After his morning prayer, Danny gathered wood and built a small fire to boil the water for coffee. Soon he was joined by wagon driver Rick and the Grady family.
Grady was a rancher who was left for dead by slave traders. They had killed many of his workers, captured several more, and burned his ranch house to the ground. The slave traders then took his wife and daughter, Sarah. In a daring rescue, Danny Blackgoat saved their lives, and Manny, the leader of the slave traders, was killed.
Now, Mr. and Mrs. Grady, their lively daughter, and their remaining men were returning to the Grady ranch—or what remained of it.
“What was all the ruckus about last night?” Mr. Grady asked, sipping his coffee.
“Just some misunderstanding about a rattlesnake,” Rick said, staring into his coffee cup as he spoke, letting Grady know to change the subject.
“We have another long day ahead of us,” Grady said, tossing the remains of his coffee to the ground and standing. “We’ll stop only long enough to rest the horses.”
Danny rode in silence behind Mr. Grady and his men. They rode all day and well into the night, as thin blue clouds floated across the moon. After midnight, Mr. Grady halted.
“Whoa,” he said to his horse, pulling the reins and turning to face his men. “It’s time we get some sleep,” he said. “But before we do, I have something to tell you. I know you’ve been wondering what happened to the other ranch hands, your fellow workers.
“I wanted to get far enough away from Manny’s hideout before I said anything about them. I was afraid some of you might want revenge and put us all in danger. Though I wouldn’t blame you, we cannot raise the dead. We must consider our own safety first.”
As he said “we cannot raise the dead,” his ranch workers stared hard at him. The tension in the air was thick, and they waited for his explanation. He waited till they circled their horses around him.
As Danny watched, Mr. Grady opened his mouth to speak. He took a long breath and said nothing.
He is grieving for his men, thought Danny. I know what he is thinking. If he doesn’t say it, it isn’t true, not yet.
Rick rode beside him, leaned close, and said in a quiet voice, “This will never happen again, Grady. You have more friends than you’ll ever know. I’m one of them.”
“So am I, Mr. Grady,” Danny said.
“Me too,” said Williard, one of his workers.
“Same goes for me, Mr. Grady,” said Vickers, another ranch worker.
“We might be your ranch hands, but you’re as close to family as we’ve got,” said a third man.
“I think you know what I’m about to say,” Mr. Grady continued, looking at each of his men one by one. “Our fellow workers, all of them, are dead. Their graves are in the woods overlooking the spring. I am only alive because these two men, Rick and Danny Blackgoat, found me in the woods and saved my life.”
The men moved not a muscle. The dead men were their friends and fellow ranch hands. For years they had bunked with them, shared meals with them, and fought with them to keep the wolves away. Hearing of their death, they hung their heads in silence.
“We’ll camp here till sunrise,” Grady said. “I’d like to get to the ranch as soon as we can.”
The men tied their horses to a stout tree trunk and rolled their blankets to the ground. In less than half an hour, everyone was asleep.
As Grady and his men drifted into a peaceful sleep, a dozen United States cavalrymen slept on the other side of the same hill. While Grady told his ranch hands of the death of their fellow workers, a soldier nudged Jim Davis with his rifle and awakened him.
“Davis, sit up,” the soldier said.
“What is it?” Jim Davis asked.
“You can’t be very comfortable with that chain tied around your ankle,” the soldier said.
“Ummm,” Davis muttered. “It does make rolling over in your sleep a little hard to do.”
The soldier smiled. “That’s what I like about you, old man. You’d squeeze a laugh out of a bloody blanket.”
“As long as I’m not in it,” said Davis.
“Well, I’m unlocking that chain for you. We’re so far into the desert, you’d have no place to go. Just understand, if you decide to run, we will wrap your body in that bloody blanket.”
“I am too old to run, and I thank you,” Davis said.
“Now let’s get back to sleep, old man. We’ve still got a long ride to Fort Sumner.”
Jim Davis rolled into his first comfortable sleep since the soldiers had left Fort Davis, a Civil War prison camp in west Texas. Although a rebel prisoner, Davis was in charge of the carpentry shop.
Over time he gained the trust of the soldiers and officers and was able to move freely about the fort. Jim Davis was the only prisoner who became friends with the hardworking Navajo boy, Danny Blackgoat. For several months, during late-night sessions, Davis taught Danny to speak English and to begin to read.
Jim Davis even told his young Navajo friend about gift-giving at Christmas. And to prove his friendship, Davis gave him a horse and helped Danny Blackgoat escape.
As he lay on the ground and tried to sleep, Davis remembered Danny Blackgoat, the Navajo boy he had grown to love like a son. He had no way of knowing that Danny Blackgoat was asleep on the far side of the same hill.
As dawn broke and streaks of red colored the hilltops to the east, Davis stood up and slowly made his way to the top of the hill. He thought he heard something moving behind a boulder. He froze, hoping it wasn’t a cougar looking to feed her young.
As he carefully leaned around the boulder to catch a glimpse of the morning prowler, Davis heard a voice—the voice of his young Navajo friend, Danny Blackgoat!
I know he is saying his morning prayer, thought Davis, so I will wait for the prayer to be over. As Danny sprinkled corn pollen on the rising sun and turned to the path leading downhill, Jim Davis stepped from behind a boulder to greet him.
“Good morning, Danny,” he said.
After his nightmare only a few hours earlier, Danny was not ready for such a surprise. He flung himself against the boulder, with his arms stretched out beside him, as if he were clinging to life to keep from falling.
“I’m sorry,” Davis said. “I didn’t mean to scare you! I waited for you to finish your prayer, out of respect. But I couldn’t let you leave without saying hello.”
“What are you doing here?” Danny asked.
“I am traveling to Fort Sumner,” said Davis. “They need a carpenter, and that’s what I do best. Besides scaring you—I guess I’m pretty good at that too. Will you forgive me?”
“Jim Davis, of course I forgive you. I was afraid I would never see you again.”