Free Edge of the Wilderness by Stephanie Grace Whitson

considered to be beneath him. He kept himself apart from the scouts, trusting Sacred Lodge to interpret his orders and waiting for the army to come to its senses and send him on to more important assignments.
    “You oughter talk to them,” Pope urged Jensen. “What you gonna do when Sacred Lodge heads out and leaves us here?”
    “They aren’t leaving camp without me,” Jensen asserted. “I didn’t come out here to be a cook.” He glared at Edward Pope.
    Pope shrugged off the insult. “Which is better for the army,” he asked, “a good cook or an officer who won’t talk to his men?”
    One spring night Jensen stalked off after arguing with Sacred Lodge about an upcoming foray to the north, Daniel said, “Let him go. He doesn’t trust us. He thinks because we don’t line up and march like white men waiting to be shot at, we make bad soldiers. He doesn’t think the Great Father’s army needs help from savages.” Smiling bitterly, Daniel tucked his nose down into his collar and crouched beside the fire.
    “Exactly what do you find amusing about me?” Jensen called from where he had been watching the exchange between Daniel and Sacred Lodge. He marched toward the fire and stared across the amber tongues of golden light to where Daniel sat, his dark eyes glittering as they reflected the flames. Daniel lifted his eyes from the fire to Brady’s long-jawed face, but he made no move to answer. The other scouts sitting around Daniel shifted slightly, but stayed put.
    How many weeks had it been, Jensen thought, he’d been treated like so much baggage. They all treated him like he was some blubbering idiot. Or, what was worse, like he wasn’t even there. Especially this Daniel Two Stars and his friend Robert Lawrence. Someone had told him Robert Lawrence had a reputation as being a merciless killer before he got religion. He and Two Stars were good friends. But Lawrence was gone to take messages to Sibley and wouldn’t be back for a couple of days. It might be a good time to settle the score with Two Stars.
    He’d done plenty to “make nice” with these savages, Brady thought. Only yesterday when he heard Two Stars’s stomach rumble with hunger, he’d offered a piece of jerky. The savage had taken it too. And now he sat there, looking into the fire, laughing with his friends at a West Point graduate! Kicking at a piece of kindling sticking out from the fire, Brady sent a shower of sparks upward and watched with satisfaction when Two Stars and the other scouts sitting near him startled and moved back from the fire.
    “I asked you a question!” Jensen growled, planting his feet and folding his arms. “What’d I say that you think is so funny?”
    Daniel looked up at him briefly, shrugged, and stared back into the fire.
    Jensen leaned over and thrust his chin out. “I know about you. You speak English as well as any white man. You read well enough to have picked your own name out of the Good Book. I don’t appreciate being laughed at. So speak up, Two Stars.” Jensen made a fist and pounded the open palm of his opposite hand. “Speak up, or be prepared to be shut up once and for all.”
    Daniel sighed. Holding his hands out to the fire for a moment to warm them, he got up and headed toward where they had picketed the horses for the night.
    When the Indian turned his broad back to Jensen, something tightly wound inside the soldier came undone. He sprang on Two Stars, pummeling him with his fists, yelling at the top of his lungs.
    The surprise attack caught Daniel off-balance. He tumbled to the earth, Jensen atop him, flailing madly at his back. The scouts formed a circle around the two men and began placing bets on who would win.
    When Jensen finally landed a solid punch near Daniel’s left shoulder, the Dakota brave yelped with pain. Rolling onto his side, Daniel unseated Jensen and scrambled to his feet. But Jensen wasn’t finished. Lowering his head he charged Daniel, wrapping his arms around the