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1.

The morning was close and sultry, the sun rising with a faint oppressive heat. The little antelope stood perfectly still in the shade of the high rocks, watching as the twenty-seven wagons rolled ponderously by on the trail below. It was barely visible, blending into the craggy landscape in this wide loop of the Lower Platte River. The year was 1848, and men were scarce in these parts, but the animal instinctively knew better than to make its presence known.

Five-year-old Daniel Evans was mightily bored, his mother had told him to stay with William, his older brother, but William had other ideas. At eleven, William preferred the company of the men, especially Nate Turner who loved to regale the wide-eyed youngster with horrific tales of his early years as a trapper. William was walking behind Mr. Turner's horse now, having threatened Daniel with dire consequences should he dare to tell their widowed mother that he had left their wagon to his sister to drive.

Daniel saw the antelope by chance, when it flicked its tail at a fly. The men of the company hadn't spotted it; Daniel knew how they valued the tender meat as a change from the dark, stringy buffalo, which was all they had had for the last week. Game had been scarce for days, and although a hunting party went out before the wagons halted to camp each evening, they had returned with empty pouches. Daniel jumped down from his seat on the wagon's tailgate, and ran directly towards the antelope, which promptly turned tail and disappeared into the rocks above the sandy trail. Daniel kept it in sight for a couple of minutes, his little legs pumping, until he saw it vanish into a gap between two large rocks, where it turned as if cornered. Daniel squeezed between the rocks, and the antelope bounded out, right over his head. Trying to turn around, Daniel found he had squeezed in a little too far, he couldn't go forward and neither could he get back out. He struggled and squirmed for several minutes, rubbing his face and hands raw on the rough stone, before it dawned on him he was well and truly trapped. Frightened now, he took a deep breath preparatory to crying out for help; he could still hear the wagons passing by below. But when he threw his head back to yell the cry died in his throat with shock, for standing atop the rocks looking down on him was the first Red Indian he had ever seen in his short life.

The wagon train was seven weeks out of Independence. The boss was Mr. Samuel Fisher, and the wagons mostly held families who planned to start a new life in Oregon. Amongst them was Mrs. Amelia Evans, the widow of an Episcopal clergyman, who had left Massachusetts with her four children to accompany her brother-in-law and his family out West, with a vision of prosperity and freedom before them.

Mrs. Evans had been called to one of the rear wagons early that morning, to assist with the nursing of little Mary Ellis, who had contracted a fever. The seven women in the company had taken turns to look after the three sick emigrants, there was Andrew Jones who had broken his leg in a fall from his horse while hunting, and Alfred Downs was badly injured when the trace of his wagon broke and he fell under the wheel. Little Mary was only a year old, and had seemed fine the morning before, but showed signs of lameness at the noon meal, and had a raging fever by nightfall. Her mother had died two weeks before, during the birth of her second child, and the baby boy was in the care of Mrs. Fisher, the boss's wife. Mrs. Evans was bathing Mary's face when Jesse Thomson rode up to the wagon with a message from Mr. Fisher. "You ladies are stay inside your wagons, and keep the children with you. The scouts have seen sign of Indians in this area; they'll be Pawnee I reckon. They may not bother us, but the Boss says to take no chances."
"Indians!" A shriek from 14-year-old Lucy Cooper. "They'll kill us all! I've heard tell they massacred a family at a mission last year!"
"Don't be silly Lucy" snapped Amelia, "That was nowhere near here. And anyway Mr. Fisher has made this trip before, he knows what he's talking about. We'd better do as he says. Come girl, back to your own wagon."