Epilogue

Nate King and Clay Basket spent the rest of the day riding westward. They were only a few miles past the basin when they met Pepin, sent ahead by a very worried Shakespeare McNair to see how Nate was faring. Nate asked Pepin to bring the pack animals and pushed on, relying once again on the Comanche trick of often changing horses to cover the miles swiftly. It was well after midnight when a small fire in the narrow valley came into view.

Clay Basket was first on the ground. Her face aglow, she ran to the man lying by the fire and threw her arms around him, tears flowing down her smooth cheeks as she smothered him with kisses.

Tim Nelson had been sleeping. He awoke with a start, saw who was holding him, and added his tears of joy to hers.

“You’re alive, my love!” Clay Basket declared.

“And he’ll stay that way, if you don’t squeeze him to death,” Shakespeare McNair said, grinning. “That man of yours has an iron constitution. That and the herbs I’ve given him have pulled him through. He’ll be laid up for quite a spell, but he’ll be good as new in time.”

“Thank you,” Clay Basket said, gazing warmly at the grizzled mountain man, then at Nate, on whom her eyes lingered. “For everything.”