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She knew the chance she was taking by talking so angrily and threateningly to these people, yet she felt a desperation seizing her heart to know that if she hadn’t found help here for White Fire, where could she find it?
Yes, she knew that she could go to Fort Parker and Colonel Edwards would leave immediately for Fort Snelling. But the ride was so far to the fort! She would not be able to get there before nightfall.
Then it might be too late.
Exhausted and dispirited, she rode off through the Chippewa as they backed off and stood on two sides, allowing it.
Tears poured from her eyes as she rode free of the village. “What am I to do now?” she cried, lifting her gaze to the heavens as though trying to find answers from a God who for now seemed to have abandoned not only her, but also White Fire.
“Can’t you do something for me, Lord?” she cried. “Can’t you give me some sort of direction? You know the goodness of White Fire! Please don’t allow him to die needlessly!”
She found no release from her cry of panic toward heaven. Nor did she have any response. She was in this by herself. Never had she felt as alone!
The sun had reached the center point in the sky, and was now drifting toward what Flame thought might be three o’clock. She rode hard along the banks of the Mississippi River.
Her thoughts were scrambled, unsure of even where she should go for help. Hunger pangs ate away at her insides. Her legs and back ached from the hard ride.
She felt that if she could just stop and take a rest and get a bite to eat, she could think more clearly.
Perhaps she could think of someone who might have the power to go against her father and his faithful soldiers. Again Colonel Edwards came to mind.
Again she remembered how far downriver his fort was. But it was the last chance.
She rode onward, her shoulders slumping in her building tiredness. She felt dizzy from hunger. She was dying from thirst. And she itched all over from having been in the muddy river. Her clothes had dried rough and scratchy against her flesh.
She knew of one place she might go, at least for a momentary reprieve from all that ailed her. Her father would have no cause to go there once he heard of her escape. He would not think that she might be that stupid, to go somewhere so close to the fort that he could almost sneeze on it from the lushness of his private office.
“Yes, for now I shall go and rest in White Fire’s cabin,” she whispered to herself. She sighed heavily. “I’ll grab a quick bite. I’ll rest my weary bones, and then, by God, I’ll go into Pig’s Eye and find someone there who will be willing to help me.”
A keen sadness overtook her when she thought of Neal Geary, the Indian agent, and how he was no longer available to offer assistance to those who might need it in this wilderness.
She was almost certain that her father had had a part in the agent’s death, as he would in White Fire’s, if she didn’t find a way to stop him.
So weary of not only traveling, but also thinking, Flame was glad when she caught sight of the cabin through a break in the trees a short distance away.
Her eyes widened. She gasped.
She drew rein and wheeled her horse to a quick stop when she saw smoke spiraling slowly from the stone chimney at the side of the cabin.
“White Fire?” she whispered, forking an eyebrow.
A quick hope swam through her, that perhaps her father had changed his mind about White Fire and had set him free. Surely her father had thought it over and realized how much trouble he could get in if the government discovered that he had wrongly imprisoned and killed an innocent man.
And perhaps her father no longer saw White Fire as a threat as far as Flame was concerned, thinking that Flame would be hidden away in some convent where he would never find her.
“Lord, let it be true,” Flame softly prayed as she sank her heels into the flanks of her steed and rode in a hard gallop toward the cabin.
Chapter 32
Farewell to one now silenced quiet,
Sent out of hearing, out of sight
—Alice Meynell
Dozing, momentarily awakening, then dozing again, White Fire’s eyes sprang quickly open when he heard the loud whistle of the riverboat outside as it drew closer to the pier.
His heart leaped at the sound. He could not help but wonder about the return of the riverboat, when it had only a few short hours ago left for St. Louis!
