He laid his hand easily on her thigh and continued the conversation.  Then suddenly they laughed, wheeled their horses around and were gone.

Charlotte pressed her hands to her heart.  “Thank heaven,” she said.  “Who were they?”

“The Fox nation was peaceful anyway but now it’s mostly broken.  They’re braves cut loose.  Just wandering.”

“And you know their language?”

“Not well.  But enough.”

“What did they want?”

“They wanted you.  They offered three horses.  I told them I’d paid fifteen and you were worth at least twenty.”

Charlotte stared at him.  “You can’t be serious.”

“Did you want me to sell you for three horses?”

“What if they come back with twenty?”

“They don’t have enough food to eat, let alone twenty horses.”

She shuddered.  “That’s horrifying,” she said, not daring to think what would have happened if he hadn’t been there.

<>

When they stopped for the day, Chace chose to be careful.

“I’ll sleep now,” he said, “and get up in a while.  It’s probably good to keep a watch tonight.”

“You’re thinking they’ll come back.”

“I’m thinking they’re off in some other direction and a day’s worth of riding away, but I’m going to act otherwise.”

He lay down wrapped in his blanket and was instantly dead to the world, leaving Charlotte to eat alone.  She sat by the fire, the rifle at her side.  She considered briefly the fantastic notion that she was for this brief moment in time keeping watch over him, keeping him safe, though she imagined he knew in his sleep who was or wasn’t out in the bushes in a ten-mile radius.

As the sun sank and the daylight faded, she returned to the place she’d been those several weeks ago, alone on the prairie.  A barn owl’s rasping call issued from a tree nearby.  Skimming forms again claimed the dusk sky and she still didn’t know whether they were bats or nighthawks.  The image came unbidden to her of her father alone in his house with his books and all his weighty burdens.  What he’d planned was surely hard enough for him to live with.  She hated to think what his reaction would be if he knew where she was, and that an attempt had been made to purchase her for three horses.

Chace woke almost exactly when the first stars appeared.  Charlotte handed him a plate of beans and rice.  He ate in a hurry.

“I’m just going to ride some ways out, listen for a while.”

Ride some ways out.  What did that even mean?  “I’ll be anxious till you get back.”