LodestarA penetrating chill pulled me from my sleep as the distant rumble of thunder and ghostly flashes broke the half-light of dawn. I abandoned the bedroll to find my two companions scanning the Little Humps, a line of low hills to the west.
“Rain?” I asked, scratching my bum where a rock had rendered it sore.
“Ain’t thunder,” Hap Auslander replied. “Somebody gittin’ the crap stomped outta ‘em.”
“Military guns. Big ones,” Henry Nettles added. “They’s a Injun town over yonder.”
Hap tied his bedroll on Speckles, the Appaloosa he rode. “Best be moving. Keep a sharp eye out. Stragglers is apt to be tetchy.”
We took the trail in single file with me bringing up the rear. Half a day on the trail passed before Nettles hauled up and pointed west.
“By, God, it’s the troopers that done it!”
