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One

The Santa Fe Trail, 1865

Colby rode with a loose rein.

It didn't matter where he was going or when he got there. No one was expecting him and there'd be no welcome when he arrived. But that didn't bother him. That was the way things were, and Colby had learned to accept life as he found it.

His eyes narrowed to slits to keep out the glare of the blazing June sun. The dry air absorbed the perspiration as soon as it dampened his shirt between his shoulder blades. It was more than a hundred degrees on the plain, too hot to hurry.

There was no breeze. Nothing moved except the shimmering heat waves. Even the grass protested the heat. A wet spring had produced luxuriant growth, but the searing summer sun had turned green and gray to gold and brown. Stiff stalks brushed against his boots with the dry rattle of seedpods while the grass's rough edges tugged at the underbelly of his long-limbed Appaloosa stallion.

But Colby's thoughts weren't on his surroundings. He was entering a land of ghosts, the land of his past.

His destination was a rocky bend in a shallow tributary of the Cimarron River. Two graves lay hidden deep in the shade of a cottonwood grove, his parents' graves, parents he had never known, parents whose love and kindness hadn't been there to lessen the pain of growing up. A childless couple had taken him in, but they hadn't liked the boy he became. He left home at fifteen.

Eight years of drifting had earned him little beyond a horse, gear, and a distrust of women. Things hadn't been any better in the army. He had been too open in his contempt of incompetent men unfit for the ranks they held. He left the day the war ended.

Now he was drifting again.

The only place he'd ever felt at home was a cottonwood thicket, his only family the mounds of stones. He had had two brothers, but he'd never been able to find any trace of them. He would stay a few days, sleeping under the trees by day, walking the river by night. The graves had no past and no present, no hope, no expectation. They could mean anything he wanted them to mean, what he needed them to mean.

One corner of Colby's mind-the part always busy receiving and digesting information gathered by his alert ears, constantly moving eyes, and acute sense of smell-never forgot to be vigilant. He was in Comanche territory.

It had been a Comanche raiding party that killed his parents.

Colby glanced down at wagon ruts cut through the buffalo grass. He'd been following them for two days. It was a small train of just over a dozen wagons, but they had taken the Cimarron Cutoff. Did they know Comanche raids had closed the cutoff during the war? Nobody traveled this route without army protection. Colby scanned the horizon from north to south. He could see no sign of movement, but he didn't expect to see the Comanches until they were upon him. He grasped the reins more tightly, and the powerfully muscled horse between his legs snorted in protest.

"Easy, Shadow."

Colby slowed his mount to a fast walk. The stallion sniffed the air and snorted. Apparently the scent of the train animals was still strong. They couldn't be more than a few miles ahead. As he studied the thin line etched into the dry sod of the plain, Colby felt his skin contract and the muscles in his stomach flutter. An odd foreboding settled over him. Senses honed through years of fighting told him something was amiss.

The crack of a rifle shot caused him to pull up. In the vast quiet, the sound was unmistakable. The wagon train was under attack!

Colby didn't stop to ask himself what one man could expect to do against a band of Indians. He thought only that some other child might be deprived of his family, might be forced to live a life of bitter loneliness.

Gripping the reins firmly and digging his heels into Shadow's flanks, Colby let out a yell that sent the powerful stallion into a flat-out gallop.

***

Naomi Kessling stumbled over a gopher hole as she walked beside the lead yoke of oxen. Muttering angrily as she regained her balance, she raked the back of her hand across her forehead to wipe away the drops of perspiration that seeped through her eyebrows and lashes to sting her eyes. She jerked her yellow gingham sunbonnet farther down, but it didn't help relieve the glare from the relentless sun. Stifling another curse she wouldn't have wanted her father to hear, she pushed her way through the dry grass that snatched at the hem of her dress, crushing it beneath her boots to clear a path for those who followed.

Her father dozed inside their wagon. He'd been up all night with Wilma Hill, who was expecting her first child in a matter of days. Ben, Naomi's younger brother, walked before her, beating the grass to scare away rattlesnakes. Mr. Greene, their guide, had ridden ahead to find a suitable stopping place for the night. His son drove the lead wagon while his son's wife and small son slept inside.

The Kessling wagon was second. Fourteen other wagons followed close behind, men and boys guiding the oxen and mules or herding the livestock, women and children huddled inside to escape the merciless sun. The journey had turned into a nightmare punctuated by the preparation of tasteless meals, fruitless attempts to rest, and one crisis after another. Tempers flared, anger burst from between compressed lips, and fear-haunted eyes searched the horizon for their familiar forested and well-watered hills. But every morning the ruthlessly unforgiving prairie stretched before them-flat, dry, and empty.

Until today.

There was no warning of the attack. The Indians seemed to rise out of the ground like morning mist from the surface of a pond. The first arrow knocked Abe Greene backward off the seat. The second buried itself in the ground at Ben's feet. The third missed its target because Naomi had already turned back to reach for her father's rifle.

So swift and unexpected was the attack that the Indians might have slaughtered them at once if Ethan, Naomi's seventeen-year-old brother following in the train's wake hoping to bag a sage hen for supper, hadn't knocked the leader off his pony with his first shot.

"I'll get the Greenes' wagon!" Naomi shouted to her father. She yanked Ben from where he stood paralyzed with shock, staring at the arrow buried in the ground, and shoved him behind the Greenes' wagon. Using the oxen as a shield, Naomi turned the wagon to start forming a circle.

Inside Cassie Greene screamed over and over again.

Somehow, despite the hail of arrows, the cries of the wounded, the gaps in the ranks, they completed the circle. Men crouched under wagons. Some lay flat on the ground; others shot from behind flapping canvas. Ethan, wide-eyed and breathless, came running up to join Naomi. Kneeling back-to-back in the grass under their wagon, they fired as rapidly as they could reload.

Naomi knew nothing about fighting Indians. She had listened to the stories Mr. Greene told of surprise attacks, but she hadn't taken them seriously. Thousands of wagons had traveled the Santa Fe Trail for nearly forty years.

Yet here they were, in the middle of a searing hot plain, some of their friends dead or wounded, she and her brother fighting for their lives from underneath a wagon.

The agonized moans from various parts of the train threatened to draw Naomi's attention from the attackers, but she couldn't worry about them now. Their wounds wouldn't matter if they didn't come out of this alive.

But would they? There could be as many as fifty Indians out there. She couldn't see through the thick grass to count them. She didn't know if any of them had been killed besides the leader. Even before the acrid smoke cleared, she aimed her rifle and pulled the trigger.

Medicine bag in hand, her father jumped down from their wagon and climbed into the Greenes'. A moment later Cassie began to cry with high keening wails. Naomi's father left the Greenes' wagon and turned his attention to other wounded.

Naomi knew Abe Greene was dead.

Suddenly the Indians pulled back. Accurate shooting and the constant boom of Morley Sumner's repeating rifle had enabled them to break the first attack. Now the train might have a chance.

Ben came running around the corner of the wagon to join them in the grass. "Abe's dead as a mackerel," he said, the pallor of his skin betraying the fear he tried to hide. "He's got an arrow sticking out of his eye. There's blood and goo all over his face. Cassie's gone crazy."

Naomi pushed Ben down in the grass. "I don't want to hear about it," she said, fighting off nausea. "Can you load a rifle?"

"Sure," Ben said, proud of his skill.

"Then load for Ethan and me. And keep down. Those Indians could come again any second."

Norman Spencer stuck his head under the wagon. "Where's your father?" he asked.

"I don't know," Naomi answered.

"We've got people hurt."

Mr. Spencer had been the most important man in their hometown of Spencer's Clearing. Back in Kentucky he'd seemed like the natural choice to lead their community, but Naomi doubted he knew any more about crossing the prairie or fighting Indians than she did.

"Abe's dead," Ben announced. "Got an arrow sticking out of his eye."

"Toby Oliver, too," Mr. Spencer said.

Toby! He was only nineteen, fresh home from the war and hanging around Polly Drummond with more than stealing kisses in mind.

"Will they attack again?" Ethan asked.

"I don't know," Mr. Spencer said.

"I think they will," Naomi said. "If they hadn't been meaning to, they'd have left by now."

"Your sister's probably right," Norman agreed. "You'd better keep your guns loaded."

"You think they're just waiting?" Ethan asked after Norman had left.

"Yes," Naomi answered. "I expect they'll attack again any minute."

But they didn't. The minutes crawled by and the attack still didn't come. She had heard that sometimes if the defense was strong enough, Indians would go away rather than lose braves. But she was certain they weren't going to let them escape. The Indians meant to kill them.

The heat under the wagon was stifling. The tall grass prevented the breeze from reaching them. Bits of dried stalk, ground to a powdery dust under the feet of the restive oxen, coated her skin. Drops of perspiration washed furrows as they raced down her face or burned into her grazed knuckles. Naomi wiped the sweat from her eyes, her unwavering gaze on the circling Indians.

"How much ammunition do we have left?" she asked Ethan.

"We've used a lot already."

"Don't shoot unless you have to."

One of the Indians suddenly spurred his pony in the direction of the wagon, zigzagging as he came. Black hair flying behind him like the mane of a wild stallion and his face distorted by rage, he looked like a monster out of a nightmare. Naomi struggled to hold her fear at bay at the sound of his maniacal screams.

She fired and missed.

The Indian loosed an arrow that buried itself in the flesh of one of their oxen. As the animal bellowed in pain, the Indian turned and galloped off.

Furious at the attack on the team he cared for with such pride, Ethan crawled from under the wagon. Standing, he took careful aim and fired at the retreating Indian's broad, muscled back. When the smoke cleared, the pony was riderless.

The wounded ox bellowed and lunged against the traces. Worried the brake would come loose and they'd be crushed under the wagon's iron-rimmed wheels, Naomi thrust an ax handle through the spokes to lock the wheels.

The arrow had sunk halfway up the shaft just behind the ox's left shoulder. Naomi was certain it had entered his heart. One leg folded beneath the animal's weight. The ox fell to the ground and rolled on his side. He lifted his head to deliver a final bellow of protest, but the sound that came out was a death rattle from deep in his throat.

"The bastards!" Ethan's voice was thick with emotion. "The heartless, stinking bastards!"

When he started forward, Naomi yelled, "Stay back!" and pulled on the straps of his overalls. "You can't do anything now."

She wondered if the Indians intended to kill their oxen so the settlers would be stranded and die of thirst. It had been two days since they crossed the Arkansas River-it would take them nearly a month to cover the remaining four hundred miles to Santa Fe-and the water in their barrels was low. They had to do something, but what?

"We've got to get away after dark," she told Ethan. Her throat was so choked with dust her voice was little more than a whisper.

"Where can we go?"

"I don't know. But they'll kill us if we stay here."

Suddenly, the air was rent by earsplitting yells and the Indians charged from all four directions.

"Get behind me," Naomi shouted to Ben.

Their shots turned away three attackers, but the fourth came on, jumping down from his pony to get a better line of fire at the people under the wagons. Chalky colorings of black, white, and blue turned his face into a mask of terror. He had colored his body with a red stain, streaked his chest with a dark brown that made Naomi think of dried blood. More than a dozen strings of beads hung around his neck. Two scalps dangled from the string that held up his loincloth.

The Indian ran a few strides toward them, dropped to his knee, and loosed an arrow at Ethan. It found its mark with a sickening impact. With a cry of rage, Naomi snatched up the rifle Ethan dropped and thrust it up toward the Indian now only a few feet from her.

She fired, and the savage fell to the ground clawing at the gaping hole in his throat.

Fighting against the waves of nausea rolling through her, Naomi turned to her brother. Ethan lay huddled in the grass, his face ashen, his body motionless, the arrow protruding from his leg.

"Is he going to die?" Ben asked, rigid with fear. His eyes seemed to be entirely white.

"No." Ethan struggled manfully not to give in to the pain. "I just got hit in the leg."

Naomi wondered if the Indians had more arrows than everyone in the wagon train had bullets. She counted the boxes of shells. Six left. The sun was still high in the sky. Night was several hours away.

The Indians stopped to regroup. Once more Naomi was forced to watch and wait.

How long? A minute? Half an hour? Time seemed to stop. It was so hot under the wagon at times she could hardly breathe. The images before her eyes grew faint and indistinct, but she fought off the dizziness that threatened her.

The smell of blood from Ethan's wound filled her nostrils and made her sick to her stomach. She shooed the flies away.

A cry from Cassie Greene riveted Naomi's attention.

She looked out on the plain. The Indians had lined up for another charge. How many were still out there, twenty? Thirty?

It didn't matter. There was no more suspense. No more fear. They would all die. She could face the certainty of death, but her pride wouldn't let her face it cowering under a wagon. She would meet them on her feet, a rifle in her hands.

"Load for me," she ordered Ben. Her voice was hoarse now, barely an intelligible whisper.

"They'll kill you," Ethan protested, pulling her back as she started to crawl from under the wagon.

Naomi turned on him. "They're going to kill us anyway." She heard her voice as though from a distance. She sounded slightly hysterical, but she felt utterly calm. Her gaze bored into him, and her voice dropped to a rasping whisper. "Don't let them take me alive. I can stand anything but that."

Ethan turned his eyes away. "You know I can't do that."

She grabbed him, made him look at her. "Promise me." It was no longer a request.

He averted his face. "Christ!"

She seized his chin and forced him to look at her.

"I know what they do. I'd go mad."

It was an awful thing to ask of a man. It was especially cruel to ask of a seventeen-year-old, yet Naomi didn't hesitate. Her gaze, intense and resolute, locked with Ethan's. "You've got to promise me."

"All right," Ethan replied, but he didn't look at her.

"Swear it! I'll haunt you if you don't."

"I said I would." This time Ethan looked straight into her eyes, and Naomi knew he meant it. She rose to her feet.

At almost the same moment, the Indians charged along a broad front. Naomi lifted her rifle, but before she could bring it level, a series of thundering shots rang out and Indians fell from saddles like toys knocked over with the back of an angry child's hand. Naomi stared dumbfounded as the attackers divided into two groups, wheeled in panic, and galloped off in opposite directions.

"What's happening?" Ethan asked Naomi.

"Over there!" Ben cried, pointing.

In the distance Naomi could see a man's head above the grass. Then he burst into full view. A rider on a great Appaloosa was galloping toward them.

No one followed him. He was alone. He had attacked the Indians all by himself. He had to be crazy.

Naomi looked to where she had seen the Indians disappearing, but they weren't running away any longer. Attacking from opposite directions, they formed a semicircle around the rider. His only chance was to reach the wagons before one of their arrows buried itself in his back. His horse was magnificent. Such an animal could easily outrun the Indian ponies, but could he outrun the Indians' arrows?

The whooping and screaming warriors loosed their arrows to no avail. Naomi was hopeful he would reach the wagons when she saw the closest Indian draw his bow. She fired at him but missed.

"Shoot him!" she shouted to Ethan, who had dragged himself from under the wagon to kneel next to her. "Hurry before it's too late!"

Ethan didn't hit the Indian, but he caused the brave to drop his bow. Before she could sigh with relief, an Indian rose out of the grass not thirty yards away.

The Indian leader she thought Ethan had killed! He drew his bow and aimed for the stranger's back. Before she could shout a warning, she heard the twang of the bowstring, the zing of the arrow through the air, and the sickening thud as it buried itself in the man's back.

Rifle fire burst from all around her, and the Indian fell to the ground, truly dead this time.

With a tremendous leap, the Appaloosa jumped over the Kessling oxen and landed inside the ring of wagons. The stranger toppled to the ground virtually under the hooves of the frightened, milling animals.