The trek through hostile country went as well as it could have; nearly two anxious months of nonstop travel. When they arrived in Crow country, the cherry trees in the river bottoms bore ripening fruit. They pressed on. Would they find the post a smoking ruin, the bodies of their friends like pincushions for arrows? The post came into view. The walls were intact, the gate closed. All was well; they had made it in time.
Beckwourth galloped into the Crow village. “I have returned,” he called. “I am angry.” He paraded through the village like a herald, calling this out over and over, with Pappen and Davis in tow. Every ear was turned to him, every gaze averted. No pot was stirred; the fashioning of weapons ceased. Women seized children who were too young to recognize the gravity of the situa
