As diverting as it was to watch two grown men fussing over a pretty pony, we had business to attend to. “Mr. Reid says you’re the one who found the animal tracks,” I said. “The ones left by the mysterious animal, I mean. Mr. Wiltshire and I are hoping to photograph it.”
“Photograph it?” The ranch hand looked at me as if I were a few straws shy of a bushel. “Ma’am, anybody finds that thing, they need to put it in the ground.”
“So you do believe the beast exists?” Thomas said. “Your employer seemed doubtful.”
“All due respect, he ain’t seen what I seen. There’s something out there. I been hunting it for weeks, ever since the snows melted.”
“Have you found anything?” I asked.
“Not much, but I only make it a few miles at a time before I gotta turn back. Boss don’t consider it ranch work, and I ain’t got too much free time on my hands, ’specially since I’m doing the foreman’s job half the time.”
I took out a notebook and a pencil. “What did the tracks look like?”
“Strange. Sorta like cat tracks, but huge.” He made a shape with his hands, as big around as a supper plate.
I swallowed. Thomas’s fancy shotgun seemed a whole lot less comforting than it had a minute ago. “Could it be a freakishly large mountain lion?”
Mr. Roosevelt had laughed at that question, but the look Mr. Ward gave me was deadly serious. “All I know is, I never saw nothing like it before. On top of which, I’m a decent hunter, but I can’t seem to track this thing for more than a couple hundred yards before I lose the trail.”
“Hmm.” Thomas stroked Gideon’s neck thoughtfully. “Could the tracks be faked? Perhaps your employer isn’t completely off the mark after all.”
“You mean about the Sioux?”
“Or at least about cattle rustlers.”
The ranch hand hesitated. “I don’t like to contradict, but if you’re asking my opinion…”
“Indeed, we defer entirely to your expertise.”
“Well, in that case … I been running cattle all my life, and I seen my share of rustling. It don’t usually involve killing. Slaughtering is a whole lotta work. Transport too. It just ain’t practical. Better to move ’em on the hoof.”
“Unless they wanted the meat for themselves,” I pointed out. “Maybe they were just hungry.”
“Plenty of hungry mouths around here, no doubt. But that much meat? And what about them horses the Sioux lost? You’d have to be pretty desperate to eat that.”
“Your boss figured the dead horses were just for show,” I said. “To throw the ranchers off the scent.”
Mr. Ward shook his head but otherwise held his peace.
“Does he have any evidence to support that claim?” Thomas asked.
Another pause. I was getting the idea that John Ward was a cautious sort, at least around strangers. “Gets to a point where a man just needs someone to blame,” he said finally.
“And he’s decided to blame the Sioux,” I said.
“No more ’n they’ve decided to blame him.”
My eyebrows went up. “You’ve spoken to them?”
“Couple of ’em, anyhow. There’s this group I keep running into out on the trail. Hunting party, led by a young fella called Little Wolf. They’re real insistent that it’s ranchers stealing their horses, and the rest is nothing but tricks.”
Well, that made about as much sense as the reverse. Which was to say, none at all.
“By all accounts, cattle are being butchered by the hundreds,” Thomas said. “The ranchers would hardly jeopardize their own livelihoods for some elaborate ruse. Especially now, after the winter has left them so vulnerable. Surely the Sioux can see that?”
“My thinking is, there’s a whole lotta things the white man does that don’t make sense to them, and they don’t put nothing past him no more. Begging your pardon.”
Thomas sighed. “Understandable, perhaps, but it does make things difficult. It’s hard to find common ground where there is no trust.”
“No trust around here, that’s for sure. Just a whole lotta bad blood.”
“So it would seem. Though it sounds as though you and this Little Wolf, at least, have managed to maintain a dialogue. Do you think he would be willing to speak with us?”
Mr. Ward’s gaze shifted between Thomas and me, and I could see the wheels turning in his head. What did a photographer and his assistant want with a Sioux hunting party?
“I suppose you’re hoping to take their photographs, Mr. Wiltshire?” I prompted.
“Indeed. A photograph of Sioux hunters ought to be of interest to any number of magazines and newspapers.”
It would probably be a whole lot less interesting to the Sioux. How would they react to a pair of white strangers asking questions? The idea made me more than a little nervous, and Mr. Ward’s reply did nothing to ease my mind.
“Not sure this is the best time to be asking them for favors.”
“Perhaps not,” Thomas said, “but we have little choice. We’re under a great deal of pressure, you see.”
The ranch hand didn’t look convinced, but he was too polite to argue. “Well, if you’re set on it. Little Wolf speaks good English, and his sister too. Can’t promise they’ll talk to you, but I expect you’ll be all right so long as you mind your p’s and q’s. I can show you on a map.”
“Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Ward, you’ve been tremendously helpful.” Thomas extended a hand, and they shook. “And now, back to transport. Miss Gallagher is also in need of a horse.”
John Ward cocked his head. “Follow me. I got just the pony for you, ma’am.”
* * *
Her name was Luna, and I was in love.
I hardly noticed the countryside on the way back to Medora. Barely listened to Thomas chatting with Mr. Morrison. I was too busy murmuring sweet nothings to my very own horse, a statuesque saddlebred that had briefly belonged to Mr. Reid’s daughter. She was a palomino, Mr. Ward had explained, which meant she had a gold coat and a flaxen mane and tail. Tall and graceful, she was every inch as lovely as Thomas’s stallion, but it was her manner that had stolen my heart: mild and curious, with attentive ears and soulful eyes that seemed to understand everything around her.
“You seem quite taken with her,” Thomas observed as we reined in outside the hotel. Mr. Morrison had gone his own way at a crossroads a few miles outside of town, heading back to Maltese Cross.
“She’s perfect. I could stay in this saddle all day.” But of course that wasn’t quite true, as I learned a moment later when I hopped down and a jolt of pain ran up my side.
“Stiff?”
“Sidesaddle is murder on the back.” Not to mention the knees, the neck, and just about everything else. Yet another way in which women were forced to endure discomfort in order to protect their modesty. I hadn’t noticed it much during my Newport training, but I’d only been in the saddle for an hour or so at a stretch. “I’m going to be a human pretzel by the time we’re done here.”
“Have you considered trousers?”