Ethan kept his back turned, quickly wiped his tears, and fought a desire to kill…just kill anyone…out of grief and anger. There was no reason for any of this. He and Lieutenant O’Toole and the others had come upon the “battle” scene only moments after it was finished. There was still confusion over what had happened. The soldiers claimed an Indian named Black Coyote started it all by refusing to give up his weapon. Standing Eagle told Ethan it wasn’t that way at all. He said Big Foot was already near death from pneumonia when the soldiers found and surrounded their camp. His coughing was so bad that the old man had been spitting up blood. Even so, the soldiers had demanded he come outside with the others and surrender all weapons.
Everyone had obeyed, according to Standing Eagle. But that was not enough, his cousin explained, in tears himself as he told the story. The soldiers went into the tipis and carried out everything, all our supplies, throwing them into a pile. Then they told us we had to all remove our blankets and coats, even though we were freezing, so they could search us. That is when they found Black Coyote’s rifle, but he had not given it up because it was new and he was proud of it. He did not understand what was happening because he cannot hear. The soldiers spun him around, got him all confused. A gun went off. I do not even know if it was Black Coyote’s gun. I only heard the sound, and right away the soldiers who surrounded us began shooting us. We had no weapons, no defense. We could only run, but they kept shooting, even at the women and children. It was a terrible thing.
Ethan could not control mental flashes of another terrible massacre, images of his mother lying stripped and bloody. It was like Sand Creek all over again. The few survivors who were found were brought back to the reservation, but the soldiers were cared for first, while men casually tried to figure out what to do with the wounded Indians. If not for the mission opening its doors, he wondered if they ever would have gotten help.
He turned back to watch two men dig another frozen body out of the snow to carry it to a wagon, tossing it in as though it were an old log. A blizzard during and after the massacre had hindered rescues, and only those obviously still alive were taken away at first. How many of these they found now had been alive then? How many had just lain and bled to death or froze to death? They had been here for four days, silent, lying in the whispering snows like stone guardians of a land they could not keep.
This had been no battle. It had been a slaughter, just like he was afraid would happen. Most of the soldiers who had been killed or wounded were hit by their own bullets in the crossfire. The Indians had already given up their weapons. It was all so stupid and unnecessary.
A tear froze on his cheek as he walked over to help lift another body. The soldiers who worked with him said nothing; now that it was over, he knew some of them felt as badly about this as he did. Still, many would tell their grandchildren about being a part of the “last Indian war.” His head ached with the thought of what the papers would make of this. Again the soldiers would be made out to be the brave ones who had sacrificed their lives to finally put an end to the “Sioux uprising.” No one would tell the truth. He just wished he had gotten to Big Foot sooner. Maybe he could have done something to prevent this.
What was his goal now? He had none. Thank God his father and mother and grandmother were gone and had not lived to see this. Now his uncle, Big Hands, and his other cousin, Red Crow’s and Standing Eagle’s nineteen-year-old brother, Crazy Fox, might also be dead. He had come here to help at the pleading of his other two cousins, who wanted to know if their father and brother were among the dead. If Ethan could find them, he intended to keep the bodies separate for their own family burial rather than let them be thrown into a mass grave as the others would be. After all, Big Hands was his mother’s brother and Crazy Fox was her nephew.
PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN. That was what a sign that hung in the Episcopal mission had read the night he helped bring in wounded Indian men, women, and children four days after Christmas. It was all so ironic. The Savior the Sioux thought would come and renew the land and bring back their dead had not come. Instead, many more had died. He’d been told that just before the shooting started, a medicine man named Yellow Bird had begun to dance the Ghost Dance, singing to the others not to be afraid. Their Ghost Shirts would protect them from soldiers’ bullets, he said. Now they lay with holes ripped through those shirts.
He breathed deeply to control his own anger and grief and searched for two more hours, a search that led several hundred yards in many directions away from the initial site of the slaughter. Wounded Indians had crawled away, trying to find warmth and safety, only to freeze to death in a ravine or behind a bush. It was late afternoon when he finally found his uncle, Big Hands. Crazy Fox lay beside his father. They had apparently clung to each other for safety and warmth and had died that way. He trembled as he had to use his shovel to pry the bodies loose from the ground.
“We’ll take them,” a soldier told him, preparing to tie a rope around Big Hands to drag him to a wagon.
“Don’t touch him,” Ethan answered.
The soldier backed away at the look on Ethan’s face.
“Let him be, Sergeant.” Ethan recognized Lieutenant O’Toole’s voice. “They’re relatives.”
“I’ve got orders. If he’s looking for trouble—”
“You don’t want to mess with this man right now, Sergeant. Go on and help the others. Ethan will take care of these two.”
The sergeant glared rather defiantly at Ethan before turning away and walking off. Ethan watched him, wanting to kill.
“Watch yourself, Ethan. You look Indian, and some of these men are still nervous and trigger-happy.”
Ethan looked at the lieutenant, his eyes smouldering. “The mood I’m in, I don’t much give a damn. At least I’d be able to take a few down with me.”
The lieutenant sighed. “Let it go, Ethan. Take your relatives and have your burial. More killing and you losing your life isn’t going to change any of this or make it go away. You know that.”
Ethan looked down at his uncle and cousin. “Yeah, I know.” He turned away to get Blackfoot, bringing the horse back to where the bodies lay. He had devised a type of sled out of wood and branches and had tied it to the horse so he would have something to carry the bodies on. To his surprise, the lieutenant offered to help him load them and tie them on. Ethan thanked him and started to mount up to take the bodies back to reservation headquarters. The lieutenant touched his arm.
“You need to get away from here, Ethan. It’s done with now, and there isn’t anything else you can do. The way you were raised, you can’t just stay here on a reservation the rest of your life. Do yourself a favor and get the hell out of here. Go on back to Oklahoma or wherever.”
Ethan turned away. “To tell you the truth, Lieutenant, a man like me doesn’t quite know where he belongs. I don’t know just what I’ll do now.”
“What about that wife you told me about once?”
The words brought a dull ache to Ethan’s heart. “She wasn’t so sure she wanted to be married to an Indian. She had the marriage annulled.”
“I’m sorry. You’re a good man, Ethan. Don’t let this bring you down. You’re smart and skilled, and although you probably don’t want to hear it right now, you remember that you are half white. Too many of your Indian friends and relatives are falling into alcohol and hopelessness. Don’t let that happen to you.”
Ethan looked over at a freight wagon pulling away, loaded with frozen bodies. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do.” He looked back at the lieutenant with tear-filled eyes. “It hurts, Lieutenant. It cuts deep, like someone wrenching a knife in your gut.”
O’Toole put a hand on his shoulder. “I know.” He gave the shoulder a squeeze and left, and Ethan turned and mounted up on Blackfoot.
“Let’s go, boy.” He urged the horse into a slow walk, heading toward reservation headquarters, dragging his homemade sled and its silent, frozen cargo. He wondered if Ally had heard about wh
at had happened here, and if she cared.
17
March, 1891…
Allyson ducked her head against a winter storm that pushed its way out of the mountains and was dumping deep snow on Denver. She could not let the weather stop her. She would see Attorney Calvin Gibson today and pester him again to find out about her investment. The man was not going to put her off any longer, and if he thought he intimidated her just because he was someone of experience and authority and she was a young woman of no particular importance in Denver, he would find out different!
She wore her finest winter dress, a lovely green velvet with a fitted bodice decorated with little white ivory buttons that led up to the high, lace-trimmed neck. She wore a darker green velvet hat with a brim that kept snow off her hair, and a matching deep green cape and gloves. She knew enough about men to know they seemed to pay more attention to a well-attired woman who stood her ground, and she was going to be both today. She had been trying to get Gibson to find out about her investment in prospecting at Cripple Creek, but the man was always “too busy.” He had promised to look into it a week ago, and still she had not heard from him. She had almost no money left, since Mrs. Reed had gone and sold the rooming house and moved back to Illinois. Because she had grubstaked a prospector just before that, Allyson did not have the money to buy the rooming house from the woman. She had put every cent into the hopes of finding gold, and now she worried that the prospector she had financed nearly three months ago, a fifty-five-year-old widower named John Sebastian, might have simply run off with her money. If Attorney Gibson could not find out what had happened with the man, she would go to Cripple Creek herself!
It was Gibson who, through a newspaper advertisement, had arranged the meeting between prospectors who needed money and supplies, and those who wished to grubstake them in return for a share of the profits if they struck gold. Allyson had been the only woman to show up at the meeting, and the men had laughed at her until she slapped her money on the table right along with the rest of them. She decided that since Gibson had set up the meeting and had received a fee from both the prospectors and the investors, it was his responsibility to follow up on the results, although Gibson did not agree. He felt he had done his part in simply bringing prospectors and investors together, but she was working too many hours to be able to go to Cripple Creek and find the information she needed. Gibson was a man who had connections. It couldn’t possibly be too much trouble for him to inquire about Mr. Sebastian and find out if he had filed a claim. She was not going to be swindled out of her hard-earned money.
She walked down a cold hallway to the door with glass in it that had ATTORNEY CALVIN GIBSON painted on it. She had been here before, and Gibson had always had an excuse as to why he had not been able to get any information. As far as she was concerned, he was just being lazy and stubborn.
Sebastian had seemed so trustworthy. He even had letters from other investors for whom he had found gold. He was experienced at prospecting, one of those men who simply enjoyed the hunt but, as he had explained, never kept his claim once he found gold. She had been told she would be informed the moment the man found any kind of vein and would be given first option to buy him out completely, since she had financed the expedition in the first place. At the least, she was to get half the profits if Sebastian sold the claim to someone else. In the meantime, she had continued working for the new owner of the boarding house, as well as taking a second job in a laundry until late into the night. She had saved more money faithfully—probably not enough to buy a claim, but it was always possible. It was at least enough to get to Cripple Creek if she had to. She was going to make sure Sebastian did not sell the claim behind her back and take off with all the profits.
She took a deep breath and walked into Gibson’s secretary’s office, determined she would not leave until she got the information.
“May I help you?” The secretary, a stout, gray-haired woman, looked up at Allyson from her desk.
“You know why I am here, Mrs. Lang.” Allyson stood stiff and stern, refusing to let the older and very daunting woman make her leave again. “There is certain information I need from Mr. Gibson, and I intend to get it.”
The woman stiffened and rose. “You need an appointment. I have told you that before.”
“And Mr. Gibson never has any information for me when I come! Maybe if I begin pestering him daily, he’ll find out what I need to know just to get rid of me!” Allyson gave the woman a sneering smile and marched right past her and into Gibson’s office.
“Wait a minute!” Mrs. Lang moved toward her, but Allyson already had the door open and was parading inside. Gibson looked up at her with a scowl as his secretary followed Allyson into the room. “I tried to stop her, Mr. Gibson—”
“It’s all right, Evelyn. Close the door.”
Allyson turned and gave the woman a look of victory, and Mrs. Lang glared back, her huge breasts heaving beneath her lacy blouse as she sighed deeply in disgust. She left, and Allyson turned her gaze back to Gibson, a small-built man with thinning brown hair and bad teeth. The man leaned back in his chair, looking Allyson over as though she stood there naked.
“I figured you’d be back sometime this week.”
“Well, you figured right. And I will be back here every single day from here on until you get me the information I need.” Allyson held the man’s gaze squarely. She had grown used to being looked at the way Gibson looked at her now, well knew what most men were thinking when they stripped a woman with their eyes. The little bastard! There was only one man she had never minded looking at her like that, but she had lost him, and it was no one’s fault but her own.
“Sit down, Miss Mills,” Gibson said.
Allyson kept her chin high as she moved to a chair across from his desk, thinking how Gibson’s small, round spectacles made him look like a little owl. He was not much of a specimen, not like Ethan Temple…
The thought made her blink and look away. Why was it Ethan came to mind at the oddest moments? And every time it happened, it brought a quick little pain to her chest and made her take a deep breath.
“I do have some news for you at last, Miss Mills,” Gibson was telling her. He leaned back in his chair. “Fact is, I was going to send for you.”
Allyson removed her gloves. “Well, it’s about time! What have you found out?”
“You aren’t going to like it.”
Allyson felt a hint of panic. All her money! “Has John Sebastian gone and sold a claim without telling me?”
Gibson leaned forward then, actually showing some concern. “Quite the contrary. The man did find gold and staked a claim, but now he’s dead.”
Allyson’s look of haughty determination faded. “Dead! When? How?” Her mind began spinning with the possibilities. Did that mean she owned a gold mine outright?
“That’s the interesting part. My connections up at Cripple Creek tell me that he was found at his diggings—shot in the head. Someone obviously killed him deliberately.”
Allyson untied her cape. “Deliberately! Murder?”
Gibson rose then, walking to a table where he kept a decanter of whiskey. He poured himself a small shot. “Would you like a drink, Miss Mills?”
Whiskey. It brought back another memory. “No, thank you. I don’t drink.”
The man poured his drink and looked over at her. He raised the small glass, then gulped down the whiskey. “You’re such an innocent, Miss Mills. My suggestion is that you get out of this mess right now. Out of all the bigger mine owners, you can probably find one who’ll buy your claim, even though, I’m told, it’s proving to be pretty worthless so far.”
“So, I do have a legal claim!”
Gibson shrugged, coming over and sitting on the edge of his desk. “You do. Sebastian had found some placer gold in a creek that ran through the claim. That usually means there’s more in the mountain above the creek, but he apparently didn’t find any. My connections have sent me a map and all the information.
What he found is hardly enough to live on, mind you, but it’s a legitimate claim. The problem is, why was Sebastian murdered? It could have been a grudge thing, maybe over a card game or something. But it also could have been someone who wants that claim, for whatever reason. Like I said, it’s not worth a whole hell of a lot. At any rate, if someone is after it, that means there is big trouble up there, Miss Mills, the kind of trouble a young lady like you doesn’t want to get involved in.”
Allyson looked down at her gloves, twisting them in her hands, trying to think. How she hated being told she couldn’t do something, especially when someone thought that just because she was young and a woman…She looked up into Gibson’s spectacles, seeing the haughty humor in his brown eyes. He thought she could be easily frightened and would give it all up right now! “And I suppose you would handle the sale of my claim to whoever might want it, for a percentage of the profits, of course?”
The man smiled. “Of course.”
Allyson rose. “No, thank you. I grubstaked Mr. Sebastian, and now he’s dead. That means I legally own a mining claim.”
“What good will it do you if you can’t mine it? With Sebastian murdered, no one else is going to have the guts to go in there and keep digging.”
Allyson walked past the man to a window, looking out at the mountains that lined Denver’s western horizon. “Then I’ll mine it myself.”
Gibson let out a sneering grunt. “You can’t go up there. What do you know about mining? Besides that, you’re a pretty, young, single woman. How long do you think you would survive in a place full of thousands of men who haven’t seen anything better-looking than their horses’—”
Unforgettable Page 23