Prologue

September 1, 1845

The night was a quiet one, to begin with.

In the vast, dark quiet of the plains, the village had settled. The bright fires over which the Lakota people had shared their meals and laughter had burned down to red, winking eyes. The air, crisp with the coming change of seasons, carried the scent of woodsmoke and dried sage. Inside their tipi, the air was warmer. Here, it smelled of his mother, of roasted bison, and of the buffalo hides th in as they prepared for sleep.

Wíyaka číkʼala, Little Feather, lay buried beneath the pile of hides. He was seven years old, and his belly was full. Sleep was pulling at his eyelids, a heavy, warm blanket he was ready to welcome.

He was safe.

His mother shifted beside him. Her hand, calloused with the hard work that never ceased and yet always gentle, brushed the hair from his forehead. He didn’t open his eyes, just breathed in her presence. Ojinjintka was a healer, named for the wild roses she gathered and smelled of, and to him, her presence was his medicine. She was humming, a low, wordless tune that vibrated from her chest into his.

“What do you hear, my son?” she whispered, her voice as soft as the rabbit fur lining his winter moccasins.

He kept his eyes closed, listening in the way that she had taught him. Since he was old enough to walk she had showed him how to listen to what wasn’t said, to the spaces that existed between sounds.

“The wind in the pines,” he murmured now. “The breath of the horses. Grandfather Two-Swords snoring in his tipi.”

She laughed. “You hear true. Your ears are good.” Her fingers moved to the rawhide cord around his neck. Tucked beneath his shirt, against his skin, was the small, carved feather his maternal grandfather had made him, a symbol, he’d said, of balance and endurance. It was smooth, worn from Wíyaka číkʼala fingers.

She tucked it back under the buckskin, her fingers brushing his chest. “Sleep, dear child,” she whispered. “The spirits guard your dreams.”

He let out a long, sleepy breath, sinking deeper into the furs. He was safe. He was warm. He was drifting.

Moments later, the night broke open.

It was not one sound, but many, all at once, tearing the blanket of quiet in one hard, rending tear. A man shouted, the words sharp and foreign. A dog barked, a frantic, high-pitched sound that was cut off with a sickening yelp.

Wíyaka číkʼala eyes flew open.

His mother was already moving, rising from their bedding in a single, fluid motion. All of her softness was gone. Her body was tense, a bowstring pulled taut.

“Iná?” he whispered. Mother.

Gunfire cracked, a series of sharp, angry pops that echoed from the far side of the village. It was a sound he knew from hunts, but this was different. It was wrong. The sounds were coming too quickly, there were too many of them.

Then came the smell.

It rolled into the tipi under the flap, thick and acrid. Gunpowder and something else. Smoke. Greasy, choking smoke. The smell of burning hides.

“Iná!” he cried, sitting up.

She was not looking at him. Her head was tilted, listening. Her eyes were fixed on the tipi entrance, her face a mask he had never seen her wear before.

Another volley of gunfire sounded, closer this time. A scream. A woman’s scream. It did not stop, it just kept going, rising in terror until it was cut off abruptly.

His mother turned to him, her eyes finding his in the dim light of the tipi. She didn’t say a word, and when she pushed him, hard, her hands were soft but sure, as she pressed him back down into the pile of furs.

“Hiháya,” she whispered. Be hidden. Her voice was not soft now. It was iron. “Do not move. Do not make a sound. No matter what you hear. Promise me, Wíyaka číkʼala. Promise.”

He was too terrified to speak, too terrified to do anything but follow her instructions. So he nodded, his eyes wide, his heart slamming against his ribs like a trapped bird.

She pulled one fur over him, then another. The weight was heavy, crushing. The smell of buffalo and dust filled his nose, stinging his eyes. Ojinjintka pressed her hand to his head, one last time, through the layers of hide.

Then she was gone. All he had to go by were the sounds. The soft scrape of leather. The swish of the tipi flap as she left. She had grabbed her knife.

He was alone in the dark.

He wanted to obey. He wanted to be still, to be silent, as she had told him. But he couldn’t. He had to see. The fear was an all-consuming torrent, a rainfall he had never experienced before. He needed to know what was happening, to see that his family was going to be safe.

Shaking, he wormed through the blankets until he reached the side wall and pushed his head into a small gap where a place where the lacing was loose and peered through.

What he saw was chaos. Hell.

The world was on fire.

The tipi next to theirs was a cone of roaring flame, sparks shooting up to meet the stars. The sky was no longer black, but a sick, dancing orange. Shadows ran everywhere, long, distorted shapes that fled from other, larger shadows. People. His people. Screaming, crying, running for their lives.

Men in dark blue uniforms moved through the village. Some were on foot, their faces lit by the fires they had brought with them. Others sat high on horseback, their animals rearing and snorting in panic, their riders wielding long knives—sabers—that flashed in the firelight. They were shouting, their voices loud and rough, but he could not understand the words.

He saw his uncle, carrying his infant daughter as he ran. A soldier on horseback rode him down from behind. Wíyaka číkʼalasqueezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to see more.

But he had to.

He opened them again.

The air was thick with smoke, with panic, with the smell of death.

That was when the flap of his own tipi was ripped open.

Wíyaka číkʼalaflinched, pulling his head back from the tipi wall, burrowing into the furs once more the way his mother had left him. He held his breath. His heart stopped beating all together as he lay, desperately seeking the stillness his mother had shown him, the stillness that now seemed impossible to find.

Through a separation of two furs, he watched the man stepped inside.

He was large, a shadow against the blazing light from outside. He wore the same blue uniform as the others. He stepped carefully, his boots heavy on the packed-in dirt floor. A rifle hung heavy in his hands as he took in his surroundings.

Even from beneath the furs, Wíyaka could smell the man. He smelled of sweat, of leather, and of the white man’s bitter drink.

Wíyaka číkʼalalay frozen, every muscle screaming. Do not move. Do not make a sound. His mother’s words rang frantic in his ears.

The soldier scanned the space. His eyes passed over the sleeping robes, the scattered pots from their meal, the cold ashes of the fire pit. He took another step, his boot crunching on a piece of dried wood.

He moved toward the pile of blankets.

Wíyaka číkʼala could see the man’s face now, bearded, streaked with sweat and soot. His pale eyes were wide and strange.

The soldier stopped, his gaze fixed on the mound of robes.

He knew.

Wíyaka číkʼala squeezed his eyes shut, his body rigid with a terror so cold it burned. The man’s breathing came heavy and fast, like a hungry dog.

He felt the man’s hand grab the edge of the top-most covering. The blanket started to lift.

That burning light, so hot and orange, flooded his hiding spot. He was exposed, his hiding place instantly lost.

In that same instant, a shadow fell over them both.

His mother.

She had come back.

She moved like a spirit, silent and fast. She didn’t scream, she didn’t shout. She lunged, and the long, sharp blade she used for skinning bison drove deep into the soldier’s back, just below his shoulder blade.

The man made a sound, a choking grunt of wet surprise.

He twisted in a blind, panicked spasm of pain. As he turned, he slashed out with the knife he pulled from his hip in a wide, clumsy, horizontal cut.

His mother cried out, short, sharp, and staggered backward, crashing into the center poles of the tipi.

Wíyaka číkʼala didn’t fully understand what had happened at first. He only knew that his mother was on the ground and that he was in pain.

As the soldier twisted, as the blankets were pulled away, the blind, sweeping cut had caught him. The blade raked across his left shoulder, a deep cut that tore through his shirt and into the flesh beneath.

The contact came as a line of fire, as a searing, white-hot pain that took his breath away.

It was so sudden, so shocking, he didn’t even scream. He just gasped, his body locking up, his mind overwhelmed by the pain, by the terror, by the sight of his mother falling to the ground in front of him.

The soldier stumbled also, his knife clattering to the dirt. He turned, his hand clutching at the hilt of his rifle, trying to finish the job, trying to make his way out of this with his own life. He raised his rifle, his eyes wild.

Then he staggered. He looked down, not at the boy, but at his own chest, as if confused. He saw the blood. His own? Theirs? His hand, the one that wasn’t trying to reach the knife stuck in his back, flew to his own shoulder, clutching it.

He looked at Wíyaka číkʼala.

Their eyes met. The soldier, a man grown, gravely injured and confused. The boy, seven years old, bleeding, his world ending.

The soldier hesitated.

It was a second. An eternity.

Then, with a groan, he turned and fled, stumbling out of the tipi, leaving his rifle and the boy behind.

Wíyaka číkʼala tried not to scream. The sound was a hard knot in his throat, choking him. The pain in his shoulder was a living thing, a fire that was spreading down his arm, into his chest.

He lay there, pinned by the pain, by the furs, by the horror.

He heard the soldier collapse, just outside the tipi. He heard the sounds of the attack move away, down toward the creek. The shouting and gunfire became distant, then faded.

All that was left was the crackle of the fires, and the low moans of the dying.

He lay there for a long time. The smell of his own blood, coppery and hot, filled his nose, mixing with the smoke, mixing with the smell of his mother’s blood. He didn’t move, slipping in and out of consciousness as he bled into the bison skins where just hours before, he had felt so warm and safe.

By the time the sun rose, the village was gone. The fires had burned themselves out, leaving only skeletal poles pointing at a gray, smoke-filled sky.

His mother was dead.

He pushed the heavy, blood-soaked bison skins off his body. The morning air was sharp and cold. It hit the raw, open wound on his shoulder, and he hissed, a sound thin as a snake’s.

He looked at the gash marking his body. It was long, curving from his collarbone to his shoulder blade. A deep, angry red, already dark with dried blood.

The village was silent. It was a silence he had never known before.

It was the silence of the ashes a fire leaves behind . The silence of the dead.

He reached a trembling hand under his torn shirt. His fingers found the rawhide cord. He pulled it out.

The carved feather was still there. It was stained, a dark, rusty red. The only thing he had left.

He clutched it in his small fist. The boy named Wíyaka číkʼala, Little Feather, was gone. He had burned up with the village. He had died in his tipi with his mother.

The scar on his shoulder, the one he would carry forever, was the only thing left. It marked the day that he changed, the day he lost everyone and everything.

It was not the mark of a feather.

It was the mark of a talon.

Chapter One

April 12, 1864

The sudden halt of the wagon was the first moment of stillness they’d had in three days. Celia’s body, still braced for the next jolt, continued to thrum with the memory of motion.

She jumped when there was a quick rap of knuckles on the bench of the wagon beside her.

“We’re here, Celia.”

Her father’s voice was low and rough, like gravel scraped over stone. She opened her eyes, blinking against the harsh Wyoming sun.

They had finally arrived at Fort Laramie.

It wasn’t the sanctuary she had imagined, some settler’s doorstep to peace and freedom. It was a sprawling, militaristic mass of canvas, wood, and mud. Soldiers in dusty blue uniforms walked the perimeter, rifles resting in their arms, their presence a heavy blanket over the noise. Wagons, hundreds of them it seemed, were lined up in ragged rows, ready and waiting to begin their journey.

The last few miles had been a misery, the trail swallowed by spring rains that turned the earth into a deep, sucking mire. But they’d made it.

They’d made it, only to actually begin their journey.

“Late arrivals over here!”

A man with a barrel chest and a booming voice waved them toward a gap near the main gate. Celia assumed it was Silas Mercer, the wagon leader. He was already barking orders to a family trying to corral a stray goat, his face flushed with impatience.

Celia’s father, Cass, just nodded once, his hands sure on the reins, and guided their wagon into the spot. They were parked beside Mr. Mercer’s own rig, a massive Conestoga that looked new and sturdy next to their worn-down prairie schooner.

A woman with a kind, weathered face and greying hair in a practical bun was ticking items off a list. She called up to them as they approached and introduced herself as Maggie Greene, the wagon leader’s second in command. She was leading a small contingent of widows, and Celia noted right away the way she ran her section with a quiet efficiency that was the direct opposite of Silas Mercer’s roar.

“Time to unload, girl,” Cass said, climbing down from the wagon seat. He didn’t offer her a hand down from the high bench. He never did.

Celia gathered her skirts, her stomach giving a familiar, unwelcome churn. She hadn’t kept down more than a few bites of hardtack since dawn, but she’d blamed it on the rough trail when Cass had asked. He’d just grunted, his gaze already on the horizon. His silence was a fortress she had given up trying to breach, especially after the death of her mother.

She swung down, landing in mud that was ankle-deep. The smell of wet earth, animals, and unwashed bodies was overwhelming, and she took a deep breath through her mouth, fighting the urge to pinch her nose shut against the smells.

“This is my niece, Bea Stanton,” Maggie said. She gestured to a young woman with the warmth and confidence of someone much older, her sunshine hair in two long braids framing a round, apple cheeked face.

“Miss. Stanton, good to meet you.”

“Mr. Harper.” Bea smiled at them. She clucked her tongue as she spotted Juniper, Celia’s niece, peeking out from the wagon’s canvas flap.

“And here’s the little girl you mentioned in your letter!” Bea cooed. “She’s a doll, Celia. You must be so proud.”

Celia forced a smile. “Thank you, Miss. Stanton.” She tried not to show her physical discomfort at the lie, or the growing fear of something new that had been plaguing her all day.

The lie. It was a living thing, a second shadow that followed her everywhere. When her sister, Iris, died of the fever, leaving Juniper an orphan, the lie had seemed to be their only refuge. It offered them all a new start.

It had been her father’s idea to say that Cass had lost her husband to consumption, making little Juniper her child and erasing the existence of Iris completely.

He had insisted, and when he had talked her through it, it had made sense.

Now, however, it felt like a sticky quagmire with no sense to it at all.

“Why don’t I take her for a spell?” Bea offered. “I do love little ones. That will give you and your father a chance to get settled. It’s no trouble at all, and my aunt here can speak for my good character.”

Juniper looked between Bea and Celia, uncertain. She had always been a touch shy, and Celia had a flash of worry that no matter how much they had practiced the lie, she would slip up and get them caught before they even stepped foot on the trail.

Before Celia could politely decline, Cass spoke. “That would be mighty kind of you.”

He didn’t ask, he just accepted, as if it were perfectly normal to hand off a five year old to a stranger. He loved Juniper, she knew he did, but he was a man lost in his own grief, and a child’s needs were too much for him to manage. Celia watched Bea lift Juniper into her arms, the little girl’s dark curls bouncing as she went willingly into the woman’s arms. Relief warred with a sharp, possessive guilt, and Celia had to bite her tongue as Bea moved purposely off to the sheep pens, singsonging about the different animals they would see.

Juniper didn’t even look back as they disappeared into the crowd.

“We need to get the oats and the beans checked by Greene,” Cass said, already moving to the back of the wagon, not even bothering to see where his granddaughter was being taken.

Celia pushed her feelings down. There was no room for them, and besides, what could she do? She wasn’t a mother, didn’t have any idea what it meant to be one.

She followed him and untied the heavy canvas flap, reaching in to grab hold of a fifty-pound sack of dried beans.

Cass glanced at her as she did.

“I can take this,” she said, leaning forward to lift it.

“It’s heavy,” he said, not as a question, but a statement.

“I can manage.”

She braced herself, took the weight, and swung it to her hip. A dull ache pulled in her lower back, and the nausea rose again, hot and acidic. She pressed a palm over her abdomen, flat beneath her stays and the thick layers of her dress.

No one knows.

She held her breath, moved the sack to the edge of the wagon, and turned back.

No one can know.

She grabbed a smaller crate of dried meat, her movements deliberately steady. Control. That was the key. If she was in control, if she was useful, no one would look too closely, not even her father.

She scanned the area once more, taking in all of the noise, the people, the resources amassed for the start of the trail. A thin woman walked by with her husband, who smiled as he hefted a heavy sack over one shoulder while his other arm draped over her protectively. The woman’s hands were folded over her swelling stomach. A pang of fear shot through Celia, How on earth would she be able to keep a secret amongst all of this?

Nearby, a horse whinnied, loud and sharp, and a rider on a handsome buckskin splashed through the mud, showing off for a group of women. This face was a familiar one: Rowan McKee. He had been trying to catch her eye since they’d left Missouri, and she’d been perfecting the art of looking right through him.

Her gaze slid past him, and that’s when she saw the other man.

He wasn’t part of the chaos. He was standing a few feet behind McKee, beside a quiet black mare, checking his saddle straps.

He was unusually tall and lean, dressed in worn trousers, a weather-stained shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat. His dark hair was tied back in a single, long braid. He didn’t speak to anyone, didn’t seem to notice the noise or the crowd. He was a point of stillness in the swirling mess of the fort.

He must have felt her gaze.

He looked up. His eyes, even from this distance, were a startling pale amber. They met hers for a single, breath-stealing second.

It wasn’t a look of interest, like Rowan McKee’s. It was a look that simply noticed. It passed right through the shield she held up, the armor of the grieving widow, and registered the tired, frightened woman beneath.

A hot flush crept up her neck. She looked away, back to the wagon, her heart hammering. It was the strangest feeling, to be seen and yet feel completely invisible all at once.

“Celia.”

Her father’s sharp tone snapped her back to the full list of tasks at hand. As Silas had called out, they were late to the fort, and had a lot to do to get ready to leave. “Yes, Pa.”

She grabbed the crate, the weight of it a welcome, painful distraction, and carried it toward Maggie Greene’s supply wagon, not daring to look back.

Later, as the sun began to dip, painting the sky in shades of bruised purple and orange, Silas Mercer called for a camp meeting.

They gathered in a half-circle, the air damp and cooling fast. Bea Stanton was still holding a sleeping Juniper, and Celia gave her a grateful nod.

Mercer stood on a wagon tongue, his shadow long in the twilight.

“Listen up!” he boomed. “This ain’t no picnic. The Bozeman Trail is not for the faint of heart. We’re heading into unsettled territory.”

He pointed west, toward the mountains that were just a dark smudge against the dying light.

“We’ll face harsh stretches of prairie, days at a time with no good water. We’ll face steep riverbanks that’ll try to break your axles and your spirit. And yes,” his voice dropped, “we may face conflicts. The tribes out there do not want us crossing their land.”

A nervous murmur rippled through the crowd.

“The good news is that I’ve hired a new guide to join us, one that knows the land and the language of the tribes we may encounter.” He tipped his hat to that long, lean man, the one with the amber eyes. “Talon Hill will make sure we make it safe through enemy territory.”

Talon didn’t react to this.

“You stick together,” Mercer continued, his voice rising again. “You follow my orders. You keep your wits about you, and we’ll get you to the Montana Territory. You don’t… well, the prairie doesn’t care about your excuses.”

The meeting broke apart, people clustering in small, anxious groups, their voices low. Celia turned to go back to their wagon and to prepare a cold meal of salt pork and bread.

A figure moved past her, a shadow in the dim light. She didn’t need to see his face. It was the man from before, the guide. Talon.

He brushed past, his eyes down, his steps so quiet in the mud she barely heard him.

Celia watched him from the corner of her eye as he moved toward the edge of the camp, toward his horse, away from the fires and the people.

Silas Mercer’s words about the harsh trail, the steep rivers, the threat of conflict echoed in her head. But as she stood there, a cold she’d been carrying for months settled deep in her bones.

The dangers he named were dangers she could see. She could fight them.

But the one she carried, the one she was hiding from her father, from all of them, that one was already here. The weight of it, the fear of it, was heavier than any sack of oats, and it was a responsibility she had to carry all on her own.