Using the crook of his elbow, Josiah wiped the sweat from his forehead and squinted up at the blistering sun as he took a much-needed rest from the backbreaking work of tilling the dust bowl that was supposed to be his small garden.

He hadn’t been in Eufaula long and had only just received his great-aunt’s acceptance into the clan when she died, leaving him the family homestead and this small plat of barren ground. Amid very loud grumbles from the other local families, he gave up the central garden plot shared with the entire clan, but he hadn’t been concerned then. He was a mite more worried now. The longer the weeks passed without rain, the less chance he had of canning freshly grown vegetables to make it through the winter. He didn’t need that much food with it being just himself. He could make do with the meat he hunted and cured as well as any fish he caught from the river, but it would be nice to have canned food to go with it.

He slapped at a mosquito on his arm then waved away a couple of annoying gnats flying in front of his face, wishing for, at least, a small breeze. The air was stagnant and heavy, which didn’t bode well with the heat. Striking at the furrow with his hoe, a cloud of dust rose as he inched his way along, finally reaching the end. Turning, he made his way back again, row after row, readying the ground for the seeds his great-aunt had given him. He didn’t relish the back-breaking work it would take hauling buckets of water from the river each day so the plants would grow, especially if the rain never appeared.

“You know, the townspeople make fun of you for doing woman’s work. You need a wife.”

Harjo’s gravelly voice startled him, and before he realized it, his hand dropped to the gun hanging low on his hip. He let the air hiss through his clenched teeth as he met his friend’s wary gaze. “Just because I’m a preacher doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use a gun, Harjo. Nor does it mean I’m a slow draw. I know how to handle myself. Sneaking up on a man isn’t a smart thing to do.”

Harjo’s eyes narrowed. He continued to stare thoughtfully at Josiah, who fidgeted as the silence grew. “I stopped by to ask if you have seen two white men and one black man travel through here in the last day or so. They may have had a boy with them, around fourteen years or so.”

Josiah thought a moment and stared into the trees, surprised when the face of a young girl stared back. From what he could tell she looked to be about nine or ten, and seemed to be pretty, at least from what he could see of her face that wasn’t layered in dirt.

He tilted his head, glanced up at Harjo. “Can’t say that I have. I’ve worked mornings back here in the garden then met you at the river in the afternoons, so I wouldn’t have seen them.” Josiah leaned against his hoe, resting his forearm on top of the wooden handle. “What did they do?”

Harjo, like him, leaned forward in the saddle and rested his forearm on the horn of his saddle. “The two white men robbed the general store in Muskogee and shot the clerk. The clerk recognized the leader as Dan Redmon—known as Big Red because of his wild red hair. Had a black man with them by the name of Samuel. Could be he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“And the boy?”

“The boy’s no good.”

Josiah’s mouth dropped. “What did you just say?”

Harjo shook his head. “I know what you are thinking, my friend, and you are wrong. Some people, even the young, are born wrong. This boy is one of those. Johnny tormented his mother and grandmother until his father ran him off. He was only eight years old at the time and had taken an axe after his grandfather. Thankfully, his father returned home from the hunt in time to pull him off. If he hadn’t, the old man would have lost his arm. The boy is not right in his head, Josiah. He does evil things and has evil thoughts.”

“But he is only a child. Impressionable. Even a child can be taught right from wrong.”

Harjo straightened in the saddle. “Not everyone, my friend. Not everyone.” He reached inside his vest and pulled out what looked like a folded piece of paper. He held it out to Josiah. “Olly over at the post office asked me to deliver this to you. Said it came in on yesterday’s train.”

Josiah took the envelope and noticed the neat script of a woman’s handwriting across the top, each letter perfectly spaced and even. He paused, worried. What kind of woman wrote with such controlled precision? Was this his future bride? The image of a severe-looking woman with her hair pulled back in a tight bun, no smile, and dressed all in black filled his mind. Despite the heat of the day, he shivered. Maybe sending off for a mail-order bride had been a bad idea…

With a slight flick of the reins, Harjo’s paint stepped sideways then moved toward the road where the other lighthorsemen waited. “You would be wise to keep your distance from the men if you see them, Josiah, and the boy, too. You cannot save everyone,” his friend said over his shoulder.

Josiah watched the group of men ride away, the dust cloud billowing up into the air then floating over the trees across the road as the breeze carried it away. Thinking a child of only fourteen years was evil went against everything he’d been taught as a preacher, but he was also Indian and had seen many things in his short life that white society would never understand.

He swatted at an annoying fly buzzing around his head and moved to the front porch. He sat on the dusty boards, ignoring their loud creaks and squeaks from missing nails and the warped planks. Reaching down, he pulled out his grandfather’s old knife from the special pocket he’d sewn into the inside of his boot. He picked up the thick, tuberous root he’d found earlier that morning and made the first slice with the sharpened blade. He focused on one side of the root, scooping out a section then notching another.

As he shaped the wood, he listened. He caught the girl’s movement as she changed positions, the slight shaking of the leaves on a branch or her heel as she crawled under a bush. At times, from different direction, he felt as if someone else watched him, so maybe there were more children in the woods, than just the girl. He continued to shave the outer layer, etching and digging away certain areas until he was satisfied with the way it looked.

“You can come out now,” he said, keeping his voice low. “The men are long gone, and it’s only me here.” Several minutes passed then he heard a rustling of leaves and a sharp command hissed in Creek. Another minute went by before two children stepped from the tree line. It was the girl from before and a younger boy. They were both filthy and bone-thin, as if they had missed a lot of meals. Where had they come from and, more importantly, why were they there?

“Mvskoke opunakv opunayetske mekvlesv’Ikē? He hoped he’d just asked them if they spoke English, but his Creek language skills weren’t that great yet. Harjo’s wife had been helping him learn simple words, but their two boys still laughed at his pronunciations.

The girl’s lips twitched. The young boy standing next to her threw his head back and let out a howl of laughter. The girl hissed something and grabbed at his shoulder, but he dodged her with a quick side step and ran away, still laughing at Josiah’s expense. The boy’s unaffected laughter struck something deep inside and before he knew it, Josiah also laughed while the girl stared at both of them, a disgusted frown on her face.

“The lad knows a terrible accent when he hears it, so you might as well laugh at me, too. I’m even laughing at myself. My Creek is horrible, and my Choctaw isn’t much better.”

“Then why do you try to speak them if you know you can’t?” the girl asked, answering Josiah’s unspoken question. She understood the English language very well—much better than he did Creek.

“Because I want to learn who my mother’s people are, and that means learning their language. If you understand the language a person speaks, you understand how they think. Until then, you don’t really understand who they are.”

The girl tilted her head to one side, her eyes narrowing in thought, but her gaze never left his. “I never thought about it like that.”

Josiah shrugged. “Most people don’t.” He held her gaze a moment longer then glanced over to where the boy now stood beside the porch, staring at what he held in his hands. He dropped his gaze and began whittling again, shaping the back of the bison, deepening the separation between the head and the top of the hump then carving the tail by using the tip of the blade to chip out pieces of wood. Next, he cut out the eyes, nose, and mouth, again using the tip of the blade to create the strands of long hair that hung from the beast’s face.

“What is that?”

Josiah glanced at the boy, who now stood beside him, his eyes wide and filled with curiosity. He held up the wooden creature and turned it this way and that, inspecting his work with pride. He’d always enjoyed carving. It had been something his grandfather and he had done together. Something they had enjoyed.

“This is a bison. A yvnvsv in Creek. Before the white man came, there were more bison than blades of grass on the prairie.”

“That’s a lot of bison,” the boy said. “Were they small, like yours?”

Josiah bit back a smile, knowing the boy probably wouldn’t appreciate it. “No, this is what the bison look like. They are many, many times bigger. Two times bigger than the biggest horse.” The boy’s eyes widened at the comparison. Josiah held out the carved wood. “Would you like this?”

“Why would you give it to me?”

Josiah smiled. “Because I want to. I can make another for myself.”

The child hesitated a second longer then slowly reached out and wrapped his filthy fingers around the bison and pulled it to his chest, holding it like a treasure.

“What do you say, Billy?”

“Thank you.”

“Well, I know one name now. I’ll go first. My name is Josiah West.” He glanced over at Billy, whose gaze was locked on the bison.

“Billy Durant.”

Josiah turned his smile to the girl. “And you are?”

She hesitated, her lips pursing then she sighed and moved to stand by Billy. “Summer Durant. Billy’s my cousin.”

“Where are your parents?”

“They’re dead.”

“Do you live near here?”

“We don’t have a home,” Billy chimed in, which got him a quick kick from Summer. “What? It’s true. We don’t. Not since stupid Johnny took up with them no-good whites and got us kicked out of the mercantile—first here, then in Muskogee. So, now where are we supposed to go?”

“Aren’t you going to read your letter?” Summer asked.

Josiah knew she was trying to change the subject, but he didn’t mind. He wasn’t equipped to take on a pair of children and had no idea where to send them. Maybe when Harjo returned, he could ask him. He pulled the folded letter from his front vest pocket. “I’d almost forgotten I had this. Thanks for reminding me.” With a quick flip of his knife, he sliced through the top of the envelope and pulled out the letter. Unfolding it, he scanned the same neat handwriting, his stomach churning as he got to the end of the missive.

“Bad news?”

“Huh?” He glanced at Summer. “What did you say?’

“I asked if it was bad news? You’re scowling at it—like there are terrible words written on the page.”

“It sort of does—have terrible words. Evidently, I’m to be married and my future bride will be arriving in Eufaula by train at the end of the week.”

Billy gave him a strange look. “Why is that so terrible?”

“I wrote the letter so long ago, I’d almost forgotten about it. She’s a teacher from New York City.”

Billy glanced at his cousin then back at Josiah. “Where is Newyerkzity?”

Josiah chuckled. “I need to pronounce my words better, don’t I? New—York—City.”

Billy repeated it several times, mimicking the inflections in Josiah’s tone until he had it perfect.

“New York City is a very large town on the eastern coast of the United States. By train, it would take five days and nights of constant travel to get there. There are more buildings there than trees here.”

“I don’t think I would like to be in New York City," Summer said.

“I would have to agree with you,” Josiah added. “I like the wide-open spaces where one can see for miles.”

Summer walked to the border of the garden and dug deeper into the edge of the furrow with her toes then glanced with a frown at the house behind him. “If you bring a woman here, you have much work to do by yourself. You need help.”

Josiah twisted his head, frowned at what he saw, and moved over to stand next to Summer. He stared in dismay at the house, trying to see it through his future bride’s eyes. “What was I thinking? I can’t bring a woman here. She will take one look at this place and run screaming back to New York City.”

“Yes, she would.” Summer nodded, staring at the house.

“You don’t have to agree with me so easily. You could tell me there’s hope and she might not mind so very much.”

Summer shook her head and crossed her arms over her thin chest. “I cannot lie, Mr. West. Your home is terrible.”

“Thanks. So, what do you propose I do about it?”

“You are going to need our help.”

Josiah’s brows rose. He hadn’t expected that answer, but was intrigued at what the girl might be thinking. He liked her forthright manner, and she seemed bright. He glanced down at her young cousin. Billy’s face was covered with dirt and held such a hopeful expression. The youngster reminded him of the boy he’d been so long ago, standing on Clay’s doorstep after he’d lost his family.

“I’m listening.” He kept a serious expression on his face, almost giving away his intentions when Billy all but bounced in place. The only thing keeping him on the ground was Summer’s hand on the top of his head. The deadpan expression on Summer’s face as she held her cousin to the ground did him in, and he choked on the laughter as he tried to cover it with a fit of coughing.

Leaning over, he pounded on his chest, trying to stop as the two children watched. Wiping the tears from his eyes, he let out a sigh and cleared his throat. “Sorry. Choked on a bug.”

Summer gave him a condescending stare. “Won’t happen if you keep your mouth closed.”

Josiah pursed his lips, trying not to laugh again. This girl was a treasure. He cleared his throat again. “Duly noted. So, what do you think we should do to make the house presentable? We only have a week to get everything done.”

“He said we, Summer. He said we!”

“Shush, Billy. I heard what he said.” Summer paced in front of the small house, her thumb and forefinger holding her slightly pointed chin as she studied the structure.

Josiah knew the building was too small. The planks were warped with age, some missing, and the paint had long worn off most of the house. There was only one window that was covered by a disgusting oil cloth. He’d been meaning to tear it off but hadn’t gotten around to it. The house was a box with two rooms. The main living area held a small kitchen that consisted of a counter where he stored a few dishes and canned goods. His cot hugged the far wall, and a door on the west side led to a long, narrow room where he bathed in an old metal tub. Unlike Clay’s and Sophia’s home, his didn’t have plumbed water or any other conveniences, for that matter.

He stepped inside and held the door open for them, but they didn’t move. He met Summer’s narrowed gaze. “I know you don’t know me yet, but I am an honorable man—a preacher actually. I really do need your and Billy’s help, Summer. In exchange for helping me get the house ready for my bride, you can both stay here.” He waited, letting the girl make up her mind to trust him or not.

“You promise?” she asked.

“I do.”

She looked at her cousin then took a tentative step inside. Billy followed. She glanced around and shook her head. “This is not good for a white woman. She cannot live in something like this.”

Josiah pulled off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair, then shoved his hat back on his head, wishing he had time for a quick swim in the river to cool off. The first thing he would do to this house was add a few more windows for air flow. It was stagnant and miserable inside.

“I agree. So, what do you suggest? Remember, we only have one week.”

“Out and up.”

He frowned. “Excuse me?”

“We make the house wider and taller. Move the bathing wall out and the back wall out so you will have a real bedroom. She will not live here without a real bedroom.” She pointed to the front wall inside the bathing area. “There is enough space in here to add a stairwell for an upstairs where we can add two, maybe three bedrooms for children and guests.” She walked to the counter space in the kitchen and counted her footsteps from the wall to the edge of Josiah’s bed. “With the addition of a real bedroom, this will give you enough room for a true kitchen, with a table, and maybe a sofa and fireplace if we add another three or four feet. We could even move that wall,” she added, pointing to the kitchen counter wall.

“Why don’t we just rebuild the entire house?”

Summer grinned. “That’s an excellent idea! I’m quite certain your friend and the other lighthorsemen will help if you ask them. We can have a new home up in a couple of days.”

Billy tugged on Josiah’s pant’s leg, his dirty face pinched. “Mr. West?”

Josiah glanced down, not liking the change in the young boy’s demeanor. He had been so happy only moments ago. He squatted in front of him, the odor of little boy sweat all but hitting him in the face. He fought the urge to pinch his nose but had no control when his eyes watered from the stench. “What’s wrong, Billy?”

“Are you gonna keep your promise? Can we stay here and help or will you kick us out, too?”

Josiah wanted to curse. “When I make a promise, I keep that promise, no matter what. You and your cousin can stay here and help me for as long as you want…on one condition.”

Billy’s gaze turned wary. “What condition?”

“You have to take a bath.”