On one of his trips to go up to the Eagle's nest, I noticed Big Joe was wearing his shirt where his buffalo soldier insignia were torn off. He was honorably separated from that unit, and he was going to watch for soldiers.

Riggs was wearing a buckskin shirt when Joe sent Riggs to give a report to Running Horse. He made his way out of the Eagle's nest, moving toward the cliff that faced the valley. Riggs wore buckskin. His army uniform was burned in the firepit. If anyone saw him in a uniform shirt with the insignia torn off, he would have been ridden down and arrested once they figured out who he was.

I don't know what the penalty is for deserting, but I am sure it is severe. They like killing wrong doers. Once dead, it is almost guaranteed you won't do nothing else wrong. Even locking men up in cages, like circus animals, for year after year, would teach them a lesson they would never forget.

The lesson I would learn from being locked in a cage is don't get caught again. When you are black, Irish, or a savage, you won't find many invitations to sit with the good folks who claim to own your land and they are willing to kill you to prove it. There are no exceptions to their rules, no matter how crazy they are.

They could have a law that said Riggs needs to be shot. I don't know that, but when I saw Riggs coming across the top of the cliff to yell down Joe's message, I see a good man at work. I know he saved my life at least twice, and he is prepared to do it again, even if he is guilty of not following orders.

Once you find yourself following your heart, it isn't so easy going back to following orders.

There was a line in a book Joe read to us from that fit, "One for all, all for one." The Three Musketeers stood for honor, bravery, and justice, and I could see the same qualities in the men I called my friends. We wanted our clan to stay alive and have a fine life. This was done through sharing and caring about each other. We all were determined to live, but we were willing to die fighting for our way of life.

Our way of life had attracted a strange mix of people who joined Running Horse's clan. None of us had a real home, but we were good people who deserved a good home. We had found it.

We all came to Running Horse's clan not having a real home. We all had a home here, and it was a good home, filled with good people. It was a home worth dying for. I didn't ask my friends why they stayed. They could have gone anywhere, but we were welcome here, and so we stayed.

No one had to tell us that we were fighting a losing battle. The Europeans kept coming, and the number of troops in the cavalry kept growing. There was only one war left to fight now.

Big Joe understood captivity and subjugation. Slavery kept him a prisoner who did what he was told. The Buffalo Soldiers regimented him into a severe culture of killing and dying. He was accustomed to doing what he was told to do, and that's what made Buffalo Soldiers good at what they were ordered to do. It was follow orders or the bullwhip for a slave. That wasn't something you forgot, even after you were freed.

Once you are owned, it's not so easy to be free. Once you've tasted the sting of a bullwhip, it's hard to consider doing what it is you feel like doing. Following orders as a slave, even when you have an Auntie to educate you to the ways of the world, distorts the ability to be a free thinker.

I was never a slave or a Buffalo Soldier, but Big Joe saved Danny Boy and me without thinking twice. That's all I needed to know about Joe, but as John pointed out more than once, "Joe's right handy."

Yes, he was.

Joe read about worlds and people who had real lives. Joe yearned to have a real life, whatever that was. He left the Buffalo Soldiers and when his horse dropped dead under him, he took to his feet, and he met me, and I had gotten myself into a bind that Big Joe got me out of. While I had contemplated shooting him when he came my way with the biggest damn shotgun I had ever seen, I didn't shoot him, and I'm sure glad I didn't.

I told him he was welcome to stick with us, and I hoped he would once I gave him one of my horses. I was afraid he might ride off into the sunset. Lucky for me he didn't. He had nowhere to go, and he accepted my invitation to stay for as long as it suited him.

Big Joe was no longer a captive of one order or another. He had choices to make, and each choice brought him closer to a life he could like, and to people who liked him. Big Joe grew into an important member of Running Horse's clan. He kept doing what he wanted to do, and it just happened to be helpful and appreciated by the people who lived around him. Joe became one of us merely by being himself.

We lived together, and when the time came, we would die side by side, no doubt. It's the future I saw. It's a future I had seen for years. The ending had been written far away from Running Horse's clan, but we were all part of a future that was no future at all, if the cavalry had a say in the matter.

Riggs, doing the most noble thing he had done, would be shot as a traitor, should they take him alive. He would not fire on soldiers, even if they would kill him on sight. Riggs was a traitor who came to help keep Running Horse's clan alive. It's what he decided to do, and we let him do it. I admired him for it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We all came from different places. Once we came together, we were better off than we were before. Many men want to live good lives, and they don't mind sharing things that are plentiful, but they fall in with men who spew anger and hatred for anyone who is not like them. It can turn good men bad if they fall for it. They don't know they are falling for anything. It rubs off on them while they aren't paying attention.

"Why else would there be so much of things if it wasn't meant to be shared?" Young Antelope asked.

There was enough land for everyone. There was enough buffalo to feed everyone in the country, but there was also manifest destiny. That told Europeans that they would take the land from sea to shining sea. There wasn't room for civilized Europeans and savages to live side by side. There was no effort to live in peace beside the people on the land when the Europeans came to stay.

That was never spoken as being the plan, but since Jefferson's presidency, that became the plan. Give the Indians a chance to assimilate, which meant give up the land and their culture and live like white men.

To Indians, Europeans lived strange lives. The books Joe read from left no doubt that they complicated life beyond reason by wanting what other people had. They were never satisfied with what they had. They hated the lives they created for themselves in Europe. They decided to come to the New World. They brought all the things they hated about life in Europe here with them. They recreated the lives they left behind.

Running Horse's clan had been marked for death. They had not assimilated. They hadn't gone in, and that meant we were in the way, even when they couldn't find out where we got off to.

"How many people were in the village at the time of the massacre, Running Horse," I asked him.

"I was a baby. I'm told that Lone Wolf's clan numbered ninety-seven, when the marauders came to kill us. There were fifty-one when he moved what was left of his clan into the wilderness village."

We escaped death by a few minutes. A storm sent the cavalry back to their fort to dry out. They had no idea how close they came to ending Running Horse's clan, and now their search would need to start over. We would be safe until it did, but we stayed watchful, because both Riggs and Joe said, "They'll be back."

How many people can say, "I will positively be alive at day's end?" Too many won't live to see the day end.

Saying it won't make it so, especially if you are an Indian on the Great Plains.

Big Joe was an open book. He didn't know his own limitations. Joe saw the world as a freed man, and he grew into what he was meant to be. I couldn't know how a former slave would act, after being a slave. What I can tell you, Joe has a fine mind. He knows things and has a curiosity I don't have. Joe's mind is fine and it works all the time. When Joe speaks about what he thinks and sees, I need to be careful how I listen, because he comes up with ideas that make perfect sense, except I wouldn't have thought of it. That wasn't Joe's fault. Big ideas scared me, because they could go out of control.

When Joe reads from books he gets at Morton's Emporium, villagers sit and listen. More and more listen each time he reads. This was a visit to the white world. How Europeans lived and the things they did. I can't say anyone really cared about how Europeans lived in Running Horse's clan, but with Joe's pleasant baritone voice, he draws us into the dramas. Joe says these are dramas. They are craziness, but I listen to him read.

I knew way more about white men, once I lived among them, but even I had no idea of how they lived outside of the work-a-day world. Joe told us how they lived while reading to us from the books he collected.

They are sometimes crazy, or act like they are, and violence travels with them, no matter where they go. If Europeans read the books Joe reads, why haven't they learned to care and share more, instead of acting like they own everything, and when they go somewhere, everything seems to be theirs for the taking.

Being a wagon master and dealing with the Europeans who travel west in Conestoga wagons, they did create the drama they seem to thrive on, as I guided them west. I put up with no nonsense on my train, and once they knew that they mostly did do what I said was the proper thing, but even then, especially when alcohol got involved, they could be hardheaded folks, but they knew to keep up if they didn't want to get left behind.

Most people listen. I listen and learn about things so far from my world that I can't even imagine them, but things coming out of a book can tell you a lot about people. What I did know told me that I had no knowledge of anyone who acted like the people in the novel Wuthering Heights. Who would do such things?

The best times are when Joe finishes reading for the evening, and he comes for a cup of coffee, or a bit more of what's left of supper, and he says, "Who would do such a thing? I wouldn't have grown to be a man if I did any of it back on the plantation."

Acting the fool seemed to be commonplace over there. What I don't tell Joe is, yes, I think some are crazy. They have crazy ideas about who they are, and how they feel about other people just as good as they are. They keep slaves so they don't need to sweat while working land that isn't theirs. If you have objections, it could be the day you die. Europeans seem to have an appetite for killing civilized people ought not have, but I'm not the one who gets to say who is and who isn't civilized.

I'll never know what it is like to be a slave, but I do know what being Pawnee is like. I think Joe feels the same way and therein is a kinship we didn't deny.

We are all different. We are all the same.

I didn't learn to kill. There came a time to kill, and I killed . As I moved east, I knew I could kill if necessary. I saw no reason for it to become necessary. I did what I needed to do about my brother's death. If I was reasonable in my dealings with people, there should be no reason for me to kill.

For all practical purposes, I was a white man dealing with other white men. That gave us enough in common not to want to kill each other. What they didn't know made this bargain possible, when a wagon master needed to stand his ground.

I lived in the white world with good men and bad, but the good always outweighed the bad. The good men didn't know what was being done to the Indians. They believed what they read and what they were told. None of it was good when it came to Indians. People in the east, immigrants who came to fill up the land, didn't know about what was being done to the buffalo. They didn't know a decision to starve the Indians was how the government intended to own all the land, and that left no room for argument.

You could get yourself shot for daring to say that the policy was to starve the Indians into surrender. Why a government lied to its people, it's hard to say. I never regarded the government as anything but rich men who got ahold of power, and they did what they could to take care of themselves and their friends. To own the entire country, and everything on or in it, they had to deal with the Indians, and they didn't mind lying about it.

Indians were savages. They were dangerous to white people. What else did you need to know?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Running Horse and I both looked up at Riggs, once we heard him calling down to us.

"There is water as far as I can see from the Eagle's nest," Riggs reported. "Cavalry is nowhere in sight. They must have ridden north to find shelter or to try to ride out of the storm. No telling how far they went. No telling how long before they come back. They will come back."

After they kept watch for another hour, Big Joe and Riggs made an attempt to walk through the canyon and see what they could see on foot. They got a bird's eye view in the Eagle's nest. They wanted to see it close up.

In no time at all, they both came back out of the canyon, looking a bit surprised.

"Water is standing about halfway to the entrance at the front of the cliffs. I went as far as water being up to my knees. This side of the canyon is on higher ground, and the deeper into the canyon we went, the higher the water became. It covers everything out front," Big Joe said. "It must be deeper than it looks. I can't swim, and I'll wait until the water drains out of the canyon before going out front to take a look see."

As high as Joe said the water was, no one was getting at us through the canyon today. This gave us a chance to relax now that the running stopped. We hadn't had a hot meal or time to collect our thoughts in three days.

The intensity of the rain did what we didn't have time to do. Not only did it cover our tracks, but it covered everything in front of the cliffs and as far as the eye could see. I could see quite a distance across to 1st National Bank's section we surveyed, and it too was covered with water.

Nothing was moving on the trail, and that was the best thing I saw from the Eagle's nest.

The water was a barrier to anyone wanting to come to the valley through the canyon. The cavalry never got within a mile of us, and they couldn't see where we got off too, but they knew where they lost track of us.

Robby stumbled on to Paradise Valley, and a good scout might find the canyon opening, but not today.

As far as we had come, escaping being caught by only a few minutes, we finally let down our guard. It took us a while to slow down and dry out. We had all been soaked to the skin, but we were alive.

It took a while to relax, and I remembered some things we stored before going to Running Horse's village in case we came in and needed to eat right away. We would need to stretch what we had, but it was enough for everyone to have a hot meal. When you've been on the run, a hot meal is sure to hit the spot.

No one was complaining about being hungry, but it was only a matter of time before people realized they hadn't had a real meal in three days. We hadn't stopped moving until now, but with relaxation would come hunger, and we needed to get ready to feed everyone. Before we ate, we tended to the horses and got them in the pasture by the stream where they had more than enough grass for grazing.

I sent Sammy Boy toward the waterfall to hunt supper. We had plenty of dried meat to nibble on. It's all we had to eat while we ran. A hot meal would make tired hungry people feel better, and it sure would brighten my day. Sammy Boy was a reliable hunter, and he always brought back what he had it in mind to hunt.

Once the wagon was brought down out of the exit of the canyon, the repeating rifles were stored there, because the wagon's place was at the bottom of the trail that led down from the canyon and into the valley below. This would eventually be close to the lodge Running Horse and I would live in, and the central firepit where everyone would eat for a while was a dozen feet away from the wagon, and an additional dozen feet to where we would build our lodge.

I sent Young Antelope and Big Bear over by steam where we left potatoes growing, in the hopes they continued growing while we were gone. Low clouds hung over top of the valley. It was a bleak day, but we had reached the destination I had in mind, and we were safe for the time being.

For the time being we would sleep in the open and start working on building lodges for our elders, and for families with children. It would take a while to have the kind of village where we were used to living. For whatever time we had, we wanted some creature comfort, and people had begun to move away from the entrance to see what the valley had to offer.

I knew it could support a few dozen people without any difficulty, but over seventy people might require some fancy footwork until we got gardens growing and figured out how best to make the most of a valley big enough for Running Horse's small band. The beauty of Paradise Valley pleased everyone, and the waterfall and pond it fed was the feature that attracted the most attention, but the children found the cliffs enticing. They almost immediately found one of the caves, and we had to slow their enthusiasm for exploring.

The valley hadn't flooded, and Barking Dog found a channel that looked like it was man made. It hadn't been as natural as it looked, and it allowed rainwater to drain down and out toward the open end of the valley to the south. A few days later, Barking Dog and Turtle told us that there was a similar channel along the western slope of the cliffs, and it too drained off to the open end of the valley. It was dry by the second day.

Paradise Valley was higher in its center. It sloped towards the two sides where channels sent excess water out the open end. Water covered all the land out in front of the cliffs. It flooded the front part of the canyon. It didn't flood inside the valley. Joe was sure this was by design. He didn't see it before, accepting it was a natural feature created by weather and time. When he looked again, he agreed.

"People who lived here before created channels to take excess water out the open end," he told us. "Hard to tell how long ago it was done, but long enough to make it look natural if you didn't look too closely."

It wasn't a thought I had. I believed we were the first to live here. I saw no signs that anyone lived here, but in time, signs of man were erased by time. Firepits and trash heaps decayed and slowly went to ruin.

This brought to mind the heating vents that kept the valley comfortable at most times. It warmed during the day, but not too warm. It cooled during the night, but not too cool, and if the channels that drained off water to the south were handmade, what was to say the open heating vents hadn't been opened by hand.

I waited for Running Horse to get in touch with his spirits, and perhaps they would know about the time before the time we came to live here. I supposed, but didn't know, spirits knew things like that, but even if they did, Running Horse might not talk about it. His relationship to the spirit world was the province of a chief, and I was no chief. I didn't know how spirits worked, and apparently, they didn't work in Paradise Valley.

Previous occupants of Paradise Valley would remain a mystery, which meant anything was possible. Even the impossible becomes possible when you see it unfolding. I tended to believe my eyes and ears, and I still knew, even if I didn't necessarily believe, what Mrs. Taylor told us was true in school. I need to consider what I was told to believe with what I knew from experience. There may be more than one truth at times but sorting through it wasn't easy .

We were on the run when we came to Paradise Valley. Once we got inside the valley, the running stopped, and the storm started. When the storm stopped, the danger had passed. We didn't know for how long.

The first day, we dried out as we gathered wood and we prepared our first feast. No one had much energy; we all pitched in when Samuel brought back a cleaned antelope ready for the firepit. Once the game was cooking, everyone came to watch our evening meal roasting. The firepit was attractive after days on the trail.

Everyone but Joe and Riggs, and they both stayed up top to see if the cavalry came back, but by the time our feast was ready, and we cooked beans and potatoes to go with it, the darkness began to set in as the sky began to show signs of clearing. The sun hadn't shined yet, but the rains didn't return.

The Pawnee broke into small and the typical clusters who would have been the same as in the old village. Families built lodges near family, and friends built lodges near friends. There was plenty of space for the lodges required, but some of us didn't mind sleeping outside. I didn't mind sleeping under the 1st National wagon for the months we surveyed from Paradise Valley. I never thought of building a lodge back then, it was fine sleeping out, but as a drover we slept out under the stars, and as a surveyor I saw no reason to change.

The talk for the first few days was of where to build lodges and how to build them. Paradise Valley had everything anyone needed to build a village, and there were plenty of men to build one. For the time being, there was plenty of game, and the rabbits had done their best to increase their number while no one was here to eat them. That meant plenty of rabbit for a while, and by the time we were getting low on rabbit meat, the gardens would be growing, and less meat would be required.

The children were having a great adventure. The older kids knew we had run for our lives, but the younger kids knew we left our old village, the place of their birth, and we were now building a new village. How exciting was that? The older children didn't think it was that hot, but when you are told to run, and you run, where you run to will eventually need to be made into a village. As older children, they would be expected to help while keeping the younger children entertained. That was the way things were.

No one, older or younger, didn't know who the cavalry was. While we never caught sight of the cavalry once we went on the run, they were anxious to catch sight of us. Once in Paradise Valley, we weren't sure if our days were numbered or not. We would wait and see while going on with our lives.

While we did that, life had an unusual flow to it. We were making a village inside of Paradise Valley, not knowing how long we had. It felt almost normal, as if this is what we always did after we ran for our lives. We ate at the main firepit, because your own firepit was the last thing you built, after building your lodge.

We met every evening, and Running Horse took care of the meat Samuel and Young Antelope brought him. There was a variety, because no one wanted to eat the same thing over and over if it could be avoided. There was good cheer after a few days, and the singing and dancing started by the women, leaked over to the hunters and warriors. We all smiled and celebrated life. I had run for my life every day for years. There was no singing and dancing. I rather enjoyed it, even if I didn't dance.

We made every effort in getting our elders settled into suitable living arrangements first. No one fussed and complained after our mad dash, but comfort was everything once you got older. Having familiar things was a comfort for our elders, but since we left everything behind, they needed to take comfort in having a safe place to live and good food to eat. Being elders, they knew staying alive was a good thing. We were still alive.

I suppose no one complained, because we were still alive. The odds were against us when we left our old village. Now, there was a beautiful valley with even more beautiful cliffs surrounding us. The cliffs were a barrier to unwanted visitors. This made people feel safer. Once the canyon was discovered, it would lead them straight to Running Horse's band.

I didn't think of the cliffs as making me safer after finding Paradise Valley, but they served that purpose, and in the Eagle's nest, we could look out to see what was happening on the trail, and Joe came down to tell us there was a flood and there was no calvary out front. He came to tell us that a day of watching hardly saw anyone on the trail. After three days he came to tell us the water had drained and there was no longer sitting water anywhere within sight.

On the fourth day and for the next week, the sun was a big yellow ball that came up in front of the Eagle's nest at the front of the cliff and swept a wide arc against the clear blue sky overhead. By then, the horses spent their days romping in the meadow next to the stream where Running Horse wanted our lodge a few dozen feet from the 1st National Bank wagon that held the twenty-five repeating rifles.

Climbing out from under the 1st National wagon, the wonderful warmth shined down after I made a pot of coffee and was ready for a new day. By that time, I thought we might make it through another day, and we went to work gathering materials for a few more lodges. Our lodge would be the last one built, and sleeping under the wagon was as familiar as the bright sunlight that warmed our day.

We would need to hunt daily, but Samuel didn't mind hunting, and it didn't take him long to come back with game that was cleaned. It was firepit ready. Demon went out with Samuel, but he stayed where the game was cleaned, and he made short work of clearing the area of the game's remains, before returning to the firepit, where he would wait for however long it took to be there to receive the scraps thrown his way.

Demon lived in Paradise Valley with us for most of a year, and he knew the routine, only there were a lot more people to toss him meat he craved. From the first night he noticed there were many more people likely to see that he got a bite or two of their meal, and that meant a lot of meat to eat for the hungry wolf.

The night before, after the game came back, the feast was thrown together as best we were able. There were beans, potatoes and the game Samuel took. It wasn't a typical meal. There weren't enough logs in the general vicinity, but people sat on the grass that dried fast nearer to the fire. There were logs where we sat, and men stood, making the most of the meat after three long days of running.

We found extra logs, rolling them to the main firepit. We were still fond of eating together, but a couple of fires appeared in front of lodges already built, and Running Horse made sure that anyone he didn't see come to the firepit got a share of the meat, once the people at the firepit had a plate full.

I got the fire going as Running Horse prepared for the feast where he would talk about our future here. Not knowing we had one, meant going slow at first. The one thing we knew about the cavalry, they would be back. They might not find us for a long time. They might not find us at all. We would take it a day at a time, and as the clan became accustomed to living here, life would take on a more typical look. The fear of running for our lives would gradually wear off, and we would live what lives we had left to us in a way that pleased us.

I was at home here. I bought Paradise Valley because I loved it. I wanted to live here forever, but I had a life elsewhere, and it took me away from the valley I owned. I was back and Running Horse's clan came with me. We were out of sight, and hopefully out of mind. I didn't know if the valley was capable of feeding 75 people, but it would for the time being, and we would make up our mind what to do next.

After everyone ate, and Demon sat chewing on a suitable bone, no one moved away from the firepit. His people were waiting to hear that everything was going to be okay. This was expecting a lot of our chief. We were safe. I told Running Horse about it, and it ended up being our refuge when the time came. Maybe this was the reason I bought the valley in the first place. I wanted to live here forever, but I also wanted to return to Running Horse. We needed to come to the valley to escape destruction. Was that why I bought it? I never had a desire to own any of Mother Earth before. I wanted to own this valley. Now my people took refuge here.

I could see a larger hand at work, but that was closing in on the prophet's turf, and I was no believer. I preferred to think things turned out for the best and not question the way it was accomplished.

Not everyone liked being closed in. We were plains Indians, and we followed the buffalo for a thousand years. We liked being on the move. It was our way of life. The cliffs closed us in. They kept the cavalry out. This gave us time to recover from our mad dash across the countryside. The walls of the cliffs protected us, and the warriors knew what to do if the cavalry returned any time soon.

Running Horse knew how to comfort his people in spite of our future being in doubt. That wasn't important now. Feeling at home and finding out about that home was in order, and the beauty of Paradise Valley was a welcome sight after leaving everything behind in our old village. It was a little confining, but it was peaceful.

"We have been fortunate," Running Horse said. "The Great Spirit and Mother Earth were looking after us. Tall Willow tells me there are plenty of building materials for lodges that will become your home. You can look at the lodges being built for our elders. Find a spot you like, and Tall Willow says there is an abundance of materials that will make nice lodges. As a lodge is finished, the next lodge will start. We have a surprising number of builders that have never built a lodge, but with Joe's help, they are learning ways to build."

"There are lovely spots just across the stream next to the meadow. Pick a spot you like, and when your lodge is built, you'll have other lodges to get ideas to have one built to your liking. This will be our home for the foreseeable future. We are lucky to have been guided to Paradise Valley. Let us make it a good home."

The meal had been quiet, and the people moved off to grassy spots where most people were sleeping. A few elders had a lodge now, and other elders slept inside while more lodges were being built.

I got out the big coffee pot to furnish some well-deserved coffee for those who stayed near the firepit. As evening set in, we chatted about what came next, and how long we had. When Joe climbed down from up top, he gave me a big smile when I handed him a cup of coffee.

People still at the firepit as darkness set it, waiting to hear what Joe had to say.

"Not a soul on the trail. It will be dark soon. Riggs is still up there just in case, but once you move a few hundred men away from a place, you rarely turn around and go back. The rain got them all wet, and they will look for a place to dry out. I think we're safe for a few days, but we will keep watch on the trail."

Hearing this, the rest of the clan, having had plenty to eat, drifted away to find a place to sleep.

"Mighty fine," Joe said as he drank. "You make a fine cup of coffee, Phillip."

Riggs climbed down later. I handed him a cup of coffee. He gave me the biggest smile. Samuel had taken a plate up top for Riggs a few hours before, and with it being too dark to see anything, he finally came down.

"Any of that meat to spare?" Riggs asked.

Running Horse cut a bone with flavorful meat around it, handing it to Riggs. He wasted no time going to work on it, Riggs went to work getting all the meat he wanted off the bone, tossing the remainder down beside Demon, who hardly noticed, because he was busy cleaning a bone someone else had tossed down for him.

"Is that a wolf?" Riggs asked, after he took a closer look.

Joe put his finger up to his lips and said, "He doesn't know he's a wolf. He thinks he's Phillip's dog."

Everyone got a good chuckle out of Joe passing the word along. We didn't mention that he had been petrified the first time he was in Paradise Valley and Demon came over to inspect him.

Riggs knew the cavalry in this area. He knew many of the officers, and it was the sergeants that got things done. It was the officers who told the sergeants what to do. Riggs knew the officers and the men. He belonged to the company that had given chase, once they realized their surprise party was a few hours late.

Hearing what Riggs had to say made me feel a bit more confident. The cavalry wasn't even close to us. Word has a way of spreading, and everyone heard about what Riggs had to say. He had helped guide us away from destruction, and he knew the way an army reacted to things they encountered along the trail.

If your army was all wet, you went somewhere to dry out.

Riggs had been in this area for the entire time I was gone. He was a two striper when I left, and he wore three stripes the next time we met. The man knew the cavalry, and it made me feel better to hear his thoughts. I was able to live with what Riggs was thinking. We could all relax a bit more once he spoke on the matter.

With the wagon in its usual spot, it was easy for warriors to get and bring back rifles. Letting men carry rifles around was a sure way to have an accident. It would take only one shot fired to tell the cavalry what they wanted to know. The rifles stayed in the 1st National wagon, but Running Horse would call drills when he had the warriors take their empty rifles up into the rocks to take positions beside and above the canyon. It was the only way to get to us, and drills kept everyone on their toes.

One the rifles came back to the wagon, I reloaded them to be ready in case the next drill was for real. It wouldn't do to hand warriors empty rifles if we were under attack.

You could never be sure what the cavalry was going to do, and being ready would make defending the valley easier. The warriors were instructed to pick a spot not far from the firepit. They would be in position fast, once they got a rifle from the back of the wagon. Warriors would sleep near the exit to the canyon for a while, just in case trouble came calling. The cavalry wasn't known for attacking at night, but there was always a first time.

We all knew the plan, and each of us knew what he was to do. I was hoping it never had to be done.

Once the water receded, it would leave mud where the hard turf had been. We didn't know how bad the cavalry wanted us, but they weren't coming back until things dried out. The cavalry liked firm open ground ahead of them, and Paradise Valley wasn't that. While we were no more than a mile from the trail, it would take some looking to find us, and the water had covered our tracks that were now buried in the mud.

No cavalry soldier would look forward to going into a long narrow canyon one or two at a time. It wasn't going into it, that was their biggest concern. It was what happened when they came out. If they didn't know they would be met with a maximum resistance, they had to suspect it. Soldiers did not like being trapped in a place that could get a lot of them killed. They might not want us that bad.

We would run out of bullets before they ran out of men, but they would know they had been in a fight. Running Horse's clan wasn't going in, and while we had never been tested in battle, we would be fighting for our lives.

We took what advice Big Joe and Riggs gave us. As the water began to disappear, the mud left behind was treacherous, and the water in the canyon drained away, leaving us the ability to go out if we pleased, but it was agreed on at our first feast in Paradise Valley, the Pawnee would not go out, and when Big Joe, Riggs, Samuel or I went out, we were careful not to be seen coming or going.

Once we were out, we had cover stories that would explain why we were there. The 1st National wagon was the perfect cover. Even if I was stopped, it didn't take a genius to figure out that I was employed and by a bank no less. That was good employment if you didn't dig too deeply. I was letting my hair grow, and that might get some attention, but trappers and even surveyors were in the wild much of the time, and hair grows.

It's not something on your mind before you attract some unwanted attention. I liked to think I could be white any time I needed to be white, and when I didn't need to be white, I was a Pawnee. Yes, and my hair was growing, and it was no longer long blond hair. My hair was growing longer. It looked like the hair of a Pawnee.

On to Chapter Three
"Settling In"
Back to Chapter One
"Hunker Down"
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