Joe walked back to the rear window and stared into the darkness. He had
not slept but he was not sleepy. Flaring rage still consumed him, and he
peered intently at every shadow.
The slow hours of the night dragged endlessly. Dawn came softly and Tad
called,
"Pa."
"Yes?"
"There's the wagon."
Joe peered past his son's shoulder. Far up the valley, hopelessly out
of rifle shot, the wagon's canvas top was sharply white in the
lightening morning. Mounted Indians were pulling it with ropes, and Joe
felt sick to his stomach. This was the wagon that had brought them all
the way from Missouri, over prairie, hills, rivers and mountains. This
was the wagon that had been their home. Now it was stuffed full of hay
from the haystack, and the raiders must have worked all night to get
where it was. Now all they had to do was drag it up the slope, find a
position directly behind the house, set the hay on fire and send the
wagon rolling down. Without exposing a man they could burn the house,
and its defenders would be at their mercy.
Winterson and Ellis came to stand beside Joe, and they looked at this
thing that could not be but was. The wagon turned and stalled sidewise
and Joe's heart gave a great leap. But the Indians righted it again,
kicking savage heels into their mounts' ribs as they forced them to
pull. Slowly the wagon moved up the hill. Joe swallowed a hard lump in
his throat. He looked at Emma and the children, and at Martha Winterson,
and strode grimly to the rear of the house.
The wagon did not appear, and for a moment he cherished the wild hope
that it had broken a wheel or become snagged in the trees, and that the
Indians would be unable to move it. The sun rose, warming the meadow,
and still Joe stared up the hill. After an eternity he saw what he had
prayed he would not see. The upper third of the wagon's canvas top was
silhouetted against the trees, and smoke was pouring from it. Joe turned
to find Winterson and Ellis at his elbow.