Randa glanced back. She was puzzled that none of the slave hunters was after her. For a few happy seconds she thought she had escaped. Then she glanced back again—and three riders emerged from the trees. One was the burly bear with a beard, Trumbo. The others were the blond man and the man with the shotgun. Trumbo rose in the stirrups, spotted her and pointed. All three immediately gave chase.
Randa hoped her parents and brother were all right. The fact that they were worth more alive than dead suggested they would be. But she had heard awful stories about the terrible things slaves hunters had done to runaways, and her heart was heavy with worry.
When Randa next looked over her shoulder, the three men hadn’t gained on her. A grim grin curled her lips. They were in for a surprise, those three, if they thought she would be easy to catch.
Randa galloped for another half mile. Then several things occurred to her. First, she was on the open prairie. There was nowhere to hide even if she should widen her lead. Second, her horse—a skew-bald, Nate King called it—was breathing heavier than she had ever heard it breathe. And third, the men after her were holding to the same steady pace, so she didn’t dare slow down. Put those three together and it told her they were deliberately trying to—what was the expression?—ride her horse into the ground.
Randa would be the first to admit she didn’t know a lot about horses. For instance, how far could they go without tiring? At a walk, probably all day. But at a gallop? She figured five or ten miles, but she could be mistaken. She slowed anyway and glanced back again.
The three were still after her at that same steady gait.
Randa faced front and stiffened. Something strange was up ahead. Dark bumps lined the horizon. The bumps grew until she could see they were animals—big animals. There were a lot of them, too. She thought they might be elk until she remembered Nate King telling her that elk herds seldom numbered more than fifty or sixty. There looked to be hundreds of what ever was up ahead, scattered in clusters and singly.
Randa considered going around, but that would take precious time and cost her much of her lead on her pursuers.
Some of the animals heard her horse and raised their great shaggy heads.
A tingle of apprehension rippled down Randa’s spine. She wanted to smack herself for not realizing what they were sooner. How could she not when she had nearly been gored by one? Their huge heads, their curved horns, their funny tails with the tufts at the end; they were buffalo.
Lots and lots of buffalo.
Randa’s mouth went dry. The buff she had run into at the river had shown her how fierce they could be. And that had been just one. What was she to do against hundreds?
Randa went to rein wide of a bull that was stamping its front feet.
Then she saw that the three slave hunters had halved the distance. She had no choice but to go through the herd.
A bull grunted and pawed the ground.
A cow with a calf took a few steps in her direction and stamped and shook her head as if about to attack.
“What do I do? What do I do?” Randa asked the empty air.
The skewbald stopped.
Randa jabbed with her heels to get it moving. Suddenly a bull came toward them, its head lowered.
Randa tensed for a charge. She would try to outride it, even though Nate King had told her that buffalo were as fast as horses over short spurts.
The bull abruptly snorted and wheeled and trotted off.
Randa used her heels. The skewbald slowly moved forward, but it was trembling with fear. She tried to get it to go faster, but it balked. She didn’t blame it. Buffalo were on all sides now, some staring, some grazing. They were spaced far enough apart that if she was careful she might make it through without being attacked.
A calf came prancing toward her.
Randa drew rein and was on the watch for its mother. She motioned. “Shoo! Go away!”
The calf paid no heed. It tossed its head and bobbed its tail, reminding Randa of herself when she was seven or eight and she would go skipping down the lane.
The calf came within half a dozen feet, sniffed several times, and let out a bleat.
Almost instantly there came an answering bellow. From out of a group of cows came one in particular, raising puffs of dust with her heavy hooves.
Randa went to rein out of there when she remembered another kernel of frontier lore Nate King once shared: animals are drawn to movement. When confronted by a bear or a mountain lion, the worst thing a person can do is run. Randa imagined the same applied to a mother buffalo.
The calf pranced in a circle around the skewbald, perhaps drawn to it out of curiosity. It didn’t seem to hear its mother’s bellows, and if it did, it had a lot in common with human children—it ignored her.
“Go away, darn you!”
At the sound of her voice the calf uttered another sharp bleat and scampered away. The mother went after it, veering wide of the skewbald.
Randa let out the breath she had not realized she was holding. But her relief was short lived.
Another buffalo was coming to investigate. This time it was a huge bull in its prime. Head lowered, it rumbled and snorted and gouged the ground.
Randa figured that if she sat there quietly the bull would leave her be. She didn’t count on the skew-bald doing the last thing it should; whinnying in fear and bolting.
“No!” Randa cried, and hauled on the reins. But the skewbald refused to stop. Worse, it was galloping toward a group of twenty or more buffs, bunched so close together that a goat couldn’t get through, let alone a horse.
“Whoa!” Randa shouted. She heard drumming hooves and looked behind her. Her heart leaped into her throat.
The big bull had given chase and was hard on the skewbald’s flank. Should the horse slow, even a little bit, the bull would be on them in the blink of an eye.
Hugging the horse’s back, Randa gave it a smack. She hollered, thinking it might scatter the buffalo they were heading toward. A few looked up, but the rest, amazingly, paid no more attention than if she were a prairie dog. “Get out of the way!” she screamed.
A few did. The rest stood chewing and staring or, as one buffalo was doing, rolling around in the dirt.
Randa was certain she was done for. The bull would catch her or the ones in front would turn on her. Either way, she was dead. In desperation she did the only thing she could think of: she hauled on the reins with all her might.
The bull thundered past, its horn missing the skewbald by a whisker. It plowed into the others, snorting and swinging its head, and they scattered in all directions, their tails held high.
Several passed so close to Randa that she could have reached out and touched them. The skewbald stood still, but quaked.
Then the buffalo were gone, and dust settled around her. She let out another sign of relief. Once again it was short lived.
“Damn, girl. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Randa wrenched her head around.
The three slave hunters had caught up. They sat their horses calmly, smirking.
“No!” Randa exclaimed.
“Oh, yes,” said the man with the shotgun. He pointed it at her.
Winona King was mad. Not at those who had jumped her and bound her. She was mad at herself for being taken unawares. In the wilderness a person must always stay alert. Now here she was, tied hand and foot. Helpless, and in the clutches of men whose violent natures were mirrored in their cold, uncaring eyes.