She sat the horse as if someone had rammed a pole down her spine, and try as she might, she could not seem to stop struggling against the hard leather saddle. She glanced across at Zach Elliot and watched him spit a stream of brown tobacco juice at the ground, barely missing a flattened round of buffalo dung. “How far is it?” Analisa managed to ask between bounces. “Not far. ‘Bout two mile.” “Why didn’t they just build the agency next to the fort?” “It don’t do anybody good to have a whole passle of yellow legs camped out next to a corral full of Sioux.” “Yellow legs?” “That’s what the Injuns call the cavalry, ‘cause of the yellow stripe down their pants.” “Do you know the agent, Mr. Hardy?” He deliberated a moment too long before he answered. “Some.” After the curt reply, Analisa turned her concentration to the rutted road they were following. The prairie seemed flat, but as they traveled on, she realized the earth was deceptive. It rolled expansively, slowly rising upward from the river valley.
