Caid knew that the young man was talking about Marty with her flame-red hair when he had called her Fire Woman, for it was the name that the boys had given her after the first day that they had met her and they had told him the story of her bravery against them after Daniel was accidentally killed. But to Caid, the name indicated another meaning. To him, it meant that she evoked a fire in his heart and his body each time that he looked at her, each time that he took her into his arms.
His heated thoughts were chased away by Rising Sun’s words, “Tomorrow, you walk. Next day, you walk again.”
“I know, Rising Sun,” Caid told him as he sipped at the spoon and then let his head fall back onto the pillow. “The sooner I get up the sooner I can get going.”
Rising Sun shook his head with a frown and insisted, “We will miss you, Aiden Kincaid. You remind us of our father.”
“Your father, huh?” Caid asked with a raised brow. He almost corrected the young man by reminding him that his last name was McAllister, but he didn’t mind being referred to by his grandfather’s name, from which his nickname was derived, so he kept his mouth shut.
“He is strong and,” Rising Sun paused to find the word but he could not think of what he wanted to say, so he hunched his shoulders and curled his arms in front of his body like a grizzly bear while scrunching his face up into the expression of wrath.
“Mean?” Caid asked with growing annoyance.
“Not mean,” Rising Sun said with a shake of his braided head.
“Gewaltig,” Hunts-with-a-knife interjected in German as he leaned on the hearth. He spoke better German than English and therefore, felt more comfortable in that language, which is why he rarely spoke at all.
“He says our father is formidable,” Rising Sun explained when Caid could not remember the translation to the word. “Sometimes he is terrifying, like when he punished us for shooting the white boy.”
Caid rose up onto his elbows to look at the young man and asked, “Does your father beat you?”
Rising Sun shook his head and started to say something, but Hunts-with-a-knife pushed away from the mantle and said sternly, “No!”
When he stepped toward the bed where Caid lay, Hunts-with-a-knife’s face was a mask of sadness and he lowered his head while his brother explained, “His words hurt.”
Caid softened his voice and in a fatherly fashion, he said, “Well, a father has to be firm with his sons. Boys can be hard to raise and sometimes they need to be put in their place.”
“We know,” said Rising Sun as he stood over him with his arms folded in front of his chest. “But, when a boy loves his father so much, it hurts to hear him speak such angry words to him.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Caid lowered his head. He wondered if his father would have loved him as much as their father seemed to love them, if he would have stayed around. He cleared his throat and pushed back that thought as he tried to explain, “He does it because he loves you two so much. Some day, when you are fathers, you will understand.”
They both nodded as if they comprehended his words in their hearts. Hunts-with-a-knife eased his stance and then pulled up the rocking chair and stared at Caid so long that the older man looked to Rising Sun for an explanation.
Rising Sun leaned closer to Caid and said, “This is why you remind us of Father.”
Feeling overwhelmed by their respect for him made Caid almost tear up, but his manly constitution overruled that reaction and he leaned on one elbow while thrusting his hand toward the older Indian and said with pride in his voice, “If I had sons, I would want them to be just like you two.”
Rising Sun was the first to extend his hand and grasp Caid’s in a handshake that silently reiterated the words that he had said. A smile touched his lips before he let Caid’s hand go and he turned away to lean on the mantle where Hunts-with-a-knife had been. His brother took Caid’s hand and firmly held it, choking back endearing words that would melt Caid’s heart, words that only came to him in Comanche and German, words that the younger man swallowed back into his heart.
Caid squeezed the young man’s hand once more before he released his grasp and asked, “Would you settle for me being your brother?”
Rising Sun pushed away from the mantle and his quick steps brought him back to the bed with renewed joy as he said, “Yes! We call you Big Brother!”
“Big Brother,” Hunts-with-a-knife repeated with one nod toward Caid.
“And I’ll call you Sunny and you Hunter!” Caid said with a chuckle. Neither of them laughed for a moment while they looked to one another for an explanation of Caid’s words. Then as if they both realized it at the same time, they smiled widely and nodded, pointing to each other and repeating the nicknames that their new Big Brother had given them.
Then they separated, satisfied that they had established a long-standing relationship with the man that they had, only weeks ago, almost killed. Hunts-with-a-knife excused himself to go outside and Rising Sun watched his brother go before he whispered, “He cries like a woman.”
Caid chuckled but he knew that Sunny meant that his brother gets emotional sometimes. He leaned back onto the pillow, suddenly getting tired, and he asked, “Did my woman cry?”
Sunny shook his head and said, as if proud of her bravery, “Never. She is almost as formidable as you and Father.”
They both laughed, but Caid’s laughter was short-lived when his mind drifted to Marty and her bravery and her gentleness and her…
“She misses you,” the young man said when he saw his Big Brother’s face change.
“I miss her,” he whispered as he stared up at the ceiling. He shook off that feeling of loneliness and despair and changed the subject, “So, your father helped Greta? The hurt woman.”
Sunny nodded and said proudly, “Father used medicine. White man medicine. He cut Water Woman’s leg and pushed bone back inside. Father is a great healer.”
Caid wondered, for just a moment, who Water Woman was but then he realized that he was talking about Greta. He figured that they called her that because she cried from her pain, so he said, “I’m sure that she cried a lot.”
“No,” Sunny said as he contemplated Caid’s question. “She puts out fire.”
Caid thought for a long time what the boy meant. Then, he laughed so hard that his stitches began to bleed. He knew that Greta was Marty’s twin and her opposite in personality. If Marty was Fire Woman, it seemed perfectly natural to call Greta Water Woman. He said as much to Rising Sun, but the boy was not convinced of that explanation either.
“No, she puts out Father’s fire.”
Laughter again echoed off the walls of the small cabin, so much so that Hunts-with-a-knife was compelled to come back inside to see what all the laughing was about. Caid could not stop laughing long enough to tell him, so Rising Sun explained, “I told Big Brother of Father’s fire for Water Woman.”
Hunts-with-a-knife nodded and smiled. “Water Woman is kind,” was all he said before he pulled the rocking chair toward the fireplace.
“I take it you boys are not opposed to your father being in love with Water Woman?” Caid asked with a rising brow.
“Water Woman loves quickly,” Hunts-with-a-knife struggled to utter. Then, he changed his words to say, “Her heart has no enemy.”
“I know what you mean,” Caid said, for he knew of Greta’s gentle personality. It would only be fitting for such a loving woman to be loved by such a ‘formidable’ man as these boys’ father. And it was certainly fitting for him as their Big Brother to love Fire Woman, an equally formidable partner for him.
Rising Sun left his Big Brother to rest while he gathered wood for the fire. The snow had stopped but the wind had broken many branches in the forest, making it easy for him to find firewood. As he collected sticks of oak and pecan wood, he remembered this task as a child and how he’d hated doing woman’s work. But his mother was overbearing and overprotective and since her husband had been killed in a battle with the
Apache, she was the only provider for the family. She made the boys gather wood for the fire so that she could cook them meals and to keep the winter wind from creeping into their shelter. The boys hunted for squirrels, rabbits and foxes for pelts while Mother traded woven blankets and braided horsehair bridle reins for food and White Man’s clothing for her two sons whom she expected to wear the uncomfortable fabric attire even when walking around in the village.
“You must act like the white man,” she drilled into their heads. “You must learn the English language and when you are old enough, you will go to the white man’s school.”
“I will not!” Rising Sun remembered yelling as he ran into the forest.
“You will!” his mother shouted at his retreating back. “Bring back more wood!”
He remembered stopping in his tracks and growling at her while she turned her back on him and he had whispered, “I will be a warrior like my father! I will not learn the white man’s language and I will not wear his clothes. And I will not bring back wood for your fire!”
But he did bring back wood and he did wear the clothes that Mother had purchased from the white trader who had visited the village. He never had the opportunity to become a warrior as he had promised her, or himself. When the terrible disease that raced through the camp killed almost everyone including his mother, he was left to take care of his brother alone. Red Hawk, the medicine man took the boys into his home but he was old and feeble. He could barely care for himself much less two orphans who needed food and shelter. When the doctor, who had brought white man’s medicine to heal the sick, came to see how the people were faring, Red Hawk took the man aside and asked him to take the boys back with him.
“I am an old man,” Rising Sun heard his guardian tell the doctor. “I will not live much longer. Those boys need someone to care for them. They deserve much better than I can give them.”
In his young mind, Rising Sun interpreted the adult conversation and he almost blurted out that he did not need anyone to take care of him or his brother. He almost declared that he could do it all by himself, even if he had only lived twelve season cycles. But when he heard the bear of a man who replied, he knew that the doctor would take good care of him and Spotted Calf.
Rising Sun laughed at his brother’s fickle mind as he listened to the adults speak inside the teepee. Their mother had given her youngest son the name when she had seen the tiny buffalo calf struggling to stand after she had brought the baby to her breast. But her youngest son had hated the name. He vowed that as soon as was old enough to take care of himself, Spotted Calf would become Hunts-with-a-knife.
Their new father spoke behind the hide wall of the tent, chasing away Rising Sun’s silent promise, “I’d be mighty proud to have them as my sons!”
The old medicine man beseeched, “You will take good care of them? You will love them and provide for them?”
“Damn right I will! I mean, I will. You can count on me, Red Hawk.”
And that was the last time the boys had lived among their people. For many years, they slept in white man’s beds in the big house that Father had moved them to. They went to the school in town, although the younger brother struggled tremendously with the institute’s educational training. And for many years, they wore the scratchy clothes of the white man and ate the white man’s bloating food. And, as he had sworn, his younger brother changed his name to Hunts-with-a knife and he found many opportunities to demonstrate that it was a fitting moniker.
When Rising Sun was seventeen, he believed himself a man and he returned to the village to take his place as a member and as a warrior for his people. But by then, things had changed. Red Hawk had died. A new chief had taken charge and had declared war upon the white man even though the treaties had been signed and honored for so long.
Rising Sun knew that he did not belong there. He went back home to Father and his brother Hunts-with-a-knife and he learned to love his life. But, although there was a bed inside the house and then, after their new mother died, inside the cabin, he refused to sleep there, declaring that he must retain at least some of his childhood upbringing. His brother joined him in the tee-pee every night where they chanted the old prayers before stretching out on their blankets to sleep.
For some reason Rising Sun believed that this was a tribute to his mother and to Red Hawk, as a way of remembering them. But it wasn’t the same as when he had performed them with the people who had taught them those sacred melodies. He had grown up. He had changed. Or had everything else changed? He was not certain. The forest used to give him the answers to the questions in his heart. Now, all he had was his own conscience and the father who had adopted him. He came to comprehend that as time passes everything changes, like the seasons and like his own body that added more bulk and muscle with each season’s turning. He was no longer a boy. He was a man. Yet still, he was reluctant to leave the security of his father’s company.
He stacked another log onto his arm and realized that now; he had a Big Brother, a wise brother who would guide him as he had guided Hunts-with-a-knife during times of anxiety and insecurity. Aiden Kincaid was more to him than a mentor. He was a teacher where Father was a protector, a provider, a man whom Rising Sun yearned to emulate. Big Brother was a friend whom he wanted to keep until the sun disappeared from the sky.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Caid fell asleep with Marty’s face in his mind and his heart. Then, the next morning, Rising Sun pulled him out of bed, just like he had told him, and he walked. He walked to the door of the cabin, to the hearth and then back to bed. The next day, he walked out the door, stood on the porch and watched the snow fall, taking with it his elation at getting well. Then, again the next day, he walked outside to see higher mounds of snow, making him want to crawl back into bed and complain that he had not healed fast enough to leave the cabin and find his ‘Fire Woman’.
But then blizzards came, one after the other, keeping him bound to the cabin until spring’s warming sun melted the snow. His anger at having to wait out winter was taken out on the two Indian braves who had almost taken his life, but seeing their hurt faces, he apologized and calmed down again.
They spent the winter learning from each other, as brothers do. Then, when the snow finally melted, the floods made it hard to cross even the smallest of streams but he was determined to forge them. Impatient to find Marty, Caid left the cabin and the Comanche boys and followed the map that he carried in his shirt next to his heart, trudging toward Fredericksburg and the woman who had written ‘I love you’ on that paper. Halfway to town, he realized that the boys had followed him, to make sure that he made it safely or to go home to their father, he was not sure. He slowed to let them catch up, but they stopped until he moved forward again. Deciding that they were respectfully keeping their distance, as they probably did with their father, he quickened his pace again.
****
For Marty and Greta, it was a cold and bitter winter in Fredericksburg that year, too. After they had escaped the first blizzard and had moved into town so that Greta could heal, two more blizzards followed, bringing snow that piled high on the streets and drifted into impassable mounds against fences and hedges. Travel around the city was hindered for weeks while workers shoveled snow off of the streets and sidewalks. To leave the city was unmanageable and to come into it was impossible. It was not until months later when the snow began to melt, filling the rivers and streams to beyond their capacity and flooding the low-lying areas, when supplies could be brought into town.
And it was not until spring that the town began to wake up and become animated as if a long and blissful sleep had come over it and then the warming rays of the sun suddenly brought it back to life. By then, Greta and Buck had married, a ceremony during which Greta had refused to use her crutches for support, and then she had become pregnant soon after the wedding. Marty had moved into a boarding house and had started work at the public school in town. A new man had also taken over her social life, but not her hear
t.
Tyree Parnell owned the general store on Second Street, just a few blocks from Josie’s Home for Women where Marty lived. Marty met him one day while shopping with Josephine Winters, her new friend, a widow who owned the boarding house.
When she had first asked Josie if she could rent a room in her home, the older woman reminded her that they had already met during Marty’s first visit to Fredericksburg. The occasion had slipped Marty’s mind, for so many things had happened since that day when all she had to look forward to was a warm lavender bath. And so many things had changed in her life. It had been that moment when Marty remembered wondering about the sign on Josie’s front porch as the carriage had moved along, an emblem which she had ignored when she had asked the woman for a room.
Upon recalling meeting Josie, Marty remembered Tyree, who owned Parnell’s Store and she decided to do all of her shopping there because his store was close and because Tyree had been so helpful the first time that she had visited. When most of the snow had melted, Marty needed to order a geography book for her class so she asked Josie to walk with her. Of course, at first, Josie tried to find a reason to stay at home, but Marty had insisted.
When they walked into the store, Tyree was all too happy to help her pick out the perfect one while Josie stood fingering the bolts of fabric just a few feet away, her scrutinizing eyes appraising his every move. He didn’t mind that Josie watched the way he ran the store. After all, she still probably cared what happened to it, such as whether it made a profit or whether the goods were the best that could be offered to the customers.
He didn’t mind because he was just as particular about the store as she had been when it was hers, and her husband’s, of course. When he first had set foot in the store, he knew that it was important to the owner and now that he owned it, he cherished it as well.
Enchanted Heart Page 21