Webb said, “Maybe the bone held together. It’s God’s mercy if it did. Let’s carry him back up to the cabin. Real careful now. That bone’s as flimsy as an eggshell.”

Rusty demanded, “What did you do it for?”

Badger Boy ground his teeth together in an effort to fight down the pain. “No want to go with uncle. Want to go home.”

Tanner tried to make light of it. “Don’t you know they hang horse thieves?” Badger Boy had surmised that Tanner stole the bay from the bluecoats, but he hurt too much to appreciate the ironic humor.

Badger Boy lay awake most of the night, the leg throbbing, allowing him no mercy. Webb had wrapped the splints around it again after satisfying himself that the bone had not broken anew. He had said, “The Comanches raise their boys to be tough. Anybody else, that leg would be in two pieces.”

Badger Boy was unable to hold breakfast in his stomach. After a couple of tentative bites, he quit.

Webb said, “We’d best be about gettin’ you cleaned up.”

Badger Boy would much prefer to bathe in the creek, but the splints and his injured leg precluded that. He took his bath out of a tin pan, slower and less satisfying. Done, he put on a clean shirt that Rusty brought him. It was much too large. The sleeves were considerably longer than his arms, so he had to roll them up. The tail of the shirt reached past his knees. He had seen boys at Blessing’s cabin wearing long shirts and nothing else, no trousers, not even a breechcloth. To him it still looked like something for a woman, not a man.

“Why uncle come?” he asked. “I no know him, he no know me.”

“You’re blood kin,” Shanty said. “Everybody ought to be with their blood kin.”

Badger Boy had seen no one else whose face was black like Shanty’s. “You got blood kin?”

Shanty seemed taken aback. “Someplace, I expect. I was sold away when I was just a young’un. But you got a chance to be with your own folks now. You’d ought to be happy.”

Badger Boy would be happy only when he got back with The People. Since last night’s failure, he knew it would be somewhat longer than he had expected. Now that he had grudgingly accepted his situation, he began to feel some curiosity about the man who was his Texan father’s brother. Brothers often looked much alike. He wondered if seeing his uncle would help him remember his Texan father’s face.

“When uncle come?”

Rusty stood on the dog run, shading his eyes. “I see Tom Blessing on horseback, and somebody in a wagon. Let’s get Andy out here in the daylight.” They moved him to a chair on the dog run, the splinted leg extended straight out. Rusty gave Badger Boy a quick inspection. “Now, you be on your best behavior, and smile.”

Badger Boy could not smile on command. He had to feel like it, and he did not feel like it. Anxiety put his stomach in turmoil. His uncle was coming to take him away, farther than ever from the Comanche stronghold. Hampered by his leg, Badger Boy would not be able to put up much resistance. His hands shook. He tried to hide his nervousness by folding them together.