Page 34 of Head Room

“She’s not here,” Brand answered abruptly.

After seeing their other victims, Ransom couldn’t imagine why the marauders would have spared one.

Brand might have been searching for possible answers to that as well when he demanded, “Tell me about this Maggie Gregson.She couldn’t have been those girls’ mother if she was nineteen.”

The father spoke up.“She’s not.Their mother died a couple years back.Maggie and her family were headed to California in ’55.Got this far, coming from Ireland, then her ma and pa up and died of the cholera within a couple days of each other.No one on the train would take her on.

“Anna Gregson was poorly after having Mary, and swore to Gregson that Maggie would earn her keep by helping ’round the place.Anna Gregson was always breeding.Most of ’em died and she kept getting weaker and weaker, so they needed somebody.”

“They worked her like a slave,” muttered Matt Gallen.He glanced around at the soldiers with a defiant look that revealed he knew their southern origins.“And when Mrs.Gregson died, he made Maggie marry him.No one would stop him.”He glared at his father.

“What do we do now?”Riegert asked Brand.

“You take these men and catch up with the column.”

“Shouldn’t we go after—.If she’s alive, a white woman—”

“You heard Gallen.They’ve got a four-day start.And they move a hell of a lot faster.Not to mention they’d hear us coming for miles.”

“But if this white woman’s still alive—”

“If she’s alive now she’s likely to stay that way a little longer.”

Brand settled into his saddle.

“When you get to Fort Laramie, tell the commander I’ll report.”

“What?But— aren’t you going on with us?”

“No.I’m going to find out about Maggie Gregson.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I’m ready.”

“What?”That useless delay-tactic question came out before I could stop it.

Dale answered, despite its uselessness.“I’m ready to start taking pictures of each page of the manuscript for Jennifer.”

I fell back on “Great.”

No, I didn’t mention I’d started taking photos myself, because I’d only done the first two pages before I let that slide while I read.

With the manuscript no longer in my possession, I looked up Camp Douglas, which I had never heard of, despite being an Illinois native.

Yup, there it was, essentially in the present-day Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.A training camp and one of the Union’s largest prisoner-of-war camps.It was overcrowded and understaffed.At times, civilians organized aid drives for the prisoners.Many turnovers in command surely didn’t help.

I felt the rabbit hole of its history luring me, but resisted.

The other element I allowed myself to look up was the Nebraska Territory, confirming what I thought I remembered from Mrs.Parens, a former teacher and principal who was a resource for all things Cottonwood County and, more widely, Wyoming.

Yup.In 1865, what became Wyoming — as a territory in 1868, as a state in 1890 — was part of the sprawling Nebraska Territory.

So that road ranch might have been in present-day Nebraska.Fort Laramie was certainly in Wyoming now.

With admirable self-restraint, I closed the screen and left my desk.

I found Nola Choi in the break room.