Annie shouted, “Where’s Frank?”

Hope pointed back over her shoulder. “We made him a pallet in the bed of the wagon. He’s runnin’ a terrible fever.”

Marie said, “I think he does not even know what is happening. It is up to us women. We must get by without a man’s help.”

Annie pointed toward Mordecai. “We’ve got a man.”

Mordecai gave her a brief smile, then set about challenging the mules again.

They had to stop to rest the animals after a while, for the heavy mud made the wagons hard to pull. A reluctant thought came to Annie. “What about the Blackwoods?”

Marie said, “They have a wagon. Or did, if Finis has not sold it for whiskey money.”

“But do you suppose they got the word? They live back in the timber. The messengers might’ve missed them.”

She thought mainly of the boy Cyrus, who had come with Isaac more than once to visit her. There was no way to know for certain, but she feared Isaac was dead. The last she had heard of him, through James, he had remained in San Antonio de Bexar. The boy, and the rest of the family, had no one to defend them now except Finis and Luke. Those two were hopelessly incompetent.

Marie asked, “What do you want to do?”

Annie looked down toward the river. “We’ve got to cross it somewhere anyhow. I say we go down to the ford yonder, then over to the Blackwoods’. It isn’t much out of our way.”

Marie frowned and looked back to the west, from where the Mexicans would likely come. The horizon was clear. “Michael would not like it. But Michael is not here. Let’s be about it.”

The river’s current was strong. Annie and Marie doubled the two teams, taking one wagon across, then the other, while Mordecai rode close by, ready to take hold if an emergency arose. Annie was a little apprehensive about the mules. Water sometimes threw a scare into them. She kept a firm hand on the lines until the crossing had safely been made.

She lifted a corner of the wagon sheet and looked in at cousin Frank, lying on a folded blanket, trying to fight his way out from under another blanket firmly tucked around him. “I’ve got no business lyin’ flat on my back,” he argued weakly. “I promised I’d get you womenfolk and young’uns to safe ground.”

Annie felt his forehead and found it hot. “If you get up now you’re liable to die just when we need you the most. Lie still. Us womenfolk are doin’ just fine. Us and Mordecai.”

She was not surprised at what they found when they reached the Blackwood place. Finis was stomping around the poor cabin, showing about as much sense as a chicken with its head cut off, hollering in a thin, high-pitched voice just on the edge of blind panic, flapping the stub that was left of one arm. “Hurry up, Nelly, and get that wagon loaded. Them Meskins are liable to be here any minute.”