Beneath a Dakota Cross by Stephen A. Bly

Author:Stephen A. Bly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 1999-11-11T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

The cold rain drifted to snow before they reached the curve in the river. Brazos knew they couldn’t keep the horses galloping much longer so he slowed down to a canter as they followed a muddy carriage track up a grade, away from the Bad River. At the crest, he reined up.

“Do you see anything?” Robert called out.

“Nothin’, yet . . . and this snow will blanket their tracks. If we don’t locate that carriage soon, we won’t be able to trail it at all.”

“I’ve been thinkin’ about the shotgun you said Dacee June traded for,” Robert pondered.

“What about it?”

“Those Indians didn’t have a shotgun. At least, they didn’t employ it. And you know they wouldn’t hesitate to filch it, if they could have. So those Indians stole the horses and not the shotgun . . .”

“Then Dacee June still has that shotgun!” Brazos blurted out.

“I do believe li’l sis would pull the trigger if she had to.”

“You’re right about that.” Brazos thought back on how many times he had taken Dacee June bird hunting, much to her mother’s dismay. Sarah Ruth, you always said a young lady shouldn’t be shooting a gun, especially one that leaves her shoulder black and blue. But my, how that girl loves to hunt.

Both men trotted east, their backs now to the squall. Each snowflake seemed to whistle as it sailed past.

“But if she’s stuck out in this storm, she’ll freeze to death before mornin’,” Robert said.

Brazos brushed the snow off his shoulders. “I reckon she’ll huddle near that carriage, wherever it is.”

“What’s over by those boulders?” Robert pointed across a horizon of rolling prairie, dead grass, sage, snow, and mud.

Brazos stood in his stirrups and scanned the horizon. “In this storm, a person can’t tell between sky and ground . . . just a blanket of white . . .”

“Over there! I think it’s a buckboard or a surrey!” Robert broke into a gallop.

Brazos pursued. Lord, how come I didn’t see that? Maybe I need some new spectacles. Maybe I need the eyes of some twenty-two-year-old kid to locate things for me.

As he advanced, he could not observe anyone around the old, wet buckboard with three wooden bench seats and a tattered top of oilcloth and snow. Robert reached the wagon first and slid down from the saddle.

“Dacee June!” Brazos shouted. He circled his horse through the brush next to the rig. “You find any sign, Robert?”

“There’s nothing in the wagon. Nothing at all!”

“Dacee June!” Brazos called again.

Robert mounted his horse and looped around behind him. “Dad, we don’t know for sure that Dacee June was in this rig. It could have been anyone. We don’t . . .”

“I know . . . I’ve been arguin’ with myself about it. I want to believe she’s back in Fort Pierre . . . or Bismarck . . . in some warm hotel room. But I wanted to believe she was sitting here at this wagon, waitin’ for us . . . but she’s not.

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