‘‘He’s sendin’ folks back to the circle. Good thing you got them wagons turnin’.’’
‘‘Only about an hour late. If he’d circled them at the first thunder roll, none of this would have happened.’’ She indicated the area with a swept arm. ‘‘The man oughta be shot.’’
‘‘You can’t say for certain nothin’ happen.’’
Jesselynn sighed. ‘‘I know. Let’s get on and see how we can help.’’
Darkness fell with two wagons unaccounted for.
Jesselynn, Ophelia, and Aunt Agatha spent the evening bandaging wounds, comforting those who’d lost family members, and wringing out their mud-heavy skirts. Jesselynn was at least spared the skirt routine, since even after the others knew she was a female in men’s clothing, she had never bowed to the pressure to give up her britches. When her box ran dry of rolled bandages, she set Jane Ellen to tearing up one of their few remaining sheets.
She and Benjamin strung a tarp off the rear of one wagon, and thanks to Meshach carrying dry wood in slings under the wagon, they got a fire going to heat soup and coffee. As the wagon folk ate and warmed themselves at the fire, Jesselynn heard comments about the wagon master, none of them good.
If I’d just followed my instincts and gone after Cobalt, this whole thing might have been averted. Wolf, where are you when we need you so bad? I sure hope you’re happy with your family, tribe, whatever you want to call it
.
‘‘Anyone seen Cobalt?’’ She kept her voice low for Agatha’s ears alone.
‘‘I heard he’s searching for any lost ones. if’n he had any sense, he’d be heading for the hills.’’
‘‘Where Mr. Wolf go?’’ Three-year-old Thaddeus Highwood wrapped an arm around his sister’s leg and leaned into her warmth.
‘‘I told you he went north to his people.’’
‘‘When he comin’ back?’’
Jesselynn squatted down to look her little brother directly in his blue eyes. ‘‘Thaddeus, he’s not coming back. I reckon we just have to get used to that.’’ She smoothed the honey-hued curls back off his forehead. ‘‘Do you understand?’’
He nodded, one forefinger making its way to his mouth. ‘‘Where Patch?’’ The black shepherd-type dog had adopted them after his home and family went up in flames on the road before Independence. He took his job herding Thaddeus and Sammy seriously.
‘‘Out with the herd, he was a big help in turning those critters into a circle.’’
‘‘Did he bark?’’
‘‘Yup, and bit one old ox right on the shoulder.’’ Jesselynn stood up, taking Thaddeus with her. He hugged both arms around her neck, his legs around her waist.
‘‘Lightnin’ scared me.’’
‘‘Me too.’’ She kissed his cheek. ‘‘But you were brave so Sammy didn’t cry, weren’t you?’’
‘‘Uh-huh. Sammy the baby.’’ Dark as Thaddeus was fair, Sammy came to them when they found his mother dead in the Kentucky woods.
‘‘He was mighty brave. Like an eagle, he was.’’ Jane Ellen patted the little boy’s bottom as she passed by. ‘‘Rain’s done.’’
Jesselynn and Thaddeus both looked up to the canvas over their heads. Sure enough, not even spatters ticked the tarp. She hugged her little brother closer, and at the same moment they turned to listen, their smiles matching.
Someone had taken out a fiddle, and the plaintive notes of ‘‘Amazing Grace’’ floated across the circle.
Jesselynn blinked back the tears that burned at the back of her eyes. She hummed, stopped when her throat filled, swallowed, and picked up the words. ‘‘I once was lost, but now am found. . . .’’
Jane Ellen’s sweet soprano joined her. ‘‘Was blind, but now I see.’’
‘‘Oh, Lord, help us find those who are still lost.’’ Jesselynn set Thaddeus down on the wagon tailgate and motioned for him to stay there. She looked upward to see one star twinkling through the ragtag drifting clouds. ‘‘I’m going for Daniel. I’ll stand guard so he can go look for the other two wagons.’’ The notes of the song sang on in her mind, even after the fiddler segued into another tune. Lost and blind, that’s what they were for certain sure out here on the Oregon Trail. What she wouldn’t give for the friendly lights of a town or even one house. She stopped Ahab and looked back toward the camp. Two fires glowed now and a lantern or two, and hammers already rang in repair. Meshach’s blacksmithing skills would be in great demand in the morning.
Coyotes yipped a hill or so away, sounding like they were behind the nearest rock. Most likely they smelled the blood of the dead and injured. ‘‘Oh, Lord, please send us a legion of angels to guard the camp tonight. We don’t need an animal or Indian attack now.’’
C
HAPTER
T
WO
Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory
The storm broke as Wolf rode into Fort Laramie. Before he could dismount and tie his horse, he was soaked as if he’d stood under a waterfall, so he led his horse up the two steps to the porch with him. Lightning turned the evening into day in flashes close enough together to make a lamp unnecessary. The blue white light carried its own peculiar fragrance, and the ground failed to suck in the moisture quickly enough to keep from puddling.
Once under the overhang of the general store, he glanced back to the west. While he could see no farther than the water curtaining off the roof, in his mind he knew the wagons were circled in a hollow and the herd safely bedding down in the middle. Jason Cobalt surely had enough trail sense to do that, didn’t he?
Of course he did,
Wolf answered his own silent question.
‘‘Come on in out of the downpour,’’ a man called to him from the door of the mess hall.
‘‘Thanks, but I got to take care of my horse first.’’
‘‘Down to the livery. Red’ll put yer horse up, you too, if’n ye don’t mind a hay pile for your bed. Then come on back. We got hot coffee in here that’ll drive the damp out.’’
‘‘Any food?’’
‘‘That too. Say, ain’t you that wagon master called Wolf? Thought you was takin’ a train west.’’
‘‘I was. Long story.’’ Wolf clucked his horse back down the wooden stairs, mounted, and trotted to the half-rock, half-wood hulk of a barn, recognized as such by the wide rolling door across the front. Wolf dismounted, slid the door open wide enough for his horse to follow him through, and stopped to drip. The roar sounded like the rain was intent on washing the shingles clear to Kansas City.
‘‘Anybody here?’’ He shouted to be heard over the onslaught. When no one answered, he flipped the reins around a post and waited for the lightning to give him an idea where a door might be, other than the one he came in by. ‘‘Halloo.’’
Still no answer. He listened in the interval between thunder rolls. He could hear a horse chewing off to his right and a snort to the left. Figuring on stalls on both sides, he waited and, at the lightning flicker, saw an empty box ahead and to the right. Untying his horse, he led him to the place. One didn’t need light to complete such a familiar task. Stalls were much the same everywhere. Hanging his saddle over the half wall between him and the main door, he tied a latigo around his horse’s neck and to the manger, already filled with hay. He felt for the water bucket in the corner. It too was full.
‘‘That Red runs a good barn. Now if we just knew where the grain bin lay.’’ The horse nudged his elbow and nosed around him to drag out a mouthful of hay. The familiar sound of horses chewing gave the barn a cozy feeling. If his stomach hadn’t rumbled about as loud as the last clap of thunder, he might have rolled up in his bedroll and slept out the remainder of the night.
Instead, he opened the door again, just enough to slip through, and headed for the mess hall, lights from the windows a friendly beacon. He pushed open the door and paused just inside. Two tables of poker, cigar smoke writhing above the players, appealed to him about as much as stepping back outside in the downpour, so he headed down the center aisle to trestle tables toward the back. Two men were writing letters, one reading in the lamplight.
‘‘Grub’s still hot.’’ A sergeant motioned over his shoulder to the counter.
‘‘Thanks.’’ Wolf nodded as he spoke.
‘‘You Gray Wolf Torstead?’’
‘‘Yes.’’
‘‘Umm. Captain stopped by, said he wanted to see you first thing.’’ When Wolf paused, the man continued. ‘‘You can eat first. They be closing up in here soon.’’
Wolf took the plate of stew and biscuits offered him and made his way to the end of the table, against the wall where he could see around the entire room. Not that there was much worth seeing.
‘‘You want coffee?’’ The sergeant held up a steaming pot and two mugs.
Wolf nodded. The man plunked the cups down and filled them to the brim. Setting the gray coffeepot in the center of the table, he stepped over the bench and sat down.
With grizzled hair and a face that had seen more than man wanted or needed, the man sipped his coffee and let Wolf eat. When he’d scraped up the last of the juice with his remaining biscuit, the sergeant leaned forward on his elbows.
‘‘What made you let the train go on with Cobalt?’’
Wolf looked up to see the man studying him. ‘‘Why you asking?’’
‘‘Got me curious, that’s all. I’ve heard nothing but good on you as a wagon master. . . .’’
Wolf waited. If the man continued, fine. If not, he’d head for the captain’s quarters.
‘‘Not that I need to be nosy or nothin’.’’
Picking up his coffee mug, Wolf drank and set the mug down. ‘‘Anything I should know before I go talk with the captain?’’
The sergeant shrugged. ‘‘Guess not. You know those Jones brothers?’’
Wolf paused in the act of standing up. ‘‘Yes.’’ Been some time since he was so close to killing a man as he had that Tommy Joe Jones.
‘‘They took off outa here sometime after your train left. Said they was gonna catch up, like maybe the new wagon master would let them travel with him.’’
‘‘I thought one of them was in the guardhouse.’’
‘‘He was. Captain said to let ’im go on the condition they don’t show their ugly faces around this fort again.’’
The words Wolf thought in regard to the Jones brothers went far beyond the biblical admonition to let your yes be yes and no be no. His father had added,
‘‘No sense embroidering on what’s right.’’
Or wrong, as could be in this case. ‘‘I see.’’ He almost asked if the sergeant knew what the captain wanted but stopped himself. No sense appearing concerned. After all, the army no longer held any control over him. Nor did the wagon train. Cobalt knew about the Jones brothers, and if he didn’t, the men of the wagon train did. They’d keep a close eye on those scums.
‘‘Thanks for the food—and the information.’’ He had no idea what he’d do with that information, but he now knew what a horse felt like with a burr under the saddle. The burr was named Jesselynn Highwood, and in spite of all his efforts, she clung closer than his skin. What a fool he’d been to let her go.
He dropped his dishes off at the window and exited to the captain’s office. He didn’t need to ask directions, although what the captain was doing in his office instead of being home with his family only brought up more questions. Was there more going on here than it had seemed when he had brought the wagon train through?
The orderly passed him on through, and Wolf shook hands with the blue-coated officer behind the desk. Obediah Jensen had a reputation as a spit-and-polish man, and his appearance this late in the day bore that up. He also had a reputation as a fair man who believed keeping the peace between Indian and white was his primary job. And supplying wagon trains, so they kept moving on through Indian territory, was only part of that.
‘‘Have a seat,’’ Captain Jensen said, indicating the chair with a sweep of his hand. ‘‘Thought you were going on home—to Red Cloud’s tribe, wasn’t it?’’
‘‘I was and am.’’
The captain reached for the humidor that reigned on a corner of his desk and held it out to Wolf. Then, at Wolf ’s gesture of refusal, he extracted a cigar, bit the tip off, and lighted it. After two puffs he leaned back and blew the smoke at the ceiling. ‘‘How long since you been up there?’’
‘‘Too long.’’
‘‘Kept in touch?’’
Wolf gave him a level stare. The captain knew the Oglala did not read or write. Those were two things Wolf hoped to change.
‘‘I see.’’ Captain Jensen appeared to be in deep thought.
Wolf sat as still as if he were hunting, his quarry in sight but too far for an arrow to hit. He never had cared for cigar smoke. Nor the chewing of tobacco. Nor the white man’s firewater. His rifle, however, was another matter.
The captain leaned forward, forearms on the desk. ‘‘I have a proposition for you.’’
Wolf quirked an eyebrow.
‘‘I need to know what Red Cloud’s band is planning.’’
So do I, if I am going to help keep them alive
.
‘‘They have got to quit attacking wagon trains—not that it’s been his band raiding the trains, but the Sioux in general.’’
‘‘Red Cloud can’t speak for all the Sioux.’’
‘‘I know that, but he is gaining in leadership. I hoped you could be an influence on him.’’
‘‘And come running to you if he chooses to wage war on the whites?’’
‘‘I wouldn’t put it quite thataway.’’
Again the raised eyebrow. ‘‘The tribes have been warring on each other since time began.’’
‘‘I know, and I have no trouble with that. Just leave the white men alone.’’
‘‘But when white men settle on tribal lands—’’
‘‘Or kill off the buffalo—I know all the arguments, Torstead.’’ The captain tapped off his ash in the pewter tray on the side of the desk. ‘‘Let me reiterate. I want to keep everyone alive. If the Indians steal horses or oxen from the wagon trains, the settlers won’t get through to Oregon. They might choose to stay here instead. Can you understand me?’’
The look Wolf sent him said he understood all too well and didn’t much care for the tone the captain was taking.
‘‘Well, you think on it. In the meantime, I wondered if you would take a couple of men out hunting. Our meat supply is running out, and I know you can locate elk far more swiftly than my men ever could. A couple days shouldn’t make a big difference in your journey north.’’
When he could see Wolf was about to decline, he added, ‘‘I’ll pay you in blankets, grain, whatever you want from the stores. Anything but rifles and whiskey.’’