Lorna had assumed Indians were all the same, no matter what band they were. “How can you possibly know that?”
Meg chewed on her bottom lip as if contemplating. After closing her eyes, she sighed. “My father was a wagon master. He led a total of eight trains to California. Two of them, I was with him.”
Lorna hadn’t pressed to know about a family Meg never mentioned. “Where is he now?”
“Dead.”
The word was said with such finality Lorna wouldn’t have pushed further, even if she hadn’t seen the tears Meg swiped at as she sat down and looked the other way.
Lorna swiveled and grabbed the edge of the wagon seat. The horses and riders ahead of them veered left and the wagons followed, slowing their speed as they grew nearer to the trees lining the river. A pathway she’d never have believed wide enough for the wagon, let alone even have noticed, widened and led them down to the river. The brave handled the mules with far more skill than she’d have imagined, or than she had herself. As long as she was being honest with herself she might as well admit it. With little more than a tug on the reins and a high-pitched yelp, he had the mules entering the river. The water was shallow. Even in the middle, the deepest point, it didn’t pass the wheel hubs.
In no time they’d crossed the river and traveled into the trees lining the bank on the other side. Just as Meg had suggested, their pace slowed and remained so as they made their way through a considerable expanse of trees and brush. The trail was only as wide as the wagon, and once again, Lorna sensed that you had to know this trail existed in order to find it. She did have to admit the shade was a substantial relief from the blazing sun they’d traveled under for the past several weeks. She’d take it back though, the heat of the sun that was, to regain her freedom from this heathen as big as the black horse he rode upon.
He hadn’t turned around, not once, to check to see if they’d made it across the river or not, but she’d rarely taken her eyes off him.
“Where are you taking us?” she asked the brave beside her.
A frown wrinkled his forehead, which didn’t surprise her. English was as foreign to him as their language was to her. Turning toward Meg, she asked, “Where are they taking us?”
“Their village would be my guess,” Meg said.
“Why?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“I have,” Lorna said. “To kill us, right after they rape us.”
“No, they won’t,” Meg insisted. “But that is what Lerber would have done.”
Lorna didn’t doubt Meg was right about Lerber, nor did she doubt that this band of heathens would do the same. Despite Meg’s claims. She’d read about the American Indians, in periodicals from both England and New York. Anger rose inside her. If only the railroad went all the way to the West Coast she would have been riding in a comfortable railcar, like the one she’d traveled in from New York to Missouri. There had been heavy velvet curtains to block out the sun and a real bed. Tension stiffened her neck. Getting to California was worth sleeping on the hard ground, and no one, not even a band of killer Indians was going to stop her from getting there.
“Look at that.”
Lorna turned at Tillie’s hushed exclamation. As the wagon rolled out of the trees, a valley of green grass spread out before them, with a winding stream running through the center of it. Teepees that looked exactly like ones in the books she’d read were set up on both sides of the stream, hundreds of them. The scent of wood smoke filled the air and a group was running out to meet them on the trail. It wasn’t until they grew closer that she realized the group was mainly children and dogs. Some of the dogs were as tall as the children they ran beside, others tiny enough to run through the children’s legs, and many of them were decorated with feathers and paint. She’d read about Indians doing such things to their horses, but not their dogs.
What strange creatures they were, these Indians, and for a brief moment, she wondered what her mother would think of this peculiar sight. Mother hated America, which was partially why Lorna had chosen to return here. Maybe these creatures were part of the reason her mother hated her father’s homeland so severely.
Lorna had told herself she’d love America, if for no other reason than to spite her mother, but painted dogs were hard to ignore. As hard to ignore as the man on the black horse.
Most of the children now ran a circle around him, yipping and clapping. The last trek of their journey he’d led them at a pace the mules were much more accustomed to—slow, miserably slow. As their train rumbled forward, the smaller children and their dogs headed back toward the camp, whooping and yelling in their language. It sounded ugly and harsh, especially when shouted at such a volume. A few of the group, older boys it appeared, ventured all the way to the wagons, where they chattered among themselves and pointed at her sitting on the seat as if she were a circus attraction.
Usually, children and their innocent tactics humored her, but these, as scantily dressed as the big man on the black horse, were alarming. She waved a hand to shoo them away, but they laughed and continued walking alongside the wagon. Shouting, telling them to be gone did little more than make them laugh harder, and mimic her.
“Aren’t they adorable,” Tillie whispered.
It hadn’t been a question, but Lorna answered as if it had been. “Hell, no!”
“Sister Lorna!” Tillie reprimanded. “You shouldn’t curse.”
Being scolded wasn’t necessary. She’d rarely said a curse word before in her life, but today, they were jumping out of her mouth like frogs. Justly so. “I’m no more of a sister than you are, and I doubt the disguise will do us any good here.”
“Nonetheless, you shouldn’t curse. Especially not in front of children.”
“These are Indians,” she answered. “Heathens. The children are just like their parents. Their leader,” she added with renewed scorn. “Besides, they can’t understand a word we say.” Then lifting a hand, she pointed to the others now rushing out to greet them. “None of them.”
“Oh, my,” Tillie whispered.
“Oh, yes,” Lorna mocked. “Oh, my.”
There was now a great amount of shouting, and barking dogs, and those whooping sounds that made the hair on the back of her neck stand straight. The entire village, or at least half of it, now approached the wagon. Old and young lined the trail, babbling strange words and pointing as if watching a parade. The men were shirtless, other than a few who actually had on shirts or vests—stolen from white men they’d killed most likely—and the women had on hide dresses covered with beads and other trinkets. Most of the men wore ankle-high moccasins on their feet, but some men and almost all of the women wore fringe-topped boots made of hide that came up to their knees.
Their little wagon train, still led by the beast Black Horse, traveled all the way to the center of the encampment before stopping. The men on horseback, all except their leader, road several fast circles around the wagons, yipping loudly. The ones leading the horses they’d stolen from Lerber were the loudest, and in turn, received the loudest cheers from the crowd that had gathered.
Their screeches and chants were enough to make a person’s blood run cold. Lorna’s did, and she turned to Meg. “Friendly, you say.”
The astonishment, which was a combination of fear and shock, on Meg’s face sent Lorna’s heart into her throat.
The white women in the wagon cowered together, holding on to each other as fear filled their eyes. Except for the water woman. She had not covered her mass of curls with the black material like the others, and her stare was not full