Methuselah greeted me like a long-lost lodge brother. He would have been cut to the quick if he could have understood in his dim little brain how I felt about his duplicity. I also understood by now how The People felt about horses, so I stroked the rascal and murmured, “You are the worst nag I ever knew.”

Meopwits beamed at my evident love for horses and insisted on saddling that hell beast for me. He also insisted on helping me into the saddle, even though I hesitated because I knew I outweighed him. He wouldn’t back away, so I let him, hoping his old bones could stand the strain.

We left our valley before the sun was much over the trees. Once in motion, The People kept up a steady pace. When horses tired, other fresh mounts were cut loose from the herd without any loss of time. Since I didn’t have another horse, I spent a lot of time walking Methuselah. My shoulder ached from tugging him along like a big, reluctant dog.

Some children teased and taunted Methuselah, which irritated me until I saw the humor in it. Those little snobs were accustomed to good breeding in horses and obviously didn’t know what to make of such a nag, and anyone – even a white woman – who would ride it. I laughed along with them, and eventually they tired of the game.

I have no idea where we were, or if we were even still in Yellowstone Park. I know now that we must have been traveling the secret paths of the Absaroka wilderness, according to Hawk. I knew I could never retrace the route.

Poker Joe led the march, avoiding the easy trails and taking us into dense forests, along narrow ridges, and through unknown canyons. If there was an impossible route, he found it. As the day passed, I understood why The People pulled such long faces when Poker Joe tried to hurry them.

Methuselah and I were both grateful when the sun was high overhead and we stopped. Blue Mountain Woman handed me some camas root and I crammed it in before I remembered there would be nothing more until sunset. She looked at her own piece of bread and with a smile, held it out to me. I shook my head. No sense in letting my folly infect everyone.

She ate her bit of bread slowly. “You will learn, Liz.” She fed her mother, who ate with her eyes half-closed, then curled up on the travois for another nap.

It felt like the cruelest kind of punishment to have to start again, when I wanted to hole up somewhere for a nap of my own. I knew Poker Joe would have none of that, so I followed.

We rode into the still of afternoon. To keep myself awake, I tried counting Indians. I arrived at around three hundred women, children and old men. There were no warriors in sight. The young boys and girls were in charge of the horse herd, which they kept together with real skill, the girls riding as easily as the boys.