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relaxed now, Josie gave herself a quiet moment to reflect on her situation.
    A light snow had fallen during the night, dusting the ground more than covering it. She'd broken through this thin crust as she walked, leaving behind footprints that stood out Like the markings on a pinto pony. Soon, she thought, all traces of her march to the privy would be obliterated. Dark clouds were building overhead, threatening an even more substantial storm. If he didn't know anything else, she had to concede that Long Belly did seem to know how to predict the weather.
    Relatively warm inside the heavy coat, Josie hugged it even closer to her body, determined to stay in the out of doors for as long as she could. This was where she belonged, where she'd always belonged, with the wind to her back and all her senses alive. At the Baum farm, her stepbrothers had been expected from an early age to labor in the fields, mend fences, and tend the livestock. They laughed at her whenever she begged to go along with them, telling her how lucky she was to be safe and warm doing inside chores instead of breaking her back with them on the range. They'd even said that she was crazy in the head to be coveting their work in place of the comfort of kitchen and hearth. It seemed to Josie that if tending the home was such a darn enviable task, at least one of the boys would have begged on occasion to swap places with her. Of course, that had never happened.
    Her only outings had been monthly visits to church along with semi-regular attendance at school. She was ashamed to admit the reason she'd been so adamant about getting her education was not so much for what she might learn, but for the chance to get out of the kitchen. She loved those few hours away from the monotonous drudgery of housework, in particular the ride to and from the little schoolhouse atop Duke, an old plow horse whose mixed origins gave him a high-stepping gait that didn't quite match his cumbersome body. With the exception of such days, life on the Baum farm had hardly been worth living. She'd been caged there as surely as the livestock in the barn, as much a captive as she was now. Was this all her life would ever amount to? she wondered. Escaping from one trap only to land in another?
    Of the three cages she'd been penned in so far—the Baum home, the pleasure palace, and now this stifling cabin—Josie honestly couldn't say for sure which was the worst. She couldn't imagine going back to either of the first two. And yet how would she ever survive in this cabin among these dreadful savages, especially if the weather turned so bad there was no hope of escaping until spring?
    Behind her, the cabin door suddenly opened, then closed with a thud.
    When she turned, Josie saw that Long Belly was headed her way. He was fully dressed right down to his buffalo robe, and he carried a large buckskin satchel, the same parfleche he'd toted when he kidnapped her. She glanced from him to the gun still tightly clutched between her palms, and saw in the weapon a possible means of escape, the impending storm be damned. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she turned as he approached and brandished the weapon.
    "Take me back to Miles City this instant," Josie demanded, her voice quivering with fear. "Or at least down to the mission by the river. If you don't, I swear I'll shoot you where you stand.
    Without so much as a glance at the gun, Long Belly simply said, "You are very clever. Perhaps in the future I should call you Foolish Woman Who Plans to Kill Her Only Guide." He brushed past her then, adding, "Water boils on the stove. Wash my brother and see to his needs. He is in much pain this morning."
    With that, the savage continued on to the barn.
    Feeling angry and impotent, Josie abruptly wheeled around after him and raised the gun above his head. Intending to fire a warning shot as Daniel had suggested in case of bears, she squeezed the trigger. It moved a scant quarter of an inch, but the pistol didn't