Chapter 59

While Dusty was getting his passengers loaded, I corralled Matthew. “What was that all about?”

“What? You mean Raven? We know some of the same people. There were a lot of Cheyenne at Greasy Grass.”

I felt dizzy…off-kilter. “I’m coming with you. I’m all packed, so we can go straight to Turtle Crick.”

“No, stay here. I’ve got something I want to try before we leave. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Was he trying to put some distance between us? What was going on with the good-looking Cheyenne? Seething on the inside, I followed him to the stage. He climbed up and handed down two cages with small birds inside.

“Pigeons?” I asked.

“Not just pigeons. Homing pigeons. They’re young enough to train so we can use them to send messages back to the Mead. But I have to bond them to this place, so when we take them with us, they’ll come back here.”

“We’ll be able to send messages to the Mead, but how do we get messages from here?”