Free Jo's Triumph by Nikki Tate Page B

ears.
    â€œCome on. You can get up.” I tugged at his bridle and Luke heaved himself to his feet. We splashed through the stream and I cried out as the ice-cold water seared my frozen feet. I staggered away from the creek, sick with the knowledge that neither Luke nor I could travel much farther.
    I thought of my beautiful ma and the sister I never knew. I spoke a word to my dead pa and cursed my brothers who had left me in Carson City. I offered up prayers for me, for Sarahand her grandfather, and for Luke, and then I nearly jumped out of my skin because right behind me Luke let out a loud whinny.
    Coming back through the snow was the most welcome sound ever — an answering whinny.

Chapter Twelve

    I couldn’t have cared less whether the other horse belonged to a crazy gun-toting settler or even to James himself. I shouted as loud as I could and made my way toward the answering calls.
    When, a few minutes later, the station- house emerged from the swirling snowstorm, I near enough fainted away with relief.
    â€œJoe? Where in tarnation are you comin’ from?” the stationmaster asked, inspecting the time card before signing it and slipping it back into the pouch.With much rushing around and shouting, two men readied a new horse in record time. A rider I didn’t know mounted up to continue the ride west.
    â€œThis ain’t Robert’s Creek,” I finally had a chance to say.
    The stationmaster laughed and shook his head.
    â€œRobert’s Creek is about thirty miles behind you. This here is Dry Creek.”
    I opened my mouth and shut it again. How far had I traveled? Ninety miles? A hundred? More?
    Far enough, I’d say.
    â€œCome on in out of the cold and tell me what happened. You can tell Simpson and Wood from the militia, too. They arrived not long ago looking for you when you didn’t show up at Sulphur Springs or Robert’s Creek. We figured you’d been robbed. Shot dead.”
    The four men huddled by the fire in the unfinished stationhouse and looked expectantly at me. As I told them my story, gusts of wind lifted the canvas tarp they had tied over the space where the roof should have been.
    â€œWe gotta get ourselves a roof before we get any
bad
weather,” one of the men joked.
    I grinned despite the pain in my feet as they started to thaw. They hurt even more than when they were frozen, if such a thing were possible.
    I told the men how James had planned to rob the mail. “James said he’d kill me if I got in the way.”
    The stationmaster nodded. “You done the right thing, coming here,” he said.
    The two men from the army pulled on their coats.
    â€œWe’ll head back toward Sulphur Springs, see if we can find James.”
    â€œWait,” I said, reaching for my boots. “I’m coming.”
    â€œYou ain’t going nowhere,” the stationmaster said.
    Part of me wanted to say, “Fine — I’ll stay right here by the fire.” But another part of me, an angry part I never knew I had, was itching to see James hauled away to jail. I knew exactly where the drop-off was. I could show the soldiers. Maybe James hadleft the second mochila there. Maybe he was still waiting at the sulphur pools.
    â€œTry to stop me,” I said, my hand moving over my pistol.
    â€œWhoa now, boy!”
    But we didn’t have a chance to finish the argument because, right then we heard scuffling outside and the door burst open sending a cloud of wet snowflakes scurrying across the floor.
    A man’s bulky frame filled the doorway. Snow clung to his beard and he stamped the snow from his boots. It was James.
    â€œI’m looking for a certain Joe Whyte — a lowdown thief I believe is headed this — ”
    Then he saw me.
    Without stopping to think I leapt to my feet and pulled out my pistol, aiming it at the point right between his eyes.
    â€œThat’s him!” I said. “That’s James!”
    This