The signal from the cliff woke us, and we were out, climbing the cliff behind the 1st National wagon.

"Two riders came straight toward the boulders. They're in the canyon now," Riggs said.

"Has to be John and Barnaby. They're the only ones who would ride straight in. They don't know we are here."

It was John and Barnaby. They came out of the canyon a few minutes later. John knew as soon as he stopped at the exit of the canyon, we were living here. John always stopped to look at the valley before coming down.

"How are you?" he asked, sliding off his horse. "We came to see if the valley was okay. Hadn't had time since the storm. Lots of work clearing trees and such," John said. "You moved your people here?"

"Cavalry came to end us. We went on the run. Came here."

"We talked about going to the village. Barnaby wanted to see Samuel."

Barnaby was seeing Samuel while we spoke. He didn't get off his force until Samuel walked up.

"Hi."

"Hi yourself. Some place we can go to talk. I have a lot to tell you," Barnaby explained.

Sammy Boy smiled his biggest smile.

"Come on. I know a place,"

Barnaby slid off of Chestnut. They kissed before walking off hand in hand.

"He really missed Samuel. After the storm, we had a lot of cleaning up to do. After we checked on Paradise Valley, we were going to ride to the village beside the lake."

"We won't be there," I said. "Good to see you. You look good."

"All this fresh air and good living, I suppose," John said. "The horse ranch is a handful."

"John," Joe said, as he walked up.

"Nice to see you, Joe," John said.

I introduced John to Riggs, once he came down off the cliff. Riggs came after John left to go back to the horse ranch, and they hadn't crossed paths, but John knew everyone else.

John was the first friend I made, after I gave up herding cows. Dan and George were friendly, and we did business together. John and I became friends, after I took him on while taking a wagon train west.

Once John was better, and he was going west to die, he really wanted to live. He wanted to learn to survey. He wanted to stick with me, and once we met Samuel, we were like a family. It was a new experience for me, because I spent years making it a point to be alone, but I liked John right off, and once we started west together, we stuck together up through our final survey, and he went back to my village with me.

"Joe, what have you been up to? Find anything new?"

"Joe's looking into those caves. He has found wall art in some," I said. "Uses a lot of pitch. No matter how much we bring back, he runs out in a few weeks."

"The caves you got ore samples out of?" John asked.

"Yes, same caves. Joe's fascinated by them, aren't you Joe?"

"Not so much fascination as curiosity. The wall art didn't get there by itself. Can't help but wonder what else be down in those caves," Joe said. "Gave that up the last few weeks. It's just more of the same.

"Barnaby has been after me to come to check on the valley. He is always hoping that Samuel will be here when he comes, and I do wonder if I might see Samuel again, and here we are and here you are. We haven't come since the storm. I wanted to see how the valley did, after the most unsettling weather I've seen. The valley looks none the worse for wear."

"It's getting dark. Did you plan to stay the night?"

"We were busy and got a late start. I don't mind staying over," John said. "Now that I know you are here, I can stay a while. The horses take care of themselves. There's plenty of grass and plenty of water. We cleaned up the down trees and debris after the storm. That took a while or we would have come here sooner."

John wanted to see the impression we left on the valley where we once lived together. He was most happy to see Samuel and Joe, and Running Horse was happy to hear the news John brought with him.

"They say only renegade Indians are loose on the plains," John told us. "The big war chiefs have all gone in. Sitting Bull was the last to go in, but he's at Standing Rock reservation, I believe they said."

"Prison camp," Running Horse said. "They reduce us to beggars."

"The cavalry?" John asked. "They aren't looking for you?"

"A few small detachments is all we've seen. They pass by without slowing down. If they are looking for us, they aren't looking here," I said.

"I can go into town for you. Joe built me the wagon when we were bringing building supplies to the horse farm. It stretches out to carry more goods than you can carry in your wagon, and it isn't so easy to recognize as your wagon. Few people will notice me, which means fewer people talking. The cavalry has big ears, and fewer Indians to catch."

"That would be a big help," Running Horse said. "Don't like it when Tall Willow goes to town. With that long hair of his, he looks more like a Pawnee each day.

My hair had been growing out, and I did get some strange looks when we go to town.

"I built it as a hauling wagon, and it converts to a buckboard, for short trips with a capacity to carry some goods, and it stretches out to become a full-size supply wagon for trips into town. Anything breaks on it but the wheels, I can fix it by taking the wagon apart. It has three pieces," Joe told us.

"Where did you come up with that idea?" I asked.

Joe looked at me for a minute before giving me my answer.

"Just thought it up. Wagons spend a lot of time at the blacksmiths getting repairs done. If something breaks on John's wagon, I takes it apart and fixes it. Saves a lot of fussing around," Joe told us.

I laughed.

I waited plenty of times at the Smithy getting the wagon repaired. Joe had been the find of all finds the day he saved Sammy Boy's and my bacon. I thought I was giving him a break by asking him to stay with us, since he had nowhere to go. I was the one who benefitted from Joe's ingenuity. It was a good day we met Joe.

Both John and Joe agreed that they would be almost invisible when they went to town for supplies. They could carry as much supplies as the wagon would hold and no one would look at them twice. They looked like the kinds of people who always came to town for supplies, and no one would say, "I remember that 1st National Bank wagon." Joe had a knack for getting the latest information.

I liked this arrangement better, and when John went to bring the wagon back, he would plan to stay with us for a while. It seemed like old times, when John was always around, and he loved Paradise Valley.

It was a small detail, but with my hair growing down my back again, someone might see the Indian in me if they took a close look at me. It was one more worry I could stop worrying about.

It felt like the family I found while being exiled from Running Horse's clan, had come back together again. I felt good about that, even if Barnaby could be a pain in the ass. He was harmless, and Samuel liked him.

Twice, after seeing the first detachment of cavalry coming down the trail from the north, did they pass us by and continue on to Denver. This set up an alarm that kept us more watchful for a week or two, and once there was no more sightings, our caution level dropped back to a level where we were living our days in a way we had come to live them in the valley. With John here to go out for us, we settled in for the long haul.

It took two days for Samuel and Barnaby to surface again. Sammy Boy made a lean to, and that's where they stayed except when Samuel came to the firepit to get two plates of food a couple of times a day.

Riggs and Angel kept going up to the Eagle's nest, and no more detachments came down from the north, or went north on the trail.

When Barnaby was the one who came to the firepit on the third morning he was in the valley, I handed him a cup of coffee and the sugar can.

"You finally wear Sammy Boy out," I asked.

"Me wear him out? He won't leave me alone," Barnaby told me.

"You look really broken up about that," I said.

"I didn't say I didn't like it. I've gone without since we left the village."

"You're the one who left, Barnaby," I reminded him.

He had nothing else to say.

When Samuel showed up, he sat as close as he could get to Barnaby.

"You didn't come back."

"Notice that did you? I'm sore where it isn't a good idea to be sore."

"Oh. I'm sore, but we haven't seen each other in ages. We're catching up is all."

"I don't think it works that way," Barnaby said.

"Works for me," Samuel said.

We all sat drinking our coffee as a new morning came to Paradise Valley. It seemed like old times with John agreeing to stay a week or so, if not longer.

There was a new mellowness in the air in Paradise Valley. Maybe having people come in from the outside helped things to seem less confining.

After several months, and with no more sightings of cavalry troops on the trail, our watchfulness lessened, and there were times no one went to the Eagle's nest since shortly after John and Barnaby arrived.

Samuel and Barnaby sometimes sat in the Eagle's nest, but I didn't think that they were necessarily there to keep watch. No matter where they were, it made me smile to see them. They were always together.

After Joe moved out of the lodge he shared with Riggs, he slept out for a while. Joe could adapt to anything in short order, and for a few weeks he slept under the stars. He fashioned a lean-too similar to the one Samuel made, but he wanted Riggs and Angel to have the privacy they needed, and he turned the lodge over to Riggs.

One morning, as I put the coffee pot on the fire, Running Horse got up to sit across from me. We were awake for a while, and we both needed coffee.

Joe appeared at the opening to our lodge, and he bent to see if we were up.

"Morning, Joe. Come have a cup with us," Running Horse invited.

"Chief Running Horse, I've found a place not far from the waterfall. With your permission, I wish to build my lodge there," Big Joe said. "It's time I had my own lodge. I've never had a place that is entirely mine."

"Joe," Running Horse said. "The entire valley Is yours. You can build your lodge where you want it."

"I like to make sure of a thing like that. This is your village, Chief."

"You spend so much time on the cliffs, Joe, isn't that going to give you a long way to walk?"

"Chief, it does, but I can use the exercise. Besides, we've got enough rocks piled up. That was how I got my exercise before, and we haven't been able to go much deeper in caves that don't seem to go deeper. That gives me plenty of walking time. I likes to walk."

"Joe, you build your lodge where you want it."

"The wall in the sky is finished?" I asked, wanting to know. "Why a wall in the sky anyway?"

"Don't think of it as a wall, Phillip. Think of it as a door. I know, you is Tall Willow. I forgets."

"A door," I said.

"A door I can shut," Big Joe said. "Your wall. My door."

I got a kick out of that. We had the same conversation a half dozen times. I still had no idea why he built a wall into the sky next to the canyon.

When is a wall a door?

"Doesn't he know how important he has been to us," Running Horse said, once Joe left.

"He was a slave. I think he needs to make sure he isn't doing something wrong," I said.

"Must be a hard thing, being a slave," Running Horse said.

"Why would the great chiefs go in, Tall Willow? They don't know they'll never be free again?"

"Big tribes can't feed their people. They are starving. Being hungry and free isn't a good way to live. They don't have any choice. It was always the plan. Kill the buffalo, starve the Indian. That's what they did."

"It's a cruel thing, starvation. How can one people do that to another people? Didn't they notice we were here when they came?" Running Horse asked the wind.

"We are savages according to them. It's easier to dismiss, the savage," I said.

The bargain we were left with, go in or starve. There was no room on the plains for the plains Indians, and since I returned to Running Horse clans, all the great chiefs had gone in now.

"We are small, and don't have so many people to feed," he said. "We will never go in."

"We are small enough to find plenty of food, and now we are small enough to fit into Paradise Valley," I said. "If we're smart, we can stay safe here."

"We fit fine until the soldiers comes. There will be no room for us once they come. You do know that?"

That's what it always came down to. We would be fine, until we weren't. We would eat until we starved. We would be Pawnee until we were no more.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I forgot how close John and Big Joe had become, while Big Joe did the work to create the horse farm for John. Joe learned how to build as a slave on the plantation, after part of the master's house came down in a storm.

Joe had someone who had great appreciation for things he did. I watched him show John the wall in the sky, and after going to bring the wagon back that Joe made for him, they went into town and brought back goods along with plenty of pitch. Joe took John into the caves with him.

It wasn't like John and I didn't sit and talk for hours. We did that too, and John was as full of life as I had seen him. He loved Paradise Valley from the day Juan showed it to us. Its beauty and isolation made it a good place to be while we finished the 1st National survey that brought us here.

One morning with our first cup of coffee in hand, John asked, ""You've seen the wall art, Phillip?"

"I have. Amazing how child-like the drawings are higher up in the caves. but the art lower in the caves. The drawer was well on his way to becoming a man, if it wasn't a man who drew it."

There was the question we were always left with. Who drew the pictures?

Running Horse was in his element. At first, he was a bit claustrophobic. He said he felt closed in by the cliffs. He wasn't sure he could give up the freedom he had to access the entire outdoors at any time.

Once he had been in Paradise Valley for a week or two, the cliffs surrounding us became a comfort. The cavalry couldn't ride down on us.

We were safe for the time being. It would take some finding to find us was how I figured.

We settled into Paradise Valley and began going about our business, like we did in the village by the lake in the valley where the river runs. If you didn't count Big Joe exploring, and Riggs keeping watch most days, it wasn't much different than usual. The lodges were built, the smoke house and storage shed had grown larger to accommodate over seventy people, and keeping everyone fed wasn't that difficult if we worked together.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was early one morning, there was light in the sky, but not much light. Running Horse was sleeping in my arms. We had gone to bed early and made love for hours. It was one of those nights when you remembered what it was like not being together, and you needed to stay close and keep reminding yourself that you were together and no longer separated by half a continent. Holding my lover simply wasn't enough.

I had slept, and I could smell and feel Running Horse in my arms. He had a glorious smell, and I couldn't get enough. Holding him was how it was meant to be. All those years away were a distant memory. As light filtered into our lodge, I kissed the back of his neck, pulling him closer.

It's the kind of thing you want to do for as long as it is possible. That morning, it came to an end too soon.

"They're coming," Big Joe shouted in my dream.

He came to the cliff above the 1st National Bank wagon, across from our lodge to warn us.

His voice boomed in the early morning air. A sleeping village was suddenly out and about.

Running Horse was up and out of the lodge before the words dyed away. It was one of those mornings that I wouldn't be able to keep up with my chief. He was there, and then, he was gone.

"Where?" he asked Big Joe.

"Up the trail. Scouts are checking the face of the cliffs. They are searching for breaks in the cliff. They are a little more than a mile from the canyon. The troops are mounted and watching from the trail. What do you want me to do? I would say we have no more than five or ten minutes to do something. Once they see the canyon, all is lost."

Joe's voice boomed throughout the valley as he broadcast his warning.

"Stop them," Running Horse said, looking up at Joe high above the 1st National wagon. "You said you could keep them out. Do it now, Joe. Do it now."

"I can keep them out, but that will seal us in. Are you completely awake. Do you know what you're telling me to do, Chief? I don't want to do this until you are sure. Once done, it cannot be undone. Paradise Valley will be sealed shut."

"I am much awake. If they come toward the boulders, seal the canyon. That's what I want you to do, Joe."

"Riggs, Samuel, come up here. I need you," Big Joe yelled. "Young Antelope, Big Bear, come to the cliff. We don't have much time. Warriors, when you get your rifles, don't go into the canyon. Warriors stay clear of the canyon."

Riggs was on the cliff almost as soon as Big Joe called for him. Samuel and Barnaby came to climb up behind Riggs, and Young Antelope and Big Bear weren't far behind. This was Joe's party, and he was the only one giving invitations. That didn't mean I wasn't going up to see what he intended to do.

The entire village was awake now. Everyone heard Joe's warning. People began to scurry in all directions.

Warriors didn't need to be told what to do. They practiced it each week since we arrived in Paradise Valley.

Running Horse was in the back of the 1st National wagon handing out repeating rifles as I climbed up top.

Each warrior took his rifle and went up among the rocks beside and above the exit of the canyon, careful to stay out of the canyon exit. Each two warriors had a box of shells for the rifles. That would hold the cavalry off for a while. Once we ran out of bullets, we would fight with bows, arrows, spears, and hunting knives, if any of us were still alive, we would fight them hand to hand once the bullets and arrows were gone.

Running Horse's clan would not go in.

When I climbed up top to see for myself, Joe had assembled the men he needed next to the wall in the sky. Every ten feet or so, they stood with sledgehammers at the ready. Joe carried a sledgehammer of his own. Like his shotgun on the day we met, it was the biggest damn sledge hammer I ever saw.

Joe had it cradled in his arms as the other eight men stood leaning on their sledge hammers.

"All hell is abouts to break loose. When I knock the main support beam out, you knock the secondary supports out with your hammer. Watch me."

All the hammers were in the air now, and when Joe swung his, it was a mighty weapon indeed. Once he made contact with the main support beam, the beam disappeared, and I heard it bounce off the far wall of the canyon and start its journey down, down, down.

Eight more support beams followed the main beam into the canyon.

Now, I knew why a wall in the sky.

On to Chapter Six
"Shaking"
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"Settling In"
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