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She wore the same sort of headband that High Hawk and his warriors wore in order to keep her long hair back from her face as she rode beside the man she loved. It was a plain band of buckskin, with no fancy beading on it.
She had twisted her hair into one long braid down her back.
But High Hawk and his warriors wore their hair loose and free. High Hawk’s was blowing in the breeze, away from his muscled, bare shoulders. Joylynn gazed at him with admiration, proud that he was the leader of a fine, peace-loving people.
She hoped that this was the day they would find Mole. The evil man seemed to have nine lives. He was so elusive, no one ever saw him unless he wanted to be seen.
But today? Ah, yes, today she believed that he would finally get his comeuppance. High Hawk was convinced that his dream would lead them to their quarry.
Suddenly Joylynn’s gaze was drawn to the side of the trail. Far to her right were two animals that she had never expected to see together.
A skunk and a porcupine were approaching each other warily, oblivious of the thundering of the horse’s hooves. They were only interested in each other.
They then turned and backed toward each other, the porcupine preparing to strike with the deadly spikes of its tail, and the skunk with its stink.
The porcupine looked over its shoulder before striking, and the skunk discharged its spray full in the other animal’s face.
But at the same moment, the skunk was struck by the porcupine’s quills, and the skunk squealed and fled. Meanwhile, the porcupine was gagging, coughing and retching as it ambled away into the brush in the opposite direction.
“I saw it, too,” High Hawk said.
She was glad to see him smiling, for up until now, he had been deadly serious.
“I have never seen the like,” Joylynn said, laughing softly. “I hope never to be attacked by either of those animals, for their ways of protecting themselves seem lethal, indeed.”
High Hawk started to respond, but the sound of a horse approaching from the other direction caused his jaw to tighten. He drew rein, and his warriors followed his lead as Three Bears, whom High Hawk had sent on ahead to scout the area, came riding hard toward them.
When Three Bears reached them and drew up, breathing hard, Joylynn saw that his eyes sparkled with a strange sort of victory.
“Your dream told you truths,” Three Bears said, smiling widely. “Mole is where your vision said he would be.”
Then his smile faded. “But he is not alone,” he said thickly.
“I knew he would not be alone,” High Hawk replied. “In my dream, his outlaw friends were with him. They were sitting around a fire, eating their morning meal. Were they eating when you spied them?”
“Ho, they were eating, and if you inhale deeply enough, you will even now smell the scent of smoke and cooked venison from their campfire,” Three Bears said. He leaned closer to High Hawk. “But there are more than his outlaw friends sitting around the fire with Mole.”
“Who else?” High Hawk asked, lifting an eyebrow. “I saw no one else in my dream.”
“Your dream must have ended before the pony soldiers entered it,” Three Bears said guardedly.
“Pony soldiers?” High Hawk and Joylynn said almost at the same time.
“Pony soldiers are with the outlaws?” High Hawk asked, gazing past Three Bears in the direction of where Mole was camping with his outlaw gang.
“Ho,” Three Bears said. “From where I watched in hiding I could hear them planning an attack on our village.”
Joylynn’s heart was racing. She never would have believed that any soldier under the command of a decent colonel would ally himself with the likes of Mole.
How could it be that Mole and the soldiers were coming together to fight the Pawnee? Just the thought of the United States government going back on its word to live in peace with these Indians made her skin crawl.
She knew how the government had duped the red man before, time and again, and how so many Indian tribes had suffered cruel raids. Even children had been killed in those attacks.
Now was she to witness the carnage she had read about?
Was she to die at the hands of people of her own skin color because she had aligned herself with the Pawnee?
The thought of dying alongside High Hawk did not frighten her as much as it made her feel keen resentment toward the lying white men who just could not stop until they killed every Indian on the face of the earth.
