Lucas led Aiyana to the telegraph office in town. Most folks outside on the dusty streets stopped and gazed, as the pair approached the red lettered building of the Western Union. Aiyana stopped Luke and asked, "Is this the place that one speaks through a wire, and it travels across the open plains?"

Luke stopped at the front of the door where she seemed lost in his eyes. "Are you ready to send a message to the world?"

Aiyana nodded, as if unable to breathe or speak for the weight of a message about the fate of her mother's family hung like a millstone on her thin shoulders.

Luke held the clanging door open so Aiyana could pass inside under his arm.

A spectacled man with wild white hair looked down at the contraption that communicated with the outside world. Luke and Aiyana leaned over the railing meant to keep customers at a distance. The old man stopped looking at letters and let his glasses fall over the bridge of his nose. "Lucas Cole, I presume, and I think I have what you came here to find."

Holding the telegram in his hand, he hardly noticed Aiyana who kept her hair under the plainsman hat. He stood and studied the telegram in front of Luke's curious eyes.

"I can read it, Sam." Luke held out his hand.

"Yes, you can. Indeed, you can. Just needed some proofing." Sam handed Luke the letter with a wrinkled brow when eyes met the girl standing next to him. "Could this be the one I heard came down from the mountains?"

"She was among the Crow. Names Aiyana."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Luke busied himself reading the telegram. Sam smiled with a toothy grin. "She's getting off the train in Julesburg."

Luke paused. "Sam, would you mind if I read it myself."

Sam leaned on the banister and smiled at Aiyana. "No, I don't mind, Luke. But your bride to be is coming. And you might want to borrow a wagon in town, cause it's a good day's ride to Jules."

"Sam! Give me a moment to let it sink in." Luke slipped over to a bench against the back wall. "Don't have much time."

"That's what I've been trying to tell..." Luke interrupted Sam.

"Sam, take care of Aiyana. She's got a message that needs delivering."

Aiyana held out a note in her hand. "I have a message for an uncle."

Sam snatched the not from Aiyana. Luke sat on the bench with the telegram in his hand. His mind was lost in a whirlwind. How would he explain to his mail order bride that he found an Indian girl who needs him. And where would he keep her in the meantime?

"Okay, you want to tell me then." Sam sat, dipping his pen in the inkwell on his desk. "Now who needs to get this."

Luke intervened, "We're not sure how to get a hold of her uncle. His name is Henry Bragman, a senator from NY. We need you to get this to the authorities who can notify that Harriet Hartwell was taken by the Indians with no other known survivors. She lives among the Crow and Aiyana here is her daughter."

"I see," said Sam, as he looked at Aiyana with pity. "You poor thing."

"No one who knows the Great Spirit is poor," said Aiyana.

"What?" Sam gave Luke a quizzical look.

"You heard her right," said Luke, worried Sam looked down on her as a half-breed. "Indians have souls."

Aiyana fingered her cross necklace and looked at Luke. Sam craned his neck from the desk. "It may take time, several days even, before I get word from authorities and this uncle."

Sam scratched his head and busied himself at his desk. As the pair left out the door, one could hear the clickety click of the machine.

Luke looked at Aiyana. "You did good, Little Bird." When Luke said it for the first time, it made him want to hold her. His heart ached and his stomach churned over her plight.

Aiyana looked up at Luke with hunger in her eyes. Luke did his best to hide his concern for her and his beating heart that raced whenever she brushed against him. "I need to go to the stable and borrow a wagon and a team of horses. I'm going to Julesburg."

"You go to get a bride you never met. Such strange customs. Love cannot breathe or be born on a wire."

It startled and stopped Luke in his tracks for a moment, knowing she might be proven true. But then again Luke was a man who kept his word, even if he hated it. "I need you to stay in my cabin. You'll be safe there."

After Luke said it, he wasn't sure he could promise her that with thoughts of a Blackfoot Indian desperately searching for her. "Crazy in love with her," was what Aiyana said.

"You know how to shoot a rifle?" he asked, as they walked back toward the stable.

A heavy silence filled the space between them, but their eyes spoke plenty.

"I suppose I need to teach you how to shoot." Then Luke thought back to how he nearly shot her when she crashed through the bushes across the creek in the mountains. He thought about how life can turn on a moment with a stray word or a bullet.