Her Smile by Carla Kelly

Author:Carla Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Epicenter Press Inc.
Published: 2021-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

I remember little about the next few days. My eye throbbed and my other eye drooped in sympathy, making vision difficult. Each day seemed to bring some new ache or pain. When I couldn’t stop my tears, Hawk insisted that I ride on the pony drag. When I was situated, he covered me entirely with a trade blanket, creating a safety nest where I could burrow down and shut out the world. How did he know to do that?

My throat hurt too much to swallow, which was just as well, because there was so little food. Hawk shot two prairie dogs with the wrangler’s rifle and showed them to me when the march slowed for a much-needed rest. It was not my imagination that The People were moving slower and slower, even the horses.

“Mother will cook them for you,” he said.

I opened my better eye as wide as I could with my fingers and nodded. That got me a half smile, which made me immediately suspicious. That particular smile usually meant he had something else on his mind.

He did. “She will cook them for you, but there are many children who will smell the cooking.”

He was right. Besides, I told myself that even small lumps of chien de prairie would be challenging. “Save me the broth, if you please.” I hadn’t forgotten all my manners.

He brought me water then, and broth in a tin cup later when we stopped long enough to warrant cooking fires. (Small ones. We had no idea where scouts and troops lurked.) He held me up and close to his chest so I could drink. When he lowered me down, he gave me a gentle squeeze.

“You’re a good girl, Elizabeth Ann.” He left me a canteen with US stamped on it, and swung onto his horse again.

Blue Mountain Woman rode by me most of the time. Although her English language skills were rudimentary, they weren’t really needed. I could tell without words how deeply it pained her to see me lying there, drawn up into a ball. I resolved to get on my horse the next morning no matter how I felt.

We stopped that night near Reed’s Fort, a wind-scoured trading post presided over by an old coot who, from all appearances, had subsisted in Judith Basin since the earth’s crust was still hot. The People seemed to know him well. Everyone went trading and came away with a dab of food and ammunition, though not much. He said he was expecting supplies soon from the closest river drop at Cow Island, some twenty miles north on the Missouri River.

I’ve asked myself a time or two why the Nimiipuu didn’t leave me there with Reed and his mixed-blood family. All I can surmise is that they feared Reed would jump to conclusions if he saw me with my black eye and battered face. Or they might even have decided that as well as they thought they knew this white man, maybe they didn’t know any white man’s heart, and didn’t want to chance more injury to me.

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