Dega felt all twisted inside. “All right,” he heard himself say, although every particle of his being screamed at him that he shouldn’t go.
“Good.” Evelyn beamed. “We’ll get a good night’s sleep and you can leave at first light.”
“As you want,” Dega said.
“Don’t look so down at the mouth. You’re doing the right thing. Saving that girl is more important than you and me at the moment.”
“Evelyn…” Dega began. He wanted to tell her about his talk with his mother and why it was important his children be raised as Nansusequas.
“Yes?”
Dega changed his mind. It might make her mad that his mother objected to raising their children white. “Nothing,” he said softly.
“You’re sure acting strange tonight.” Evelyn had never seen him like this and didn’t know what to make of it. She feared that maybe he didn’t feel for her as she felt for him.
“Sorry.”
“Let’s head back and turn in.”
The mountains around them were alive with cries. From all quarters came howls and wails and bleats and the occasional roar of a roving grizzly high on the heights. A feline screech revealed the presence of a bobcat.
Not once did Evelyn hear the telltale scream of a painter. She put the food back in the basket and lay on her back on her saddle blanket with her saddle for a pillow. She tossed. She turned. She glanced countless times at the dark woods in the hope the girl would return. She gazed countless times at Dega, too, rolled up in his blanket and not moving, apparently sound asleep.
Dega heard her fidget. He lay with his back to her, unable to sleep except in fits and snatches. His chest felt as if that cat were clawing at it. He yearned to go to her and take her in his arms and tell her that he was sorry and they could raise their children any way she wanted.
But he didn’t.
Chapter Fourteen
The rosy blush of dawn painted the eastern sky when Dega climbed on the sorrel. He was stiff and hungry, and he dearly wanted to stay. But Evelyn was still insisting he go, so he looked down at her and said, “You be much careful, Evelyn King.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Evelyn replied. “I’ve lived in the wilds all my life. I can take care of myself.”
Dega lifted the reins, then hesitated. “I not like this.”
Evelyn stepped to the rear of his horse. “Off you go, whether you like it or not.” She gave the animal a hard smack, then grinned and waved. “Hurry back, you hear!”
“I will!” Dega promised. He wished the little girl would appear so he didn’t have to go, but she didn’t. He used his heels and brought the sorrel to a trot. The faster he reached King Valley, the better for his peace of mind.
Evelyn watched him ride off with a sinking feeling in her heart. She really didn’t want him to leave, but it had to be done. They needed her ma and her pa. Especially her ma. Her mother was good with children. If anyone could persuade that little girl to come in out of the wilds, it was Winona.
Shadowed woodland at the end of the valley swallowed Dega and his mount. Evelyn sighed and went to the fire and hunkered. She had put coffee on. Her pa was powerful fond of it and he had passed that fondness on to her. Now she couldn’t start her day without a cup or two.
Her father had tried to instill his love of reading in her, too. He read every evening and often took one of his cherished books to bed with him. She would read when she had nothing better to do. Her brother hardly ever read at all. She’d asked Zach once why he hated to read so much and he said that it made his head hurt. Something about the print on the page didn’t agree with him.
The coffee was hot enough. Evelyn filled her tin cup and held it in both hands. She sipped and smacked her lips. She was glad the sun was rising. Ever since she was little, she’d been a smidgen scared of the dark. Her mother said that was natural, but she’d noticed that her brother wasn’t scared of it. Her brother wasn’t scared of anything.
Evelyn wondered why she was thinking of Zach so much. Maybe it was because of all that talk with Dega about having children, and Zach and his wife were going to have a baby. She opened the picnic basket and helped herself to a piece of pemmican.
The woods were quiet. Almost too quiet. Evelyn probed every shadow for sign of the little Tukaduka. She figured the child must have a hiding place, somewhere she was safe. It could be anywhere.
A golden crown lit creation. The sky rapidly brightened and the valley stirred to life.
Evelyn stayed where she was. She would let the girl come to her rather than go searching. She remembered how hungry the girl had been, and with that in mind she filled a pot with water and added bits of pemmican and carrots and wild onions and let it simmer so that its scent filled the clearing and the breeze would carry the aroma a good long way.
The morning passed as slow as a turtle. Evelyn drank three cups of coffee and couldn’t drink any more. The smell of the stew made her mouth water, but she refused to eat.
Now that she was alone, every unusual sound and sight rubbed at her nerves. The rustle of brush, the slightest movement of the vegetation, the distant crash of a limb falling. She kept her Hawken in her lap and a hand on one of her pistols. The truth be known, she didn’t like toting the flintlocks everywhere. They were heavy, and after a long walk they were like anchors around her waist. But her pa had instilled in her that one gun was never enough, that one shot didn’t always kill.
Evelyn looked down at the Hawken in her lap. Her father had had it custom-made for her by the Hawken brothers in St. Louis. It was shorter and lighter than most Hawkens, but it was powerful enough to drop a buffalo provided she hit the buff in the vitals.
The thing was, Evelyn didn’t like to kill. Her brother used to poke fun at her because she wouldn’t even shoot rabbits for the supper pot. He had teased her about being too tenderhearted, or as he put it, “weak in the head.” Which always made her bristle.
Evelyn never could understand why there was so much killing in the world. Why creatures had to kill other creatures. Why people killed other people. Why people had to kill animals to eat. Her father and mother said that was just the way things were, but that wasn’t enough of an answer. She hated to spill blood, human or otherwise. When she was young, that was a large part of the reason she had entertained the notion that she would leave the wilderness one day and live east of the Mississippi, where people could go their whole lives without killing anything except maybe a few flies and mosquitoes.
Evelyn stirred the stew. She raised the wooden spoon to her lips and sipped. Not bad, she thought. The wild onions gave it a potent flavor. She put the spoon in the pot and shifted to relieve a cramp in her leg, and tingled with excitement.
The bait had worked.
Over by an oak stood the little girl. In the daylight she looked worse. Her hair was a tangled mess of dirt with bits of grass and leaves in the tangle. Her dress was a shambles. She was as thin as a broomstick and there were dark shadows under her eyes.
Evelyn almost blurted, My God! Instead she smiled and said quietly in English, “Look who it is.” The girl cocked her head and gave her a quizzical look. “Sorry,” Evelyn said in Shoshone. “I am happy to see you again. Would you like to sit at my fire?”
The girl didn’t move.
“I will not hurt you.”
The girl took a couple of wary steps but came no farther.
“You sure are skittish,” Evelyn said in English, and once again switched to her mother’s tongue. “I am Blue Flower, remember? What is your name? I would very much like to know.”
A slight sound escaped the girl’s throat.
“I am sorry. I did not hear. Will you say your name again?”