Once she was bathed and dressed in the borrowed clothing that Sully had given to her, Kay followed him back to the village where he then saddled his horse before turning back to her and picking her up and setting her on the horse just like he did the day before, before he pulled himself up behind her and nudged the horse into motion.

The trip was peaceful.

Or as peaceful as a trip with a young child could be, at least. Every little sound had Kay damn near jumping out of her skin. Which was funny to Sully at first, but after a while he got quiet. His expression curious as well as pensive. As if he was trying to figure out why every little sound seemed to startle her.

Finally after deciding to ask her about the issue once they were back at the village later, he merely placed an arm around her small torso and pulled her back against his body in a protective gesture and told her that she could try dozing off for a spell if she wanted.

She merely shook her head no, indicating that she would not bother and merely laid back against him as they rode.

About an hour later the two rode into a small town called Cedar Springs. A town that was smack dab in the middle of Colorado. Which would change it's name from Cedar Springs to Colorado Springs, sometime down the line around the time the railroad came to the town.

Which meant that she was currently living sometime between the late seventeen hundreds and the eighteen hundreds. And while that was all well and good, she still needed an exact date before she could plan accordingly.

After all, if she was unable to get back home- she'd be stuck living here among a bunch of people who tended to shoot first and ask questions later- when it came to every little thing that they didn't know of or understand. And that was bad. Really bad.

It was also a time of racism, bigotry, and when disease and crime swept through the lands like wildfire. Which was probably going to make things all that much worse.

Sighing a little bit as she looked around the town, she noted that a lot of people that were walking the streets or standing around talking, had stopped to look at her and Sully. Many of them not bothering to hide their curiosity and dislike. Though she didn't know if it was for her current guardian or for her.

Frankly she didn't want to find out. A majority of the people staring at them were males of all ages.

And she didn't appreciate many of the looks that they were giving them one little bit. Making a mental note to try and steer clear of the more rough looking people, she barely noticed when Sully pulled the horse to a stop and slid down off of it's back and took the reins and tied them to a post outside of a two story whitewashed building with a sign that said, General Store hanging above the door.

Once Sully was done tying the horse up, he returned to her side and lifted her down and then carefully put her on her feet and leaned down to tell her to stay close to him. She nodded as he held out his hand to her, and took it and then let him lead her into the store.

The first thing she noticed once they were inside was that the place was cluttered with all kinds of things. The second thing that she noticed was that the elderly man standing behind the counter was giving Sully the old evil eye. While everyone else in the store seemed to move back and give the man whom had her by the hand, more room than absolutely necessary.

"What are you doing here, Sully? " The surly looking elderly man demanded in an angry tone as he glared at the man holding her hand. Kay looked at him and then glanced up at Sully who was looking down at her as he slowly released her hand and leaned down to tell her to go look around and see if she could find herself some clothing or something at the same moment someone in the store said,

"No half breeds allowed!" As Sully walked over to a display with soaps and other cleaning materials and picked up a few before snapping,

"Shut up."

His patience with others wearing thin very quickly as he kept his eyes on Kay while she walked around the store and looked around.

She found several long sleeved shirts and blouses, and four ankle length skirts, three belts, and upon looking at the dresses the store had to offer, decided against getting any. They seemed too pricey and she didn't want her new guardian to suffer financially.

She could go without the firlly, lacy nightmares and shoes for a little bit.

Though she made sure to add two pairs of pants to her small pile of clothing before heading back to where Sully was standing, having a stare off with the elderly fella, whom finally seemed to notice her as she handed her things to Sully. He looked them over with a critical eye and then glanced down at her and said, "Dresses."

She shook her head no causing the man to almost roll his eyes at her stubbornness before he reached out and took hold of her hand in one of his and led her back over to where the dresses were hung and nudged her towards the display and then told her to pick out five for the time being.

Huffing, Kay glared at the dresses and the carefully began to sort through them. It wasn't that she hated them, or even the style of them. In actuality she loved collecting things like these, especially the old time, antique stuff. There was just something very beautiful about them that she found hard to resist.

However if her current guardian wanted her to indulge a little bit, then she would- but only because she was stuck in the current era. This was not something that she could do for fun anymore.

At least, not until she was older and had a job to pay for them on her own.

She found a nice rose pink colored velvet dress with a modest neckline, and white lace around the hem and the sleeves. She also found a nice sapphire satin dress with embroidery on the bodice in gold thread, with sapphire blue silk ribbons on it. The next one she found was a nice soft green with cream colored velvet and pale silk ribbons on it. The two after that consisted of an aquamarine silk dress with no silk, ribbons, or lace. Merely silver thread embroidery on the bodice and around the collar and skirt. And of course a white velvet dress with little pink and pale green flowering vines, embroidery sewn into the bodice.

Once they were in Sully's arms, he told her to look around for some ribbons or something while he walked off to look at some shawls an wraps and found at least two capes made of thick warm material that was fur lined, and perfect for winter. One was white and the other was black.

So he grabbed both of them along with two wraps and an intricately carved mother of pearl hair comb and several other things before deciding to see if Kay had found anything else.

What she found amused him greatly.

Instead of getting any ribbons like he had told her to, she had simply collected several intricate looking glass bottles with lids on them. Perfume bottles? What on earth is she doing with those? He wondered as he walked over to the counter where she had everything lined up.

"What are you doing with those?"

She didn't answer, merely gave him a bored look as he laid everything in his arms down on the counter, careful not to accidentally knock the bottles over.

"Don't you want some pretty ribbons to match the dresses your getting?" He asked once his hands were free again, she looked at the perfume bottles and clothes that he'd laid down next to her stuff and merely shook her head no. She could do without ribbons and such. But she wanted a way to earn money, and one way that she knew of was to make things that she could sell.

That way Sully didn't need to worry about taking care of her so much.

Figuring that she must have a reason for wanting the glass bottles, he shrugged his shoulders and told the elderly man to ring up their things.

The man just stared at Sully for a moment before asking curiously, "Who is the girl?"

"Her name is Kay. She was found alone, at the edge of the Cheyenne village. She'd taken a really bad fall and was scratched and bruised up pretty good on top of hitting her head on something."

"So where's her family? What's she doing with you?"

"Her family's dead and she has nowhere else to go. So she's staying with me." Sully said as the elder looked down at her with a sad look.

"That's a shame about her family. She's a real pretty little thing."

"Yes, she is." Sully said as he absently reached over and tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear as the elder told him he owed ten dollars and seventy five cents. Sully counted out the money and handed it to him and the elder told him to hang on for a moment and then walked over to the shelf where the ribbons were and picked out several and cut them so that Kay would have some to use with her new dresses before he walked back over and placed them in a little bag and then held them out to her with a small friendly smile on his face.

"Here you go, sweetheart. Little girls like you should always have something nice to dress up with."

Kay tentatively reached out and took the small bag from the man, and glanced over at Sully who was watching the exchange with a peculiar expression on his face before he said, "Do you want to say 'thank you' to Loren?"

She nodded and handed him her baggy of ribbons and then walked around the counter and gave the elder a quick hug and a smile before moving back to Sully's side.

The elder, Loren watched her curiously as she went meandering off to look at something else that had caught her attention. The moment that she was out of earshot Loren asked, "What's wrong with her? Why doesn't she talk?"

"Cloud Dancing and I think that she doesn't talk due to suffering some sort of trauma."

"Trauma?"

"Hn. We know that her family is dead. We also know that about a month or so ago she was attacked by a bear..."

"A bear?!"

"Yeah, her back was split open almost from the nape of her neck down to the small of her back."

"That sounds like a serious injury!"

"It was. I'm thinking that she lost her family around the same time she was attacked. "

"But- But if that's true then how did she survive?"

"I'm not sure," Sully said honestly as several new patrons entered the shop. Some of whom were dressed in blue grey military uniforms. Complete with hats, and belts with guns and sabers. "We need to leave now." Sully said as he picked up the box that Loren's wife had carefully packed the clothing and glass bottles into and then turned to go and get Kay when he saw one of the soldiers had her in his grasp and was talking to her.

No- that wasn't exactly right.

He was demanding answers about the Cheyenne and what they were doing. For once since yesterday, Sully was happy that Kay didn't seem able to speak. He didn't want his friends to get themselves into trouble because a child said something that could be twisted around to suit the purposes of evil and prejudiced men.

Irked by the sudden turn of events, he shifted his hold on the box as he walked over to the soldier holding his ward tightly in his grasp and Sully felt the first stirrings of anger and resentment rise up within him when he noticed that Kay was trying to extract herself from the man's grasp.

"Excuse me, I think you need to remove your hands from my ward." He said once he was close enough. The man's glance flickered to him for a moment before he turned his head to look at him fully.

"This little one, yours, half breed." It wasn't a question.

"So what if she is."

"What's a mongrel like you doing with a little angel like her? Did you steal her?"

"It's none of your business." Sully said as Kay finally managed to free herself of the man's grip and stumbled back away from him and would have fallen if Sully hadn't reached out and carefully grasped one of her arms and steadied her. The moment that he was sure that she wouldn't fall, he let her go and then leaned down and told her to go to the horse and wait there.

He'd be over in a second.

She turned and began to make her way over to the horse like he had told her when she heard a crack followed by a pained yelp and a thud and turned around to see what had happened only to find Sully walking towards her with the box in his grasp, tucked carefully under one arm.

And the soldier laying on his side holding his injured and bloody face in his hands. Eyes widening in realization at what had happened to the soldier, she turned wide eyes to Sully as he brushed by her and began to secure the box to the saddle with ropes his once good mood now ruined for the moment, all because a soldier had put his filthy hands on his ward.

The stupid bastard is lucky I didn't feel like skinning him alive. Sully thought darkly as he finished his task and then turned to his ward and paused just for a moment when he noted her expression.

The girl looked totally flabbergasted. As if she didn't know what to make of the fact that he had punched the soldier for laying his hands on her.

"Hey, come here." Sully said as he motioned for her to come to him. She turned her head to look at him and then glanced back towards the soldier who was slowly getting up, earning a look of annoyance from Sully since he had told the bastard to do himself a favor and stay down until the two of them were gone.

Apparently the soldier was one of those more difficult people since he had no intention of listening to Sully's warning.

Waiting until Kay was close enough, he reached out and plucked her up off of the ground and put her up in the saddle before swinging himself up behind her and casting the soldier a dirty look before turning the horse around and nudged it into motion thinking of all the things he needed to do once he was back at the village.