“You three wait here. I’ll go find him,” Winona offered.
Samuel shook his head. “I’m his pa. It’s mine to do.”
“Begging your pardon,” Winona said politely, “but it needs to be done quickly. I am a better rider and I have more experience at tracking.” She also knew the landmarks and the wildlife, but she didn’t bring that up.
Emala nodded vigorously. “Let her go, Samuel. She’ll find Chickory and be back in half the time it would take you.”
Winona hurried to her mare, swung on, and reined around.
“You be careful out there,” Emala urged. “What with buffalo and bears and snakes and things, this country is enough to give a body fits.”
“Stay here until I get back. It should not take long.” Winona goaded her mare.
The tracks were plain enough. Chickory had gone east, back the way they came, staying close to the river so he wouldn’t lose his way. Smart of the boy, Winona mused. It made his absence more puzzling.
Winona rode with her Hawken cradled in the crook of her elbow. She wasn’t overly worried. There hadn’t been any sign of hostiles. Nor had she heard any shots or roars or screams. What ever had happened to the boy, she was sure it would turn out to be something minor. Maybe he had just lost track of time. Maybe he had climbed down from his horse for some reason, and the horse had wandered off. It could be any number of things.
Winona smiled as she rode. She was fond of the Platte. It wasn’t much as rivers went; in the mountains it would be called a stream. But it flowed year round, and in the driest months it was the only source of water to be had over hundreds of miles of prairie. All sorts of animals depended on that water.
The oaks, cottonwoods and willows were home to squirrels and birds. The brush was home to deer and elk. Rabbits were everywhere. Raccoons, skunks and opossums roamed its banks at night. Herds of buffalo came to drink, churning the water brown and trampling the vegetation.
Winona spied a pair of ducks paddling quaintly in a pool. A male and female, judging by their markings. Mallards, her husband called them. They betrayed no alarm. She wanted to stop and admire them, but she had the boy to find.
The tracks continued to point east.
Winona figured it was safe to cup a hand to her mouth. “Chickory? Chickory Worth? Where are you?
Other than the twittering of sparrows, there was no answer.
Winona leaned down. She had found where the boy rode fast, and soon she came on the cause. Chickory was after a buck. She knew it was a buck because she found where it had urinated. Does always squatted. This deer hadn’t.
Winona admired his gumption if not his judgment. Bucks were extremely wary. To get close enough for a shot took considerable skill, skill the boy didn’t have. Odds were the buck would tire of the cat-and-mouse game and vanish, if it hadn’t already.
A jay squawked and was mimicked by another. Winona saw them fly from tree to tree. Raiding nests to eat the hatchlings, she reckoned, as did crows and ravens, which was why the three were at the bottom of her list of favorite birds.
Winona rounded a bend—and drew rein in surprise. Directly ahead, its reins tied to a bush, was Chickory’s horse—but no Chickory. She called his name but got no reply.
Winona kneed her mare up next to the sorrel and slid down. She shouted the boy’s name again. Puzzled, she walked in a circle around the sorrel. The sorrel’s tracks went past where it was tied and then came back again. Evidently, Chickory had ridden past this point, returned, tied his horse to the bush, and gone on afoot.
Why would he do that? Winona wondered. The only answer she could think of was that he was stalking the buck.
Winona started after him. She assumed he hadn’t gone far, but she covered the distance three arrows could fly without spotting him. She stopped, debating whether to go on or wait there.
A low sound carried to her ears.
Winona couldn’t quite identify it, but it might have been the groan of an animal in pain. Leveling her Hawken, she crept toward a cluster of cottonwoods. She scoured the ground for tracks and discovered the prints of other horses, all of them shod. She was bending to examine them when the groan was repeated.
Winona looked up, and her blood changed to ice water.
His arms outspread, Chickory Worth had been tied by his wrists to two cottonwoods. Someone had beaten him; blood trickled down his brow and red drops dribbled from his chin. He was barely conscious. He groaned a third time, and his eyelids fluttered.
Winona moved to help him.
That was when the undergrowth rustled and parted, and figures closed in from all sides.
Chapter Nine
It was a gorgeous, sunny day, painting the prairie in vivid hues with added splashes of color from wild-flowers.
Nate King loved days like this—the sun warm on his face, the fragrances in the air. He breathed deep and felt some of the tension drain from him like water from a sieve.
Nate had spent the past two hours scouting the river for sign. He hadn’t found any, hostile or otherwise. Drawing rein, he swung down. “We’ll water the horses and then head back.”
“Fine by me, hoss,” Peleg Harrod said. He dismounted stiffly and put a hand to the small of his back. “These old bones of mine ain’t what they used to be. Too much saddle and I’m a bundle of aches.”
“You’re spry enough for someone your age.” Nate brought his bay to the water’s edge. “My wife will be happy to hear there aren’t any Sioux about. We’ve tangled with them a time or two.”
“Who hasn’t?” Harrod laughed. “They love to count coup on whites more than they love to count coup on just about anyone. Except maybe the Shoshones.”
Nate grunted. The long-standing animosity between his adopted people and the Sioux was well known. “It’s too bad all the tribes can’t live in peace.”
“Peace ain’t human nature. Red or white, they live to make war.” Harrod led his own horse over.
“Most folks I know favor peace over spilling blood.”
“Maybe they say they do. But name me one time in all history when there wasn’t a war somewhere. Killing is in our blood. Has been since Cain and Abel.”
“So we forget about the part where it says ‘Thou shalt not kill’?”
Harrod chortled. “This from a coon who, from what I hear, has sent a heap of souls into the hereafter. Don’t take this wrong, but you’re a fine one to talk.”
Nate squatted and dipped his hand in the river. He couldn’t deny his past. But he could, and did, defend his deeds. “I’ve only ever taken a life when I had to.”
“Is that a fact? Then that ‘Thou shalt not kill’ doesn’t count when it’s not convenient?”
“I don’t know as I like your tone.”
“Sorry. It’s just that a lot of those who say they live as God wants them to live tend to break His rules as much as the rest of us.”
Nate splashed water on his neck and felt cool drops trickle under his buckskin shirt and down his chest. “I can’t argue with that. I’m only saying most people would be glad to go through their entire lives without taking someone else’s.”
Harrod picked up a small flat stone. He threw it, skipping it across the surface as boys were wont to do. “I’d have been content to go through my life that way. But it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Life never goes as we think it should.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Harrod picked up another flat stone and skipped it—four times before it sank. Searching for more, he came around the bay. “You probably never figured on nursemaidin’ a black family, did you?”
Nate glanced up. “Why mention them?”