Abbie rose and herded the children to the loft while Zeke sat watching his son. “You’ll have to be very careful, son. You’ll be traveling alone.”
“That will make it easier for me to hide, and I will do some traveling at night. I know what to watch for, Father.”
“Send a runner down and let us know if you arrive safely,” Zeke said.
The boy nodded and swallowed. “I will… miss you, Father. But I have thought about it… for a long time. I must do this.”
Zeke’s heart hurt so badly that he put a hand to his chest. “I know.”
Abbie came back to the table and sat down, looking almost angry as she crossed her arms in front of her. “I suppose you’ve heard the rumors that white women are being raped and murdered, that some have been taken captive by the Sioux for ransom,” she said briskly to her son. “Do you intend to take part in such doings … to commit depredations against women who are no different from your own mother and sisters?”
The boy frowned, confused by her sudden anger and chastisement. “I do not believe I would,” he answered.
“You might have to,” Abbie answered, while Zeke watched curiously, allowing her to get her feelings out, whatever they might be. “If you are riding with a raiding party and they attack innocent women and children and slaughter them or rape them or make slaves of them, do you intend to put up your hand and tell them to stop? They would slay you right along with the whites!”
“I will do whatever I must do!” the boy answered angrily. “I cannot say yet what I will do, except that I have vengeance in my heart that will not let me sleep. I will ride with the Sioux and I will fight, because I am a Cheyenne!” He rose and pulled his knife, stabbing it into the wooden table so that it stuck there. “Cheyenne! Do you understand that, Mother? I am not white, not one bit of me!”
Abbie rose also, her eyes on fire. “You came from my womb!” she said, her voice rising. “A part of you is white whether you like it or not! I understand your need for revenge, Wolf’s Blood. Your father has the same need and has killed many men because of it. When those men murdered his wife back in Tennessee, he went after them and got every one of them. But he didn’t go around raping white women just because his own wife had been raped! Nor does he do so today, in spite of what happened to me! He kills either in self-defense, or he kills men who do him wrong! But he does not kill innocent people!”
“That is different!” Wolf’s Blood hissed, trying not to yell at his mother. “Everything is different now! How can we go against the soldiers who attacked us at Sand Creek? How are we to know who they were? How can we ever find them again? We cannot fight man to man anymore! It is impossible! We must keep the white men out of our land, and we do not have the numbers or the weapons to attack their soldiers and towns and ever hope to win! The only thing left to do is attack the settlements—to try to scare them out! There is no other way for us! How much are the Cheyenne or the Sioux or any of us supposed to take? We tried peace, Mother, and you know it! But treaty after treaty has been broken. The white man does not want peace! He wants our land and he wants the Indian dead! He rapes and murders our women and children, raids and plunders our camps. Why is that any different from Indians raiding settlements?”
“The men who raided at Sand Creek were soldiers, not settlers! They were one hundred-day volunteers,” Abbie shot back. “Rabble! They were not innocent farmers, women and children.”
The boy’s eyes glittered with desperate anger. He did not like arguing with his mother. He worshiped her. But there was a stubborn and, worst of all, a sensible side to her that frustrated him. “That is the white woman in you, Mother,” he told her in a quieter voice. “That is the part of you that will never understand what I am talking about. Those innocent settlers are killing off the Indian just as surely as the soldiers do. They just do it in a different way. They take our land, our game, our freedom. They want us dead, just as surely as the soldiers do. And they use the soldiers to do their dirty job for them so they can feel clean and innocent! But they are not innocent! They go where they have no right to go! Father understands what I am saying, and if he were free, he would go north with me and fight with Red Cloud and Swift Arrow!”
Abbie blinked and looked suddenly beaten. She swallowed, her lip quivering. “Promise me you will not harm white women and children. Surely I bred that much civility in you! When you ride down on white women and children, think of your own mother and sisters. Ride against the soldiers, Wolf’s Blood, if you must do so, and against the supply trains and miners. Cut the telegraph lines and root out the buffalo hunters. But don’t make me envision my son hurting children and innocent women. Do you think those women and children are out here by choice? They are here because that is where their men have taken them. They had no choice! If they could have chosen, they would have stayed in the East, away from this lawless land! The government, the men in power, and perhaps some of the settlers want the Indian wiped out, Wolf’s Blood, not little children and gentle housewives!”
Zeke frowned at her remark about the women having no choice. Was that how she had felt all these years? Was she wishing to be back East? He was again overwhelmed with guilt about her own ruthless treatment many months ago. Had that made her finally wish she had never agreed to stay in Colorado with a half-breed Indian?
“Right now I make no promises, Mother,” Wolf’s Blood told her sadly.
She pressed her lips tightly together and said nothing more, but simply turned and walked briskly into her own bedroom. Wolf’s Blood turned to his father, a helpless look on his face.
“Don’t worry about it, son. I’ll talk to her. You get some rest.” He rose and walked around the table. Their eyes held for a moment, and then they embraced. “You can understand how she feels, son.”
The boy nodded and pulled away. His watery eyes met his father’s. “I cannot help how I feel, Father. Surely she knows I would not bring harm to women and children if I can help it. I remember the day she was taken from here, how I felt trying to keep those men from touching my mother. She sacrificed herself that day so they would not harm her children. She let them take her, knowing what they would do to her. My mother is the finest woman I know. I do not like making her unhappy, but she never seems to be able to accept that I am a man. An Indian woman would never talk to her son in such a way, and when she scolds me it makes me angry and makes me say things I do not mean.”
Zeke smiled sadly. “She does have a way of saying her piece. In this case she has damned good reason to say it, after what she’s been through.” He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You should weigh it heavily in your mind, Wolf’s Blood. And when you ride with the Sioux and the northern Cheyenne, don’t be afraid to do what you know is right in your heart. Get your vengeance in the right way. That’s all she’s telling you.”
The boy nodded. “I am going out to the stables, Father. I want to … want to see all the horses once more, walk through the buildings. I will probably sleep out there tonight. Then if you and mother have words about me, I won’t hear them.” He swallowed. “I will miss the ranch, Father, the horses, my brothers and sisters, most of all you and Mother. Perhaps I will even come back someday. I cannot say now.”
Zeke took his hand from the boy’s shoulder and nodded. “I know.” He sighed. “Give our love to Swift Arrow. And if you make it back down here, try to get him to come with you. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen my brother. Too long.”
“I will tell him.” The boy picked up his heavy buckskin jacket lined with sheep’s wool and put it on. “I will go out now. I must get some things ready for my trip.”
He stood there awkwardly for a moment, not knowing what else to say. How many ways did a son tell his father he loved him? How many ways were there to say good-bye. He turned away and went through the door, and Zeke looked at the doorway to the bedroom where his wife was. There were times when he didn’t know what to do with Abbie’s stubborn streak, and this was one of them. His big frame
ambled through the curtained doorway and he walked through to see her already in her flannel gown, sitting up and reading her Bible by the dim lamplight. She looked up at him, her eyes unreadable.
“The boy only answered you that way because you made him feel like a child,” he told her. “You have to let go of him, Abbie.”
She closed her Bible and looked away. “That’s the hardest thing for a mother to do,” she answered quietly. “I guess what makes me angry with him is that he never allowed me the privilege of babying him and cuddling him, even when he was small. He’s run wild ever since he was able to stand up and walk.”
“I suppose much of that is my fault,” Zeke answered, coming around to the other side of the bed. “And I don’t doubt you blame me for it.”
She watched him lovingly. “Oh, Zeke, that isn’t so. I love the People, and when he was little we lived among them. I wanted to let him be Cheyenne because it seemed he was born to it from the first day he breathed life. We both let him be what came naturally. But now it’s suddenly difficult for me to accept it.”
He pulled off his shirt. “They’ll all be different, Abbie, and once they’re grown we have to let go of them and let them be what they will. There’ll be no stopping them, and if and when they go away, it’s better they at least leave on good terms and know that they are loved simply for what they are.” He turned to face her, an alarming agony in his eyes. “You told him those women aren’t out here by choice, that they’re here because their men want to be here. Is that how you’ve felt all these years? I’d take you back East in a minute, Abbie, if that is what you want, in spite of how much I would hate it. I’d do it and I’d be able to handle it. I never meant to make you feel forced to stay here. You know how guilty I’ve felt all these years for marrying you and subjecting you to life in a wild land. But I’ve loved you for understanding why I needed to be out here with my people. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen to them. They might be shipped hundreds of miles from here. It’s all different, and if you want to go home to Tennessee before you’re old, I’ll take you.”
Her eyes teared and she reached out and touched his face. “When I married you, Zeke, I was already out here, you were already out here. I knew you belonged here and I married you anyway. When I spoke of those other women, I only meant their husbands married them first and then came west, giving them no choice. I had plenty of choices before I married you, and you did your best to discourage me. I married you because I wanted the scout Cheyenne Zeke for my own, and I knew that no matter where we lived I could be happy as long as I was with Zeke. Don’t put more into my words than what was there, Zeke. All these years you’ve carried an unnecessary burden of guilt for marrying me. I wanted to be Zeke Monroe’s woman no matter what I had to do to make that happen. My happiness depends on your happiness, and you’d never be happy back in Tennessee. That’s gone now. I deserted that life years ago. Sometimes I wonder if I ever really lived there. It’s as though that Abbie never even existed.” She leaned back on her pillow and watched him. “And you know how I love the People, know it hurts my heart to see what is happening. I want very much to stay here, to do what I can to help them whatever that might be. Don’t let any of this come between us, Zeke. I’ve seen a strange resignation in you ever since Sand Creek and it frightens me.”
He sighed and leaned over her. “I just… sometimes I can’t get over the guilt of being responsible for your hardships.”
“Do you call lying beneath the man I love a hardship? Is living in this cozy cabin with seven healthy, lovely children a hardship? The only real hardship in life, Zeke, is to not be loved, to have no one who cares. I have eight wonderful people who care, and it’s the same for you.” She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry for getting so upset. I guess it was just my roundabout way of trying to get Wolf’s Blood to stay, my way of covering the hurt of his leaving. I wanted him to hurt too, and that’s no way for a mother to be. I don’t know what got into me. Perhaps I should go out and talk to him.”
“No. You gave him food for thought. Let him weigh it in his mind. He should. You can talk to him in the morning.” He leaned down and kissed her tenderly. “Thank you, Abbie, just for being my Abbie girl.”
She reached around his neck and he pulled her close, pulling the covers over them against the cold. “Try to sleep,” he told her, holding her firmly and caressing her hair. “We have to be strong in the morning. Our son is truly leaving us for the first time.”
He lay his head on the pillow beside her, and then she felt him tremble slightly. He made an odd choking sound. “My God, Abbie, I’ll miss him so much!” he groaned.
Chapter Eight
Abbie dropped the still warm biscuits into a small burlap bag and turned to put it into her son’s parfleche, along with the potatoes and carrots she had already put inside, and the leather pouch of pemmican and some jerked meat. It was only five o’clock in the morning and the house was quiet as she prepared food for her wayward son. There was a light tapping at the door, and she went to open it, letting in Wolf’s Blood. He stood there in his grandest Indian regalia, buckskins and winter moccasins. Beads and ornaments were tied into his long, black hair. The sight of him quickened Abbie’s heart, for at that very moment he looked as striking as his father had the first day she’d set eyes on him.
Their eyes held briefly and then she stepped aside, closing the door after he came inside. She folded her arms and looked him up and down, her son, as tall and broad as his own father, and as handsome. “My, you look grand,” she told him with a soft smile.
He frowned and studied her. She was supposed to be angry with him. “I do?”
She walked to his parfleche. “You make me long for my younger days. You’re a replica of young Zeke Monroe, you know. I made you some fresh biscuits, Wolf’s Blood. I hope you appreciate it. I was up at three-thirty kneading the dough and getting it ready. And I packed you some pemmican and some jerked meat and a few raw vegetables. I’ll get Zeke up. He wants to pick out a couple of the better Appaloosas for you take along as a gift for Swift Arrow.”
He watched her finish filling the parfleche. “You are not angry with me?”
She stopped and met his eyes. “You’re my son. I’ll not have you go away with hard feelings. What if you never came back?” She blinked back tears and glanced at the parfleche she had beaded for him herself. “Besides, I only said those things because I was desperate to find a way to make you stay. Still, I gave you some things to think about, and when the time comes I’m sure you’ll do the right thing, just as Zeke always does. You are your father’s son, which means you are a good boy … man, I should say.” She met his eyes again. “I will trust in that, Wolf’s Blood. You’re a fine young man, a fine young Indian man. I understand you and I love you, and I want you to take my love with you when you go, not my anger.” She wiped her hands on her apron almost nervously. “I only ask … I know you aren’t one to express affection … but I’ll not let you leave without… without holding you once in my arms.” She looked at him again. “Do you think you can satisfy this white woman’s needs just once before you run away?”
He stepped around the table, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I am not running away, Mother. I am trying to know myself.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “Come back, Wolf’s Blood, if not for my sake then for your father’s. He needs you, in more ways than you know. A little bit of him will die when you leave.”
Their eyes held and then he embraced her and she cried quietly against his chest. “I will come back, Mother. I don’t know when, but I will come back. It is the same for me. I love my father. But I must go away for a while. I must learn to be strong without him.”
She clung to him tightly, wondering if she herself was strong enough to survive without Zeke. She had been able to do so several times when he’d been forced to be away, but she’d known he would come back to her. What if he didn’t? What would she do if Zeke Monroe no longer breathed life?
“Don’t stay away forever,” she whispered to her son, a note of urgency in her voice. “When your father is gone and you are here, it’s as though he’s here too. You’re so much like him, Wolf’s Blood.” She leaned back and looked up at him, her arms still about his waist and tears on her cheeks. “Every time I look at you, I remember that awful day when Dancing Moon came after me with a knife and you tried to defend me with your lance. You were so small, but you were already a warrior in your heart. I guess I knew then that you would one day ride with Swift Arrow and the others.”
He smiled down at her. “You saved my life that day, Mother. That wicked woman was going to kill me after she took that lance away from me. If you had not killed her yourself, I would be dead. You are a warrior woman and you do not even know it.”
“That was necessary,” she said, sobering. “I would kill for any of my children, and I would die for them if necessary … so would your father.”
He kissed her forehead. “And I would kill for you and father both,” he replied.
Zeke came through the bedroom door then, wearing only his buckskin pants and still shirtless. He stopped and eyed his son and wife. “You two are on speaking terms I see,” he stated.
Wolf’s Blood turned and walked to the man, his arm around his mother’s waist. Zeke gave his son a hard, long look. It was as though he were looking at himself twenty years earlier. “You look damned good, Wolf’s Blood. You’ll make a good impression when you ride into the Sioux camps. And when they see how well you can use the knife and lance, they’ll welcome you readily enough.”
“I will never use the knife as well as my father,” the boy answered. “Many people speak of Cheyenne Zeke and his big knife. And there are many other ways I will not be as good as my father,” he added. “I can only try.”
He put out his hand and Zeke grasped it, holding tightly to the boy’s wrist. Then Wolf’s Blood let go of his mother and the two men embraced. “Goddamn, I’ll miss you Wolf’s Blood,” Zeke said quietly to the boy. “But you aren’t a little boy anymore and I can’t hold on to you forever. Go your own way, son. But come back to us now and then.” He thought about another day, that day long ago when he had left his own home back in Tennessee. He didn’t care to think about how many years ago that had been.
Climb the Highest Mountain Page 13