“Hard.  And it is.  They’re about ready to file out and it’ll be in the same order as always.  You come in at the back.  Ahead of the cattle, not behind.  Unless you want to be up front with me.”

“At the back.”

“I appreciate women who know their own mind even if I don’t agree,” he said.  Then he rode off again.

Charlotte watched the wagons pull out of the circle, one coming from the left, then the right, the pattern repeated till the circle transformed into a caravan stretching out along the road.  The last wagon before hers was driven by a youth with his hair sticking up in every direction from the sleep that still showed in his face.  He seemed so dazed and preoccupied that she didn’t think he even saw her.

The morning went by in a humid haze, the sunlight dim behind high clouds.  The cattle stank.  Dust hung in the air.  A pack of wolves arrayed themselves along a ridge watching the cattle and the dogs intently.  Turkey vultures soared overhead on broad dark wings.  The land flattened out again into endless prairie.  Charlotte worked at keeping her mind on the reins, the horses, the ruts in the worn track.

I can do this, she thought, growing more confident with every boring hour.  Chances were that she could get to Fort Randall somehow on her own if she had to, if her relations with the wagon train went completely wrong.  Then an interesting question came to mind.  But really, why would she want to do that?  She hadn’t seen Tobias in many years, though she remembered him somewhat fondly as a quiet and unassuming uncle with a big wife.  When the big wife took up with the blacksmith in town, Tobias, bowed by the humiliation and the scandal, had tried to leave the Family.  Since that wasn’t actually ever possible, Samuel had sent him instead to the desert, seemingly, Charlotte thought now, with some purpose in mind.

The question remained.  What attraction could the desert and an even more isolated outpost of the Family possibly hold for her?  Others would benefit.  Ellis Gray was being paid a handsome sum as her benefactor.  The wagon train would receive a worthy compensation for her unwanted inclusion.  And she, lucky person, would get to be a wife again, wed to a man about whom she knew absolutely nothing.  Did she need that?  She imagined her father falling off his chair gasping at this train of thought, then running out the door after her.   But here she was enviably out of reach.