Chapter 2
The discovery that Ezra had been murdered made the weight of his death almost unbearable. No one spoke, and they paused in their work only to look up when a wood buffalo emerged at the far side of the Lick and gave a long, lonely bellow. Duncan, Ishmael, and Gideon had finally finished wrapping Ezra in soft deerskins brought by the taciturn Boone when Gideon broke the mournful silence. “This place of sulfur and fog is no place for his grave,” Ezra’s cousin said.
Boone seemed to have been considering the same point. “There’s a little meadow above the river landing, a place of spring flowers and birdsong,” he suggested.
Gideon agreed, and Duncan spoke to Pierre Dumont and the crewmen preparing to carry the next load to the boat. They laid out a length of canvas and carefully pla
