The Journey Home. Linda Ford

      Kody glanced toward the woman. She sat with a rag of some sort pressed to her face. Above the gray cloth her eyes regarded him with wariness. Or was it determination? He guessed both. She’d already shown she had plenty of grit.

      The wind grew louder. The room darkened like the dead of night. He buried his face against his knees and waited. Could be the storm would end soon, or not. No predicting the nature of nature. He smiled into his handkerchief. Ma would chuckle at his choice of words. Suddenly in the noisy gloom, he missed his mother and father, even though he knew they were better off with him out of the picture. Nor were they the only ones to benefit from his departure. He pushed aside the forbidden memory.

      The woman opposite him coughed. Not a tickling sort of cough relieved with a clearing-your-throat kind of sound, but a dry cough that went on and on. He held his breath, waiting for it to end. She stopped and he let out a gust of relief. It was short-lived as she began again.

      Poor woman needed some water to wash down the dust.

      He slid across the floor until his elbow encountered the warm flesh of her arm, vibrating from her coughs. “Here, have a drink.” He offered her the canteen he’d grabbed out of habit, having learned never to wait out a dust storm without water nearby to wash his throat.

      She latched on to the canteen, lifted it to her mouth and drank greedily. For a fearful moment he thought she’d drain the contents. Not that it was a matter of life and death. He’d refill it from her well as soon as the storm ended. But nevertheless he swallowed hard. A duster could make a man mighty thirsty.

      She capped the canteen and handed it back. “Thank you.”

      He stayed where he was and again buried his face in his handkerchief and let his thoughts drift back to Favor, South Dakota, where he’d been born and raised and where the only parents he’d ever known still lived. He didn’t want to think about all he’d left behind. Better to think about this woman huddled in the corner.

      He turned his head a fraction, still protecting his face but making it possible to talk. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

      “What’s yours?”

      He chuckled. Got to admire a woman who showed no fear even in this awkward and potentially threatening situation. He knew many men who would take advantage of his position—alone with an unprotected woman. “Ma’am, my name is Kody Douglas. My father is a preacher man and I’ve been raised to be honorable and God-fearing.” The “raised” part was true. Never mind he no longer had the faith he’d been raised with. Not that he could explain what he now believed. God’s love had become so mixed up in his soul with man’s unloving behavior he didn’t know how to separate the two.

      She uttered a sound full of disbelief.

      He wasn’t surprised. All his life he’d encountered the same reaction. As if a man like him could have a father like his, a home like his, a faith like he’d once had. For most people it defied explanation.

      He hunkered down over his knees, preparing to ignore the woman. No doubt she likewise wished to ignore him. Besides, there was no reason to strike up a conversation. He’d be gone as soon as the storm ended. They’d never see each other again in this life or the one to come. That idea gave him pause. “You a believer?” he asked, even though he’d just told himself conversation was unnecessary.

      “In God?”

      He grunted affirmation.

      “Most certainly I am. I have been since I was a child at my mother’s knee. In fact, He has been my strength and help all my life. He will continue to take care of me.”

      Kody wondered at the way she said the words. As if she expected him to argue. “Got no cause to disagree.” God did seem to favor the likes of her, but Kody figured God regretted making the likes of him.

      “My name is Charlotte Porter.”

      He thought of shaking her hand but refrained. He didn’t want to put her in the position of having to choose whether or not to accept his offer nor did he want to shift his position and allow any more dirt to invade. Dust covered every bit of exposed skin, filling his pores until he envied the fish of the sea. He might head west to the ocean and sit in the water until he shriveled up like an old man just for the pleasure of having clean skin if he hadn’t already decided to ride north into Canada and keep riding until he got to uninhabited land.

      He settled for acknowledging her introduction with the proper words, though she perhaps expected nothing more than a grunt. “Pleased to meet you.”

      “You from round here?”

      He guessed she felt the need of conversation more than he did. At least he wanted to believe so. Again he told himself a man should get used to being alone and sharing his thoughts with a faithful horse. “Not so’s you’d notice.” There was nothing about his past he wanted to share with this woman or anyone else on the face of the earth, and nothing about his future that held significance for anyone but himself.

      “Where are you headed?”

      “Just following my nose.”

      “Mr. Douglas, are you being purposely evasive?”

      He chuckled. “Maybe I am. You might say it’s a habit of mine.” Seemed no need to refuse the woman the information she sought. “I’m from Favor, South Dakota.”

      “I never heard of an Indian preacher man.” Her voice was muffled.

      “I ain’t no preacher man.” He jerked his eyes open, felt the sting of dust and closed them again.

      “I mean your father.”

      He kept his handkerchief to his mouth, guessed she kept her eyes closed, too, so she couldn’t see his smile. “My father is a white man.”

      She twitched. “But—”

      “My mother is white, too. Kind of defies explanation, doesn’t it?” He squinted at her, saw her regarding him through narrowed eyes.

      “That’s impossible.”

      He laughed, liking the way her eyes momentarily widened, then as quickly narrowed against the dust.

      “Not if I’m adopted. Besides, my real mother is white. My father…” He paused. “One look at me is all it takes to know he was Indian.”

      “Adopted? Well, that explains it, doesn’t it?”

      Her voice said so much more than her words. As if it mattered about as much as fly sweat. As if he was already gone and forgotten. He settled back into his own thoughts, not sure he liked the way she silently dismissed him. Didn’t she have any particular opinion about his heritage, the unnaturalness of being raised white while looking native? Everyone else seemed to.

      He wrenched his thoughts to more practical matters.

      Had the light increased? Surely the wind roared with less vehemence. “It’s letting up.”

      “Thank God. If this is the last duster I ever see, I would be eternally grateful.”

      “You and thousands of others.”

      Neither of them moved—gray dust particles in the air would fill their eyes and nose and lungs. No,