Chapter 46
When You Are Awake The Dream Is Gone
Dawn was about to break over the horizon as Esben crossed over Horse Creek and reined Kodah to a stop. He looked down at the ranch below and quietly watched until a lamp was lit in the front room.
He could see Adam Turner walking toward the front of the house, opening the door and stepping onto the porch stretching out the kink in his back from the night’s sleep. He slid his right arm into the sleeve of his shirt and then his left. He then reached down and grabbed his suspender straps and pulled them up and in place before turning and walking back into the house.
It wasn’t long before Christine was up and moving around in the kitchen. She wore her long hair up and put on a white apron over her dress. He could see her filling the coffee pot from the water pump next to the sink and adding the coffee grounds. Next she went to the wood box and took out some wood and started a fire in the black pot belly stove and began to prepare the morning breakfast.
“Cikala Anpo Wilapi, Little Morning Star, I’m not the man you think I am.”
The sun was now ascending over the Black Hills in the East as he patted Kodah on the neck.
“Too much has happened. “
It was at this point that Esben knew they would never meet again.
“Do you want to see what’s on the other side of the Grand Tetons Kodah? Let’s see why everyone wants to go to California.”
He headed west at an easy pace with the plain stretching before him, treeless and waterless with the grass turning brown. The winter season was approaching. This was the Wyoming Territory he knew so well, the Wyoming Territory he spent so much of his life riding through.
Maybe California is the answer; or maybe he should have dug two graves.