that, Buck slung the small burden onto his hip. 

The vender stepped up to Buck, his face a glowing red, his chest puffed up in challenge.  “You ain’t taking that brat nowheres till I get my horse!”

With a smooth and incredibly efficient sweep, Buck’s knife was pressed to the man’s throat.  The 
child still poised on his hip, Buck hissed in Apple Man’s ear, “You don’t need to be starting fights 
you can’t win, old man.”  Without another word, Buck stalked back to his wagon.

“I’m calling the law on you, Injun!  You won’t get away with this!”

Ignoring Apple Man’s outburst, Buck deposited the child into the buckboard, and tore off toward his house.

Having settled himself and his young charge comfortably at his dining table long ago, Buck was 
quickly losing patience.  He’d done everything he could think of to pry information from the lad, but nothing was working.  Buck eyed the boy ruefully.  What had he been thinking?  Bringing home stray animals to feed was one thing, but bringing home a child was something entirely different.  The corner of Buck’s mouth curved into a lopsided grin as he though about his animal family.  He had dozens of animals running wild over his land.  He kept them fed, and healthy, and they kept him company.  He focused again on the tiny form at the table next to him.  The child was looking at him as he could see clearly as through a window into his head.  He rubbed his face, impatience wining the war against prudence.  He was certain the boy had the answers he sought.  The kid was just too stubborn to tell him anything.  Yeah, Buck thought lazily, he definitely reminded him of Ike.  Without warning, the half-pint apple thief crawled laboriously out of the chair, and began a search of his environment.  Buck watched as he looked at things with a grace and wonder only children possess.  It was amazing.  Every time he thought he was ready to throw the kid out the door he did something so …well…cute that Buck found himself wanting to leap up and shout, “Wasn’t that cute!”  He’d seen mothers do it at countless picnics and town gatherings.  On those countless occasions, he’d found it annoying as hell!  Chagrined, he decided that he was a push over for a grime-coated midget and a gap tooth grin.

“Hey,” he hollered lightly.  “Get back over here.”

Buck’s eyebrows drew into a confused knot, as the child looked momentarily frightened and scampered quickly back to his seat.  Absently he wondered if the child was afraid of Indians.  He was almost certain that wasn’t it, but had other things on his agenda.

“Do you have folks?”

The lad stared at him blankly as he moved a loose upper tooth around blithely with his tongue.  Was that what he wanted the apple for?  To help get rid of a loose tooth?

Heaving a heavy sight, Buck tried again. 

“Do you have parents? Just nod, son.”

Nothing.  Shutting his mouth, solemn blue eyes passively held Buck’s gaze.

“What’s your name?  Can you write it down for me?” Buck gestured toward the paper sitting on the table in front of the child, but he made no move to touch it. 

“Do you have a home?”

The child’s face lit with impish glee.  Lunging into Buck’s lap, he began tugging curiously at Buck’s old worn medicine pouch.  The tot sniffed it, and sneezed hugely.  Shoving the pouch a sour expression, the boy dropped it, and patted the offending object against Buck’s chest.  Buck lifted the lad back onto his chair, and tried again.

“Did you run away from something?” 

Nothing.

“Do you have parents?” 

The impish light was gone from the youngster’s face.  He looked pleadingly at Buck.

“Do you want to go home?”

For the first time in almost an hour of asking ignored questions, Buck noticed those big blue eyes flickering with something deep and far to knowing for such a small child.  Where had this kid come from?  Was it just a cruel joke played by the gods to remind him in such vivid detail of his departed friend? 

“Do you want me to take you home?”

Slowly, the boy began to shake his head.  His eyes leaked swiftly rolling tears, his lower lip was pulled into his mouth, and shiny strings of mucus trailed from his nose.  The thin trails of tears were a map of freckles with their grimy coating falling in pools on the child’s little hands. 

After blowing out a huge dramatic sigh, Buck pulled the child from his kitchen chair, and tucked the small body into his chest.  Buck wrinkled his nose at the stale reek of the child’s hair as his head was tucked right under Buck’s chin.  As soon as he was calmed down, Buck promised himself silently, he was getting a bath!

The boy looked dubiously at the water filled barrel.  With his naked forearm, he absently wiped at the trail of snot running down his lip.  He eyed Buck plaintively, and shook his head.

“It’s warm,” Buck goaded.  He received no response.  “I’ve got a nice clean shirt for you to put on,” Buck tried again, indicating the old shirt he’d dug out so the tot wouldn’t be running around naked, 
and catch his death of cold.  With a web of clean skin on his face still shining from beneath the grime, the child plopped down on the floor, crossed his arms over his chest, and glared defiantly at Buck.
“You’re gettin’ a bath whether you want it, or not!”  Buck’s patience should have been transparently thin, but he was more amused than anything else.  He still fought an impulse to giggle at the child's antics.  He could remember pulling exactly the same stunt with Ike by his side as a mob of angry nuns had clean boys in their Sunday best on the brain!  He hadn’t had this much entertainment since Cody with his repertoire of antics!  The child slung bits of debris from his matted hair as he shook his head adamantly, and glared at the tub.

“You’re getting’ a bath, son.  Even if I have to drag you.  You need to be clean.”  Again, Buck was 
met with a set of defiant blue eyes.  They peered up at him from beneath a riot of chunks made up of dirty hair.  The tot’s lower lip shot out in a resolute refusal.  Buck ducked his head to hide a huge and indulgent grin.  He really was cute!

“Fine!  Have it your way.”  Doing his best to look imposing, he trudged wearily to the child, stubborn as Ike ever was; he mused, and lifted him bodily to throw him fully clothed into the cooling water.

“Stay still!” 

The boy squirmed with all the creativity and zeal of a snake.  It was everything he could do to keep from dropping the child headfirst onto the roughly constructed wood floor.  Buck grimaced; this was like wrestling with a greased pig.  As quickly as he could, he dumped the youth into the water.  Even 
as the water saturated the rank overalls, the youngster fought desperately to climb out of the barrel.  Buck reached in, hauled him up by the overalls, and started pulling at the garment’s closures.  The 
boy first tried swatting at Buck’s hand’s, trying to get him to leave him alone.  Being that his attempt was wholly unsuccessful, he began to cry.  With a grunt, Buck let go.  A splash covered Buck in warm water as the child sank back down in the water.  He stared at Buck as if he’d tried to damage him, rather than bathe him. 

“I’m sorry,” Buck stated wearily.  “But you need a bath.” 

Simply staring, the child did not respond.

“You stink,” Buck added.  “Really bad.” 

The boy huffed at him.  He pulled up one of his bare feet, and sniffed.  He wrinkled his face up in a comical wince, letting the limb plop heavily back into the water.  Then he tentatively reached up to his hair that was so filthy the water was rolling off of it.  Wrinkling his nose, he unfastened the straps to his meager covering, and wriggled out of it.  Handing the soaking mass to Buck, the child looked at him expectantly.

Grabbing a thick strong smelling bar of soap, Buck kneeled next to the barrel, and began scrubbing at the boy’s hair.  Midway through the shampooing, Buck felt the tiny body in the tub go limp.  He was asleep.  The poor kid was so tired he just went out, like a burnt down candle, too wasted to keep sputtering with light. 
 

It took three washings, and three rinses to get the youth’s hair clean.  He woke the child enough to wash his hands, taking care to avoid the welts left from Apple Man’s ropes.  The oblivious lad was a dead weight in the water.  Buck had to keep a firm grasp on his arm, pushing his back up against the side of the tub, as he didn’t want to drown the child before putting a decent meal in him.   He cleansed his arms, and face, but was forced to wake him completely so that he could stand for Buck to get close enough to wash his back and legs.  With a final upper body rinse, Buck bid the boy to stand.  Groggily, he did so, and Buck fell backward over his own feet.

“You’re a girl!” he hollered, now having some conception of the way Teaspoon felt when he found out about Lou.  The child giggled uproariously, as if Buck were the funniest man alive. 

“Ronni,” sounded the voice, so sweet it could only belong to a child.  Absently, Buck decided that a child’s laughter had to be the most musical sound ever invented.

“Ronni?” Buck repeated stupidly.  The saucer size of Buck’s eyes sent the little girl into another fit of laughter.  The insanity of the situation had him half-convinced to join her. 

“Uh…I…oh, no,” Buck muttered, turning his back.  He had no idea why he was turning his back to give privacy to a four-year-old.  It just seemed to make perfect sense, at that moment, in his manic, confused mind.  Another fact dawning on him, Buck spun back around.

“You talk!” he accused.

“Veronica,” was her unrelated reply. 

“What?” 

“Name’s Veronica,” she pronounced it Vewonica.  “But I’m ‘pposed to say Ronni.”  Again the child’s 
r was pronounced as a w. 

“Why?”

“Boys are bettew,” she still stood in the blackened water.  Now she was staring at the cold water if 
she could discern some kind of sea monster within its depths.

“Who said that?” Buck asked cautiously.

“Fathew…giwls awe useless.”  She wiped at her eyes with her soggy and water wrinkled little fists. 

It wasn’t the first time Buck had come across the sentiment.  Many farmers cursed daughters.  They were completely worthless in use as labor.  Therefore, they were often considered useless, period.  Shaking his head, Buck tossed the soap back to the girl.

“Finish washin’ up.  Then we’ll have a chat.”

With a clean, dry Ronni comfortably ensconced in his shirt, Buck carried her to the table, and sat a large bowl of stew in front of her.  Climbing into the chair, she gave a grunt.  The tabletop came to her forehead.  She was too small to sit as an adult would.  She clamored up onto her knees so that she 
could see above the table.  Her eyes went wide when she spied the food, and she dug into the thick savory soup with gusto.  With a pang, Buck realized that she probably hadn’t had a meal like that in a while.  If she had, she wouldn’t have been desperate enough to steal apples especially with a loose tooth. 

“Why wouldn’t you talk before?” Buck queried.

“Not ‘pposed to,” she mumbled around a mouth full of soft tasty potato. 

“What do you mean?”

“Nobody’s ‘pposed to know I’m a giwl.”

“Why?” 

She shrugged.

“Why don’t you want to go home?”  That question seemed to be the only thing to slack her appetite.
Again, she shrugged.

“You do have a home don’t you?”  Buck was unable to receive his third shrugged reply when banging nearly shook the door off of its leather hinges.

“We’ll finish this later,” Buck promised, running his hand over her damp hair on his way to the door.  Buck was none too happy with the realization that he was all ready attached to this child, and it was not even remotely the same situation one would face when in the same situation with a stray dog.  He couldn’t just keep her.  The thought was somehow crushing.  Pushing the thought away, he continued to the door.

Upon opening the door, Buck was met by a steely-eyed man with a badge pinned securely to his chest, a round grimy man with a horsewhip sticking out of his pocket, and bringing up the rear of the threesome was none other than Apple Man.

“Can I help you gentlemen?” Buck asked, deceptive in his amiability.

The man with the tin shining proudly on his chest was the first to speak.

“Hello, there.  I’m Marshal Kilian.  This here,” he pointed to the man with the horsewhip, an object Buck had much disdain for, “Is Jeb Snyder.  He’s lookin’ fer one o’ his young’uns.  Mr. Shipley 
here,” he nodded toward Apple Man,  “he says you have him.  Do you got Ronni Snyder here, 
mister?”

“I want my son.”  The voice of Jeb Snyder was hard, cold, and lacked the caring or worry that any normal parent would have been expected to show if a son or daughter had been missing.  “He’s been gone a few days now.  He needs to come home.  He’s got no call to be skippin’ his chores like this.”

Instant fire lit in the pit of Buck’s stomach.  She’d been missing a few days!  Fuming, Buck 
considered filleting Snyder with his knife.  Deciding that he didn’t want to dirty his weapon with the likes of Snyder, he set a steely gaze on him.

The moment her father was in her view, Ronni squeaked then ran headlong toward the back of the house.  Buck’s shirt was far too long for her, and she tripped midway through the living area.  Snyder made a move to come in and grab her.  She lurched to Buck.  Grabbing hold of his legs, she began whimpering and shaking like a puppy afraid of a lightning storm.  Immediately, every cell in Buck’s body was shifted into a protective response.  Squaring his shoulders, he practically taunted Snyder to make a move for the girl.

“See, see I told you the Injun had the kid!  Prob’bly did some heathen hocus pocus stuff to him too!” Shipley called out.

Gently pulling Ronni from his legs and placing her on a hip, Buck searched out her minute wrists from their hiding place deep in the arms of his shirt.  To the Marshal, he displayed the raw patches of skin 
as well as the bruises that were only now beginning to form on her bony arms that had been inflicted 
by Shipley.

“Mr. Shipley don’t have any call to be here Marshal. He did this, and no man who’d be a party to hurting a child is welcome in or near my home,” he said smoothly.

The Marshal nodded sagely.  “Why don’t you go on home Casey?”

Apple Man grew increasingly red, mumbled a few curses, and stomped back to his horse.

“Now,” the Marshal hitched up his pants.  “We need to get down to business.  Mr…uh”

“Cross,” Buck supplied flatly.

“Mr. Cross, I don’t know what possessed you to take that kid, and I got no need to.  I just know that you can’t keep’im.”

“Her.”

“Pardon?” Kilian rubbed his stubble-covered chin.

“I can’t keep her is what you mean Marshal.”

Confused, Kilian looked from Snyder to the child, and finally back to Buck.  “Huh?” he grunted.  “I thought you was looking for a boy,” he inquired of Snyder.

“It don’t matter none.  That’s my young’un.  Now give it here.”  His hand went smoothly to the whip that had remained innocuously in his pocket until now. 

Acid sprang into Buck’s throat.  It!  He called Ronni, his own flesh and blood, it.  How was it that men like Jeb Snyder had wives, and homes full of children to love?  A better question begged an answer.  How could he not love a lively child like Ronni?

A heart rending wail tore from Ronni whose hold on Buck grew ever more fierce.  She was shaking 
her little head frantically, sending droplets of water spattering everywhere, as she shakily whispered her frightened little mantra, “No, no, no, no, no, no!”

“Why?” asked Buck and Kilian simultaneously.

Clumsily unbuttoning the top few buttons of Buck’s old shirt, she wormed her arm out.  As the fabric fell away from her back, slashes of red broken skin glared at the men.  The marks were suspiciously the right length and shape of the whip that Snyder wielded.  Angry red scabs glowed brightly on the baby soft skin of Ronni’s back.  Buck had turned his back on her before he cleaned her back, and the overalls she’d been wearing had covered the marks.  Until now Buck had not seen or felt them.  He stared in shocked silence at the marred back of the tiny warm body still settled in his arms.  Helping her right the shirt she was wearing, he glared at Snyder.  Pulling Ronni close, inhaling the sweet still baby scent of her, Buck whispered, “Do you want to go with him, Ronni?”

“Stay hewe!  Can I stay hewe?  Please Mistew Buck, please!”

“No!” Snyder’s resounding yell sliced through Ronni’s quiet sniffles.  “She belongs to me!”

“Maybe, but she don’t belong with you!  Why should I send her home with you? So you can hurt her some more?  So you can starve her?  So you can pretend she’s a boy so people don’t shun you for workin’ her?”

“If that’s what I choose.”

Buck looked at Ronni.  He searched her bright blue eyes, and curiously found everything he needed there.  She was a pint-sized miracle in his life, delivered by the forces of pure benevolence.  In the process of stealing an apple, the precious, precocious little girl had stolen his heart.  It had been as simple for her as that first smile.  In months of desolate misery, no wife had come.  Nobody had shown up looking to be a friend.  No light had made its way into his life until this scrawny girl, with her 
missing teeth, and her heartening giggle speared through the darkness with the strength of a warrior. He was not letting her go.

“No,” Buck stated flatly.

“You have to.”

“No.”

Snyder seemed to be concentrating on something very deeply.  He stared into the sky, twiddling his whip like a parasol.  Finally, the shrewd uncaring visage of a businessman formed in hard angles on Snyder’s face.

“You can’t just take my kid without giving me anything in return.”

“You want me to buy your daughter?”

“One o’ them fancy horses you got will do.”

“No.”

“What?  What do you mean, no?”

“It’s a pretty simple word.  I’m not going to give you an animal that you’ll be sure to abuse.”

“A hundred dollars.”

“You’ll sell your daughter,” Buck paused.  “For a hundred dollars.”  Buck looked to the Marshal, thinking that this had to be illegal, but Kilian only shrugged.  This was the most disgusting display Buck had ever witnessed, and he was ashamed to be a part of it.  But there was no way he was 
sending her home with that monster.

“Yeah, she ain’t worth nothin’ to me anyway,” Snyder smiled humorlessly, showing off twin rows of rotting brown teeth.

With Ronni still on his hip, he strode to his bedroom.  He playfully dropped her on the bed, and couldn’t help but smile as she giggled when she bounced.  Catching Ronni’s eyes, Buck’s stilled her with a serious gaze.

“This is important, Ronni.  You got to listen real good.  I’m going to give you the choice of going 
home with your pa, or staying here with me.  You need to know, though that if you choose to stay 
here, it’s forever.  You’d be agreeing to be my daughter, and you’ll never set eyes on your real pa again.  I know you just met me today, but I’ll take good care of you.”

A question lit in those expressive blue eyes.  “I can be your little giwl?”

“Yes, honey, I’d like that.”

“You would?  Even though I’m a giwl?”

“Yup!”

“You don’t know me, mistew Buck.  I’m a lazy kid.”

“I doubt that, Ronni, and that’s daddy to you.”

An unintelligible squawk of delight flew from Ronni as she flung herself into Buck’s arms.  Kissing 
her on the cheek, he put her back on the bed.  He got onto his hands and knees, and scrounged 
around beneath the bed.  At last, his fingers felt out a small box.  Digging it out, he sat one of Teaspoon’s old cigar boxes in his lap, and removed one hundred dollars.  Shoving the box back into 
its place, he went back to the door, leaving Ronni gleefully jumping on his bed.

Before handing the money over he had one last question for Ronni’s loathsome father.

“Does this money ensure that I will never see you again?”

“Yeah, sure.”  He tucked his loot into the same pocket that the whip had been nesting in, and left without another word.

Before following Snyder out, Killian leaned against Buck’s doorframe.

“That’s the last you’ll see of him.  You have my word on it.  You take care of that girl now, you hear? 
I got four of my own, and I don’t take kindly to folk who hurt their babies.  I’ll be checkin’ in on you Mr. Cross.”

“That’s fine by me.”

Marshal Killian kept his promise.  He checked in on the Cross household often.  He became something of an uncle to Ronni.  It was strange that such a tiny little person had so much power.  Just the byproduct of her presence brought Buck a true and trusted friend.  Killian was also resolute in his promise to keep Ronni’s natural Father away.

As for Ronni, she was a bright playful girl who was impossible to force into a dress, and the biggest fan of her Daddy.  Jeb Snyder had been her father, but Buck was, and always would be -- Daddy.

To Buck, it didn’t matter if the word was said in a whining tone, as a complaint, or in an argumentative refusal of something.  Daddy was the best word in the English language.

Buck had suffered through years of bleak and unrelenting shadow.  He’d been deprived of friendship, love, and the basic human urge to be needed.  Now, as he looked into his daughter’s bedroom as she slept, he was whole.  He was needed.  He was protector.  He was provider.  He was friend.  He was Daddy.  There were no shadows left in Buck Cross’s life.