The Five Dollar Mail Book 3: The Road Home

25: Sanctuary

Cover painting by Angela Taratuta. Chapter artwork of Jesse by Melissa Zayas. All graphics by me.

Book 1: The Green, Book 2: Lynch's Boys, Book 3: The Road Home, and the Riders & Kickers Anthology are available on Amazon under the name Regina Shelley. So if you hate waiting for chapter posts and/or want a more polished read, the finished product is available now.

Here's a sketch of done by as it appears in the Kindle version of Book 1: The Green. I love this one especially because he's eating a peppermint stick. 

Jesse's mind reeled as Runs Laughing led him back to Still Water Woman's lodge. He let her pull him through the camp as she impatiently tugged at his hand. He was barely aware of the laughter and occasional jeer thrown his way by people nudging each other and pointing at him, snickering the words he'd come to know as "The girl-child's captive". He knew Eagle Bone watched from a distance, ready to drop him with an arrow the moment Jesse did anything other than allow himself to be taken back to Still Water Woman's lodge.

He didn't really care about any of that at this point. He was preoccupied with other matters...particularly the contents of the letter he'd read for His Horses. The old chief had listened intently, asking Jesse to re-read it several times before dismissing him. He had looked baffled and grim and not at all happy.

It's a contract for a land sale. Although callin' it a 'sale' would be a stretch. More like an outright robbery. The price they are offering...whoever 'they' actually are...is an insult.

No wonder these people are wound up so tight...

Runs Laughing tightened her grip on his hand and pulled him impatiently. It was getting late, and the child was ready to get home. She'd come looking for him at the lodge of His Horses, anxious to retrieve him. He stumbled along after her, taking extra care to not look like he was resisting in any way. She has no idea that one wrong tug on her hand could earn me an arrow through the back. I'm being watched by more eyes than I can count. And not all of them are laughing. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that had anyone but this little girl found him lying on that riverbank, he'd be dead. I'd be dead and my hair would be fluttering in the breeze above the same lodge I can't wait to get back into right now.

Life's got some turns in it, don't it?

He quickened his step, thinking about the contract he'd read to His Horses and Two Elk. Looks like Lily and me ain't the only ones with land troubles... A sudden thought struck him. What if...what if it's the same damn thing as that business in Point of Rocks? Holy...! "Galloway," he sputtered. "He...I bet he drew that contract up! He's....was...a lawyer!" His mouth dropped open. "Shitfire. What is going on?"

"Come!" Runs Laughing pulled insistently on his arm and showing off her use of the word in English.

"I'm coming!" He shook his head and chuckled, despite his startled realization. "You're pulling my arm off!" His Horses sells his rights to this land, what happens then? This ain't just Galloway; he had to be working for someone bigger. The army? A chill began to creep through his blood as he pictured guns and smoke and screaming in the quiet village, where there were smiling grandmothers and playing children, and sweet women with gentle hands and warm, sad eyes.

He suspected that Eagle Bone, Two Elk, and His Horses lay awake at night, tormented by the exact same vision.

Still Water Woman paced in front of her lodge, a smile of worried relief breaking over her face. "Are you..." she paused, remembering the words in halting English, "alright?"

I am now that I'm back here. The circular hide walls of the lodge felt to Jesse like a stone fortress. He knew it was crazy to think that. There was nothing here that could save him if Eagle Bone or His Horses decided to do him harm. And worse, there was nothing that would save Still Water Woman and Runs Laughing if they were pushed off the lands they traveled and lived on. Or worse, if someone decides they have no right to be here. "Yes," he said in Lakota, his mind so cluttered with troubling thoughts he barely realized he'd answered her.

She nodded, satisfied, and gestured to the place he'd been sleeping. He noticed the inner lining of the lodge had been let down, hiding the poles. Runs Laughing let go of his hand and walked to her own sleeping place, pulling her moccasins off as she went.

Does Still Water Woman mean to just let me sleep without tying me to the lodge poles? He walked warily over to the blankets and sat down, slipping the worn, second-hand moccasins from his own feet. He forced himself not to look up at her approach, to not react to the deep dread that washed over him as she knelt down beside him. No. She doesn't trust me. She has no reason to. It would be foolish.

Her hand settled across his brow, warm and soft, and he jerked his head up, meeting her dark gaze. She murmured something, pressing the back of her hand against his face, seeming to check for fever. "Sleep now," she said gently, gesturing to the blankets. Whatever she was thinking was hidden well behind the darkness of her eyes. She stood up, strode across the lodge and slid beneath the blankets with her sister.

Still watching her, he eased himself down and let himself relax. He could hear the embers of the low fire popping softly beside him as tried to force the tension from his body.

He was afraid. He had been afraid since he'd been bound beneath the earth, afraid since he'd fallen from the sky and dragged down an icy river. He'd been afraid since he opened his eyes and realized he was a prisoner again.

He wasn't afraid of any of that anymore. None of that mattered. Because now he was terrified of something much worse.

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