Free Jo's Triumph by Nikki Tate Page A

was no sign of the wagon trail. Could the Indian have lied?
    I willed Luke to keep going. And he did until, without warning, he stumbled.
    â€œCome on, boy,” I pleaded, putting my heels to the exhausted horse’s sides. “Git up!”
    But Luke refused to budge. The poor animal turned his tail to the wind and would not take another step.
    I climbed out of the saddle and moved to Luke’s head. Just as I reached for his bridle I, too, stumbled. The trail! That’s why Luke had tripped. We had found the wagon ruts, invisible beneath the freshly fallen snow.
    â€œHallelujah!” I shouted and slapped the horse on the neck. “Thank you!” I shouted into the swirling snow. Itwas agony to haul myself back onto Luke’s back.
    Buffeted from behind by blasts of wind, I turned Luke westward. Only then did the big horse agree to walk on.
    It was impossible to say exactly where we were, but I figured we couldn’t be too far from Robert’s Creek. For a short while my heart skipped and sang with the joy of knowing we would soon be safe.
    Hah! Had I learned nothing? The snow began in earnest. Burning pin-pricks whipped across my cheek, searing my face. Soon I was so cold I could barely stay upright in the saddle. We had to move faster or we would never make it to shelter.
    â€œCome on, Luke my friend, let’s git on home.”
    Luke dropped his head and reluctantly picked up a jog.
    Snow whirled around us as the wind shifted directions — first blasting us from the side, then attacking from the front. My nose, cheeks, hands, legs,and even my mind were numb. With fingers thickened by cold, I fumbled to tie my kerchief across my face. Before I had it in place, it was soaked through. I tried to wiggle my toes inside my boots but could scarcely feel them at all. How I longed to stomp around in front of a roasting fire, a steaming mug of Arbuckle’s cradled in my hands.

    Some time after we’d joined the trail Luke tripped again, this time over a tree root. He slithered on the icy ground as he struggled to keep his feet under him. It was hard to say how far we’d come. But we had ridden through the night, so old Luke had been working hard for twelve hours straight and I’d been in the saddle for longer than that.
    When the horse slipped again in the wet snow, the time had come for me to dismount and travel along on foot.
    â€œHoly crow!” I shouted, hopping from one foot to the other. Sharp pains shot up my legs. My feet felt huge — tentimes their regular size. I had to look down to see that they had not split my boots wide open. I hobbled along, my feet protesting with every step as we slogged through the snow.
    â€œMail first. Horse second. Me last,” I chanted in time to Luke’s muffled hoof beats. Crazy laughter bubbled and churned inside me. I imagined myself warm and cozy as I lay down in the soft snow, drifting off to sleep.
    â€œMail first … horse second…”
    Once I fell and grabbed for Luke’s mane. He paid no heed but plugged along, his eyes half-closed against the relentless wind.
    More and more often he stumbled and then, at the top of an embankment, he stopped altogether.
    â€œGit on up!” I yelled as fiercely as I could, and smacked him across the haunches.
    I cried, then, the first and only time of the whole journey, for it broke my heart to hit an animal who had given his all for me under the most miser able conditions.
    But what else could I do? Leave him there to freeze or be devoured by the wolves I’d heard howling not so far away? Wolves aren’t so stupid as to take on an armed rider and a healthy horse, but an exhausted animal left to his own devices was another matter.
    Weeping, I reached back and gave him another smack with a switch. He skidded down the bank to the creek at the bottom, crashing to his knees.
    â€œEasy, boy. Easy.”
    I pressed my cheek against his neck and rubbed him between the