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Erin woke one morning, appreciating the sounds of morning doves cooing to each other. It was a familiar sound. She had heard it many times back in Ohio on the farm but hadn’t enjoyed it in a long time. She still ached from the encounter with the bear a week ago. They were many miles from that spot, and still, the mountains went on and on. It seemed they had traveled as far in the mountains as they had coming across the prairie, but she knew she was just sick of traveling even though they had been totally aware this trip would involve months of travel and had been prepared. They were beginning to run low on supplies, everyone was, but the Herriots had been better off than others. The mountain men and some settlers traveling with them were out hunting, but mention had been made about the possibility of butchering a cow.
Since the Herriots had the most cattle, Erin wondered if theirs would be chosen. She resented the thought even though no one had mentioned it. She did offer up a pig, one of the teenage pigs that had grown so quickly, and this offer had been accepted. She didn’t like hearing its squeals until they were abruptly cut off. She had herded the other pigs to the lake they were camped beside hoping they wouldn’t have to see or hear it, but she felt they did anyway. Although she didn’t much consider the feelings of her pigs, she still felt remorse over it. Even when she was eating the bacon and ham that were a result of the butchering, she found herself nearly throwing it up as she thought about it. She didn’t remember feeling this way at butchering time on the farm, but maybe, since they had traveled so far together, she was changing. What kind of farmer would she be if she couldn’t butcher her own animals? They’d eaten some of the chickens, one goose, and many of the eggs they’d brought with them. Why was this pig bothering her? She spent many hours of reflection on the back of her horse.
“We are being watched,” one of the men mentioned at night around the campfire.
“Aren’t we always being watched?” someone else asked.
“Ain’t the same. This is beyond curiosity.”
“Are we ready for an attack?” Wallace asked, looking around at their usual preparations. The wagons in a circle, guards, even those damn dogs of Herriot’s were always about in unexpected places. His men and the settlers had learned they were good.
“We may be ready, but they will attack when we ain’t ready,” he pointed out.
“Who do you think it is?”
“The Shoshone and Bannock are ‘round here mostly,” he answered, taking a bite of his chaw after spitting out the previous one. “But it could be the Paiute or Nez Percé.”
“Aren’t you supposed to know Indians?” one of the settlers asked the nearly wild, old trapper.
He looked up at the insult and fixed the settler with a look until he dropped his gaze. “I hain’t been close ‘nough to shake hands with ‘em. I just knows they are ‘round.”
“Are they after the train?”
“Could be. But they could be after captives too.”
“Women?” another settler asked, almost sounding eager...too eager.
Ignoring the tone of the question, he shrugged. “Children too.”
“What would they want with children?” someone asked.
“Slaves, trading, or they wanna replace theirin own.”
“Replace their own?” another voice rang out.
“Yeah, through wars and disease they lose their own, and they replace them with their enemies’. Raidin’, they take the children and raise ‘em as their own.”
They were quiet for a moment as they thought about the implications of that for a moment. Some imagined how hard it would be for any woman, much less a child raised among Indians.
“Still, them Nez Percé got some fine horses,” another of the mountain men mentioned.
The original man speaking nodded twice and then said, “Ain’t they the ones that have the spotted rump?”
The other mountain man nodded, and they began speaking about the different horses, their qualities, and what made one horse better than another. Erin wandered back to their own fire, Molly at her side as they checked on their own children. Queenie was laying right by the children’s tent and thumped her tail in greeting as they checked inside. Everyone was fast asleep, and they were grateful for it.
“You think we have anything to worry about?” Molly asked quietly as they packed up a few things in preparation for traveling the following day before retiring themselves.
“I think, if those mountain men are concerned enough to be warning us, we have something to worry about.” Erin looked about in the darkness and then her eyes returned to the dogs. Both seemed unconcerned, and this, more than anything, relieved her mind.
Molly saw where her wife, husband really, was looking and understood. Reaching out, she took Erin’s hand in her own and squeezed it reassuringly. She was so thankful that nothing had happened to them that couldn’t be healed in time. No one seemed to have noticed the bindings on Erin’s person when she’d had the rips and tears to her shirt...or so she thought.
It was when they were on high alert and everyone was tense about the Indian conversation the previous night that one of the mountain men rode up on his mule and approached Erin. “You know, there is a tradition in some tribes...” he began while admiring the stallion Erin was riding that day.
Erin enjoyed conversations with these old men and had always been respectful of them and their abilities. Molly had even cooked special meals for one of them, who no longer had teeth and hated the pap he was forced to eat. She had added flavor and cut things small, taking the time to make them easy to eat. The meal was nothing like the soups and other things he subsisted on, and it had been appreciated. “What tradition would that be?” she asked to keep the conversation going. Their knowledge was fascinating, but then, they had been there first.
“They have a belief that some people are born with twin spirits or dual spirits,” he tried to explain, looking everywhere but at Erin as he spoke. “They are born with both male and female spirits in ‘em. This means they can appear to be a man or a woman but inside they is the other. They are the chosen. They can choose to be a man or a woman.”
Realizing the import of the conversation, Erin wanted to freeze, but she forced herself to remain relaxed and keep an eye on the sheep she was herding that day. The mountain path they were traversing was narrow, barely wide enough for the wagons. She’d put in behind one of the wagons, not her own, but left enough of a gap in the train that she wasn’t hindering the one behind her. She was grateful this conversation wasn’t taking place when any of the children were about. She was certain King and Queenie wouldn’t tell. She wasn’t certain if a response was required, but she nodded her head to show she was listening.
The mountain man, apparently finished with the knowledge he wished to impart, wheeled off with his mule to go help with a wagon that had broken down farther back. Erin was left with her thoughts.
“Some know,” she told Molly when they were alone that evening, murmuring softly.
“Who knows? What?”
She explained about the twin spirits and what the man had said. Some of those old mountain men couldn’t be fooled.
“You think he will tell others?”
“No, actually, I don’t. I think he was just letting me know that he knew.”
“But why?”
“I have no idea,” she admitted. She had wondered the same thing herself. It could be a worrisome thing if she let it.