When I finally looked around, everyone in my wagon had fallen asleep. That included the deputy who held me hostage. The iron he packed lay in his lap, free from his grasp.

  I reached over and clutched the heat. That was it? That easy? I laughed out loud. Just as my great grandfather’s proficiency with a musket during the Revolutionary War awarded his family their freedom, I’d not only attain this man’s weapon but use it to rid myself from his tyranny. I lurched to my feet and pointed. Hands trembled in anger; pistol a trigger pull away from blowing him out the wagon.

  The man threw me in a jail, degraded me, forced me into Comanche territory. This far into the plains, I had nowhere to escape from death but wouldn’t live another second as his boy. Chip’s snoring and crickets’ chirping inhabited the night this deputy would be put to rest. I braced for impact.

  First, the mule man opened an eye. “Oh, bubba.”

  Second, Dunbar awoke, eyeballs popping wide, grimace and handlebar mustache stretching across his face.

  My voice was as shaky as the weapon rattling in my hands. “Nothing to fear, right? After all, your soul’s secure now, new convert.”

  “You vermin negro,” he shouted. “You’d do any thang to beat the devil round the stump. Take care of your responsibility. You was sent here to be our doctor.”

  I whispered, breathing with determination. “Say one more ignorant word, and I’ll settle this hash with a smile on my face. Nod your head if you understand; say yes, and I’ll shoot. I don’t want to hear one…more…word.”

  After he nodded, I continued, “Last thing I want you to know is this, you mudsill scalawag, you are a fool who skipped the cog on your own weapon.”

  Just as he would speak, I said, “Talk, and I’ll shoot.”

  He shut his mouth, cursing with utterances a man with no tongue would make.

  I grazed the trigger.

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  Mule man said, “Anger feels good for a minute. Regret lasts a lifetime.”

  I turned to him. “Regret?”

  “You’re better than him. Mule men know.”

  “Not tonight.” When I turned, the deputy must have seen the criminal intent in my glare, because mouth still shut, he screamed in his throat.

  Then, large arms from behind squeezed the breath out of me. The grip lifted me and slammed me to the wooden floor. I hadn’t noticed that Chip’s snoring stopped. Now the sheriff had taken the pistol and secured it in his gun belt.

  I slid to the corner opposite of the mule man and yelled, “So the politics got to you, huh, grappling Sheriff? No wonder you didn’t want to disclose what you and the mayor talked about. You do the bootlicking in private.”

  Chip sat down and looked ahead. For once, he said nothing.

  Dunbar dropped to his knees and shouted, “Hallelujar. You know your name. You delivered me from my oppressor’s stankin’ charcoal hands.”

  Visibly disturbed, Charlie pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes and slid back into sleeping position. “Don’t know what you’re praying to, but I suppose it’s hard of hearing.”

  “Chip Blaze, you become a sheriff, tonight!” Dunbar exclaimed. He leaped to his feet, nearly falling over to offer a handshake.

  Chip gazed into the nocturnal atmosphere, appearing activated to the breeze and cricket’s chirping and deactivated to us.

  Dunbar displayed enough zeal for both of them. He pointed at me and shouted, “Shoot that negro. Shoot him, right now.”

  Chip carried a note of exhaustion in his voice. “He’s our doctor and has nowhere to flee to; we’re this far out. Follow Mayor Heck’s orders. Leave everyone alone.”

  Chip had gone back on the mutual trust I thought we earned from one another, nevermind the betrayal to Diamond that this was. Dunbar had pulled a gun on her, too. Chip Blaze, I reasoned, all guts, ape man brains.

  Noone seemed keen on talking, except only Dunbar couldn’t let the night breathe. He pulled the map from the mule man’s hands, and paced about, ruling the little space in the moving wagon.

  He lifted the map close to his nose and peered into it. “We’re almost to Fort Bliss. Only a few miles.” He knelt and hollered in my face. “Taint no Indians gone git us, you yellow belly unbeliever.”

  The mule man groaned. “It’s best to not make a statement either way on the matter, until we know for sure.”

  Dunbar turned. “I’m telling you, we only got three miles. I knows how to understand a map.”

  As he spoke, the wagon came to a halt.

  “Wait. Why’d we stop moving?” The deputy said.

  ***

  Drumming and a faint cry stilled us all, even shut Dunbar up. Indian war cries cut through, carving into the air horrific, unheard-of high notes that seemed to immobilize any insect that would buzz or any gust of wind that would dare move a tree leaf.

  A man with death painted on his face mounted up and stared into the window. Chip froze where he stood. The warrior had a bow drawn on him.