Girl, you'll be a woman soon

The next few days became a whirlwind of activity. The merchants that would join the caravan arrived, and the numbers of wagons and colors that blotted the chilly sky swelled. Some were old friends, some recent business partners. One woman linked arms with Goldie and they stole off down a path between tents like long lost sisters, their heads tipped toward each other as they spoke. I was kept busy helping Ona and Tucker, who seemed to mesh perfectly in everything they did. Their efforts were a seamless play of action, complimenting each other in movement and purpose. Several had come to the large white tent to eat their fill and catch up on the plans for the near future. Two men I did not recognize and assumed to be with the new merchants, settled down to talk with Tucker at one point. A slave girl arrived, light brown waves of hair roaming across a torn tunic that served as covering, just as Tucker called me over to introduce me.

Jordian was one, and Pike another. I stumbled over the oddity of Pike, but kept my composure as I slipped into the seat offered me.... an upturned barrel with a smudged towel thrown over the rough edges. We made the polite nods of acknowledgement while Tucker continued to speak, but I was now noticing the look of pure unadulterated adoration the slave was offering Pike. Could I ever love a man so utterly and completely? Wait, what was I thinking? Wasn't that the entirety of my heart's dream?

I, of course, knew I was naive in such matters, being the "Ubar's Cloistered Daughter" as Hugh once called me. Hugh...the memories of him struck me like a boulder, so hard that I caught myself jerking atop my barrel seat. I glanced up just in time to see the last vestiges of a roguish assessment by Pike and something entirely different fading from Jordian's face. Tucker was explaining that the latter was a merchant of everything and anything, satisfying the trade needs of a great many people, the wagon peoples included. Pike, on the other hand, dealt strictly in the transportation, acquisition and profit to be had from flesh. Human flesh. I was not - surprised. I held no fear in this revelation. Here, much like at home on the ranch, my status was never questioned, or an issue. I supposed that might have been kept in check by the sons of Tucker and Ona and their father, but I didn't give it that much thought. What was primarily of importance at the moment was the information Tucker was providing. Jordian, Pike and at least three other merchants would be leaving within the next hand.