“I might recognize the voices of some of the outlaws, too. One—not the one I saw—had a high-pitched voice for a man.” She looked sideways at Trace. “I’ll testify as a witness if these men are brought to trial later.”
“Let’s hope it comes to that,” Trace said. “For now, we need to get you all to my place. It’s a twenty-mile ride. I figured to be home by noon or shortly after. Walking, though—and with three riders and carrying a heavy pack on my horse—I can only guess at how long it’s going to take. The whole day and then some for sure. The nearest settlement is over twice as far to the north, and that isn’t a fit place for women and children alone. It’s still morning, but reading signs will slow me down. I doubt we can make it home until long after dark. We’ll have to decide if we want to push on through riding late into the night or if we want to sleep on the trail. If the children can bear it, maybe we can press on.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but no words came out. Deb wondered what he’d thought better of saying.
“I’ve thanked you now several times, but I want to make sure you know we consider that God sent you right to us in our hour of greatest need. Thank you for being an answer to prayer.”
She had more questions. She glanced sideways at him and asked, “Do you—?”
Trace held up his hand as if to halt their progress, yet he kept walking. Deb took that to mean he wanted to halt the talk.
“I mentioned the tracks because I need to study them. I want to be familiar enough with them that if I see one of these horses or oxen or cattle again, I can recognize it. I noticed a few things around the wagon train to give me some idea of the men, but I can learn more. If your questions can wait, I’d prefer to walk out ahead of you and move quiet so I can concentrate.”
It struck Deb that she’d never been asked to shut up so politely in her life. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“Obliged.” He moved forward at a pace that grew faster until it was the next thing to a run, but not a run, just the next thing to it.
Twenty miles he’d said.
It was going to be a long, quiet day.
CHAPTER
4
Deb dropped back until Trace was about thirty paces ahead. She kept that distance, vowing silently never to slow him down.
She held the horse’s reins, though the animal seemed content to traipse after its master. The dog came back, apparently its hunger sated, woofed at them in a friendly way, and trotted ahead toward Trace. It ranged off the trail in both directions, sniffing the ground, studying the trail as closely as Trace was doing.
Because leading the horse wasn’t a real job, beyond hanging on tightly to the reins, she dropped back to walk beside the horse’s shoulder, alongside Gwen. The two talked quietly as they followed Trace. The grassland was swallowed up as the trail narrowed and slanted up a mountainside. The woods came in closer.
They were retracing their steps from yesterday. Deb remembered her relief when they’d emerged from these thick woods, and now here she was reentering them. Only now they climbed instead of descended. Yesterday had been all downward, winding around boulders and ravines, downed logs and washed-out ruts big enough to swallow a wagon whole.
After an entire day following a trail so narrow the trees brushed the wagons in places, they’d found that big swath of prairie grass. Deb had been able to take a deep breath for the first time in hours. It had a nice level stretch where the wagons could form a circle, with plenty of grazing for the horses and a spring to water them.
It had seemed so safe and comfortable. Little had she known.
As they rode back into this mountainous woodland, that weight returned to her. Only now it felt as if there were eyes on them. Guns on them. As if the men who’d done such evil to her wagon train lingered in the woods, watching, waiting to kill again. Her breath shortened, and sweat broke out on her forehead as her eyes darted from tree to tree, boulder to boulder, looking for guns.
“He’s a barely grown boy.” Gwen’s quiet comment tore Deb out of her frightening thoughts, and she was grateful for it. Trace knew far more about the wilderness than she did. If he was worried, he’d say something.
But Gwen’s words had caught Deb by surprise. She narrowed her eyes to look at Trace’s back. He was tall and broad shouldered and carried himself with such confidence. He seemed like a full-grown man to her, not old but certainly not a boy anymore.
“Do you think so?”
They kept their voices low, not to be secretive but because both children had fallen asleep, and it was much easier to travel with them this way. And Deb didn’t want to distract Trace. Although to her it looked a lot like he was just walking.
“Oh yes. I wonder if he’s much more than twenty.”
Little Ronnie whimpered and tossed his head, his eyes fluttering open. He’d slept a long time, yet it couldn’t last the whole trip.
“Well, he seems at home in this country.” Deb walked along easily. In fact, this was the easiest traveling she’d had in a long while. Usually she walked all day with a child in her arms.
The wagon had been heavily loaded and the team gaunted up, so they’d walked to lighten the load as much as possible. Deb carried one of the children for long stretches, with Gwen carrying the other. Mrs. Scott drove. Working the reins and the wagon brakes was exhausting—even worse on a downhill slope like yesterday. Mr. Scott spent
