“A new commander took over the fort without notice, bringing with him men who were not soldiers.  They were volunteers carrying out a different set of government orders that said to exterminate the tribes.

“In the dark they set up cannon on this hill.  At first light they came down the valley on their horses with their guns and swords.  They killed everyone, women, children, old ones, every brave left behind.  They killed my son, my mother and sister, my grandmother, all of my family.

“My grandfather’s brother thought there must be a misunderstanding.  He had spoken to the white people’s old ones.  He had the peace medal like my grandfather.  He honored his word to the white man and was bringing his hungry people in again before winter.  He ran up the white man’s stars and stripes flag, and below it the flag he knew was the signal of truce.  They killed him where he stood and cut him into pieces.  Then they slaughtered all the horses, set fire to the camp and left it to burn.”

The tears streamed silently down Charlotte’s face.

“The only place where I belong,” Chace said, “is away from everyone.”  He stared out at the horizon.

<>

Late in the afternoon, Chace brought them to a clearing next to a small spring with trees for shelter and grass for the horses.  Charlotte found brush and deadfall for a fire.  This land seemed drier, less able to throw up the bounty Chace was used to finding.  She decided on biscuits and gravy.  She got out the tin oven.  That was her skill.  Before the Second Migration, she sold her baked goods regularly and put the money in the Family coffers, making her contribution, staying pure and focused.  If only that were true.

They ate in silence.  Nothing could erase his words and the images they brought.  Charlotte knew she had to speak.

“We can talk now,” she said quietly.

“I’ll go crazy if I don’t have any idea where you are,” Chace said.  “So I’m asking what your intentions might be.”

“You say that as if I had a choice and I don’t.”

“You’ll go into the fort then?”

“I will.”

“And wait for your uncle?”

“Yes.”

No other words came.  “Ask it,” she said, turned cold as stone.  “Go ahead.  There’s one more question.”

“Will you marry him?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

The fierceness rose in her again, what he’d caught a glimpse of at the first, made to pause even then by what he was seeing.