Chapter 15Lt. Simmons returned from Trickling Water to report he found what I had described. He expressed no suspicion a member of the doomed encampment had escaped. Dull Lance was safe for the moment.
After James’s departure, I remained nettled at Lance’s demeanor. He seemed to nurture an underlying resentment. Perhaps it was his dislike of being under a white man’s thumb. I suspected he had not yet accepted the fact that life had changed. Like many, he dreamed of a time when the white tide was rolled back, and these broad plains were once again delivered over to their rightful owners. Sadly, that would never happen.
Or perhaps it was something else entirely. He was a Dakota, so his sometimes playful and sometimes serious advances to me may have awakened carnal desires he believed expos
