The next morning, we went mostly on foot, leading the animals. We looked for any sign that would tell us they’d been there, and the sign was sparse. About midmorning, we worked our way around a side of ledge to the top of a valley. In the bottom of the valley was a river that led out into the foothills and, beyond that, to the flatlands. In the flatland, on the south side of the river, was movement. We stopped at the top of the valley and looked at it.
I got a spyglass out of my saddlebag and handed it to Cole. He telescoped it open and looked down at the movement. His eyes weren’t no better than mine. But it was his woman they took.
“Four riders,” Cole said after a while. “And a pack animal. One of the riders is a woman.”
He handed me the glass and I looked. They were too far to make out that it was Allie, but who the hell else would it be.
“Picked up a third man,” I said. “Musta been waiting someplace with the packhorse.”
Cole didn’t answer. He sat motionless on his horse, staring down at the plain.
“We can work our way down to the river easy enough,” he said, “without them seeing us.”
I lowered the glass.
“Then we can sit tight and rest the animals, and us, until the sun goes down and they make camp. Then we can ride out and get close.”
Below us, in the foothills to the north of the river, there was movement.
“That way, we can lay flat and get the lay of how things are,” Cole said. “ ’Fore we go in.”
I put the glass back up to my eye and looked at the movement in the foothills. It was Indians, riding close together among the pine trees, staying behind the hills. It was too hard to count through the glass with much accuracy. But I guessed twelve. I handed the glass to Cole and pointed. He studied the Indians without expression.
“Southern Cheyenne?” he said.
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe Kiowa. I think they’re carrying them little medicine shields like Kiowas have.”
Cole looked some more.
“Might be,” he said. “Make any difference?”
“Nope. Neither one of ’em likes us.”
“Got no reason to,” he said. “How many you count?”
“Twelve.”
“About what I count,” Cole said. “Maybe a few more.”
“They’re doggin’ those folks,” I said.
“Yep,” Cole said.
“They’ll be a problem.”
“Speculate that they will,” Cole said. “Nothin’ we can do about it.”
“No,” I said.
“So we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing,” Cole said, and moved his horse forward and let it begin to pick its way down the side of the valley, with the extra saddle horse behind him.
I followed with the mule. As we got down into the valley, the Indians were out of sight behind the hills. We wouldn’t see them again until we got out of the valley. Then we might see more of them than we wanted to. If the thought was bothering Cole, he didn’t mention it. Nor did he show any sign of being in a hurry. He was going where he was going to go at the pace he needed to go at, and he was taking me with him.