“Miranda’s our cook, barber, and dentist,” said Cal. “He also shoes the horses.”

  “And you’re the leader,” I said.

  “Yes,” answered Cal, without a bit of humility. “I am. If it weren’t for me, half these gentlemen would be in jail or on the bottle.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Exceptin’ Saint. He’s got some brains to spare.”

  I huddled in on myself. No, it didn’t look good for me at all. A black woman alone with all these white men in a huge country far from the reach of the law. Far from Boston, and everything I knew.

  As if reading my mind, Cal said, “Don’t worry about ‘em. I ain’t gonna let them do you mischief. That’s my word on that.”

  I had no choice but to believe him.

  Cal gave me an old blanket that had been ‘Dewey’s rug’, and left me to my own business while he jawed it with the other men. I huddled at the edge of the camp, not daring to come close to the fire. They started some kind of card game and ignored me for a long time.

  No one couldn’t see the end of the prairie, not even if you stood on Cal Sampson’s shoulders- not even if all seven men stood on each other’s shoulders. I tried to listen for other sounds, like the cattle they were supposed to be driving, or like Mary Harmin’s cries for help. Nothing came on that breeze but the murmur of the grass, and the low notes of male laughter. They all were happy to sit there and play cards like nothing was wrong. Like a woman hadn’t been snatched by bandits, like two men hadn’t been killed. I supposed they were used to these horrible things. But it just wasn’t right.

  They played for hours, until with a sudden, unseen signal the game stopped. Their gazes flung to the edge of the little camp. Tim Barlow reached for his waist, and all the men copied.

  “Hey now,” called the dark figure. “Don’t shoot.”

  They all relaxed; it was someone they recognized. A tenth man stepped into the ring of light.

  He was shorter, almost my height, with a broad face and a wide nose. An Indian. He wore buckskin trousers and moccasins, and an inside-out shirt he did not tuck in. His hair was cropped under his ears, and it was blacker and thicker than any woman’s, and dark as ink. He hadn’t come on any horse I could see. He’d just appeared.

  Only Cal looked happy to see him.

  “Where the hell have you been?” snapped Saint.

  “Around,” answered the man. He looked at me and tilted his head. “Who’s that?”

  “Cal’s new hire,” snickered Guts.

  “You drive cattle in that dress, lady?” said the man.

  “I sure don’t,” I replied.

  “So what he recruit you for?”

  “I wasn’t hired. I was rescued.”

  “You ain’t a sporting woman, is you?”

  That just broke the men up. My face grew very hot. Cal glared at the man.

  “She ain’t no whore, Joseph,” he said. “Now get on over here.”

  Joseph shook his head. “I want to talk to your new cow-hand.”

  And to my surprise, he fell down on the ground right next to me. The men lost interest in him and went back to their game. But Cal still glanced over at us, as if we were up to something.

  I waited for the Indian to introduce himself. He only said, “You got away from the comancheros.”

  “I never even saw them,” I said. “Mr. Sampson picked me up the next morning. Our wagon was all smashed up.”

  He had very bright black eyes, which held as much good humor as a smile. But he did not smile.

  “Where were you comin’ from?”

  “San Antonio.”

  “No, before that.”

  “Boston.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Er- in the North. North-East.”

  And then Joseph started the questions, which went on for ages. I had a few questions myself, but he never let me get a word in- and I don’t think that was by accident. How many people lived in Boston? How many whites? What did the streets look like? What was the rain like? Did it rain often?

  By the end of it I was so tired he had to leave me alone. He beckoned to Cal, who got up from the game and went over.

  “Your comancheros went South,” said Joseph. Cal threw an alarmed look at me, but Joseph shook his head.

  “She can listen.”

  “Well, go on then.”

  “Your comancheros went South. Took the woman with them. Seem to think they can hold her for ransom.”

  “You talked with ‘em?”

  “They shot at me until I left,” said Joseph. “So no.”

  Cal bit his lower lip. “I can’t afford more delays,” he said. “The longer I hold these cattle out here, the more reason I give that Clancey bastard to take off our pay.”

  Joseph said nothing.

  “We move on,” Cal decided. He looked at me. “I am sorry about your mistress. I’ll leave word at the next town about it. They might send a party after her.”

  And then he and Joseph stepped to one side and continued the talk. There was nothing I could do.

  I felt miserable after that, so I curled up in the old blanket and tried to sleep. It was a long time coming.

  ᢇ

  “Son of a dad-blamed bitch!” roared Tucker.

  “What he got himself into this time?” said Cal, with a touch of irritation. The camp was getting ready to move, and the light of the day had started in the Eastern sky. I could see the tail end of the cattle herd on the very edge of the horizon. They had wandered nearer in the night.

  Tucker sprang out of his pants. His bare ass glowed like the moon. He was howling and clutching his foot, hopping on one leg.

  “Somethin’ bite you?” asked Miranda.

  Tucker was the only man on the trip with more than one pair of pants. Tucker had the opinion that clean pants were more important than a clean shirt. He had saved his extra pairs in his saddle bag for the trip to Fort Mueller. There was a woman in Mueller named Betsy, a sporting woman, whom he planned to visit.

  It seemed the centipede in Tucker’s pants had the same plan. It had ridden in the saddlebags all the way from Texas, and hadn’t taken kindly to his invasion.

  The thing was long as my forearm, black as a turd, with scurrying little legs. Joseph shook out Tucker’s pants and it went flying through the air. Tim took aim and shot it clean in two. After that there was a great commotion; they went looking for the halves, which Joseph said had gone running in different directions. Tucker rolled about on the ground and shouted his head off. It took near an hour to get everyone calmed down, and the horses had been clean spooked by it all; calming them down took even longer.

  “Tucker, you ought to let us know if you’re takin’ your dick off for safekeepin’,” said Tim. Tears ran down his cheeks. He could hardly breathe for laughing.

  “What?” snarled Tucker.

  Tim said, “I done shot it to pieces. You gonna have to go all the way to Texas for a new one.”

  Guts chuckled, but his eyes were on the grass. He kept jumping at little movements.

  “If you ladies is done jawin’, we got some cattle to mind,” said Cal.

  Tucker wincingly reached for his old pair of pants. We all watched him try to put it on. By the time he did, he was red in the face and sweating bullets. Tim handed him his hat.

  “We ought to hurry, Sampson,” said Miranda. He seemed disgusted at the whole display. “By now every Indian for miles must have heard him.”

  In a few minutes they had all the horses wrangled, saddled, and ready to go. I looked about for Joseph’s horse. Would I be expected to give up mine?

  “I don’t ride,” he told me. “I’ll go on ahead.”

  And to my astonishment, the Indian broke out into a neat trot, moving on ahead of us. His compact frame barely moved the prairie grass. The men followed him, heading for the distant herd.

  Cal came up to me. “You said you could ride.”

  “I can.”

  “I expect you to keep up, Miss. It’s a long ways to Fort Mueller and I-”

  “Don’t have time,” I finished. “I remember, Mister Sampson. I might be a woman but I am neither deaf nor dumb.”

  He blinked, as one would at a wild animal that spoke a full sentence of English. Or a black woman who had gotten a little too saucy with the white man who held her fate in his hands.

  But I wouldn’t beg pardon. I held the horse in hand and looked him in the eye. He chewed his lower lip, like he did when he was perplexed.

  “Follow on, then,” he grunted finally. He whistled at the horse, and moved up.

  It took two hours to round up the herd, and the slow drive West began. They left me a ways behind. Which suited me just fine. I didn’t need to be up top with Cal Sampson and his curmudgeon temper, or the sly grins of his cowhands.

  A little pit lodged in my stomach when I thought about Mary. We were moving farther away from her with every hour. Everyone knew what happened to women who were kidnapped by these renegades. They were cast out of polite society. They were stained. Ruined forever. Even if David found her- which I doubted he would- if the bandits had had their way with her, he might not even want her to wife. Her family in California might feel the same. A dishonored woman might as well be dead to the world.

  Cal Sampson could have gone back for her. He could have done something. Did he think his precious cattle were more important than a woman’s honor?

  I let the horse ease to a trot. My mind turned to the present. At least I had a horse of my own to use, and some protection. At least, at least.

  Later on in the day, Cal doubled back to check on me.

  “The first day is the hardest,” he said.

  “I’m doin’ just fine,” I gritted. My behind had turned to leather.

  “So you are.” One of those amusement looks flitted across his face. “Where’d you learn to ride, anyhow?”

  “Georgia,” I said. “My daddy had a farm.”

  “They let-”

  “We were freemen,” I said, meeting his eye. “I had six brothers. Poppa figured I ought to learn like they did.”

  “Thought you said you was from Boston.”

  “I moved up a few years back. We had some problems at the farm.”

  “Problems,” said Cal.

  “It burned down.”

  “By itself?”

  “It had some help, from the local folks.”

  “What happened to your daddy?”

  “He died.”

  “And your brothers?”

  “Don’t know. I suspect they went on North, like I did.”

  He nodded, looking at me. I figured I would never get used to those looks. Cal Sampson’s eyes had some kind of spell in them that could make you forget everything you were about to say. He drummed his big fingers on the saddle horn.

  I said, “You can’t ever know a person off looks alone.”

  “That’s so. I believe I underestimated you.”

  “You are forgiven, Mister Sampson.”

  He broke out in a laugh. That had a startling effect on his features. They crinkled and beamed, making him look very old and very young at the same time. He nudged his horse and let her move off ahead of me. He sure made a fine figure on that horse.

  Much later we came to a narrow crossing, cutting through loose yellow sand on both sides. They herded the steers across without trouble. It was the first running water I’d seen for days and days, and even then it made no more than a pathetic little trickle. Joseph led us up the stream where the banks were wider, and the water deeper, where we could wash some important things- like our hair- and fill the canteens.

  “This here is the Red River,” he said.

  “This?”

  It couldn’t be. The Red River was famous for swallowing folks up without warning. No way it could be a little trickling thing like that.

  “Yes. Don’t stay long here,” said Joseph. He pressed on ahead.

  “Where you going?” called Guts.

  “I’ll be back,” was all the Indian said. He waded off into the grass.

  “That Injeeun couldn’t stand still if you nailed him to a tree,” spat Tim.

  “I do wonder where he runs off to,” agreed Saint. “Probably got six Indian wives sittin’ all in a row out there. Like squirrels in a hole.”

  “He ain’t got a wife out here. Just a mother,” said Cal.

  “Well he seems awful keen on his mother. I swear, Cal, I’d rather have a dumb scout than a missing one. Suppose we was to have an accident while he was gone?”

  “Joseph’s the best scout I ever had,” Cal said, scratching his beard. “But he’s a strange piece. Even for a Kickapoo.”

  “You reckon?” said Guts. He liked to form his opinions around Cal’s.

  “We wouldn’t have made it past the Brazos if it weren’t for him.”

  They set me down a ways downriver, for modesty’s sake. At Cal’s insistence they cleaned themselves off farther up. Cal said we had no more than twenty minutes- and he timed them, by way of a rusted old pocket watch. Of course I didn’t stay still. I led Dewey’s horse up with me and hung back in the thin gorse, pretending not to watch them. Tucker took the opportunity to soothe his centipede bite. He took everything off from the waist down, even his boots, and plunged into the water. He had some trouble getting out of those pants. His entire left leg was a red, swollen mess. The skin around the bite looked vivid red, but was starting to bruise.

  “You never seen a white man’s cock before?” said someone in my ear. I turned, ready to scream. It was Saint. He had crept up behind me, quiet as could be.

  He spoke the best out of the group- even better than Cal. The man had hair almost as dark as Miranda’s. I wagered he was half Mexican, but that didn’t explain the fine speech. He’d been educated, alright- but not in Texas.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t care to, neither.”

  Saint rubbed his chin. “I thought Joseph said you was a sporting girl.”

  He meant a whore. I opened my mouth to say something sharp. But I thought about it. You had to be careful with white folks. If you seemed too ignorant, it annoyed them. But appear too smart, and you might make it worse.

  “I’m nothing of the kind, sir.”

  “You ever thought about bein’ one?” he murmured.

  “I don’t think about much but the Good Lord and his divine grace.”

  When in doubt, play the pious fool. The coffee-colored eyes gleamed. I backed away from him. He stepped forward.

  “I was talkin’ with Tucker. We were sayin’ how uncommon pretty you are.”

  “I don’t like to think so.”

  “No? You ought to. Pretty girls ought to know they’re pretty.”

  “I ain’t a girl.”

  “What are you, then?”

  “A grown woman.”

  “You sure are.”

  His eyes raked over me, top to bottom. Where Cal Sampson was light and fair, and solidly built, Saint was dark, lithe and thin. He had a cowboy’s tan, like the rest of the men- but if it weren’t for the unforgiving prairie sun he would have been pale as bone needles. I was afraid of him.

  “Leave me be,” I said, my voice almost a whisper. “Or I’ll scream.”

  He stepped forward again. Surely the others could see us through the scratchy patch of gorse. Surely Cal would come stop this.

  But no one came. Saint got closer to me. He studied my face. Then, without warning, he shot out a hand and pulled me to him. His lips came down over mine- bit down. I raked his cheek. Instantly he pulled back. There was blood under my fingernails.

  “Bitch,” he panted. But he was grinning.

  “Don’t you touch me again,” I said.

  Saint put a fingertip to his bleeding cheek. It sickened me to see him smile at what I’d done.

  “You may think you’re safe with Cal,” he said. “But he ain’t got a hundred eyes. Soon or late you’ll be bedding with me. I got my sight on you, and I tend to get what I want. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll be taking it.”

  “You just try it,” I said.

  “Cal can’t fight us all,” he said. “You watch what men do when they been starved of a woman’s touch long enough.”