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bedroll nearest the fire. The freed slave had begun following the Colonel and Josey as they marched through Georgia and he had never left. Byron could sleep through most anything so long as Josey and the Colonel were near.
    â€œWish I slept half as well,” Josey said as he sought a comfortable position.
    â€œI thought you’d sleep easy, now that we’ve got a paying job. Aren’t you happy?”
    The Colonel generally carried the conversation for both, but in the dark he couldn’t see Josey’s nod. “I am happy,” Josey said.
    â€œI thought so.” The Colonel expected to be right in most things, but being right wasn’t always enough—he had to explain how he came to his conclusion, a small pleasure Josey wouldn’t deny him. “I couldn’t be sure because your face when you’re happy is so much like your face when you’re sad. Or your face when you’re angry, come to think of it.”
    The Colonel got up. He didn’t go far, and Josey heard the old man’s dribbles against a stone.
    â€œDon’t worry about the people,” he said when he returned. “You and Byron will range ahead, keep us out of trouble, find us a good campsite with water and grass.”
    â€œI can do that.”
    â€œI’ll deal with the people.”
    The Colonel didn’t need a response to confirm he was right, and Josey was relieved he didn’t have to explain himself. A coughing fit overcame the old man, his dry heaves tearing through the night. He spit into the fire. “Guess I talked too much.”
    â€œDidn’t know that could happen,” Josey said, drawing another cough mixed with laughter. The Colonel had been trying to shake the cough for weeks.
    â€œI knew a job would put you in a better mood. Now you can quit worrying about money.”
    â€œNow I can worry about the Sioux.”
    The Colonel waved a gnarled hand. “You always find something.”
    â€œI suppose you’re not concerned.”
    â€œThe army’s negotiating a peace treaty,” the Colonel said. He didn’t sound convinced, tried a different tack. “The Sioux didn’t bother us.”
    â€œWe didn’t have wagons. Or women and children.”
    Byron’s snoring cut off as he snuffled in his sleep. They waited for the big man to quiet before speaking again. The Colonel nodded toward Byron. “The two of you should go to town tomorrow and use part of the advance to get supplies. Get as many rounds as you can.”
    Josey had never needed to be told to load up. He looked closely at the Colonel, but the old man returned his gaze to the fire. “Peace treaty, huh?” Josey rolled away from his friend and drifted off so quickly the Colonel’s next words sounded like they were part of a dream.
    â€œGo to sleep, Josey. We’ve got a long ride ahead, and there will be no rest where we’re going.”

C HAPTER S IX
    With more than one hundred rooms, the Herndon House occupied a full block, rising four sturdy stone stories above Omaha. Annabelle didn’t mind that the place had no running water and stoves in only a few rooms—a feature for which management charged extra. In a town that still housed many of its people in log houses with sod roofs, the Herndon qualified as palatial. A four-poster bed, four walls, a ceiling—these were amenities Annabelle and her mother would be denied for the next few months. If for this alone, Herndon House proved worth the splurge of three dollars a night, a savings of fifty cents since they did without a stove.
    The plank sidewalk that fronted the Herndon House gave out at the end of the hotel, and Annabelle lifted her heavy, black skirts while picking her way on the unpaved street, rutted by wagon wheels and littered with manure. At her urging, the women had dispensed with their crinolines. The wide skirts would be the death of one of them cooking over an open fire.