The daughter stepped forward.
“One killed a boy's dog. Another nearly took a woman's foot.”
“Who set them?”
“That,” she said, “is what we intend to discover.”
The chief glanced between his daughter and the stranger.
“You know the tracks of white men.”
The frontiersman's jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“And my daughter knows these mountains.”
She immediately understood.
“No.”
The chief ignored her.
“You will go together.”
The frontiersman stared.
The daughter stared harder.
The chief's son laughed again.
This time the daughter looked as though she might finish what the bear trap had started.
And for the first time in three years, the frontiersman discovered that guilt was not the only thing capable of making a man wish he had kept riding.
Chapter Three — A Debt Neither Wanted
The frontiersman slept badly.
He had been given a place beneath an overhanging rock where the wind barely reached, along with two blankets and a small fire.
It was more hospitality than he had expected.
It was also guarded.
Two warriors remained within sight all night.
He did not blame them.
Before lying down, he had been allowed to retrieve his saddlebags after several men found the gelding and brought it into camp.
His revolver was returned unloaded.
The ammunition was not.
That seemed fair too.
Near midnight, voices drifted from the center of camp.
The chief's son had developed a fever.
The frontiersman sat up.
He listened for a while.
Eventually he crossed the camp.
One guard stepped in front of him.
“I need to see his leg.”
The guard did not move.
The frontiersman pointed toward the shelter where the injured man lay.
“Fever.”
The guard understood enough.
He still refused.
Then the daughter appeared.
She looked exhausted.
“What do you want?”
“To look at the wound.”
“My people know wounds.”
“I don't doubt it.”
“Then go back.”
The frontiersman hesitated.
“I hauled freight with an Army surgeon for eight months.”
Her eyes hardened at the word Army.
He noticed.
“I wasn't a soldier.”
“That matters to you?”
“It might matter to your brother.”
She considered him.
Finally, she motioned for the guard to let him pass.
Inside the shelter, the chief's son lay beneath blankets.
His face shone with sweat.
An older woman had already cleaned the injury and applied crushed herbs around the damaged flesh.
The frontiersman knelt.
The bandages were soaked.
He smelled the wound.
No rot yet.
That was good.
But the ankle had swollen badly.
He touched the warrior's forehead.
Hot.
The injured man opened his eyes.
“You again.”
The frontiersman nodded.
“Disappointed?”
The warrior managed a faint smile.