Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,60

flannel nightshirt the boy had on when he was stolen away. It was soggy, caught on a stump along the other side of the river.

One man thought maybe the boy had drowned. Luke refused to believe that. He couldn't bear the thought of it, and he couldn't go back to Lettie and tell her Nathan was dead. He had to cling to the hope he would find their son, would be able to bargain with Half Nose to get him back. The scouts had told him it was very unlikely Half Nose would kill Nathan. Killing little children after stealing them away was just not something the Sioux usually did. If he was going to kill him, he would have done it immediately. Stealing him more likely meant that Half Nose intended to keep the boy in place of his own lost son. Steal the son of the man who had killed his own son, turn him from white to Indian —the ultimate revenge.

That was Luke's only hope. He had taken sick during part of the search, had been laid up for days, nearly died. Now he was leaner, harder, certainly more familiar with the lay of the land, more experienced at surviving in the wild. The weeks of searching had finally led Will and him here, a good two hundred miles from home. The scouts had studied the village below with a spyglass, and both were certain that one of the tepees below belonged to Half Nose. It was painted with red horses, the man's spiritual sign.

One of the soldiers spoke up. "We're all gonna be killed."

"We've come in peace," Lieutenant Jiggs responded. "We'll ride in with the scouts and a white flag of truce. The scouts speak their tongue. They can interpret for us." Jiggs was a veteran of the War between the States, a war he'd told Luke was just about over. He had been sent west to determine the best locations to build forts along the Bozeman Trail to protect Montana's miners and settlers. Luke was glad forts would be built, glad more protection was coming. It was just too bad that it might be too late for Nathan... for Lettie.

His heart raced. He prayed as he had never prayed before that finally he would have his son back. Poor Nathan. What must he think? That his parents had deserted him? Was he down there somewhere amid that circle of tepees? "I'm going down with you," he told the lieutenant.

"I'm not sure you should, Mr. Fontaine."

"I'm going. We've come this far. If my son is down there, I want to see for myself. If those Sioux wanted us dead, they would have killed us a long time ago."

"They still might," the lieutenant said. He took a white flag from his gear, unfurled it, and held it up in the air. "Let's go."

He headed down the hill. Almost immediately several warriors who had spotted them in the distance jumped on the bare backs of their mounts and rode out of the village toward them. Many more painted, half-naked braves rode up the sides of the hill. In moments they were surrounded. Obviously they had been watched all along. It irked Luke to know that these past two months Half Nose had probably been leading him on, watching him, laughing at him, teasing him. Now he had finally allowed himself to be found. Maybe that meant he was ready to give up the boy.

All of them could almost feel their scalps being lilted as they rode into the village, but Luke was too angry and too anxious to be afraid. Dogs barked, women and children gathered to stare at them. A couple of the braves who rode beside and behind them finally charged around in front of them, holding up their hands and ordering them to halt. One of them said something to one of the Shoshone scouts, and the scout answered him. By now Luke recognized the Sioux words for Half Nose. Their Indian hosts turned and led them to the tepee with the red horses painted on it.

"He is here," one of the Shoshone men told Luke.

Luke's heart pounded with anticipation. At last, after all the days of helpless searching, of great hope and terrible despair, he had found Half Nose, the one man who could tell him if Nathan was dead or alive, the one man who might be able to give his son back to him.

The proud, muscled warrior came out of his tepee