Chapter 4: The First Girl Disappears

A week later all of that changed! Ada Porter, a ten year old girl, vanished. No one knew where or when this happened. The last time her parents had seen her she was playing with the other girls as they walked along with the wagons. The girls didn’t know where she was or when she disappeared. Search parties were sent back along their back trail and up to a mile to either side of it, calling her name and searching for her, or her body. Nothing was found! Suddenly fingers were pointed at the captive Indian as being the culprit. They surmised that the savage had somehow killed the girl and buried her in the prairie in some Indian way so as to be permanently hidden. They wanted to hang him right then and there by using a wagon tongue instead of waiting for a tree. Buck once again pointed out that they had absolutely no proof to the veracity of the charges, and that he had given his word that no harm would come to him. He also observed that once an Indian had given his word they, unlike many white people, wouldn’t break it. Once everyone had calmed down, even the most ardent of the vigilantes admitted that there wasn’t any evidence that Sunrise Hawk had had anything to do with Ada’s disappearance. After two days, and being no closer to finding her, much less finding someone to blame for her vanishing into thin air. Even her parents agreed that waiting wasn’t an option, so the train moved on the next morning.

Miri and the other girls were saddened by their friend’s sudden loss. They had been confronted with the death of others in their short lives, sisters, brothers, Uncles, Aunts, and Grandparents had perished. But their bodies were proof that they had died, while it was not always readily apparent how they had died, it was always verifiable that they were forever gone from the world of the living. For the very first time this was not true with Ada’s disappearance. It was assumed she was dead, but there was no physical evidence, like a body, to give proof to the assumption. The girl’s didn’t know what to make of it, truthfully, they were not alone. An underlying feeling of uncertainty, of uneasiness, afflicted the entire wagon train.

They moved on the next day. If you watched closely, more than a few people looked back wistfully in the hope of seeing the missing girl appearing in the distance trying to catch up to the train. It was not to be, however. Things settled down, and the people, comforted by the return to the daily routine once again, began to lose the sense of dread that had been giving them a heavy heart. The following week, Sunrise Hawk was given an Indian pony, provisions, a bow along with a full quiver of arrows and sent on his way. He had become a friend to many and everyone had learned from the exchange of cultures. Sunrise Hawk had learned many English words that would allow him to converse with other white people and was involved in several meetings to establish treaties in his lifetime. He also saw the truth of his friend Buck’s observation that many whites were not honorable as they broke those treaties.

Two weeks later, just before reaching Fort Laramie, another girl disappeared. This time the body of Alice Smith was found, her neck was broken and she had been raped, maybe repeatedly, after she was dead. Her body was found a day after she went missing, it had been carefully hidden in a wooded area over a mile from the trail. It was totally serendipitous that her nude body was found, a Fox was observed carrying a small human hand back to its lair. Backtracking the Fox led to the discovery of the nine year old girl’s body. The hand was recovered and buried with Alice. Now came the realization that Ada had probably suffered the same fate, and if that was true then someone on the train was responsible. It was also very clear in everyone’s minds that the person doing this to young girls was as depraved and deranged as anyone they had ever heard about. Instantly people became suspicious of the other people on the train. Anybody exhibiting odd behavior was suspected of being the bastard rapist/killer. The wagon train lost one of the most important facets of survival, they were no longer a cohesive unit.