As soon as he started walking towards them, the woman on her pony started to head for the bank. Still aiming her rifle at Edwards, she made her horse move without holding onto the reins that lay lazily over the neck of her pony.
Jeremiah had told them that the Indians had a different relationship to their animals and the land, and John was wondering if she was able to communicate with her horse through some kind of a magic mind link. Instinctively John changed direction also and followed her ashore. As she reached the edge of the water, she suddenly kicked her horse into the sides making it quickly jump up onto the bank and disappear behind the treeline and John followed her. He found her no longer on her horse but crouching down behind a large boulder with the rifle trained yet again on Edwards.
He too could see Edwards and was wondering if he had made the right choice. He hoped they were not going to shoot the man or worse. He suddenly remembered all the gory stories he had listened to in the past.
Even Jeremiah had hinted at it. "Different tribes have different customs. Some friendlier than others, I wouldn't want any of them as my enemy though," Jeremiah had told Walls in front of the other man's fireplace that night.
He watched how Edwards looked in their direction and then lowered his gun. Could he still see him?
When they were all still standing in the water, Edwards had told him to get behind his horse and he almost did. He probably would have had Edwards not told him to think about his wife. He didn't really like Edwards but he wasn't the worst, not like the Blacksmith, and not like his wife. 'They'd make a great pair,' John mused. He heard the splashing of hooves through the water that pulled him back into reality. He held his breath in fear of what might happen next and watched how the Indian on his horse charged at Edwards, shouting something he could not understand and holding his gun high in the air as if he was trying to scare away a wild animal. It worked, for Edwards rapidly turned Goliath around and fled the scene and then he could see neither of them anymore.
He heard the Indian man's cry another few times in the distance. He could still hear the horses galloping in the water, but no shots were fired which reassured him that Edwards got away. The woman than jumped back onto her horse. She stretched her hand out for him to climb on behind her but even if he had wanted to, he couldn't. There were no stirrups to put his foot in and he had no strength left. Exhausted, he sat himself down onto the ground, resting his head on his forearms, until the man came back on his horse a few moments later.
John looked up at the man whose facial expression was stern, and got frightened again. He was young enough but not as young as Alfred or Edwards' stable boy. Mid thirties maybe. John knew he was no good at judging a person's age. He usually made people much older.
They talked to each other in their own language. The man sounded annoyed and looked down at John with angry eyes, so that John questioned his sanity for having made the choice he did. All the horrific stories adults had told them, and they played out on the street came flooding back into his mind. Would they keep him as a slave? Or worse, were they going to torture him? He had heard the Indians killed their captives slowly, over days, often using fire to inflict as much pain as possible. Were they going to boil him, skin him alive? Sacrifice him to their god and eat his liver? He heard they made no difference between man, woman nor child. Would they really do that to a child? His mind raced a million miles an hour. Maybe he should have taken his chances with the woman and her 'shits-oil'. It wasn't really all that bad, was it?
"Come!" the man commanded and offered him his outstretched arm, leaning down towards John who was still sitting on the ground. He wanted him to climb up on the back of his horse behind him.
Relieved that the man spoke English, John found his words again. "Ah no, Mister. You're good. I go alone, thanks very much," he told the man, declining the man's hand with a wave of his own from where he was sitting.
The man sat up and looked perplexed at his companion, who shrugged her shoulders, as if to say "I told you so!"
"Come!" the man offered a second time, although it sounded much more like an order than a request. Again he was leaning down towards John and offered him his hand, and again John declined.
"No Mister, you don't understand. I have got plans. I am headed for the city. If you just tell me how I get there, I'll be on my way. I'll be grand," John told him, but started to get a little nervous because the man didn't seem to take No for an answer and looked annoyed. He hoped it was just because he didn't understand and his English wasn't all that good, and not because they regarded him as some sort of a prisoner.
When the couple started to talk to each other in their own language again, John got up with the intention to walk away. They seemed to discuss what to do with him, but John didn't want to find out what they'd decided. He hoped they'd get the message and would let him just walk away.
As he tried to limp away the Indian woman made her pony move forward and into his way.
The man looked down again and pointing at him said "You! – Come!" with a stern voice and stoic facial expression, motioning for John to come back closer. When John didn't comply the man pointed at himself and his female companion said, "Safe!"
"No Mister." John now argued, "You don't get it. I go alone. Me. En-koo-da-booaoo. I go alone or live alone, or whatever that name means exactly, En-koo-da-booaoo? You understand?" John said pointing at himself using the name of Jeremiah's friend to explain that he did not want to belong to anyone. He was done with that or at least until he got back home.
"Enkoodaooaoo," the man repeated in a questioning tone and looked at first his female friend than at John. "Enkoodabooaoo?"
John nodded and the man looked back at the woman again, then back at John. They both smiled in unmistakable amusement which annoyed John.
John cautiously moved around the woman's horse, and started to slowly limp away from them alongside the treeline that lined the stream. He would have preferred to stay just sitting down. He needed to look at his feet. The pain was killing him but he feared they would take him against his will if he hung around for too long. He didn't fancy ending up with them on some reservation in the middle of nowhere. As it was he had no idea where he was. His plan was still to get back to find his ma.
The man and woman on their horses moved forward and stayed beside him. He had cursed the thicket earlier when he had to run through it, but now he wished this area of woodland was more densely grown, so that they could not follow him so easily.
John stopped and looked up at them in annoyance. Again, he repeated the only Indian word he knew.
The man shook his head.
"No!" he said in a firm and short manner, and again "No! Not Enkoodabooaoo. Mukki." He pointed at John, "You! – Mukki!"
John's fear of the man became increasingly replaced with annoyance. He could hear that the word that the man said to him or name he gave him did not command the same respect as the other.
"Mukki? What's a Mukki?" he asked with a defiant tone and looked challengingly from one rider to the other. But all they did was smirk at him, so he started to limb away again which became increasingly difficult. They no longer tried to persuade him but neither did they seem to give up. They stayed beside him and gave him no indication that they were going to leave him be any soon.
Exhausted and sore, John gave up and just sat down. He needed a rest. His feet were too sore to walk.
Both the man and woman dismounted their horses. Threat filled John again as they came close to him. What did they want with him?
The woman knelt down in front of him and reach for his feet, but John pulled his feet away from her. "No, don't touch. They are sore," he told her.
She looked back at the man, who now stepped forward staring at John in a threatening manner, which was all he needed to do to scare him into letting her open his shoe laces. Even though she was careful It hurt like hell when she took the shoes finally off. It felt as if she ripped the skin off and left it behind in his shoes and at the back of his heel and the side of his feet that was probably exactly what happened. Where his first layer of skin wasn't chaffed off, open and dark pink, it was white and full of wrinkles from being saturated in the cold water for too long. No wonder he could hardly walk. How he managed to run earlier was beyond his comprehension. Maybe the cold water had taken the pain away or maybe being chased allowed him to blend it out, but he hadn't even really felt the pain until he got ashore. The thought of stories where captives were skinned alive came back into his mind and made him swallow hard. Surely, they could not be true? Who'd do such a thing? He thought as he looked at the two people in front of him.
Again they started talking in their own language, excluding him from the conversation which no doubt was about him. It sounded as if they argued, but not in a mean way, they just didn't agree with each other.
The man stepped forward and without a warning scooped John up and swung him up onto his horse. He then jumped up to sit behind him and before John could even protest, they sped away.
John was too frightened to argue or do something about it. He was terrified he'd fall off, and held onto the horse's mane as tight as he could. He was glad that the man held onto him with one arm around his chest equally tight and wondered if he'd knew that he'd never ridden before.
They rode their horses hard for about a mile and a half, and then after that kept moving at a somewhat slower pace for another few miles, until three quarters of an hour later they got to a vantage point from where they could easily see if they were followed.
There they took a short break just long enough to eat some food and let the horses recover. They fed John well and shared their food generously even though it was obvious that they themselves did not have much in ways of provisions. 'They would have passed his mother's judgement of what it means to be good people,' John mused, which was when John realised that there was still some food left in Edward' satchel that he was still carrying. The food, which consisted of some bread, dried meat, nuts and dried fruit was wet but apart from the bread, it was still edible. He was glad he could contribute, and the man nodded at him approvingly when John handed him the food. John wondered if he would have looked at him like that had he known that it was stolen. He had to think of Walls who was appalled by John's attitude to personal belongings. God might not approve but his mother would have, Edwards had more than enough.
After that they pressed on, without another break. Part of the way the man was walking alongside his animal, leaving John sitting on the back of the horse by himself. Probably to give the horse a break but John did not like this. Riding without a saddle was very different, and made him feel even more unsafe even at this slow pace. After a while the man jumped back onto the horse probably when he realised that John could hardly keep his eyes open, never mind sit up straight on top of the horse unsupported.
They kept going for another few hours and reached Jeremiah's ranch just before it got too dark to go on.