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“She must be alone,” Double Walker said. “No one else has come out of the lodge.”

Black Elk didn’t know what to think of the white woman’s behavior. He realized that her singing was not really singing at all. She was chanting. But what she had to chant about was as great a mystery as her presence.

“Do I kill this buffalo or not?” Mad Wolf asked.

Black Elk was about to say it would be best if they silenced her when the white woman gazed toward the woods and clasped her arms to her bosom as in great joy. He looked to see what she had seen and his blood turned to ice in his veins. Shock sent him back a step. “Beware!”

The others whirled.

Mad Wolf instantly let fly with his arrow but the thing that had come out of the forest bounded aside and the arrow missed.

“It is a ghost!” Small Otter cried.

Black Elk disagreed. Whatever it was, it was flesh and blood. He snapped his bow up to let his own shaft fly.

“There is another!” Double Walker shouted, thrusting his arm toward a second apparition.

“And a third!” Mad Wolf warned. “Where do they come from? What are they?”

“We must flee!” Small Otter exclaimed.

Black Elk refused to run. He had never run from anyone or anything in his life; his bravery was a byword among his people. For him there was one recourse, and that was to slay the things before the things slew them. Accordingly, his bowstring twanged—and the shaft flew wide of his leaping target.

“Behind you!” Double Walker bellowed.

Uncertain whether the warning was intended for him or one of the others, Black Elk started to turn. He was only halfway around when something slammed into his back with such force that he was driven to his hands and knees. He lost his bow. Pain racked him, but not enough to stop him from grabbing for his knife. Before he could jerk it from its sheath, his wrist was seized in an immensely strong hand. A stinging pain in his throat resulted in a warm, wet sensation spreading down his neck and chest. He became unaccountably weak, and pitched onto his side. Something tore at him and he couldn’t lift a finger to stop it.

Black Elk saw Mad Wolf and Double Walker, both down and being ripped limb from limb. He saw Small Otter flee toward the white lodge. For a few moments he thought Small Otter would make it into the lodge, but the buffalo woman sprang with remarkable speed and ferocity and buried one of her long needles in Small Otter’s eye.

Black Elk’s own eyes became wet and sticky with his blood. The world faded around him. The last sound he heard was a gurgling whine that came from his own ravaged throat.

Pinpoints

“Do we go on, or do we stop for the night?”

The question was posed by Peter Woodrow. They had descended a short way from the pass and were winding down a steep slope that severely taxed their mounts. The sun, low in the western sky, cast long shadows that were slowly growing longer.

Nate King gazed to the southwest. In the distance were sandstone cliffs. If his memory served, that was where they would find the valley Sully had mentioned in his one and only letter to his parents. But getting there before night fell was impossible unless they could sprout wings and fly. “I say we find a level spot to make camp.”

Ryker overheard, and disagreed. “Why stop when we’re so close? When we could have a roof over our heads tonight?”

“I can give you a whole list of reasons,” Nate said. “One, our horses are worn out. Two, so are we. Three, we would have to ride for hours in the dark, and you know how dangerous that is. Four, even if we reach the valley, it could take us hours more to find the cabin. Five—”

“All right. All right. You’ve made your point.” “I agree with Mr. King,” Peter said. “My family is exhausted. You mustn’t forget there are women and children.”

“I gave in, didn’t I?”

“Why are you in such a foul temper, Mr. Ryker?”

“I can give you a whole list of reasons,” Ryker mimicked. “But I won’t.” He gigged his horse.

“A most puzzling man,” Peter remarked. “Some days he is as nice as can be. Other days he is mad at the world and everyone in it.” Shaking his head, he followed Ryker.

Nate was still at the rear, behind Tyne. He had a crick in his neck from glancing over his shoulder so many times. There had been no sign of the Black-feet, but he wasn’t convinced they had given up.

Someone else hung back, and reined in alongside his bay. “I hope you don’t mind my company,” Aunt Aggie said. “We never had our chat about readers and reading.”

“It will be hard to talk with all the riding we must do.”

“Oh, we’ll manage.”

And they did, off and on. Agatha did most of the talking. About how her mother had read to her when she was barely old enough to toddle. About how she had loved to hear bedtime stories. “Fairy tales and fables were my favorites. I particularly liked the little red hen and the grain of wheat, and Aesop’s fable about the fox and the stork.”

Nate admitted to liking Bible stories, and tales about great heroes of the past. One of his favorites was “Jason and the Argonauts.” As a boy, one of his prized books had been a copy of the work by Apollonius of Rhodes. His father called it an extravagance but let him have it.

“Typical,” Aunt Aggie said. “Boys are fond of tales of derring-do, while girls go for more practical stories.”

Nate mentioned that his daughter, Evelyn, most liked “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” and “Jack and the Magic Beanstalk,” when she was little. It brought fond remembrances of the many nights he had read to Evelyn and Zach in front of the cozy fire-place in their cabin. Those were glorious times.

Nate missed those days. Life seemed simpler then. When children were young their needs were few, and meeting those needs was easy. But when they grew older, a whole host of new problems arose, and being a good father became more of a challenge. The best a father could ask was that the problems were few and far between, and that they lived through them.

Ryker gave out a yell. He had found a suitable spot to camp for the night. Just in time. The horizon had devoured half the sun.

Sheltered from the wind by fir trees, Nate kindled a fire while Ryker and Peter tethered the horses. Aunt Aggie had Fitch and Harper gather firewood and drag logs over for everyone to sit on. Anora helped her mother fix supper. That left Tyne, who came and hunkered next to Nate.

“My aunt says you did me a favor today.”

“Oh?” Nate was concerned that Aggie had mentioned the Blackfeet wanted more than Tyne’s hair, but he should have known better.

“Only that you are a nice man and she is glad we ran into you.” Tyne smiled. “So am I.”

Nate added a piece of tree limb to the fire and the flames spat and hissed.

“Tell me about your girl, Evelyn,” Tyne requested. “What is she like?”

“She will be seventeen her next birthday. She likes flowers and pretty dresses, but she can shoot the eye out of a buck at fifty paces, and she can ride like the wind when she has to.”

“You sound very proud of her.”

“I am. When she was younger, she didn’t like the mountains. Her mother and I thought she would move back East one day, but she hasn’t talked about doing that in over a year now. I guess she decided the mountains aren’t so bad, after all.”

“Are they?” Tyne asked.

Nate stared at the encircling veil of darkness. “The mountains are as they have always been. They have beauty, and they have perils. We can admire the beauty, but we must watch out for the perils.”

Erleen was suddenly there, her hands on her hips. “I will thank you not to scare my daughter. We have made it this far without mishap. It puts the lie to all those tales about savages behind every tree and beasts behind every bush.”