“We’ve had this conversation already, or one very much like it.”

“That was about English.”

“Right.  I remember now.”

“Are you going to answer me?”

“About which question?”

“The second one.”

“It’s a white man’s name,” he said.

“I knew that.”

“A trapper who lived with my people.  He said he’d heard if you gave a child of the tribes a white man’s name, that child would grow up knowing everything there was to know about the white man, and that would be a useful thing.  So they gave me his name.”

“Which was?”

“Chace Bridger.”

“Do you regret it?”

“I don’t think about it and nobody else does either that I know of except for you.  But do you want to talk about something else, like where we’re going for instance?”

“To Fort Randall.”

“Ellis said maybe not.”

Maybe not, Charlotte repeated to herself.  Those two words held out such promise.  “I’d be fooling myself if I believed that for even one minute.”

“And what’s in Fort Randall?”

“My uncle, life starting over in the desert somewhere, a new husband they didn’t tell me anything about, not even his name.”

“He’s brave.  That’s something.”

“Exactly what I didn’t need to hear.  The sooner we get there, the better.”

“Something tells me you don’t mean that.  So just to be helpful, let’s talk about what you do mean.”

Why she was doing this, she couldn’t understand except that in so many ways she had nothing to lose.  “You’re right,” she said.  “Sooner isn’t better.  I don’t want to go.  I don’t want to live in the desert.  I don’t want a new husband.”

Charlotte set her expression hard.  “But there’s no other option.  When I was out there on the prairie, I thought about being on my own and going where I pleased.  But I couldn’t even get across the river by myself.  And they don’t want me in the wagon train.  So Fort Randall and the desert’s all there is.  If that’s true, then I want to take as long as possible getting there.  And I don’t want to meet up with any wagon trains, or be around people at all.”

“I can do that,” he said.  “It’s nothing one way or the other to me.”

<>

The morning’s journey proved long and tedious but at least they were moving, going somewhere.  Fatigue bore down on Charlotte as the hours passed and the heat rose.  They were heading far away from the road the settlers took.  Chace Yellow Cloud was as good as his word in that at least.   He led his horse through the tall grass with the wagon following.  The grass waved, bent, flowed around them, closing again as if they’d never been there.