Occasionally he looked back over the wagon bed and the trailing skewbald paint to see Serenity pulling the second Conestoga along behind him, about twenty yards back of Renegade, starlight glistening off the oiled tack and metal fittings and off the graybeard’s bristled cheeks. It was good to have Serenity here. He’d hate to have to rely on only himself to get these kids safely across the Rawhides to Fort Jessup. Serenity knew the mountains and the Indians as well as he knew wagons and mules, and Cuno had more than a few times relied on the oldster’s wily wisdom. And he was a comforting, if cantankerous, companion. He and Cuno had been through a lot together. Cuno kept his Winchester close beside him on the wagon’s high seat. The slight knocks it made against the wood were as reassuring as the sound of Serenity’s nickering mules and the occasional thud of a wagon wheel nudging a rock. Occasionally, the old man would cough, spit chaw into the brush, or rasp a soft command to his mules.
