Chapter 3: The First Steps

At dusk, Jed told Johnny and Winona that it was time to get ready. They had selectively loaded the backpacks so that Winona carried about eight pounds of the food rations: pemmican, hardtack, johnnycakes, and jerky. Johnny carried fourteen pounds of the survival and trapping gear with the flint on top, along with the rest of the dry goods—the flour, corn meal, coffee, salt, and sugar.

Johnny never owned a real winter coat, just a used buckskin jacket an old Indian gave him out of kindness. Jedidiah dug through one of two big steamer trunks he had in the corner of his cabin and pulled out a long, hooded coat that came down to mid-calf made from bison hide. He said, “This here coat’ll keep ya nice an’ toasty. When ya two’s bed down, Winona, you climb’s in wit him and snuggle up close. Johnny, you wraps it round’ ya. Conservin’ body heat is life er death. Neither of ya wants ta freeze ta death in yur sleep.”

As they left the cabin and started out away from civilization, the darkness wrapped around them like a protective blanket as Johnny and Winona crept through the sage brush beyond Fort Laramie’s wooden walls, having slipped away just after nightfall. Their breath formed small clouds in the bitter December air, and frost crunched beneath their moccasined feet. Johnny’s heart hammered against his ribs—not from the cold, but from the magnitude of what they had undertaken. Behind them lay the only semblance of civilization he had known for four years. Ahead stretched two hundred and fifty miles of winter wilderness that could kill them as surely as any slaver’s bullet.

“We must keep to shadows,” Winona whispered, her broken English soft but urgent. “Army men, they patrol at morning time. See us, they bring back to fort.”

Johnny nodded, adjusting the heavy pack Jedidiah had thrust upon his shoulders before shoving them out the door. The old trapper’s final words echoed in his mind: Prescott’s trackers are out lookin’ fur her. They knows she had help gittin’ away. If’n they catch ya, they sez you be dead ‘n scalped, she be sold as a brothel whore. You two gots ta be smart, and act like the whole damn territory’ll be huntin’ ya. Don’t you dare let me down, boy.

They moved northwest, following a game trail that paralleled the North Platte River at a distance, staying well away from the main wagon road where even late-traveling settlers might spot them. Winona led the way with the sure-footed grace of someone raised in this land, while Johnny stumbled over rocks and crashed through brush like a bull in a china shop. Every sound he made seemed to echo across the frozen landscape.