Many Horses 12 a guest of the Lakota

The sick feeling that pervaded Many Horses stomach caused her to all out retch by the time they stopped to allow the horses some water and take care of private needs. She didn't know if Walks Far was dead or alive, if he had been tortured, or if they had left him alone. But if this arrogant beast of a man thought she was just going to follow him around and then stay with the Lakota he was dead wrong. She had finally been allowed to feed her son under the man's watchful scrutiny and then change the moss in the bottom of the cradleboard. It had become so bad that she had to wash it and her son in the water before putting new, clean filling inside.

They mounted their horses with the man once again demanding her son and continued riding far into the night when the glow of campfires were spotted in the distance. Likely these men had been on their way back home when they had spotted Walks Far and herself. They called out to the men guarding the outer perimeters of the encampment, waited for a return call, then rode onward. She was immediately taken to an old woman's lodge where the smell of a cooking stew made her stomach turn. She hadn't eaten since they had taken her. She was invited inside and given the cradle board by the man who motioned for her to stay inside the lodge.

To be continued later, work calls...