Free Trail Angel by Derek Catron

“What do you think about?”
    â€œThings I’ve done. Things I’ve seen.”
    â€œWhy would you do that?”
    Now Josey wondered if Byron was joking. “You’re a stronger man than me if you can keep from thinking on what was done to you.”
    Byron held quiet a moment. When he spoke, his voice rumbled like far-off thunder. “Things they done to me, they can’t do to me no more, so I don’t think on them.”
    Josey waited for Byron to say more but soon all he heard were his friend’s steady breaths. It was like Byron to leave unsaid what Josey already knew. I think of the things I’ve done because I fear I will do them again.
    With Josey lost in thought, Byron rode ahead, turning one of the oxen that had strayed. He rode well enough for not having grown up with the skill, but there was a stiffness to him in the saddle that left him sore after a long day. That was why Josey did most of the hard riding, ranging ahead of the wagons, watching for trouble and scouting good campsites.
    He often came across other wagon trains headed west and sometimes travelers turned the other way. They were eager to see a fresh face and generous with news about what they had seen. There were no strangers on the trail, the Colonel liked to say. Even Josey could be sociable long enough to pick up news from fellow travelers. This day had been different.
    â€œI saw riders,” he said when Byron returned to his side. “On that ridge to the north, when I came back from scouting.”
    â€œI didn’t see them.” Byron satisfied Josey’s curiosity without being asked.
    â€œI don’t think they meant to be seen. They rode off, headed north, as soon as I came into view.”
    Josey circled back, guiding a pair of milk cows that belonged to the New York families. It took a few minutes before he and Byron were close enough to speak, and they resumed the conversation as if it had been uninterrupted.
    â€œIndians?”
    â€œNo. Weren’t soldiers, either.” Josey turned over in his mind something in the way the riders moved off. “Might have been once, though.”
    â€œYou ain’t seen ’em before?”
    Josey shook his head. So many wagon trains left Omaha they were bound to bunch together. Sometimes they saw wagons on the south side of the river, their canvas tops gleaming in the sun. At night they might see campfires twinkling on the horizon. No one had cause to hide.
    Not unless they did.
    The cattle were quiet. From the sounds at camp, he knew dinner would be ready soon, but neither man moved. Josey didn’t like mysteries. They pricked at his mind like a sandspur on his trousers, rubbing with every step.
    â€œI expect we’ll see ’em again.”

C HAPTER S IXTEEN
    Exhausted by long days on the trail, slumber should have come easily. Yet even after almost a week, the sensations of sleeping in the wagon were still too new. Annabelle lay awake beneath her blanket, her bones sore, muscles leaden, unable to get comfortable no matter which way she turned. Even once she found her ease, sounds that went unnoticed during the day clamored in a discordant jumble to a restless mind. Squawking chickens. Lowing cattle. Barking dogs answering howling wolves. Whispered conversations carried by a wind that set loose canvas flapping and leather harnesses creaking.
    Finally smothered in blessed sleep, Annabelle awoke with a jolt, her heart racing like after a hard ride, her nightgown sticky with sweat. She lay still a few moments, disoriented in the dark by the dream, a subject she thought she had put behind her, if not literally buried. The white canvas wagon cover looked just enough like the canopy of her marriage bed to confuse her addled brain and leave her grasping to determine what was dream and what was real.
    Not wishing to wake her parents, Annabelle crept from the wagon, flinching every time the wood creaked. Crawling from the wagon, the