She opened her eyes again. The panic that had filled them moments before was gone. In its place was a quiet, profound stillness.
She looked up into Thomas’s face, searching his eyes, his weathered skin, his beard. She saw no hatred there, only sadness and simple human sorrow.
Weakly, her trembling hand rose from the grass. Her fingers reached out, resting briefly on the sleeve of his shirt. Then, her fingers slid down to his hand, pressing a tiny, delicate object into his palm.
She closed his fingers over it with her own weak grip.
A moment later, a long, quiet sigh escaped her chest. Her hand went limp, slipping away from his, and fell softly onto the prairie soil. Her dark eyes stared upward, reflecting the vast, empty blue of the afternoon sky.
The Lakota woman was dead.
Thomas sat there in the tall grass for a long time, her head still resting gently on his arm. The wind rustled through the oak trees near the creek, making a low, mournful sound.
Slowly, Thomas lowered her head back to the earth. He stretched her hands out neatly by her sides and used his thumb to gently close her eyelids.
Then, he opened his right hand to look at what she had given him.
Lying in his palm was a small, dried sprig of a wild plant—a pink-and-white orchid known locally as the Moccasin Flower, bound together with a tiny strip of dyed red porcupine quillwork. It was a simple hair ornament, a small piece of beauty she had carried with her through her desperate crawl across the plains.
Thomas sat back on his heels, holding the tiny flower in his rough hand.
He knew he could not leave her body to the wolves and coyotes that roamed the valley at night. Leaving an unburied body to rot in the open air was an insult to God and man alike.
Taking his spade from the wagon, Thomas walked fifty yards up the slope to the crest of a low knoll that overlooked the river valley. There, beneath the spreading branches of a solitary bur oak tree, he began to dig.
He dug for two hours, carving a deep, square grave out of the tough prairie sod. When it was four feet deep, he returned to the creek bottom, gently wrapped the woman’s body in his own canvas coat, and carried her up the hill.
He laid her to rest in the cool earth, facing the east toward the rising sun, as he had heard the native people preferred. Before shoveling the dark soil back into the pit, he reached into his pocket, took out the sprig of Moccasin Flower, and laid it gently upon her wrapped chest.
"May the Lord have mercy on your soul," Thomas said quietly, taking off his hat. "And may He bring peace to your people."
He filled the grave, mounding the dark dirt neatly, and placed a large, smooth river stone at the head of the mound to mark the spot.
By the time he returned to his cabin, the sun had plunged below the horizon, and the stars were beginning to ignite in the deep indigo sky. He said nothing to Clara about the woman. She was already terrified enough, and he saw no reason to burden her with the image of a dying woman on their fence line.
He washed his hands thoroughly at the pump, kissed his sleeping daughter, and sat down to supper in silence. But all through the night, as he lay beside his wife, he felt the heavy, quiet phantom of that oak-tree grave sitting on the hill above his home.
Five days passed.
On the morning of August 18, 1862, the world shattered.
The air was heavy with humidity, an oppressive heat hanging over the valley even at eight o'clock in the morning. Thomas was standing near his barn, sharpening an axe on a foot-pedal grindstone, when he heard a sound that made his blood run cold.
It was not the wind. It was the frantic, frantic pounding of horse hooves, tearing down the dirt road from the west at a breakneck gallop.
Thomas dropped his sharpening stone and stepped out into the yard.
A wooden farm wagon was hurtling down the road, clouds of dust billowing behind it like smoke. Driving the team was his neighbor, Jacob Henderson. Henderson was leaning over the wooden seat, whipping his two draft horses frantically with the leather reins, his face twisted in a mask of pure terror.
In the back of the wagon sat Henderson’s wife and three young children, huddling together among hastily thrown bundles of blankets and clothes.
"Thomas! Thomas!" Henderson screamed as he neared the cabin, throwing his weight back on the reins to slide the wagon to a screeching halt in the yard. The horses were lathered in white foam, their eyes wild, their nostrils flaring red.
Clara ran out onto the porch, pulling Abigail behind her skirts.
"Jacob! What is it? What’s happened?" Thomas demanded, running to the side of the wagon.
"They've risen!" Henderson shrieked, his voice cracking with hysteria. "The Santee! Little Crow’s warriors attacked the Agency at dawn! They’ve burned the trading posts! They killed Myrick and the agents! They're sweeping down the river valley, burning every cabin, killing every settler they find!"
Clara let out a sharp, piercing scream, covering her mouth with both hands.
"Are you certain?" Thomas asked, his mind struggling to process the horror. "Jacob, are you sure?"
"I saw the smoke with my own eyes!" Henderson wept, tears cutting clean streaks through the dust on his face. "The Lower Settlement is gone! The Milford township is burning! They killed the Voigt family three miles back! Thomas, for God's sake, unhitch your horses and get Clara and the little girl into my wagon! We have to reach Fort Ridgely before they cut off the road!"
Thomas turned to look at Clara. She was trembling violently, her eyes wide with unadulterated terror as she clutched little Abigail to her chest.
Fort Ridgely lay twelve miles to the southeast. It was a stone outpost manned by a small garrison of Union soldiers—the only safe haven for fifty miles in any direction.
"Get your carpetbag, Clara," Thomas ordered sharply, his voice dropping all hesitation. "Get Abigail's winter coat and all the bread in the pantry. Now!"
Clara turned and sprinted inside the cabin.
Thomas ran into the barn, grabbed his double-barreled shotgun from its pegs, and stuffed a handful of brass paper cartridges filled with heavy buckshot into his coat pocket. He emerged from the barn just as Clara ran back out, holding Abigail tight and clutching a small cloth sack of provisions.
"Hop in! Hurry!" Henderson screamed, looking wildly toward the western horizon.