Edge of the Wilderness - By Stephanie Grace Whitson Page 0,24

Daniel he, too, had rolled too close to the campfire. Smiling ruefully, he stood up and pounded the seat of his pants.

Two Stars followed Jensen to the creek, but at his approach Jensen took his gun from his holster. Waving it in the air he said, “Hold it right there. Don’t come any closer.” He winced and shook his hand. “I may have a singed paw, but I’m still man enough to fight you off.”

Daniel backed away and headed for Pope’s shelter. Emerging in a moment with a bucket in hand he headed for where Jensen still knelt by the creek. “Good fight,” Daniel muttered in English. When Jensen looked up at him in surprise, Daniel grabbed his hand and plunged it into the pail of animal fat he had retrieved from Pope.

“Let me see,” Daniel said.

Jensen complied, withdrawing his hand from the pail of fat to reveal bright red skin, which Daniel inspected closely.

“Not bad,” Daniel muttered. He looked at Jensen. “Finished fighting?”

Jensen squinted up at him. “You finished giving me the silent treatment?”

“What does silent treatment mean?” Daniel asked.

“Not talking. Silent.” He grimaced and looked away. “I know what you think. You think I’m some kind of idiot just because I can’t track like you. Well, I’m not.”

Daniel stood up. “I touched the fire once when I was young. My mother taught me how to care for it. Keep your hand in the pail for now. Before you sleep, have Pope wrap your hand with more fat inside the rabbit skin. By tomorrow morning, your hand will be fine.” He headed back to camp, then stopped and turned around. “Jensen,” he said abruptly.

Jensen looked up.

“You don’t know what I think,” Daniel said. “About anything.” He raised one corner of his mouth in a half-smile. “Except for one thing.”

“What’s that?” Jensen asked.

“I think you fight pretty good,” Daniel said.

With the arrival of warm weather, Daniel began to feel restless. They had come out of Mankato in February and traveled nearly seventy miles to the northwest, camping on Rice Creek, just south of the Minnesota River and almost exactly between what had been the Upper and Lower Sioux Agencies. Other scouts were added to the original five until ten were in camp. They spent the next few weeks going on expeditions, either up the Minnesota River or westward. Only once did they think they saw tracks indicating hostile Indians, but nothing came of it and they headed back south to camp.

Scouting proved to be little more than a new kind of prison. Wherever the scouts went, they were confronted with brokenness. Burned-out cabins and destroyed agency buildings served as constant reminders that the deserted landscape had once been home to hundreds of peaceful Dakota Indians. While the scouts weren’t confined behind a guarded fence anymore, they were still under the watchful eye of Private Brady Jensen. Daniel had hoped their fight would have put them on better terms, but nothing changed. Jensen still watched everyone suspiciously, still considered himself above “fraternizing with a bunch of savages,” still despised Edward Pope for getting along.

There were days when Robert Lawrence’s persistent faith made Daniel angry. The man quoted Scripture he had memorized and even hummed—albeit off key—Dakota hymns when they rode together. He reminded Daniel they were better off here than back in prison in Mankato. He listed things he was thankful for.

“Remember Daniel in the Bible,” Robert said one night by the campfire. “He was a captive in a strange land, but he did not forget his God. We must be like that. God knows where we are, and when He is finished teaching us here, He will take us somewhere else. As long as we have Him, we can be at peace.”

But Daniel felt no peace.

One May morning when the sky was a brilliant blue, Daniel saddled up his bay gelding and rode out of camp alone. He followed the river; up and down rolling hills and greening valleys, past where Sacred Heart and Hawk Creeks flowed into the Minnesota River, across the Yellow Medicine River, past the Upper Agency until he came up over a rise and looked down on the charred remains of what had been the Hazelwood Mission. He took in a sharp breath and let it out slowly, surprised at his physical reaction to the ruined site. He urged his horse past what had been missionaries Mary and Stephen Riggs’s two-story home, picking his way through the remnants of Mrs. Riggs’s white garden fence and heading