Monahan said. It was the next afternoon, and he and Sweeney and young Julia and Blue were on the road again, traveling west, backtracking over the Mormon Trail. They had set out at six in the morning, and Monahan was just getting around to telling the others what had possessed him to leave Mae and Bob’s so early in the morning, especially when they were so grateful about the rescue of their boy they probably would have been happy to let them move in, permanent-like. As it was, a weeping Mae had stuffed a gunnysack full of food for the trail, and it clunked against Julia’s leg once for every strike of her horse’s left front foot. “Doesn’t mean he was,” Butch said doggedly. He hadn’t let up once he started in. “Don’t mean as how he wasn’t, either,” Monahan answered, probably extending Butch’s question and answer session for another half hour. But he was almost past caring. “Oh, stop it, you two!” Julia growled. “Honest to Pete!” She turned toward Monahan. “All he asked was why we cut out like that.
