Free Threads of Change by Jodi Barrows Page A

low in the sky and the heat of the day had passed. The silent calm that covered her seemed to wind its way through the rest of the group. No one seemed sure what to do or say.
    John looked up from the small log on which he perched. “Well …” he said slightly muffled, “let’s get supper on and make ready for nightfall.”
    “We have plenty of food to eat,” Abby said.
    “Yes,” Liz jumped in. “It’s only the first day. We’ve plenty to eat. Besides,” she said seriously, “I would suspect that we should have things in order when Chet and Thomas return.”
    John stood up quickly and placed his hat over his head. “Blue and I will tend to the horses and wagons. Luke, help the ladies collect wood for a fire.”
    Luke nodded his head and immediately set out on the search.

    The forest was heavy with underbrush. It seemed like a deep ocean that someone could fall into and easily disappear.
    Thomas waded through the brush, looking for signs that Chet might have left behind. He figured Chet should be easy to follow since he hadn’t been gone for long, and he hadn’t been trying to hide his tracks. But something still gnawed at Thomas’s insides.
    He peered into a small clearing and blinked hard.
    That can’t be …
    Chet’s painted pony stood before him, riderless. The calm horse casually munched on a green bush, one bridle rein dragging the rocky water’s edge.
    The horse looked up, chewing, and shook his head as if to say hello. He whinnied at Thomas and quickly returned to his supper. Thomas rode up close, swung one leg over his mare and slid down. He patted the pony and checked for signs that would tell him how Chet might have displaced his mount. He found no blood from the horse, or from the rider. The saddlebag and bedroll were intact and showed no signs of a struggle. Everything seemed as safe and normal as a church picnic.
    Thomas scouted the area for a trail or clue about Chet’s whereabouts. His eyes skimmed the water and, as he walked to the far edge of the clearing, something caught his ear.
    It had grown quite dusky-dark now, difficult to see through the shadows. But there lay Chet, his head by the edge of a sharp rock with dried blood coating both his hairline and the rock near Chet’s head.
    “Chet,” Thomas said softly. “What happened? You all right?”
    Chet moaned again and half opened his eyes for a second.
    “I knew,” Chet struggled to say each word, “you would come. The women made you.”
    Thomas cleaned the cut and washed the blood away with cool water. He gave Chet a drink of water from his canteen. The head injury didn’t appear to be very serious, but Thomas wrapped his friend’s head with a long rag and pulled it tight before he tethered the horses to a tree line and unsaddled them for the night.
    “Your head isn’t bleeding very badly, but it’s too dark to ride back tonight. We will have to camp here until morning.”
    The forest surrounded them on all sides, making it difficult to set up a camp. Thomas cleared the leaf-strewn ground for their bedrolls and quickly built a small fire.
    Thomas wondered what might have happened to Chet and his pony. It seemed unusual to him how Chet, an excellent rider who worked so well with his horse, had been overcome in such a way. Like all Texas cowboys, Chet took great pride in that horse of his. He’d spent a great amount of time training his mount exactly as he had wanted. Thomas ran his hand down the leg of the filly again and lifted her foot.
    What had made him fall?
Thomas asked himself again.
    When he couldn’t find the answer, he concentrated on how to make Chet more comfortable for the night. Each time he tried to move him, Chet moaned in pain. He went over each bone for breaks, but all seemed well. Just one nasty cut on the head.
    He wished he were back at the wagons with a needle and thread nearby. Emma always had her quilt bag of supplies close to her. With his head resting on his own saddle, Thomas’s eyes began to