Chapter 2

Joke woke, being carried belly-down on the shoulder of a man in a hide shirt. As soon as he started to squirm and fidget, his bearer pulled him off his shoulder and dropped him in the leaf litter at the foot of a tree. As the tall man stood back, Joe scrambled up. Bravely staring back, he favored his left arm, the one he used to write and shoot with. That stream—a powerful, cold hammer—he must have cracked a bone in it on a rock.

The men stood around him in a semi-circle, protecting his exits. Who were they? They dressed in buckskins, had strange markings on their faces, and around their necks they wore strings of beads of a green stone he had not seen in those parts. They weren't Paiute, the closest Indians he knew of.

He'd had enough for one short day, so he didn't put up a fight when Tall Indian, as he dubbed the first man, stocky, well-muscled, with a lean, unbearded face, set him on the trail they were following. It was a hunting party and he wondered if he was going to be their first 'kill' of the day.

For miles along this path in the trees they walked, until the sun, never bright all day, had faded out altogether, leaving for a few moments a red-orange glow in the sky. Then, at dark, the hunters broke their wordless pace with a suddenness that caught Joe half-napping, so routine had it become.

It was a fireless camp. Everything was too wet to burn. He sat with his back against a tree and drank a cup of something that tasted like the forest, for want of a better way of describing it. It was suggestive of wet pine needles and the tree sap that made his hands and face feel feathery, so he called it 'forest tea.'

Soon he was far away from the deep and fragrant woods, and from his companions. All, except for the man on watch, lay prone. Day one ended. As Joe himself slept, he felt like he was almost home.

Almost.

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Ben eyed the darkening forest. "There's not much of a trail to follow, Hoss." Trying to spot it in the gloom made his eyes weary.

The group of men from the Ponderosa had crossed the river at a low place a few miles back and were now standing at the spot where the tall Indian and his braves had fetched Joe out of the water.

"C'mon, pa, let's get going," said Hoss, putting a big, considerate hand on Ben's back. "The sooner we find Joe, the better."

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Morning came. He woke, stretched, and winced, all at once. He had a hundred bruises and aches, and his limbs had seized up over the chilly night. Day two had started even before the birds had begun their dawn chorus. The fire was extinguished, and the ashes buried in the sandy dirt.

Brushing his jeans off, Joe stood up and looked at each man in turn, then he raised doubtful eyes to Tall Indian and said, "I don't belong here. Let me go back."

Only a stare met his gaze. Not looking back, he turned and made off into the woods. He would find his own way home. Fearing he'd get too far ahead, or lost, Tall Indian and his fellow hunters loped out of the clearing. In the wet forest, Joe's steps were easy to follow, even if his slim form did not make much of a dent in the brush.

Heart beating as if it would burst, he ran, striking branches out of his way. Thorns and tangling vines tore at his arms and clutched at his boots, slowing his progress. When the men outran and toppled him to his knees, he was angry, bursting to fight, but still as death, he wisely waited their next move.

Tall Indian pulled off Joe's shirt, the buttons popping. Tying the sleeves around his neck, he made him a kind of sling for his arm, then gave him a drink out of his own waterskin. After that, having no plans to spend all day in that stretch of woods, he set Joe on his feet again and pointed to the trail. Further down the river, Tall Indian's people waited for him and his braves to return.

Moving north to fish and swim in cooler waters, the camp was following the Truckee River—the river that had almost proved fatal to Joe. While the camp fished and smoked its catches over hickory wood fires, Tall Indian and his men had gone out to hunt rabbits, birds, deer, or whatever they could bring in to fill the cookpots.

Instead of a deer though, or even a rabbit, he had picked up just another stray, like the many he had cared for as a boy, though this was the first human he had brought home. All of the others had been baby cougars, fawns, and even a cub brown bear once. He'd never learn, would he?

He kept up a swift pace, taking large steps, at times urging Joe to hurry along, to forget his hurts and aches and to keep moving. For Joe, in many ways, both good and bad, it was an unforgettable hike in the woods.

Where was Hoss? At over six feet, and most of it gristle, hand to hand he'd have given the Indians a peck of trouble, no matter how many there were.

Something else Joe missed. As he struggled to keep up, nothing would have been better just then but to be on the back of his black and white paint, Cochise, or Cooch, for short. Most days, even before Hop Sing had laid out the breakfast table, he'd be up to the meadows and hills around the ranch putting his Indian pony through his paces.

Both wild and free as the wind rippling through the grasses, two of a kind, and of one heart, he'd been unable to ride him that morning he and Hoss left for the line shack. The wagon with its nails and boards and anvil had been half-loaded up in the barn the night before, and had to be finished.

Tall Indian led them deep into the Sierras, up to the richest meadows of the Truckee. As much as ever before, when he'd been up this way with his pa and Hoss, Joe was taken by the view. Folds and folds of hills and trees and mountains, the stream running by, sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Now though it all held for him a sinister look.

At one point, Tall Indian stopped, raising his hand. At his signal, his men stopped too and crouched down. Joe saw it, too. A young buck was lapping at the river, the only male in an early morning scattering of does and fawns nibbling the grass.

Moving along on his belly like a rattler, Kiowa came to a stop, took aim, and with a well-placed arrow, shot it behind the shoulder, hitting the lungs. A good, clean kill. Joe smiled at it and almost congratulated him with a whoop.

The does fled, but the in about twenty yards, the buck succumbed. That night, no dried strips of jerky, but fresh kill. Joe ate his share of it, then slipped down to the stream to bathe his arm in the cool waters. It was still swollen, purple-colored, but not as painful-feeling.

Feeling a mite warm behind the eyes, he splashed his face, drank his fill of the sweet water, and then sat back on the bank, looking up at the pines. His shirt still serving as a sling, he felt how good it was to be bare-chested in this late summer heat. His green jacket, gun and holster had been left at the shack, now very much south of where he was then.

He wished he could just break free, or barring that, that he had someone to talk to. For want of a word from the others, at least a word he could understand, he was all but talking to himself.

How could a simple day's work turn out this way? An unexpected tumble into the river—it should only have been a good drenching, not a miles-long walk through the Sierras, much less a full-scale kidnapping.

Refreshed by the stream, reveling in a slight breeze kicking up, he nodded off. He didn't dream, but if he had, it might have been about a bath, a good book, and his own bed to sleep in instead of on pine needles.

Thunder rolled in the sky, but still he didn't wake up. Storms were a nightmare on a cattle drive, stirring up the herd, but at home, he could listen to one all night.

He did however wake slightly as he heard the hunters muttering among themselves. As rain spattered the ground, they were looking up at the sky, tense and ready to spring.

Seeing him awake again, Tall Indian came to fetch him back to the fire where he could keep an eye on him. Or rather twelve eyes, two for each of the six men.

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A cool, dry breeze blew up the next day, signaling the end of the rain. Joe helped cut up the meat in order for it to be carried back to camp. He had to admit that the fire-roasted hunk of deer meat he had eaten last night had been good.

At home, he was a hungry enough fellow. His pa often had to tell him to eat slower. But how could he? If he didn't attack the food at once, and keep at it, Hoss got it. No second helpings with that big galoot at the table. If he went for the last baked potato, he might be more likely to get jabbed with Hoss's fork.

The hunters took up the trail again even before the sun peeked over the tall trees. Joe was more aware of himself now and of where he was, his head still warm but less so than last night. Even his arm hurt less. It might not have been a break, after all, just a bad, bad bruise. No way to tell in these trackless pines.

His focus, for so long narrowed on the trail, now broadened out when they came to a camp by the stream, where smoke curled up into the clear, crisp air. With hugs and outcries, all ages and descriptions rose to meet the hunters. Joe stood off to one side and wondered when it would be his turn to be mauled.

Tall Indian greeted an older man with a manly hug, gripping each other's arms, a man who may have been his pa, by the look in their eyes. Then he turned back to Joe and led him to a bare spot where he could sit down and rest.

Grateful, Joe nodded his thanks, while Tall Indian squatted down in front of him and pointed at himself.

"Kiowa," he said, repeating it a couple of times. Joe lit up when he realized it was Tall Indian's real name.

What could he tell him of his own? He decided that only 'Joe' was necessary. "Joe," he said, repeating himself, too. "Joe."

"Joe," Kiowa said, then he grinned and left to go about his chores. With the deer kill and the boats and just meeting and greeting all over again, plus a little bit of explaining as to what Joe was doing there, Kiowa had his hands full.

Leaning against a tree, Joe's eyes, not entirely unhappy now, fell on the boats at the shore. No fewer than six were in various stages of completion. The elder men were busy stretching hides over the pole frames, while later on some of the women would come by with needles and sinew to sew them on.

The tribe would soon be on the move again. It didn't take an interpreter for him to see that. Thirsty, and a bit of a faint heart, he got up and went over to his once mortal enemy—the river—and, bending down, drank from it almost without stopping.

It wasn't as boisterous here at the shore, where young children were allowed to play in its waters as long as they didn't stray too far out. But it still had a pretty stiff current out in the middle, where snow-melt from the Sierras and all the recent rains had plumped it up into almost a torrent.

He went back to the same tree where Kiowa had put him. Not having any other place to be at the moment, he intended a bit of a snooze before suppertime. He could almost come to like this life, he told himself, for up to now, he had been called upon to do very little work.

Not so at home.

On the ranch, he always had chores. Chores piled on top of chores. Chop firewood, mend harness, grease wheels—now round-up wasn't too far off, which meant a lot of cutting out and branding before the trail ride up north. He'd be on that, too, traveling in the herd's dust all the way to Laramie, where the cattle would be fattened over winter.

Before he could go all the way under, he was awakened by the swish of a buckskin dress. Raising his head slowly, he first saw tiny moccasins, then leggins', then the fringed hem of a beaded dress. What the—

A girl of nine or ten was offering him a cup. He took it, nodded, and sipped. It was the same forest tea, or something like it, he'd had on the trail. All pine needles and tree sap. Remembering how good it was, he gulped it down.

He had certainly pleased her, for she smiled as if her heart would break. Making a low bow, she took the clay bowl and ran back to the pot to fetch him some more, then handing it to him, she fled into a knot of other young people and gaped at him from afar.

All with eyes of the deepest brown, they watched wide-eyed as he sat pensively and drank the forest tea. He lowered the cup once and shot them one of his old smiles over the rim. It charmed them. One of the girls, laughing, brought him a bunch of cornflowers she had picked just for him in the long meadow grass.

How could he refuse such a swell gift? He smiled again as he took the bouquet, but in the next moment, a frail-looking boy tossed himself upon him in an all-out attack. As they rolled over and over in the sand, play-fighting, they crushed the blue cornflowers into dust. Rightly miffed, the girl hollered and tugged on them to pull them apart.

Laughing as hard as the boy, Joe hoisted him up under his good arm and walked to the river. Dropping him in, he watched him splash and splash. When he reached up a hand, Joe helped him out. Shaking off the water, 'Otia' tried next to push Joe in, and almost succeeded.

On a rock at the stream, the now idle Kiowa sat gazing over the blue water and smoking a pipe, while naked toddlers splashed in the shallows at his feet. A boy or two with sharpened poles hunted among the rocks for little silver fish, spearing them and throwing them up on the bank for dinner.

Eventually, Otia tired of the game and flew the coop. His place was not empty for long, though. Enter a black-spotted mutt, trotting over to sniff Joe, who reached out and rubbed its scruffy neck.

"Hey, Spot!" he called, a name he was fond of, if not a very original one. "Here, take a bite of this!" he said, giving him a bit of his tattered shirt to chew on.

While the dog had one end of it in its teeth, a man walked up. It seemed he didn't like English talk. He grunted and ran the dog off. Joe felt bad about that. Once, in Virginia City, he saw some men act the same way around a Paiute family, showing hostility to them for what they were and trying to run them out of town. He remembered what Hoss had done to those men, Joe, only nine, egging him on. Sore heads, that was their lot the next day.

That evening, as the needles and sinew came out to sew the hides onto the boats, Kiowa squatted down next to Joe again and gave him a piece of cooked meat on a stick.

Taking it gratefully, Joe spoke up. "Are you plannin' on a trip, Kiowa?" He nodded over at the boats at the river.

Kiowa signaled him to eat. Joe complied, rather greedily too for he was famished and tired of jerky. Kiowa grinned a bit, then left him and went over to Opa, his father, who it turned out, was also the tribal chief. Both of these two men began an animated talk, possibly about Joe himself, he didn't know.

At the commotion, everyone's eyes fell on the two chiefs, young and old. Kids throwing a ball back and forth came to a stop, while the boat workers stopped sewing and stared mutely. Joe didn't like it. Were they discussing his future with the tribe? He wished he knew what they were saying to one another.

Opa, he knew, didn't like him, probably thinking of him a danger to the tribe, which in a very real sense he was. Taking white captives would bring down the wrath of not only the captive's family, but also the law, on the heads of the captors.

The meat dropped from his hand into the dirt. He got up and slowly backed away, half-stumbling over a downed log. At the edge of the stream, he turned and began to run, splashing through it in places. Kiowa, alone this time, without his men, ran after him, taking hold of his arm. Broader by half than Joe, and a foot taller, he dragged him back to the camp.

"Let me go!" he cried, but struggling wasn't getting him anywhere.

Bravely staring up at Kiowa, he wasn't prepared for his next move. At one of the cookfires, Kiowa picked up a piece of charcoal that had fallen out of the fire circle. It wasn't hot. Still holding Joe's arm, he used it to streak a dark line across his nose and along his cheeks, making marks Joe himself couldn't see.

After Kiowa tossed it back into the fire, Joe bolted, running again to the stream. He bent and threw handful after handful of water over his face to wash off the charcoal smudges. What had Kiowa done that for? To make him a member of the tribe? He wasn't an Indian and never would be.

If anything, Joe was a true scrapper, a fighter born. Just ask that half of Virginia City which didn't wear petticoats what kind of scrapper he was. He had his dander riled up now. He was game enough if that was the way the older man wanted it.

Quick as a shot, he raced up to Kiowa and laid a fist against his jaw. Kiowa backed off, but remained on his feet. Joe's eyes, fixed on his, those of the man who had saved his life, grew even more despising when Kiowa didn't readily fall to his blow.

Eyes grim, Kiowa studied him with a bit of remorse. As a young chief, he'd been ready to accept him into the tribe. Joe registered Kiowa's sad, defeated look and hesitated a moment, then turned and fled out of the camp towards the river again.

Shouts, like arrows, rained down. He dragged his arm out of its sling and used it push through thickets and brush at the river's edge. He splashed through the shallows, and heard others splashing behind him.

Close as a whisper now, his pursuers began closing in. He could almost feel their hot breath on his neck. Seeing that he had no other choice, he climbed up onto a large rock, took a deep breath, and leapt off, landing twenty feet below in the water. With half a notion to swim across it, he flailed, and kicked, and dog-paddled.

It was cold, but no colder than the fact that the braves outswam him. Catching up, they dragged him out again, with so little fanfare it was embarrassing to a youth of his peppery temper.

He wrestled against them, threw punches, and landed some. Much as Kiowa had, the Indians bobbed back, but kept their hold on his arms. No one hit him. It was not their way. Chagrinned, he was forced back to camp, a surprisingly long way. Had he swum that far?

He passed the tree where he had taken a nap, where the girls had brought him cornflowers and tea, and near the place at the river where Otia had tried pushing him in, and where the dog had come to sniff him. He barely gave any of it a second's glance.

Night was deep. Rain clouds, gathering again after a brief respite of sun, hid the moon, and the boats—magically complete—looked ready to go. The trip up north might begin as early as tomorrow.

In boats, the Indians would fly like eagles. Hoss would never be able to catch up, and Joe would again be lost to the swift river. With a thin hold on consciousness, he tried to make plans to escape, but came up empty-handed, with visions of what the Indians would do to him if he kept trying their patience that way.

He slept, but before going under the whole way, he sent up a silent prayer that when the boats took off downstream the next day, Kiowa would let him go, but would he? After bringing him this far?