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“Mama, what are you looking at?” David asked when he saw her peering past him.
He turned and flinched when he, too, saw what looked like an Indian that suddenly appeared on the ridge, and then was gone again.
“Are we going to die today, Mama?” David asked, again gazing at his mother. “Are those Indians going to come and kill us like they killed Papa and General Custer?”
Mary Beth reached over and gently touched David’s cheek. “No, they’re not,” she said. She tried to sound convincing enough that David would believe her. “That’s why there are so many soldiers with us. They won’t allow anything to happen.”
“But you saw him too, Mama,” David said. “You saw the Indian. I know you did. I saw fear in your eyes.”
“Yes, David, from time to time I’ve seen Indians appearing along the ridges, but they disappear as quickly as they appear,” Mary Beth said softly. “I guess they are playing some sort of game.”
“What sort?” David asked, raising a golden eyebrow.
Mary Beth returned her hand to the reins and again clung tightly to them. “Cat and mouse,” she said, catching a glimpse of three Indians on the same ridge.
“Cat and mouse?” David asked.
“They only want to frighten us, that’s all,” Mary Beth said, hoping it was true. She had seen the soldiers repositioning themselves, bringing themselves more tightly together in one group alongside the wagon train.
“I wish we were at Fort Henry already. I wish we had already left it and were at the other fort where we will board that boat that’s going to take us home,” David said. “I wish we were already on the boat.” He swallowed back a sob. “I wish we were home, Mama!”
“Me too, son. But we’re not, so work on your whittling awhile, David,” Mary Beth encouraged.
She, too, wished that they had reached the Missouri. The sight of the river would give her some confidence they might return to Kentucky alive.
“Get your mind on something besides Indians. You’ve got a pretty horse started on that big chunk of wood that Colonel Jamieson gave to you.”
“Papa would like it,” David said. He reached behind himself for the chunk of wood that was already taking the shape of the head of a horse.
“Yes, Papa would like it,” Mary Beth said.
She glanced again at the ridge.
This time she felt faint. There was not one, two, or three Indians, but a whole mass of them.
From this vantage point she could guess there might be a hundred warriors moving along the ridge, their eyes following the progress of the wagon train.
Suddenly a bugle blew and soldiers began to shout, ordering everyone to drive their wagons into a wide, protective circle.
Everything became a frenzy of horses and wagons and screaming women and children as the soldiers leapt from their horses and positioned themselves for firing just as the war whoops rang out and the sound of horses’ hooves upon the land came to Mary Beth’s ears like huge claps of thunder and the Indians came in a mad rush toward the wagon train.
Terrified, her heart thumping wildly in her chest, Mary Beth struggled to get her horse and wagon into the circle.
But somehow there was not enough room for her wagon.
She found herself and David stranded outside the circle, the soldiers oblivious to her plight as they began firing their weapons at the approaching Indians.
“Mama, I’m afraid!” David cried as he stared at the Indians growing closer and closer. He screamed when some fell from their horses, blood streaming from wounds in their chests.
“Be brave, David,” Mary Beth cried.
She scrambled to the back of the wagon and desperately searched for her own rifle. How she wished she had kept it near at hand.
“Mama!” David screamed again.
As Mary Beth turned to him, she went cold inside. An Indian was yanking her son from the seat, then before she knew it, riding away with him.
“Oh, Lord, no!” Mary Beth cried.
