Betrayed! by Patricia Calvert

Author:Patricia Calvert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Published: 2002-04-03T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

After the snow fell, One Horn and his friends gave up their breechclouts for trousers made of leather. Their deerskin shirts, sometimes decorated with beads and embroidered with porcupine quills dyed yellow, blue, and red, were fringed at the lower edges. The boys’ caps, trimmed with fur (Tyler thought it looked like rabbit hair), protected their heads from the cold.

Tyler remembered the sturdy brown jacket Mama gave him for his trip west, the three pairs of warm wool socks she’d knitted, and the winter cap she made with flaps that folded over his ears. She’s given Isaac one of Papa’s old coats and knitted socks for him, too. All had been left aboard the Darlin’ Nell No doubt they were keeping others warm at this very moment.

But on that first cold morning, Ooaya dug into one of the leather bundles Tyler had helped her load onto her travois poles during the move. She lifted out a shirt for Isaac. It wasn’t new, no more than Papa’s coat had been, and she set about patching it. Tyler watched her present it to Isaac with a flourish. She even added a cap, trimmed with fur like One Horn’s.

After casting crabby glances in his direction and grumbling in her put-upon way, Ooaya dug out a second garment. It was even more worn than the one she’d given Isaac. She inspected it, turning it this way and that, decided not to mend it, and tossed it to Tyler.

He caught it in midair. Before Mama married Elway, he mused, he’d been the oldest boy, which gave him special privileges. He came first, so his clothes were always new. His current predicament made him wonder (he had to admit he’d never given it a moment’s thought before) how Lucas felt about getting hand-me-downs all his life. Tyler wished he’d asked Mama to give Lucas something new every now and then, something never worn by anyone else and meant for him alone.

Now, Tyler was far too cold to be picky. He shrugged himself into the old shirt, noting that even with a rip partway down one side it was surprisingly warm. The worn buckskin was as soft as the piece of blue velvet Mama once used to make a bonnet for Rosa Lee. Of course, for him there wasn’t any warm hat trimmed with fur. Instead, Ooaya held up a raggedy green-and-brown wool scarf that probably had belonged to a white person once upon a time.

Tyler accepted it without complaint. “Philamayaye,” he said, “philamayaye,” and was glad Isaac had taught him how to say “thank you.” Tyler tied the scarf over his head and tucked the ends inside the collar of the leather shirt. He wondered uneasily what had happened to its the owner. He pushed the question—and its answer—out of his mind.

The important thing was it would keep his ears from freezing, withering, then turning black like the ears of the old yellow tomcat that showed up at Sweet Creek in the dead of winter one year.

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