Adam was no stranger to pain. Living in such wild country since boyhood had exposed him to more broken bones and gunshot wounds than a person should have to endure in one lifetime. From the hip he'd broken falling from a tree as a child, to the countless times he'd bruised, banged, and bashed himself when busting broncs, it was almost a daily occurrence to have a twinge or ache somewhere on his body. Only two years before he'd been beaten and shot in the leg in the wagon train attack. He would have recovered quicker than he had if the inhospitable environs of the desert and lack of clean water hadn't caused him to contract an infection. He'd been unconscious for over a week and it had taken months before he could walk without a limp. This, though, this was unlike any hurt he'd ever experienced.

As Bill had scurried out of the office, Adam had let himself fall gently back onto the hard wooden floor, unable to stay upright any longer. His hand—which had clung to the wall throughout Bill's visit—remained where it was, his fingernails digging deeply into the wooden planking. Adam was afraid if he relaxed his fingers and let his arm fall he'd feel the pulsating solidity of the bruising in his muscles. It was a distressing sensation. Every punch, every kick had left its mark and there didn't seem to be a single part of his body that didn't throb or cry out for relief. He felt like a slab of meat that was being tenderised. Only, a slab of meat felt nothing, and he could feel every thump of fist and kick of boot on his raw flesh. He wanted to move towards his friend in the next cell, but even turning his head in the Indian's direction sent an unbearable pain through his neck and upper torso. He didn't try again.

Adam had been in the cell for four nights. He had been let out just the once, and that had been to suffer an unpleasant and humiliating experience in the yard.

It had taken two long days to travel back from the army camp where the Ute boys had been freed. During that time he had been tied up in the back of a wagon, only being allowed out to relieve himself or defecate in full view of a trooper with a loaded weapon pointed at his head. It was a degrading experience, but Adam had pushed any thoughts of shame or embarrassment from his mind. He would do anything—anything—to get back to Kia and Mimiteh. He had not spoken a single word, only listened to the disparaging remarks the soldiers made about him, the Ute and the whole native population of the continent they lived on. He couldn't react; instead he had had to look blankly at them as they referred to his parentage in such bestial terms he'd wanted to cut out their tongues with a sharp blade. He had been given scraps to eat—the leftovers from their meals—so by the time Adam arrived at the fort he had been dizzy from lack of food and water.

The convoy had rolled into the barracks mid-morning; the soldiers weary, dishevelled and irritable. The fort's commander strode out of his office, one fist tightly gripping the hilt of the sword hanging low at his thigh; bewildered at the return of a transport that should have been halfway across the territory by now. He was directed to the wagon with its ripped canopy. And then he was shown the prisoner, still covered in smudged black and yellow stripes, who sat shackled amongst crates and boxes. The captain bared his teeth and barked at the men to lock the man up. Adam was manhandled off the wagon by two of the soldiers and half-dragged, half-walked into the stockade where he was flung into the cell. He landed hard on his side and quickly shuffled on his rump to the back wall. The captain had followed the prisoner escort into the dark interior and had been met with a pair of piercing eyes staring defiantly at him from the back of the cell. He immediately ordered the removal of the cell's cot. Indians slept on the ground, he said. A cot would be a piece of luxury undeserving of such a wild savage.

They left Adam alone, the cell door clanging closed with a disturbing finality. The pitiful light from the grubby window glanced off the keys as they whirled in the lock. Then three pairs of boots marched out of the room, the door shutting firmly behind them.

All was silent. Adam stayed frozen against the back wall, watching the dust motes spinning in the displaced air. He looked around his cell, taking in the hard walls and floor, and the filthy bucket in the corner. And then someone said his name.

"Liwanu?" The voice sounded puzzled; as if not entirely sure it was Adam.

He turned his head towards the other cell and there, lying on his back on a dingy blanket, was the familiar figure of his Ute brother, Cameahwait. Cam's skin looked pale against the black of his beaded braids, and he didn't move from his supine position. A stab of fear penetrated Adam's belly. It suddenly didn't matter that Cameahwait had lied to him all those months before; that since discovering his father and brothers hadn't died on that fateful day, Adam had veered between forgiving Cam and wanting to punch him in the face. All he could see was his friend lying on a dirty cell floor looking worn and weak. Practically on his hands and knees, he scurried over to where the Ute lay and reached through the bars to grasp his friend's outstretched hand.

"Cam."

The Ute's grip was strong, despite his apparent weariness. And Adam was surprised to see how alert and penetrating Cam's eyes were. Adam let out a long breath as he raised a glance to the ceiling, sending a silent prayer heavenward. He looked back into the dark, wide-set eyes of Cameahwait. "They told me you were hurt. How bad is it?"

"They had to shoot a bullet into me to put me down, Liwanu. You would have been proud of how I fought the soldier men."

"Shot? Cam, tell me, how bad? Adam's voice held an urgency that made Cam smile. This only made Adam's forehead crease further into a frown, irritated by the apparent calm disposition of his injured friend.

"Don't worry, my brother." Cameahwait let go of Adam's hand and pulled back his shirt to reveal a bandage wrapped around his upper chest. "The bullet went in here," he indicated a spot just under his shoulder, "and out there." He lifted his back slightly off the floor to show where the bullet had ejected. "And I have had a good nurse."

"Wanekia?" Adam said her name on a breath.

"Yes, my friend, your wife has been allowed in every day to tend me. She kept the wound clean, and sewed it up. I have not had a fever. You are honoured to call her your woman."

Adam's relief was so palpable that he pulled his hand back through the bars and raised a leg up to his chest. Propping his elbow on his knee, he dropped his forehead into an open palm and let out a shaky sigh of relief. At last, Kia was here. He was close to her. She could be in the room next door; or on the other side of the yard. Thank God she wasn't locked up in a cell. She was here, in the fort, and he would see her soon. If fortune was smiling on him, he would see that serene, beautiful face tomorrow when she came to administer to Cameahwait's wound. His respite from days of anxiety was like the unfurling of a tightly curled snake in the pit of his stomach. He felt a fluttering within him that climbed up his windpipe and was expelled in a long, shuddering breath.

Cameahwait watched as Adam tried to hide the feelings welling up inside of him. His voice was soft but determined when he spoke, trying to draw Adam back to the present, to the now. "Liwanu? Brother?" Adam raised his face and turned shiny eyes to the injured man. "She is well, my brother. She and your daughter. The people here treat her kindly. You will see them soon."

Adam expelled a long breath and reached through the bars again to grasp Cam's hand in a firm grip. "When I reached the high village and she wasn't there; and then finding that she had been captured by soldiers. My God, Cam, I didn't know what to think."

Cam shook Adam's hand in reassurance. "We kept her and Mimiteh safe. We would have thrown ourselves in front of a stampeding buffalo if it meant saving her life."

The Ute grinned but then grew serious. "But you, Liwanu, what happened to you? You vanished from the village. And now you are here. And you wear the markings of our people when we go to war. There is much you need to tell me."

Adam settled back onto his rump. "I freed our brothers who were captured with you."

Cameahwait levered himself up onto his elbows wincing slightly as his wound stretched. Adam laughed as his friend's mouth fell open and Cam stared incredulously at Adam's proud expression. "You—"

"Well, I wasn't alone. I had Hanska, Akando and Okomi with me." He paused. "I also had…" Adam stopped. He rose quickly to his feet. "God, Cam, if there weren't iron bars separating us, and you weren't lying there with a bullet wound in your shoulder, I swear I'd punch you from here to…" His words trailed off as he found himself unable, and unwilling, to find a suitable idiom.

Cam watched with startled eyes as Adam turned his back on him and paced to the opposite side of the cell where he stretched out his arm and leant against the wall.

"Liwanu, why do you say such a thing?"

Adam twisted slightly towards Cameahwait and, after a moment of thought, returned to the dividing cell bars. He dropped to his haunches in front of the Ute. "When you found me after the wagon train attack, you told me no one had survived. No one."

"That is so, Liwanu." Cam was still leaning back on his elbows, watching Adam with a line forming between his eyebrows. Cameahwait knew he'd not checked all the victims, but each person he had crouched beside, and placed a hand upon, had been still. Their souls had departed to the white man's land of the dead. Cam had a suspicion what Adam was going to tell him, but he was unable to drag his eyes from his friend's face.

"You lied to me." Adam snarled though gritted teeth.

Cameahwait closed his eyes.

"Look at me, Cam!" Adam gripped the bars separating them. His eyes were hard, his lips a thin line as he fought to control the anger starting to churn within him. He waited until the Ute had turned towards him. "My family was alive!" Adam exclaimed. "You said that everyone was dead but they weren't! My father and my brothers were hurt. They needed me but…you took me from them."

"Liwanu—"

"No, Cam!" Adam slumped slightly, his knees falling against the hard floor. "There is nothing you can say, because I know what you'll say. You'll say the Great Spirit was guiding you. I've heard it a hundred times before." He blinked slowly, shaking his head softly.

Cameahwait let his head fall back onto his blanket. Adam had been right. Cam's only response would have been that the spirits had driven him to the gorge that day; that it had been the destiny of both men to come together in that doomed desert pass. He still believed that. And he had known this day would come. That somehow Adam would discover that he had not looked for life in all the victims of the attack; that there was a possibility his family may have survived. Cam had justified his actions to himself so many times that his initial guilt had been assuaged. But now, he couldn't even look at Adam. Cam squeezed his eyes closed, and turned his head away from his friend.

Adam watched as Cameahwait's eyebrows drew together and his eyes clenched shut. He loosened his grip from the bars and fell back onto his rear. His anger had left him as quickly as it had come.

"For two years I thought my family was dead. I nearly lost the will to live because of it. And then a month ago they found me, locked up in a small-town jail." Adam looked up at the dirty window that illuminated their prison and followed a beam of light that shone into his cell. He watched as a tiny beetle scuttled across the floor. "The moment I saw my father I thought I was looking at a ghost. I was struck dumb. I could barely breathe. The man I thought I would never see again was sitting just inches away from me."

Cam couldn't move his head any farther. His cheek was flush to the floor, facing the opposite wall, as he listened to Adam's words.

"His hair was a bit whiter and his face seemed a little thinner, but, other than that, he hadn't changed. He was still the man I saw each time I closed my eyes. And then I found out my two brothers were alive. That was a little more than I could handle." Adam paused, recalling in his mind how he had broken down in front of his father and cried like a wet-behind-the-ears child. "But they were there, at the jail. My brother Hoss," the corners of Adam's mouth curved up, "standing there all nervous, playing with his hat. And Joe, he could just about say my name." Adam's smile dropped. "But it's been hard, getting to know them again. They've not changed too much, but me, I'm different. I don't think I've made it easy for them."

Adam looked over to where Cam was lying on the floor. "But I don't blame you, for what you did."

Cameahwait turned his head towards Adam.

"Before all this happened to me, I'm not sure I could have found it within me to forgive you. But, as I said, I've changed. I'm not the same man I was before. I mean, look at me..."

Cam viewed the person sitting slumped on the other side of the bars. He saw a swarthy-skinned man dressed in the clothes of a Ute Indian with long black unkempt hair falling over his face; the skin on his lean arms and torso was shiny from the paint still smeared across his body, and his eyes were bright white orbs in the subdued light.

"Things have happened to me I can't explain. I've seen…visions, had dreams. Maybe it was that godawful brew you made me drink; or maybe I've just been a bit drunk on my life with Wanekia and Mimiteh, I don't know. Or perhaps, just perhaps, the spirits are at work, and they were working for us both on that day when you decided to haul my sorry ass halfway across the desert."

"My friend—"

"It's alright, Cam." Adam twisted himself around so his back was resting against the connecting bars. "There's a quote in the Bible that says 'out of the mouth of the most High comes both evil and good'. Maybe that means whoever looks over us—whether it's a god or a spirit, or both—well, perhaps they send the bad times as well as the good so that we'll become better people. I don't know for sure. Perhaps what happened that day, had to be. I can't blame you for what those outlaws did to the wagon train. But I should blame you for lying to me, and taking me from my family. But I can't find it within me to hate you because if you hadn't done what you did, I would never have lost my heart to Kia and Mimiteh." Adam's mouth quirked and he turned his head to speak over his shoulder. "And to all the Ute people."

The two men were quiet for a few minutes. Then Cameahwait spoke.

"I am sorry, Liwanu."

Adam twisted around to face him. "It's going to be a while before I fully trust you again, Cam." Adam pointed a finger at him. "And I promise you this: first opportunity I get, I'm going to punch you in the face."

The men sat unspeaking for a while, both lost in their thoughts until Cameahwait broke the silence. "Why did you leave us, Liwanu? It was as though the ghosts of the dead had spirited you away."

Adam twisted around to face Cam. "No ghost, Cam, a man of flesh and blood. Matwau."

"Matwau!" Cameahwait heaved himself up onto one elbow and with his other arm holding onto the bars, pulled himself up. Adam quickly reached his arms through the bars to help him. "Matwau! That rattle-snake, that viper…" The sudden effort gave Cameahwait a coughing fit, and he clung onto the bars as he fought to clear his lungs of phlegm.

Adam managed to keep a comforting palm on Cameahwait's back. "It's okay, Cam, it's taken care of. Matwau is dead."

Cam's face shot up. "Dead?"

"We ran into each other not long back. He didn't survive the encounter."

Cameahwait collapsed back against his blanket. "Dead." He snorted. "It's more than he deserved."

"That's not all. It was Matwau who betrayed you to the army. He led the soldiers straight to you. He wanted the whole village to be taken but didn't realise most of our people had already left for the high country."

A look of puzzlement crossed the Ute's face. "But why did he not send the soldiers to our summer village, if he wanted the army to take everyone?"

"My guess is he wanted the site for himself, for his own people. He told us the army were moving villages to reservations; maybe his village was next? He couldn't betray the location of our camp if he wanted to claim it for his own."

Cameahwait turned to look at Adam. "You are the man of many spirits, Liwanu, whether you believe it or not. You save our young warriors; you have kept our village safe."

"No—"

"Yes, Liwanu. You have rid us of that deceitful snake. He would have been a threat to us. Always. But no more. Because of you, Liwanu."

Adam reached through and patted his friend's arm. "Rest now, Cam. You need to get your strength back for when we get out of here."

"If we get out of here."

"When, Cam, not if. My brothers are probably out there right now. You'll see. They'll get us out."