Uncertain: Day 9

Word Count: 54,030

Summary of Events:

Joseph discovered a campsite with a fire, at which Deputy found the children's scents, which proved that the trapper who'd picked up the children had spent the night there with them. Hazel asked Mr. Andrews some of the questions that'd formed in her mind regarding the life story he'd told and was dissatisfied with the answers he gave. Joseph continued riding the next day, cold and wet thanks to an overnight rain, and thought about the search party he knew was behind him, although he wasn't sure was necessarily heading the same way he was . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Joseph shifted his jaw as he thought. Mrs. Chalmers was a very logical person, and she was very close with Mrs. Dirk — they were sisters after all — so she would’ve known the Dirks had lived in Santa Fe too, so she probably would’ve concluded that Santa Fe’s direction was the one they ought to be heading in.

There was, however, the matter of whether she had been able to convince everyone else that it made much more sense for the children to have struck out for Santa Fe instead of any other direction.

Eustace was not exactly an easy man to convince of anything — but neither was Mrs. Chalmers a woman who could be put down easily — and because of his experience as a Union Lieutenant Joseph was willing to put money down to back up his opinion that Eustace had inserted himself as leader of the expedition.

He wasn’t going to lie, Eustace was pretty good at visual tracking — as Joseph himself was — but visual tracking wasn’t as good as dog tracking, thereby Joseph had the upper hand and would probably get to the right place first.

Eustace would probably lead the others wherever the freshest tracks led from wherever they started at, which wasn’t necessarily north to Yates Creek and west to Santa Fe.

If Mrs. Chalmers proved as forceful and persuasive as Joseph was certain she could be, they probably would’ve headed for the creek before looking for tracks, and maybe even have followed after his, but started out far enough behind him to have not succeeded in catching up to him — or hearing Deputy’s barks.

In fact, if they hadn’t loped to the creek, it was likely they were further behind him than they’d set out at.

Not that it really mattered how far behind him Mrs. Chalmers and her search party were, what mattered was ahead of him.

The best he could guess was that the benevolent trapper who’d picked Ruby and Teddy up and was carrying them west to Santa Fe faster than they could’ve ever hoped to get there on foot was a day ahead of him.

Because of the possibility of wildlife, the uneven terrain, and the lack of much for food for Tempest, seeing as grass was not inclined to grow well in spruce forest, Joseph didn’t want to jog or lope to try and catch up.

Too, it wasn’t like the trapper was doing anything wrong. He was getting Ruby and Teddy to safety. He hadn’t kidnapped them. Joseph was sure the man — once they hopefully met up in Santa Fe — would be more than willing to see the kids given to Mrs. Chalmers, seeing as she was their aunt.

Joseph didn’t really see the need to hurry now that he was sure the children were in good hands. He could casually make his way to Santa Fe, track the trapper down there, get the children back, and all would be well; in fact, the search party behind him might even be able to catch up to him that way so that he could present the children to Mrs. Chalmers personally before trekking all the way back to Santa Fe.