“I went with them,” Laurel said, her mouth in a tight line. “The man was a damned sky pilot, but he gave me some high wine and I went to sleep.” She looked at Maddie. “But he got his. He took a pill and dropped his robe.”
Maddie’s eyes widened. A man pretending to be a preacher had taken Laurel and drugged her, but it seemed that he had been shot and had died. “Did you kill him?”
“Naw, some vide-poche did it.”
Maddie was glad to hear that one of the other bad men and not Laurel had killed the kidnapper. She hugged her little sister. “I’m just glad that you’re safe. You seemed to have given ’Ring a hard time.”
Laurel pulled away to look at her sister. “He thought I’d believe him when he showed up at that house. Just expected me to go with him, like he was God Almighty Hisself.”
Maddie had to pull Laurel to her to keep her sister from seeing her smile. She could imagine ’Ring telling Laurel what to do and how to do it, just as he’d first told Maddie what she was to do. “He tends to be like that,” Maddie said, “but I have hopes that he will learn. Were the kidnappers bad to you? Did they harm you?”
“They tried to scare me, but I put a little buffalo tea in their food and that kept them away from me.”
Maddie frowned. It was one thing to be brave, but another to be dumb, and putting urine in the food of kidnappers was definitely dumb. “Laurel, I think—”
Laurel recognized the tone of an impending lecture when she heard it. “Speakin’ of buffalo tea, you got any food? I’m so wolfish I could eat whangs,” she said, speaking of the fringe on a mountain man’s garment.
Maddie laughed. Her sister was fine, and even from the little of what she’d heard, she was beginning to pity the poor kidnappers. They were no doubt merely hired men, just as the man she’d often met in the woods said that he was, and they’d had no idea how to deal with a twelve-year-old hellion who put urine in their food.
“Go on, go eat,” Maddie said, then, as Laurel started to leave, she caught her hand. “When you’re talking to the others, try to keep it clean. Otherwise they won’t understand you and you’ll shock them.”
Laurel’s mouth turned into a grim line. “That…that man of yours, he…”
“What did ’Ring do?”
“He turned me over his knee, that’s what.”
Maddie had to bite the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing. Her father had threatened to do just that whenever his daughters cursed, but he was much too soft-hearted and had never once been able to strike them. Their mother had not been so inclined though. “Just pretend you’re talking to Mother.”
Laurel nodded. “I figured that out. What kind of men are these easterners? Are they men?”
“Yes,” Maddie answered. “They’re men. Go on, get something to eat.” As Maddie watched her little sister leave the tent, it occurred to her that perhaps the reason she’d never been interested in the men in Europe was because they didn’t seem like men to her.
She stood and brushed off her skirt. Yes, the eastern men were men, different from the men she’d known as a child, but definitely men.
Later in the mor
ning Laurel told Maddie that she did not want to return to the East, that she wanted to go home to her parents.
’Ring looked at the child and said, “It will be a while before I can escort you. But I’ll take you as soon as I can.”
Before Maddie could open her mouth, Laurel spat at ’Ring. “You! Who needs you to take me anywhere? I can go on my own.”
Maddie started to interfere in this argument until she realized that her inclination was to protect ’Ring.
’Ring looked a bit bewildered by Laurel’s attack. “I only meant—”
“You meant just what you said. Why, you—” Laurel broke off at a look of warning from Maddie. “We don’t need you, do we, Maddie? We can go on our own.” Laurel’s chin came up. “Besides, we have Hears Good.”
’Ring snorted. “He just watches. He never helps directly. Besides, I’m beginning to believe that he doesn’t exist. I think he’s a figment of your and your sister’s imaginations.”
Laurel looked as though she were ready to chew nails, and Maddie had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing. Her little sister had no idea that ’Ring was teasing her and enjoying her sputtering.
Laurel looked at the trees and said loudly, “I need you.”
Maddie was curious whether Hears Good would show himself when given such a direct request. She had no doubt that he was near enough to hear them, for Hears Good had always been very curious and had always found the arguments between white people to be endlessly fascinating.
Laurel stood there with her arms folded across her chest and her foot tapping, while ’Ring made exaggerated motions of scanning the trees.