“You think I can’t fight?” I told him. “I’d whup any man that put his hands on me.”

  “That’s good,” said Saint. “I like a woman with some roughness in her.”

  He turned and moved away. He’d got what he wanted- to scare me. But I’d made my own point clear, too.

  ᢇ

  A wind blew in that night from the North. It made an early end to the day’s drive. I’d never felt such awful cold in all my days, not even in Boston. Too frozen to ride, the men threw down under a little hill and huddled in their blankets. With the wind came a swift night, extinguishing even the burning starlight above.

  Cal opened his blanket to me. I hesitated.

  “It’s either me or that wind,” he said warily. “I didn’t go to all that trouble to have you die on the third day.”

  I crawled into his embrace. It helped with the cold- a little.

  He smelled as he did that first morning- of sweat and sage, and leathers. His big arms came up round my shoulders, drawing me close to his chest. No one had bothered light a fire- it wouldn’t have caught, anyway. And there were no trees to fix a tent to. We’d just have to weather it.

  I couldn’t see, but I could feel the men exchanging looks at Cal and I. Cal ignored them. He ignored most things that didn’t immediately demand his attention.

  “I guess you’re wishing we’d left you for the comancheros,” said Cal, after a time. He didn’t have to shout above the wind. He could speak right in my ear.

  I shuddered. “Never that, Mister Sampson.”

  “It gets worse than this sometimes. Especially after November. One winter it got so cold it froze the whole Mississippi. You could skate across it.”

  “That ain’t so hard to believe,” I said.

  “It was for me. Little boy from Carolina- worst thing I’d ever seen was a flood.”

  “How’d you end up out here?”

  “Parents moved,” he said simply. “It was just the four of us- Ma, Pa, and my brother. They said there was some good land out west. But we went and clear missed it, ended up in Texas, and Pa was too tired to go farther.”

  “Your folks still around?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said. “Just my brother.”

  He was being kind, making talk with me. He wanted to be kind. I still didn’t know why. I didn’t know what he wanted with me. And if he didn’t want something, well, then everything I knew about men was wrong!

  “I don’t mean to make trouble,” I began. “But it ain’t so easy bein’ here with these men. They got a lot of ideas about what my place is here.”

  He shifted. Sort of stiffened. “How you figure?”

  I regretted opening my mouth. Whatever my issue with Saint or Tucker or Tim was, it was foolish to drag Cal Sampson into it.

  “Nevermind,” I said.

  At last the wind died down enough to get a fire up, and we all threw ourselves in front of it. Tim nearly snapped his leg off in a prairie dog hole trying to find a spot to piss. We heard him cursing from a ways off. When he came back, he wasn’t alone.

  “This here is Pierre Biscuit,” he said, patting the newcomer’s shoulder. “Nearly scared me to death. He was camped out by the stream.”

  Pierre Biscuit was a squat man dressed head to toe in furs. When he spoke, he clacked through a mouth of wooden teeth.

  “Seen your fire from a ways off,” he burred. “Thought I’d come to warm meself.”

  “Welcome, stranger,” said Cal. “We ain’t afraid to share.”

  Biscuit took a place next to Tim.

  “Where y’all folks headed?” he said.

  “Baxter Springs,” replied Cal.

  “So these there cattle is your’n?”

  “That’s right,” said Saint. “Where you comin’ from?”

  “He’s a fur trader,” said Tim eagerly. “Used to gunfight.”

  “I suppose the man can speak for himself,” said Cal Sampson. He gave Tim a reproachful look. The boy had lots of ideas about gunfighters, and wanted to be one.

  “Yessir,” chuckled Biscuit. “I surely can. Been tradin’ up the Mississippi these long year. Used to be keen with a pistol. But those days is behind me.”

  “Well, this ain’t the Mississippi. Things have got a lot more decent, since then.”

  Biscuit rubbed his dirty hands. The glow of firelight didn’t do much for his appearance. He looked like a beggar or a ghost.

  Cal’s arm was still around me. I think he had forgotten it was there. He started stroking up and down my waist with his fingertips, almost absently. I froze and he did too. He took his hand away.

  I could smell him through his clothes. Unlike the other cowboys, Cal Sampson was followed by a clean, earthy smell that didn’t go away no matter how hard he rode or how long he went in between these furtive river-baths. I wanted to bury my face in his chest and breathe it in.

  “I never thought to see another soul out here,” continued Biscuit. “Especially not with so many fine horses.”

  “Cal’s the best judge of horseflesh I’ve ever seen,” bragged Tim. He seemed very taken with Mister Pierre Biscuit. “He picked out each of ours.”

  “You don’t say?” said the stranger. A little gleam passed through his eyes. “And they come all the way from Texas?”

  “Sure do,” said Tim. “These girls can ride miles and miles without stopping.”

  “You keep that trap shut, Tim,” cautioned Saint.

  “What? It’s the truth, ain’t it?”

  “We ought to get some rest,” Cal said abruptly. “Miranda, first watch is yours.”

  Startled at this sudden change, the men still went to obey him. Pierre shrugged and rolled himself up in the furs. I prepared to do the same with Dewey’s blanket, but Cal pulled me close against him, nested into the curve of his arms. One big arm looped around my waist. I could feel the ridges of his body, the hard planes of muscle. Would he reach his hand up and cup my breasts? Would he stroke my skin- like he’d been doing earlier? There was nothing suggestive about it, but I went hot all over.

  It’s too cold to sleep alone, I told myself. That’s why he’s doing it.

  “Maybe we should sleep apart,” I said cautiously.

  “Too cold for that. I’m keepin’ an eye on that bastard,” he murmured, almost to himself.

  “Seems strange,” I agreed, “That he would be out here.”

  “These trappers is strange folks. Can’t trust most of ‘em farther than you can throw ‘em. I’m gonna watch him tonight.”

  But in the end I felt his breathing deepen, and the long exhaustion of the road claimed him. I watched the dimming fire, and the men in bundles around it. Miranda was fast asleep.

  3

  Saint was always the first one awake, so it was he who roused us all.

  “Cal!” he roared.

  Cal sprang up, whipping his pistol from the holster before the rest of us could move.

  “The horses!” shouted Saint.

  We roused ourselves in alarm, but Cal was on his feet and making a quick count of the horses. We found not one, but three missing from the fold. Among them was my own.

  Of course, Mr. Pierre Biscuit was nowhere to be seen.

  “Fucking Jesus!” bawled Miranda, and fired his pistol into the air.

  I skittered back from the chaos. Everyone thought to point a finger at everyone else. It was Tim’s fault for bringing a horse thief into the camp. It was Miranda’s fault for falling asleep at the watch. Guts should have hobbled them properly. Cal should have seen it coming.

  “I’d bet my life it was that Indian,” spat Tucker. His horse had been among the stolen. “You ought to have watched him, Cal. He led his little redskins here and made asses of us all.”

  It hadn’t escaped anyone’s notice that Cal’s horse had not been stolen.

  “It weren’t Joseph’s fault,” Cal said between his teeth. “It was all of us. We were too damn careless.”

  “Well he’s halfway to the Comanche by now,” Miranda said. “What’s to say he didn’t make off with some cattle?”

  Cal furrowed his brow. The cattle were their prize, and at that, didn’t belong to them. He had to decide if to take a small party and go after the horses, in which case he might be a man short for herding any missing cattle. To spend the morning counting cattle would lose him time.

  “We can’t afford any more delays,” said Saint.

  “I know that.”

  Saint rounded on Tim. He cuffed him soundly on the head. The young boy staggered backward into Tucker’s bad leg. Tucker hissed and elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Whatdja hit me for?” bawled Tim.

  “That’s for trustin’ any dumb skunk you meet,” said Saint. “Just ‘cause he said he was a gunfighter!”

  “He didn’t say he were a horse thief!” Tim protested.

  “You’re so fuckin’ dumb, Tim, you couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the instructions was written on the heel.”

  Tim looked like he might cry or shoot the older man. He made heaving sounds in his chest.

  “I ain’t walkin’ to Kansas,” said Guts grimly.

  “Whydja have to fall asleep at the watch anyway, huh?” Tim said, rounding on Miranda. The old Mexican raised his eyebrows.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Tim faltered. “I mean- you was supposed to have the first watch.”

  Miranda’s fists clenched. “A loud mouth makes a soft ass, boy.”

  At this point Cal stepped in.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “Alone.”

  “What?” Saint turned to him.

  “I’ll go get the horses back.”

  My heart sank.

  “You’re a fool, Cal Sampson,” said Saint.

  “We need horses,” he snapped. “I ain’t wastin’ time flapping gums with you. Ada, lets go.”

  They all stopped talking.

  “Get your blanket,” said Cal.

  My mouth dropped. “I’m goin’ with you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Hurry up.”

  In eerie silence, I mounted his big horse. He swung up behind me.

  “Wait,” said Miranda, bold enough to say what they were all thinking. “You’ll only be slowed down. Your horse can’t carry two.”

  Cal ignored this. “Wait for me right here,” he said to Saint. “Don’t do nothin’ stupid.”

  I could feel his heart hammering in his ribcage. I wondered just what we were getting into.

  With a nod, he brought the horse about and plunged forward. I held onto the saddle horn for dear life. Cal remained silent. But then, that was his way. Silence and authority.

  We rode into the wind for hours. Cal said nothing to me, and I knew it would be foolish to ask. He was concentrating. It seemed we were going South.

  After a time we came upon another stream, though this a little wider than the first. Where the stream rounded in a bend, some people had set up camp. Not far off a herd of animals stood, grazing. There must have been hundreds of them. I believe they were horses.

  I saw the smoke before I saw the tents.

  These tents made high pyramids pointing to the endless sky. We’d found some Indians. But instead of racing away, as I thought he would, Cal went straight for them. He slowed the horse down and we walked right into that Indian camp like they had invited us to lunch.

  The smell was overpowering: grease, horsehair and smoke. The tipi covers were bone white. Colorful designs ringed the bottoms in long, looping rows. They stretched these covers out over flexible poles, which were then pounded into the earth for security. Indian women watched our entrance in perfect silence. I expected any moment we might be tortured and killed.

  Cal passed the women and made for the interior tipis. Two children played outside a tent decorated with a painting of a great winged bird. They jumped in fright at the sight of me. Cal leaned off the saddle and told the small boy something in the language. The child hurried off.

  Now alone, Cal told me to dismount. I did, and he followed.

  “Don’t speak,” he told me.

  I glared at him. “I thought you were supposed to be gettin’ the horses back.”

  “Just what do you think I’m doin’, Ada?”

  We waited outside the tipi for a while. A woman stuck her head out of it. Her eyes went large, and she ducked back in like a prairie dog.

  “Who are they?” I asked Cal.

  “Kiowa,” he said- sounding a little grim, I believed.

  “They’re friendly?”

  “If they wasn’t, we would know by now.”

  “Does Joseph know them?”

  He eyed me, fighting back one of his strange laughs. “I suppose. Who don’t Joseph know?”

  At that moment an Indian came round the side of the tipi. He wore nothing but long deerskin trousers and a cowboy’s vest. Across his bare chest hung a pewter medallion. I saw his left eye was the strange color of this medallion- a gray like storm clouds.

  He and Cal exchanged greetings like they were the best of friends- which meant respectfully nodding and smiling. Standing off from the pair, not very far, was Joseph.

  I was surprised to see him here. He looked unbothered, as always. His eyebrows raised when he saw me.

  “Take care of her,” Cal said to Joseph, and pushed me off on him. The he went off with the Kiowa man.

  Joseph eyed me up and down. I suppose I looked a state. My bonnet had blown off a couple days ago. My hair was wild and knotted at the ends, undone from the usual braid. Whatever the weather had left of my dress looked more like a washerwoman’s rag than a piece of clothing.

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” I returned. “The men said you stole the horses.”

  “I don’t like horses,” said Joseph. He glanced over his shoulder, where Cal and the Indian were disappearing through the flap of a big tipi. “Is that why he came?”

  “I guess,” I said, irritated. I scratched my head. A nest of burrs had rooted there, from falling asleep in the grass. I tried to pull them out. Joseph smiled.

  “You look like a porcupine.”

  “Thanks,” I snapped.

  He took me by the arm and led me back to the outskirts of the camp. I told him about the unfortunate visitor, and the theft of the horses.

  “I’m not surprised,” said Joseph. “There’s been a thief around these parts for months. A Comanche, they call him Kicking Bear. He leads a gang. They even stole from Iron Eye.”

  “Iron Eye?”

  “The chief of this band,” said Joseph. “He is friendly with Cal Sampson.”

  I remembered the man with the medallion and the gray eye, who had greeted Cal. So he was the Kiowa leader.

  Joseph moved us to a spot outside the camp. A group of women were doing something near a bubbling iron pot.

  A kind of earth-smell washed over us. The women had skins stretched out on wooden pegs, soaking in vats of foul-smelling liquid. A group of teenage girls scraped hides with sharp bone sticks. Cuts of dried meat were staked out above a smoking fire.

  “They had a hunt,” said Joseph. “Unusual for this time of year.”

  Joseph stepped through the working women unabashed. They hailed him, and he called back to them in a mixture of the Indian language and Spanish. Conscious of their eyes on me, I hurried behind him.

  He bent to talk to a young woman in Spanish. This woman had a bundle of beads in her lap. In her right hand she held a sampler, and in her left she held a needle. It reminded me painfully of Mary Harmin’s needlework.

  She was sewing these little beads onto a shirt. Her dark eyes flicked up to me as he spoke. She shook her head at Joseph, gesturing to her work.

  But Joseph begged, and with an irritated sigh she clicked her fingers. A small girl, her daughter, took the needlework away. The woman got to her feet and gripped my arm. She ran her hands up the disgusting dress, and stuck them right through my hair. I fought the urge to slap her away.

  “She’s going to take care of you,” said Joseph.

  “What?” I said. “Don’t leave!”

  “The sight of you hurts my eyes,” he said. “And I have more important things to do. Go with her.”