Climb the Highest Mountain

by Rosanne Bittner

  “That’s very kind of you, Sir Tynes.”

  “Please call me Edwin. You allow me to call you Abigail, but you won’t call me by my first name.”

  She nodded. “All right.” She watched the snow-flakes, longing to gather her children and ride into the horizon, for beyond it lay the Monroe ranch and her warm little cabin where she had known so much happiness and hardship. She wondered if she would ever go back there again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Zeke hunkered down under a heavy buffalo robe, his back against a large boulder, the front of him soaking up the heat of a campfire at his feet. He closed his eyes to the splashing sound of the nearby Red River as moonlight danced on the crest of each rivulet. It was a quiet place, a lonely place. But then, most of Texas was lonely. He stuck his nose under the robe to warm his face. This part of Texas was reasonably mild in winter, usually in the fifties. But the nights were cold, falling into the teens. He wondered how many more cold and lonely nights he would spend away from the warm cabin on his ranch, away from his family, away from Abbie.

  Perhaps he would never know those things again, for he felt certain that he must give Abbie a chance to live the kind of life she could have if she were not married to Zeke Monroe. She had given him twenty good years, twenty loyal, hard-working, dedicated, sacrificial years. He would not blame her if she wanted to give it all up now. Life seemed to continually plague her with heartache. Her own abduction nearly two years ago had been bad enough. Now her daughter had been abducted, and he wasn’t sure how he would tell her if he found LeeAnn dead, or raped and enslaved. The thought of men cruelly using his innocent daughter set his mind to reeling with thoughts of the worst kind of revenge; then he again felt responsible for bringing his wife heartache. He loved Abbie so much. He hoped he loved her enough to get out of her life when this was over.

  He was not sure in which direction to head next. This was certainly Comanche country, but most of the Comanches were in southern Kansas, preparing to abide by the latest treaty. He had checked at Fort Elliott and Fort Sill on the eastern edge of Comanche territory, after first going almost directly south from Colorado to Fort Union in New Mexico, then on down to Fort Summer, more Apache country than Comanche. He had thought the renegade Comanches might be running with the Apaches, but the men at the forts had had no indication that this was so. When he had headed east across the vast Texas plains to Forts Elliott and Sill, he had gleaned no useful information. The men had kindly said they would keep their eyes and ears open for rumors of a white captive among the renegade Comanches, but Zeke knew they would not go out of their way to help her, for LeeAnn was also part Indian.

  The trip over the Texas plains had been devastatingly lonely. This was big country, endless country. Now, as he camped on the Red River, he felt somewhat less lonely, just because the nearby river made noise. The splashing sounds made him feel that he had company. The roan mare beside him bent its head and nudged him lightly, and he patted the horse’s nose.

  “You feel lonely and out of place too girl?” He sighed, his heart heavy. This was the horse Lance had been riding the morning of the raid. He wanted to cry for his brother, to let blood, but he was unable to vent his grief. He was too full of something else. Vengeance. He must find his daughter! He would not give up until that feat was accomplished. He would not return home without LeeAnn or without at least knowing if she was dead or alive. If it took him a year, so be it. But he could not forget the horror of feeling her ripped from his arms that day, nor the sound of her screams. Zeke Monroe did not like being helpless or defeated. If he had not had to cling to her that morning, perhaps he could have beaten his adversaries, but with only one arm free, it had been hopeless. Still, he was grateful that because of his brave fighting the Comanches had let him live. He would prove that gesture to be a mistake. His biggest worry now was that the Indians might have already sold his daughter to white slavers. It had already been nearly a month since the girl’s abduction, and his heart was breaking because of his desperate fear of what could have happened to her. She would be a prize in any villainous man’s eyes. Her body was developed beyond her thirteen and a half years, her skin was fair and flawless, her white blond hair was long and thick, and her eyes were wide and blue. He had always known he would have to keep an eye on the young men who wooed her, but he hadn’t planned on something like this. If he found the girl dead or violated, it would kill Abbie, and it would destroy his own pride and will to live.

  He tried to force himself to sleep. It was difficult, for there was so much on his mind. And worse, he had a haunting feeling, the kind that had tormented him when he’d been back East and felt something was wrong with Abbie. When he’d returned, he’d discovered that she’d been kidnapped by Garvey’s men. Now he had that feeling again. Something was wrong at home, something other than LeeAnn’s capture and his own departure and the words he had had with Abbie. What had gone wrong? He could not go home to find out, for he must stay in this desolate country and search for his daughter.

  He shook away these thoughts, but he knew he would get no sleep this night. His face had aged from lack of sleep, from being exposed to the elements twenty-four hours a day, and from the terrible stress of his ordeal. Again he closed his eyes. He would think of Abbie, his precious Abbie girl, and that last moment he had spent with her, that moment of soft lovemaking and delicious kisses, the wonderful satisfaction of being one with his Abbie. He thought of how she’d looked when he’d left her lying there asleep, in his eyes still pretty and young looking. Perhaps he would never see her that way again, lying naked in his bed, sleeping off the satisfaction of having been one with him.

  A cold wind penetrated the heavy fur coat that Sir Tynes had insisted Abbie wear, and whispers of snow brushed across her feet as she stood beside the lonely grave. The horrible hurt in her heart was worsened by the fact that her daughter could not even be buried on the Monroe ranch. It was obvious a winter storm was coming so Sir Tynes had insisted they stay put. She knew he was right, but still…

  Lillian! Again the horrible blackness swept over her, and she knew the chill she felt came more from the inside than the outside. It mattered little how many children a woman had. In losing one’s only child or one of many, the hurt was the same. Her little girl had struggled to hang on, had taken the medicine the Denver doctor had brought; but his long trip had been for naught. Sir Tynes had wasted his money paying for the man’s long trip. Little Lillian was not designed for this land—this cruel, harsh land. And on January 2, 1866, Lillian Rose Monroe, little Meane-ese, Summer Moon, had died, at the age of eight and a half.

  The girl’s life had been so quiet and uneventful she might never have existed. She was not a girl to speak loudly, she was never naughty. Her coloring was plain, her countenance thin and frail. Abbie had always felt she could never give the girl enough attention, maybe because she was so often sick and maybe because the rest of the family seemed to go about their business without really noticing Lillian. As the sixth child, Lillian had received little acclaim, being overshadowed by her oldest brother’s strong personality, by her sister Margaret’s unusual beauty, and by the interest LeeAnn’s blond hair and blue eyes attracted. Even her brother Jeremy, the second son, got more attention—boys usually did. She did not have Ellen’s good looks or intelligence. Ellen was very smart and often read to the other children. Even the third son, Jason, not only a boy but the baby of the family, received special attention.

  Now, all the Monroe children stood around the grave crying. A messenger had been sent north to tell Dan what had happened, in the hope that he could find Wolf’s Blood somehow and let the boy know. Wolf’s Blood … If he would come home, Abbie was sure she would feel a little better. The boy seemed more like Zeke all the time. If he were here … No. It was Zeke she needed. Zeke. How would she tell him about this? What if he returned to tell her that yet another daughter was dead? How would they bear the loss?

  Sir Tynes stepped close to her. He had spoken Christian
words over the little girl who lay in the plain wooden box. It was over now. She would not come back to life, and a piece of Abigail Monroe’s heart had also died. Tynes put an arm around her shoulders.

  “You should come inside now, Abigail.”

  She shook her head, beginning to tremble. “I… can’t leave her here … in the cold. She always hated the cold.”

  “She’s fine now, Abigail. She’s free of pain and sickness. She’s free of this cruel land. She was not made to be long here on earth.”

  Abbie nervously twisted the necklace she held in her hand. “My mother … was always sickly,” she told him. “She died—back in Tennessee … before we left for Oregon.” She held out her hand. “This was her necklace. I’d like to… lay it beside Lillian. My children never knew their grandmother. She died before I met Zeke …” The horrible blackness engulfed her again and she bent over in a wrenching sob, grasping her stomach. Tynes grasped her arms and pulled her close, holding her tightly.

  “It will fade a little … the worst grief,” he told her. “When I lost my first wife I thought I would never again see the sun. She was so young … and I had only had her for a year. Come. I will help you to the casket and you can lay the necklace there and say good-bye one last time. Then we must leave and get you and the other children inside. The snow is coming down harder now. My men will take care of things here.”

  He helped her to the grave. She felt old, suddenly old. Her arm seemed to weigh a hundred pounds when she reached out to place the necklace on her daughter’s frail body. Never had Lillian looked prettier. Some of Sir Tynes’s help had dressed her in the pink dress he’d instructed them to make from material he’d had at the house. Her hair was neatly braided, with pink ribbons tied at the ends, and a light rouge had been put on her pale cheeks.

  Margaret stood nearby, weeping bitterly, held by Sam Temple. She had grown to love Sam, grown to trust him. They had gone riding several times, had talked for hours; and he had kissed her. His sweet, warm, gentle kisses had stirred new and exciting feelings in her innocent body. He never touched her rudely or said crude things as the cruel Confederate soldier had done that awful day when he’d tried to force himself on her. Sam was different, and her young heart was truly in love for the first time. She had sometimes thought about Indian men, but she had wondered what future there would be in marrying one. With her looks she felt she belonged with the Indians, but she had been raised as a white girl and she knew that to have a home and children, she should marry a white man. However, she also knew that most white men had no respect for Indian girls. Then Sam Temple had come along. He was different. He respected her. He had not said that he loved her, but she was sure he would. Sam was her hope for a happy future.

  But right now she was temporarily saddened by her sister’s death. She watched her mother put the necklace into the casket and she wept harder, turning and burying her face against Sam’s chest. She wondered if this terrible grief would be made worse when they found out what happened to LeeAnn. And what of her father? What would happen to Zeke Monroe? Would they ever live happily at the ranch again?

  The snow came down harder, and now Sir Tynes was dragging Abbie away, against her protests. “I can’t leave her there alone! It’s too cold!” Abbie kept saying. “Oh, God, where’s Zeke? If only Zeke were here! Zeke and my son!”

  The words echoed in Margaret’s ears and she wept harder, standing there in the blowing snow with Sam’s arms around her while the rest of the weeping Monroe children filed after their mother toward the Tynes mansion. Sam kissed Margaret’s hair.

  “Come on, honey,” he told her softly. “Let’s go to my cabin. You’re better off not being around your ma right now. Come to my cabin and I’ll warm you up and we’ll talk.” He led her in the opposite direction as men began to lower the small wooden coffin into the ground.

  Margaret sipped the hot chocolate, the heat of it burning her throat, warming her stomach, and helping her heavy heart. She set the cup on the crude wooden table in Sam’s cabin. He walked up behind her and patted her hair. “Feeling better?”

  She sighed deeply and wiped her eyes. “A little.” She turned to look up at him and he touched her cheek. “I must look terrible,” she told him.

  He knealt down beside her and leaned up to kiss her cheek. “Now how could a beauty like you look terrible? You’re beautiful, like always.” He handed her a big, clean handkerchief and she blew her nose.

  “Oh, Sam, I’m so scared.” She began shaking and new tears wanted to come. “Father might never come back, and we don’t know what’s happened to my poor sister. My brother is in the north, maybe dead from some raid, and—” She met his eyes. “Hold me, Sam.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and he enfolded her in his own, pulling her out of the chair and hugging her tight. He kissed her hair. If ever she was vulnerable enough for him to take her, it was now. He had gained her trust. Every girl had to take her first man sooner or later, and this one was Indian, so it didn’t matter if they weren’t married. Sam Temple was not about to commit himself to any girl. He liked many girls, and he did not intend to lose his freedom. But now he was with Margaret—beautiful, young, unsuspecting Margaret who was frightened and lonely. He moved his lips from her hair to her cheek, then to her full, sensuous lips, kissing her in a seductive, almost demanding way. He had never kissed her like that before. He parted her lips hungrily, then moved a hand down to press against her slender hips when he felt her responding out of her confusion and fear.

  Leaving her lips, he kissed his way to her throat, then her ear. “Let me help you forget all your sorrow, Margaret. Let me make you feel alive and happy.” He rubbed his hand over her hips and kissed her again before she could reply, pressing his hardness against her flat stomach. He felt her stiffen then, and her heart beat so hard he could feel it against his chest. “Don’t be afraid, Margaret. Don’t I mean anything to you? Don’t you love me?”

  He released her slightly then, and she met his eyes—so true and kind. “You know I love you, Sam. But I’ve never … I mean … we aren’t married.”

  He smiled. “We can always get married. I just don’t want to wait. It would take time to get a preacher. I want you now, right now. I need you, Margaret. You’ve seen how easy it is for life to slip away in this land. I could get killed on a roundup tomorrow, be attacked by renegades, who knows? You know better than anybody all the things that can happen out here. I’m scared too, Margaret, scared something will happen to you or me and we’ll never have known each other that way. I want to be your first man, Margaret, your only man. I won’t hurt you, I promise. Every day I wonder if this is the last day we have together.”

  He had chosen the right words for a frightened girl who was in love. She felt flushed and confused, and her heart pounded furiously. “I… I don’t know what to do.”

  “You don’t have to know anything. I’ll teach you. And I won’t hurt you, truly. I just… I want to make love to you, Margaret. I want you to be my woman. Don’t you want me to be your man? Don’t you want to make me happy, like your mother makes your father happy? You’ve told me how much they love each other. We can be like that too. I ought to get your father’s permission before I marry you, and who knows when he’ll be back. I don’t want to wait that long. We can be one now, right now. And when your father comes back, we’ll be married. If he doesn’t get back within a month or so, we’ll just get married anyway.”

  “Sam, I… I’ve thought about you … that way. But I felt ashamed of doing so.”

  “Ashamed? Why? Don’t you love me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Where’s the shame in that? We’ve been together almost every day now for better than six weeks, Margaret. It’s not like we’re strangers anymore. We’re good friends. I want to be more than that. I want to be lovers. You’re so beautiful, Margaret. You drive me crazy.”

  He kissed her again, groaning suggestively.

  “But, my mother—”

&nb
sp; “Don’t worry about your mother. She’s grieving right now, Margaret. Don’t worry her about it. Don’t tell her. You’re a big girl. You can make your own decisions, and you know when you’re in love. Your mother can’t decide that for you.”

  He kissed her again; then he reached down and picked her up in his arms, carrying her to his bed. She wanted to protest, tried to think of an argument against it but could not come up with a reasonable one, not when she thought about how much she loved him. It did not enter her mind that he still had not told her he loved her. After all, he had talked of marriage, hadn’t he? He had talked of needing her, of wanting to be her first man and her only man. He had been kind to her, never touching her wrongly all this time. He had stayed beside her through her sister’s last hours and through the funeral. How could she doubt his apparent fidelity and love, ignore his gentle touches, his warm smile and his true blue eyes?

  His hand moved up under her dress and fire leaped through her veins at his touch. She had never been touched this way, had never wanted someone to touch her this way. Yes, she wanted to forget her confusion and sorrow. How she wanted to forget! He touched her gently in that secret place no man had ever touched and she gasped with excited pleasure, her womanly instincts awakened for the first time.

  She started to object again, and he cleverly and quickly took his hand away, being careful not to move too quickly and frighten her. Instead he stopped her objections with a kiss as he gently moved the hand over her tender young breasts. She was soon lost in him, for Sam Temple knew how to handle girls and he knew just the right words to use to get the ones who didn’t understand these things to submit. He was going to have a pleasant time of it, he was certain of it, for this one had never known a man. Slowly but surely he worked off her clothes and his own, and he smiled when she kept her eyes closed to his nakedness and tried to curl up to hide her own. In time she was letting him kiss her breasts, letting him touch that secret place that set her body ablaze. Her eyes widened in startled pain when he finally had his way with her and she started to push at him, but it was too late.