Moving west, we took to making less than our usual ten miles a day we'd kept up since leaving New York City. Samuel joined our ranks. As mysterious as Phillip could be, we knew nothing about Samuel. He'd been in the hands of a very bad man, and he was now in the hands of better men, as far as I was concerned.

After a week, still in Missouri, he came out of the back of the wagon to sit next to the fire and Phillip. He became Phillip's shadow while he was up. The only thing Samuel knew about us, we rescued him from Nester, and we fed him until he couldn't eat any more.

This is what slowed us down, and when you are going ten miles a day, slow is relative, was Phillip taking the 30/30 into any promising looking hunting grounds to shoot game to feed Samuel in midday. Ordinarily we'd eat dried meat as we moved along, but once Samuel was on board, a lunch break, including hunting for fresh game was in order.

A few days in the beginning, we didn't move after lunch. Phillip fixed the poultice after feeding Samuel, to sooth his damaged back. By the end of the first week with Samuel staying mostly in the bed in the wagon, he no longer ate alone, as Phillip took him meat from whatever he shot. Once Samuel began sitting by the fire, he didn't go back to bed after the first week.

He returned my bed to me after ten days, and he took to sleeping under the wagon beside Phillip. If Samuel was fearful that his tormentor was going to come to get him, he didn't look fearful. I'm not sure what he looked like. His skin was as white as any skin I had seen. Except for his back, his skin would have been without flaw. He was more pretty than handsome and his blond blond hair intensified how white he was.

Once he was up, he went where Phillip went. When Phillip took the 30/30 to hunt, Samuel went with him. When the day started, Samuel sat up on the seat beside Phillip, and we went as far as we were going with me on Chestnut and Samuel beside Phillip.

Samuel was helping Phillip hitch and unhitch the horses. He talked to the horses. He didn't have anything to say to us. Thank you and yes, sir was the extent of it. He liked working and he liked the horses. He had nothing to say.

As we entered the second week with Samuel on board, he asked to ride Chestnut. I had no objection. He could have rode Dobbin, but Dobbin was Phillip's horse, and so he asked me to ride Chestnut. This furnished two opportunities. Phillip and I could talk about Samuel, and Samuel expanded his reach since joining us.

It was no mystery why Samuel stuck so close to Phillip. The man put his body between the bullwhip and Samuel. Then, he cared for him and promised he'd never be beaten again. His trust in Phillip gave him a feeling of security. He didn't like him to get out of sight for more than a few minutes. Even riding Chestnut, he stayed close.

He talked to Chestnut when he saddled him in the morning and he talked to him when he unsaddled him in the evening. He made sure he got water and he could hobble a horse better than I did it. Phillip always had to redo my hobbles, because they didn't hobble whatever horse I wanted to keep from wandering away.

"What do you think?" I asked in the second week as we trundled along.

Samuel rode directly out in front of the horses pulling the wagon.

"About what?"

"Samuel."

"I think he's a boy who has had bad breaks."

Samuel picked that time to drop back to ride beside Phillip as Chestnut matched the pace of the wagon. Samuel was wearing the weather beaten pants he'd had on when we found him and the shirt I gave him, which was baggy, but he rolled up the sleeves and kept it tucked into the waist of his too tight pants.

"We going to stop to hunt?" he asked, after the sun was high in the sky.

"You hungry, Sammy Boy," Phillip asked.

"Yeah, does that surprise you?" the boy asked.

"No, and I was just about ready to pull over to hunt," Phillip said.

When they began unhitching the horses, I knew it was as far as we were going that day. I was in no particular hurry, and I accepted the new slower pace as necessary. Samuel came first for now. His needs were met except for the need to dress him in clothes that fit and weren't threadbare. He'd outgrown his pants some time ago.

This need hadn't been discussed, but it was obvious the boy needed clothes, but when we came to the general store Phillip intended to stop, we didn't stop. We stayed on the trail rather than pulling the wagon up beside the store.

As I looked to see what was wrong, the only thing out of the ordinary was a detachment of cavalry that had dismounted near the general store, and they seemed to be relaxing while eating store bought eatables.

"We aren't going to stop?" I asked.

"No, not here," he said, and the first store we'd passed since taking Samuel on was left behind us as we continued on the trail.

I was sure this was a mistake. We'd taken on supplies in the middle of Illinois. We had gone through about half of what we bought, and we had three eating for the past three weeks. The supplies were dwindling.

The only thing out of the ordinary were the soldiers.

Why avoid soldiers? This struck me as odd. Why did Phillip wish to avoid the cavalry? Were they the reason we didn't stop, or did he know something I didn't know?

I rarely encountered soldiers while I was in the south. I'd gone south late in the civil war, because that's where available land was. The battles weren't in the open places where I went. If I encountered soldiers, rebels or union, I was polite and expressed no opinion, but I was of the opinion the South couldn't defeat the industrial north. What the South had was land, and the union was on much of it, and it's where land was for sale.

We went on with a fair amount of supplies from when we stopped before St Louis, but we'd been eating into what we had faster now that Samuel joined us. Phillip knew everything about the west, and I knew nothing. I decided not to worry about it. Phillip had a plan and he didn't always tell me what it was.

I wouldn't question Phillip.

He knew we'd talked about stopping once we reached Kansas, but now we were on a trek that was the hottest and driest part of the journey going to Colorado Territory and we didn't stop to resupply for the trip. It was July and that meant heat and little rain. That was a worry, especially as we went down the dusty trail we were on.

Our longest day was the day we passed into Kansas Territory. It had been a state for some years, but Phillip still called it by how it was known when he last went this way. By midday I was riding Chestnut and Samuel asked to ride beside Phillip. We usually let Samuel have his way, and there was no reason not to this time. The wagon seat got a little uncomfortable after hours of bouncing on it. Riding Chestnut was a relief.

It was the first day since Samuel was out and about that we ate dried meat. Phillip did fix beans and used the dried meat to season those. He didn't go hunting our second full day in Kansas. There was nowhere to hunt, and Samuel didn't complain about dried meat for supper.

The sky above us in Kansas was the largest I'd seen it. Stars went on and on forever. The moon came up late, which meant the earlier night sky was chockfull of stars. I didn't remember paying that much attention to the sky. In Kansas the sky was far bigger than the land we stood on. Looking up, I was sure I was seeing further than I'd ever seen before.

The further we went the more I could see. We could almost see forever on the flattest land I think I'd ever been on. Mile after mile, day after day, I could see as far as my eyes could see. There were no obstacles to interrupt the view. We did pass forests and there were hills, but mostly it was flat and straight. The horses went further and further between drinks. If we found water, which wasn't the case most days, we stopped and let the horses drink for as long as they were thirsty. Some days we camped early, once we found a place with water.

We did our best to fill the water barrels on either side of the wagon when we found fresh water, but it took a while to fill one of those barrels when it was almost empty. With three of us carrying water, it still took hours to fill two barrels, but we had to have water. The horses drank a lot of water and they could go through both barrels in no time.

Phillip had a memory of going this way in the early days of his travels. He'd come east through Kansas years before when he first came east. He remembered a general store that was in western Kansas, where a few towns had sprung up. He couldn't say how far it was, but as we were going through our supplies it became a point of interest.

Phillip and Samuel went off to hunt in the evenings, when there was a place we found that might have some game, but as often as they came back with a fresh kill, they came back empty, not seeing game. As it grew hotter and drier, the places to hunt became fewer and further apart. I could understand why no towns had been built out here.

The second week in Kansas, living on mostly beans and dried meat Phillip preserved before we reached Kansas was what we depended on to keep us going.

"How far to that general store?" I asked one evening after we ate.

"Two weeks, maybe three."

"Why didn't we resupply at the general store near Kansas City?" I finally asked.

I didn't think I was going to get an answer as he sat silent for a time. Philip wasn't a man who prevaricated. If he spoke, he'd tell it like it is, and if he didn't speak, I could draw my own conclusions, but he began to speak.

"I have no desire to be anywhere near cavalry troops," he told me.

I could have asked why, but the nature of his answer did not invite more questions like, why do you want to avoid the cavalry?

He had his reason, and I'd respect that answer as the final word on the subject. As we went further into Kansas our needs grew. I could rough it and I'd be fine. We'd taken Samuel on and we needed to be able to take care of him properly.

Luckily, we found a small pond when Phillip pulled the wagon up between some trees to be in the shade while he went to hunt.

We now hunted when we came to a spot that looked like it could have game. It didn't matter what time it was. We needed meat and so the daily ten miles of distance we covered was cut back to five or six miles some days.

Once between the trees, the pond was directly in front of us. It was large enough to water the horses and for us to bathe and fill the water barrels. It was a little like a holiday.

Phillip went off with Samuel right behind him and I heard the rifle fire in the distance about an hour later. When they came back, they had shot an antelope and forty or forty-five pounds of meat was now in our hands. We'd spend the next day smoking the meat and we salted enough to have fresh meat for a while. Not having beans for supper was a treat, but we were running out of salt and sugar now that we'd been working on what we had for going on two months. We rationed what we could.

Being that close to water for several days had me reluctant to say goodbye to the pond and the trees that furnished shade in a July with a penetrating sun beating on us, but we had to move sooner or later. It was far too soon as far as I was concerned.

The horses didn't kick up a lot of dust at the pace they went, but the dust was in the air, and the trail grew even drier as we went along. We went all day every day, because stopping in the blazing sun was a bad idea. We rode until the sun went down for the next week, and we'd gone through all but a small portion of antelope meat.

Samuel's appetite slowed somewhat. Between the heat and the dwindling supplies, he did his part not to put extra strain on what was left. As time went on, Samuel was getting stronger and he looked healthier. He smiled from time to time, and when we sat around the campfire in the evening, if Phillip or I said something that struck him as funny, he'd laugh.

I can't say how nice it was to hear him laugh. He seemed to have adapted to life on the move, and he became more relaxed around us. If he was asked to do something, Samuel jumped to it. It wasn't the good kind of jumping to it. It was the kind of jumping to it that comes from being beat if you didn't jump to it, and both Phillip and I tried to phrase any request as just that and not as an order.

"How'd you come to be with Nester?" I asked one evening around the fire.

"Always been with him. Don't remember nothing before him."

"He always beat you like that?" Phillip asked, once Samuel answered willingly.

"Belt. He had a wide leather belt he mostly used. Only used the bullwhip a few times. Said, 'You deserve worse.' I didn't say anything."

"You know how wrong he was? No one deserves that," Phillip said.

His words were angry. I remembered how angry he was the day we found Samuel.

"You're a good boy, Samuel," I said.

"Sammy Boy, go fill up the coffee pot. I'll get John to grind us some coffee. I need a cup of coffee," Phillip said.

"Yes, Sir," Samuel said, jumping up and grabbing the coffee pot.

"No, hurry, Sammy Boy. It'll take a bit to make it. We don't rush our coffee."

He still jumped when he was asked to do something.

"He's getting better," Phillip said. "I've had him firing the rifle. That requires you to take your time. He's not hit anything yet, but he knows how to shoot the 30/30. Wouldn't hurt to get him a waist gun. Having a third gun could come in handy."

"You expecting trouble?" I asked.

"Not expecting it, but this is the west. Can't count out trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Samuel wanted to know as he brought back the water.

"Any kind," Phillip said. "Better to be prepared than to be caught off guard."

I ground the beans and we sat around smelling the coffee as it cooked. We still had plenty of coffee, which would be a disaster if we ran out of the brew. It capped off each day and began each new day.

It was two or three days later that Samuel saddled Chestnut, which told me he would start out riding and switch to the wagon seat later in the day. I started the day next to Phillip on the wagon seat. I could ride Dobbin if I wanted to ride that badly, but I didn't, and Dobbin belonged to Phillip. Both Samuel and I rode Chestnut, just not at the same time.

I became aware of Phillip keeping an eye on the ridgeline on our right an hour or so after we'd gotten underway. It was early. The heat hadn't turned up yet, and there were clouds to keep the sun off of us that morning. It was nice not going into a relentless sun for a change.

Each time Phillip looked at the ridgeline, I looked at it. I saw nothing. We were going along at our usual mile an hour and nothing appeared out of the ordinary to me.

"Sammy Boy, ride beside me for a while," Phillip said, when Samuel let us catch up with him as Chestnut grazed on some choice clumps of grass.

"Sure thing," Samuel said, falling in beside us as Chestnut matched our speed.

Once again Phillip was watching the ridgeline. I looked and saw nothing. Samuel looked at the same place, and I looked again, and then I saw them. A dozen Indians were riding along at the same speed we were going. They were on the other side of the rise we'd been traveling beside for some time.

"What do they want?" I asked Phillip.

"We're about to find out," he said.

"How's that?" I asked.

"They've been over there the last few hours. They are letting us see them now. Before now, they've stayed out of sight. They want to make contact, and we'll wait to see what they're after.

"Samuel, stay beside me and keep your hands in plain sight," Phillip said.

"What do they want?" I asked.

I wanted some confirmation we weren't all about to all die.

"Look at it this way, John, if they meant us harm, we'd have woken up dead this morning."

I looked at Phillip with horror on my face.

"Kidding. They want something. We wouldn't see them if they wanted trouble."

"They coming over here?" Samuel asked.

"I expect they will. They want something and they'll need to stop to parley."

I didn't see the Indians until I did, and then I couldn't take my eyes off them. I'd seen a few beat down Indians in the south. I'd never seen a group of Indians in the wild before, and these Indians looked wild to me.

Some had feathers in their hair. Some had brightly colored clothing. Mostly they were in deer skin and some other animal hides I didn't recognize. They didn't appear to be threatening in any way but after a time, they crossed the ridgeline and were riding along beside us no more than fifty or sixty feet away from the wagon, and that made me nervous.

Two Indians broke off from the others and rode out ahead beside the trail. They stopped their horses and got down. Phillip came to about twenty feet away and he stopped the wagon.

"They want to talk. I'm going to go see what they want."

"You aren't armed," I said, realizing his waist gun was under the seat.

He hadn't made an effort to reach for it.

"It's not that kind of meeting, John. You've read too many dime novels. Keep your hands in plain sight. Don't take off your waist gun, but do not let your hand get near it. Keep both hands in plain sight."

Phillip got down and I watched him walk out to meet the two Indians by the trail. Samuel got off Chestnut and walked behind Phillip. I climbed off the seat and stood next to the wagon. I kept my hands in front of me so they were in plain view.

Phillip stopped a couple of feet away and Samuel stood behind him a few feet, matching the distance the second Indian stood from the first. It was all quite cordial. The first Indian talked in a lingo I didn't understand. Phillip talked in a mixture of English and with words I didn't understand.

This was no how do you do meeting. Phillip drew designs with his right boot as the Indian made sweeping signs like it involved a lot of land. Phillip talked and made some signs that told me nothing about their conversation. The other ten Indians had stopped a few dozen feet off to the right of the meeting.

They looked amazing and my fear was reduced as the conversation didn't involve raised voices or any kind of argument. Then the first Indian smiled and he seemed happy. He got on his horse to ride to where the other Indians were. Phillip came back to the wagon.

"We're going to eat here. These boys have been out buffalo hunting. They have found no buffalo and they've come up empty concerning game. They haven't eaten in two days, They would like to eat with us."

"What do we have?" I asked.

"We have the dried meat, beans, coffee. It'll have to do."

"What will they say when we give them beans and dried meat?"

"They haven't eaten in two days, John. They'll be delighted to get something in their stomach. I told them we are down on supplies ourselves."

There we were with a dozen Indians surrounding the wagon, waiting for Phillip to come up with something. One Indian followed Phillip to watch him gathering what we had. The others stood about and watched as I started making the fire and they jumped in, brought wood, and had the fire going fine in a few minutes. I smiled and said, "Thank you."

We had water to cook the beans in and dried meat to season them. Phillip handed out a portion of dried meat to each Indian, and then to me and Samuel, so we were all eating the same thing. The coffee was a big hit with half of them and not so hot for the rest of them. It turns out Indians aren't all as crazy about coffee as we were, but some are.

There was talk and laughter and Samuel was in the middle of it. They were all fascinated by how white Samuel was. They took his shirt off him and they all wanted to touch his skin. Samuel didn't seem frightened by the attention. He laughed with them.

I didn't know what to make of it. This is as close as I'd been to Indians in the wild. I ended up more curious than fearful. They seemed harmless enough.

The leader of the band and Phillip sat together talking in terms I didn't understand. I knew the English words and since he said these were Northern Cheyenne, I figured that was the language Phillip was trying to communicate in. He had some knowledge of Indian languages, and with signs, they seemed to understand each other.

Whatever they were talking about, they both smiled, laughed, made signs and it was like a picnic with people I couldn't understand, and they couldn't understand me, but a few signs and points were enough to get everyone smiling and happy.

Actually, the food made them happy. It wasn't much, but they'd seen what we had in the way of supplies, and we gave them all we had to eat, and I wondered what we were going to do for food, until we finally got somewhere to get supplies. We'd just fed a dozen Indians with the supplies that had to last us until we got somewhere we could buy goods.

As the afternoon wore on, our guests thanked us for the meal, and they got on their horses and continued on in the direction we were all heading when we met. They went faster than we'd been going when we met up, and I watched the ride out of sight.

"How do you feel about Indians now, John?" Phillip asked.

"Curious people. They seem… nice. I don't know, I couldn't understand them."

"They couldn't understand you, but you acted like they were fine with you, and that was fine with them. There are wagon trains that pass north of here, not so much in Kansas, but the first sight of Indians and they begin shooting. It would go a lot better if they didn't shoot at them. They've had their heads filled with nonsense about the savages. You start shooting at someone, they're likely to shoot back."

"They don't make any effort to get along?" I asked. "They didn't seem that different."

"From people?" Phillip asked.

"From anyone else," I said. "They get hungry. They ask for food."

"They could have taken what we had. They outnumbered us four to one. They could have rode right over top of us, but we hadn't done anything to deserve that."

"Is that what it's about. People doing things to them that need a response?"

"Indians are in the way of white people. Europeans think moving them out of your way is how you do it. Making an effort to get along and find common ground isn't a factor, and so we have Indian wars. Indians are just people. Like any other people."

"Never thought of it that way. What do we do for food now that we fed the Indians?"

"We'll get some game. There's a bit of dried meat and another pot or two of beans. We do have plenty of coffee," Phillip said with a smile.

I'd never thought of living off of coffee, but it can stifle your appetite, or so it seems. The next night I built a fire and made a pot of coffee while Phillip and Samuel went off into a clump of trees that didn't look all that promising. I listened, hoping to hear the rifle fire, but there was no rifle fire and they came back with no game. We'd eat beans tonight and there might be enough for one more day, but no more.

We were on the verge of starvation.

"How far to the general store?" I asked, the next morning once we were moving.

"Don't know. It's a few days yet. We can tough it out. I didn't remember this section being so desolate. It was my first time out on the trail when I went east this way. I didn't bring wagon trains this way because it was rough going. I didn't remember it this rough."

We'd taken on Samuel and fed him like there was no tomorrow. It was slim pickins, now. We'd told him he'd be safe and we'd take care of him, and now we were starving the boy. He knew we weren't eating anymore than he was. He didn't complain.


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"To Roast"

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"St Louis"

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