Twilight fell across the Red Mesa. Then, the desert sky transformed into a breathtaking dome of deep indigo, violet, and brilliant diamond stars.
For the first time in three weeks, the camp was fully free of the choking, yellow sulfuric smog. The northern wind blowing off the Badlands smelled clean and crisp. He carried the sweet, dry fragrance of wild sagebrush, sun-baked clay, and burned cedar wood.
In the center of the wagon circle, three massive bonfires crackled merrily into the night, casting warm, dancing orange light across the twenty-two wagons.
The air was that of a joyous, triumphant festival.
Long wooden tables fashioned from spare wagon tailboards had been set up beneath the stars, groaning under the weight of a feast the frontier nomads had not tasted in years.
There were platters of tender smoked salt-marsh eel, crisp roasted marsh-potatoes seasoned with wild mountain garlic, steaming iron pots of water-oats boiled in sweet goat’s milk, and baskets of dried elderberry bannock bread. Tin mugs of hot willow-bitter pine-resin tea were passed from hand to hand. Their fragrant herbal steam mixed with the laughter and singing of the refugees.
Beside the central fire, Toby Mallow sat with his legs crossed on a dry wool blanket, his back resting comfortably against Titus’s massive, warm front leg.
