The afternoon sun was just beginning to disappear behind a western ridge of mountain along the horizon when the wagon train came into view.
Sam urged his horse forward. It didn’t take much to convince the beast that he would finally be allowed to rest.
Tim galloped ahead of Sam and broke off his momentum. “Hold up, Sam. We gotta talk.” Sam had been expecting some sort of negotiation, but he’d hoped to wait until he’d had the opportunity to speak with Blake. Certainly not now when his head spun with each movement of his horse. But his injuries didn’t seem to dissuade the two men in any way. “The way Brian and me see it, we saved your neck back there at the trading post. You owe us.”
“What did you fellas have in mind?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” Tim said.
Brian took up the other man’s cause. “We’re taking that woman to Swooping Eagle. It ain’t like she’s gonna be missed by anyone. She ain’t got family, and that Indian ain’t gonna hurt her. Besides, we both know what she was before. Who else would marry her?”
Outraged, Sam fought against the nausea.
“We do not trade one human being for another,” he said.
“It ain’t for one other,” Brian insisted. “It’s for my sister and Tim’s little girl plus little Bridie Long. That’s three lives for one whore with no one who cares if she lives or dies. How can you be so derned stubborn?”
Anger welled up white and hot, making his head spin even more from such strong emotion. But he was in no shape to force anything at the moment. “We will not speak of this again,” Sam said firmly.
He nudged his mount forward as shouts from the camp indicated they’d been spotted. He had to remember to ask Blake for extra guards around Toni. There was no telling what these desperate men might do.
The force of the wind on top of Independence Rock whipped Toni’s Lindsey-wooley skirt about her legs and stole her breath from her lungs as it gusted into her face.
“I can’t believe I let myself get roped into climbing this confounded rock. It ain’t nothing more than an upside-down bowl of granite. Wish I’d just gone for a dip in the Sweetwater River instead.”
Ginger’s complaining was beginning to grate on Toni’s nerves and she was starting to wonder why she’d even bothered to coax the young woman to come along. Sometimes Fannie had noted that there wasn’t a lot to like about the girl, but Toni felt a strong loyalty to her. It was hard not to care about someone who only saw the best in you.
And, despite what anyone else saw, the fact was that Ginger had a good heart. Much better than she wanted to let on. But mainly, Toni had been afraid she’d defy Blake’s orders and go swim in the river after all.
Ironic, really. At one time they could barely get the girl to scrub the dirt from her body. Now she was the first one to water whenever they camped alongside a place suitable for swimming or bathing.
“I’m finished,” Amanda announced, the last of the four women to use the paint.
“Then let’s go.”
“Do you three want to go bathe when we get back? Blake says we’re headed out first thing in the morning.”
That sounded good to Toni. Plus she wanted to change into her clean dress and scrub this one. “Let’s.”
“Blake won’t mind as long as we’re all together. But one of us will have to stand guard while the others bathe. Then we can switch.”
Only Amanda hadn’t said anything. They turned to her. She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I have…something…else I planned to do.”
Ginger frowned. “Like what?”
Amanda hedged. “I-just…it’s…”
Toni decided to spare the woman the necessity of sharing something she obviously wanted to keep to herself. “It’s perfectly fine if you want to stay in camp, Amanda.”
“I just thought we were supposed to take baths so we don’t stink.”
Amanda laughed. “I promise I’ll wash up so that I don’t start offending.”
Toni and Fannie joined her in the laugh, and slowly Ginger’s ice cracked and her face broke into a wide grin. “All right. You probably don’t need a bath as bad as the rest of us anyways.”
They were about to start the descent down the rock—a descent that Toni feared would be much more difficult than the climb up—when shouting from the camp below caught their attention.
“Hey, look over there!” Ginger’s voice rang with excitement as she pointed over the wagon train to the horizon beyond. “Unless I miss my guess, Sam’s back and he brought them prisoners with him. Let’s get going. I want to hear all about it.”
Toni’s heart skipped several beats and her mouth suddenly went dry. So much had happened since Sam had been gone. Things that he would have helped her get through had he been there.
Even now, at the sight of him, she longed to sit with him and allow his gentle voice and godly wisdom to help her make sense of the deaths of three men and Amanda’s heartbreak over the entire situation, although thus far she hadn’t even so much as shed one tear for her murdered husband. Not that Toni knew of, anyway. She had allowed Ginger to give Lucille’s diary to Blake, and Wolfie was officially exonerated for the crime of rooster killing, although there was no one left to insist upon his punishment anyway.
Amanda had decided to allow the pup to remain with Alfred. A gesture that relieved Toni. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the dog. But with Ginger, Amanda, and herself sharing the cramped wagon, there wasn’t much room for an animal that was growing larger by the day and was starting to look more and more like a wolf.
The dog’s bark signaled that he too saw the returning wagon train members. Toni’s face felt flushed, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t wait to see Sam. A nudge to her ribs brought her attention around to Fannie. “Are you going to climb down and go see him, or make him wait?”
A smile curved Toni’s lips. “I’m going.”
Blake frowned with concern at the size of the knot on Sam’s head. He could see that his friend was in no shape to be reporting on the rescue just now, so he ordered him to his bedroll without allowing two words to escape his lips. “Get some rest,” he ordered. “There’ll be plenty of time to talk about this a little later.”
“Wait, Blake. I must say one thing first. The rest will wait.”
“All right. One thing.” Blake relented. “What is it?”
“Keep Toni protected.”
“Don’t worry, my friend. I’ve been keeping an eye on her. Besides, she’s now sharing her wagon with two other women.” His lips quirked into a grin. “And one of them’s Ginger. She can shoot straight as most any man.”
“No. Listen. She needs extra guards. Swooping Eagle is determined to have her.”
Blake sensed there was more to his friend’s concern than simple overprotective instincts for the woman he loved. He looked around for the two men traveling with Sam. His eyes scanned the camp but they were nowhere to be seen.
Several of the women in camp had descended upon the rescued children and they were being cared for. The Indian woman who had arrived with Sam remained at his side. Blake looked down at her belly. Just what they needed, one more pregnant woman to join the twenty others that were in various stages of pregnancy. “Ma’am?”
The woman looked up, her brown eyes filled with question, but she didn’t speak. “Can you tell me what happened out there?”
Her eyes held a hesitance that only worried Blake more. “Please. Sam’s in no shape to fill me in and the two men who were with you are gone.”
She gathered in a long breath and nodded. “I will speak of it with you.”
“Thank you. Please sit down. My wife went to the rock, or she’d be here to get you something to drink. I can offer you some water.”
She nodded. Blake ladled a dipper full of water into a tin cup and handed it to the young woman.
She thanked him, took a sip, then met his gaze head-on. “The Cheyenne chief will make a trade. A white woman he desires for the woman and two ch
ildren still in his camp. He has vowed that if you do not agree, there will be more battles and he will not stop until the woman is his. He will wait only two weeks.”
Blake’s heart sped up. So that was what prompted Sam to make him promise to add guards. “Were you a captive of the Cheyenne as well?”
She took another sip and shook her head. “The trader, Orlan, took me from my father’s village. I have been living with this man as his woman for many moons. Two-Feathers helped me to escape.”
Blake nodded. “Swooping Eagle allowed the other children to leave?”
She shook her head. “He traded them to Orlan. Two-Feathers rescued them as well.”
The light in her eyes when she spoke of Sam indicated her admiration for his friend. Blake approved. If Sam was determined not to marry Toni because she was a white woman and he half Indian, then perhaps he would turn his eyes in the direction of the pretty young Indian woman. If Sam fell in love with an Indian girl, maybe he wouldn’t feel like he had to be alone forever.
“This child you are carrying,” he said pointing toward her stomach. “Orlan is the father?”
“Yes.”
“Will he come after you?”
She shook her head. “He would have traded my child to the Pawnees, and perhaps me with it. He had grown tired of me and planned to bring a new woman into the trading post before winter.”
“I take it you’d like to stay with the train? Or do you wish to go to your people?”
“I will stay,” she said quietly. “If you will allow it.”
Well, he couldn’t very well turn a woman out in her condition, could he? He’d just have to figure out what Sam wanted to do about her and let his friend handle the situation. He had more important issues to consider. For instance, protecting the wagon train against an imminent attack from the relentless war chief.
Twenty
Misery poured through every bone in Toni’s body. She felt like she was on the verge of a screaming, hissy fit. Every time she observed Sam walking with the beautiful Indian girl, or accepting food from her hands, her throat closed up and all she wanted to do was yell, cry, throw a big rock, and get Sam’s attention. He’d barely spoken two words to her in the week since they’d left Independence Rock, despite the fact that he’d insisted upon adding guards to her wagon.
Now they were headed through South Pass, and during a time when she should be starting to get excited about passing from the eastern part of the country into the western, she could only think about Sam and wish that Indian girl had stayed with the trader. Though it made her feel guilty to think such a thing. Still…
Walking next to Fannie, she felt a little better, but not much. “Listen,” her friend said. “You have to stop worrying about Sam and Yellow Bird. There is nothing between them.”
Toni gave a snort and nodded toward the young Indian girl who was stirring a pot over Sam’s campfire. She looked awfully comfortable. “Are you sure she knows?”
Fannie followed her gaze. “Well, maybe she doesn’t, but Sam isn’t one little bit interested in her.”
“Any man is flattered by such obvious attention from a woman. Believe me, I know.”
“Blake says that’s just her way of showing her gratitude because Sam rescued her from that trader.”
“You mean acting like a wife? Cooking for him? She even takes care of his horse, for mercy’s sake. His horse! He saved me too, but I don’t clean up after his animal. Maybe that’s the problem. Perhaps if I do those things he’d notice I’m still alive.”
Fannie gave a short laugh.
Toni turned on her, scowling. “What’s so funny?”
“You. You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m not jealous.” Toni drew in a sharp, cool breath. “Do you think I am?”
“I’d bet on it.”
“No wonder love can drive a person crazy.” Toni pressed her palm to her stomach. “I suppose I must love him.”
Fannie’s jaw dropped. “Are you telling me you didn’t know that already? Truly?”
“I suppose not. What do I know about love?”
“Oh, Toni. Toni. Love is wonderful.”
Affection rose in Toni for her friend. She knew Fannie truly meant what she said, but the truth of the matter was this: Love was only wonderful when the person you loved returned your affection. Sam would never belong to her. And staring at him now, as Yellow Bird stood over a campfire stirring a pot of something that was surely supper for Sam, it was clear to see the two made an equally lovely couple. A woman about to give birth, a man waiting for his meal. What could be more fitting for Sam?
Sam knew Toni deserved an explanation. Especially after the way he’d kissed her the night before he left. But somehow it was too difficult to explain that he owed something to Yellow Bird as well. After all, he’d taken her from her home—granted she had begged him to do so, but they were the only two Indians on the wagon train and he felt a responsibility to watch over her. Plus, she would need help once the child was delivered. And that would happen very soon.
That didn’t mean he cared for her in the way he cared for Toni. Nor could he ever. Still, the fact remained Yellow Bird seemed like a good match for him. And he was willing to be a father for her child if that’s what God was asking of him. He couldn’t just turn his back until he knew for certain.
Others in the wagon train had noticed it. Women who never gave him a second glance before Yellow Bird’s arrival now sent him amused grins and knowing glances. He supposed it wouldn’t matter who the Indian woman might be. As long as she was Indian, folks assumed her to be a suitable match for the only man around with Indian blood flowing through his veins. Did they even know or care that they weren’t of the same tribe? Did it really matter?
Probably not. Red skin was red skin. His bitterness surprised him, though. Anger, really. Resentment that the one woman he loved more than life itself was off limits to him, but the one everyone found suitable didn’t make his heart sing the way Toni did.
Yellow Bird handed him a bowl of good-smelling buffalo stew and corn cakes to sop it up with. Guilt bit through him even as his mouth watered from the delicious aroma. Here she was heavy with child and serving him. He reached out and took her wrist. “Sit down next to me and have some.”
She shook her head and backed away. “I will eat after you have had your fill.”
It was clear that even though she’d lived with a white man and clearly knew a white man’s ways, Yellow Bird insisted on behaving as though that part of her life had never existed. “That isn’t the way of things here, Yellow Bird.”
“It is the way of our people.” Her quiet admonishment sent irritation scrambling through him.
“I’m half white too.” Why couldn’t anyone seem to remember that? It wasn’t that he discounted his Sioux heritage. But neither did he discount his white blood. “Sit down and eat your supper with me or I will dump mine out and go hungry.”
“I will eat as well, Two-Feathers.” Yellow Bird dipped a ladle full of stew into a tin bowl and sat on the ground next to the campfire.
Wolfie’s bark captured Sam’s attention and he turned toward the sound. Charles Harrison and his two children were having dinner with Toni, Amanda, and Ginger. Jealousy nearly ripped a hole in Sam’s heart at the sight of Toni smiling at Charles as he pulled off a hunk of meat and tossed it to the ornery dog.
No wonder the animal stole food and refused to learn obedience if his owner insisted upon allowing such poor manners. Wolfie gobbled up his treat and begged for more. Toni’s laughter carried on the wind, clutching at Sam with a longing to be the recipient of that smile and gaiety. But no, some widower was edging him out. He scowled.
“You…care for the white woman. Yes?”
He jerked his head back to Yellow Bird, ready to deny her observation. But the solemn look in her dark eyes told him plainly there was no point in denials. “Yes.”
“Then you will marry her?”
&nb
sp; He gave a short laugh. “Not hardly.”
“I do not understand.”
“A white woman does not marry an Indian in the white world.”
She cocked her head to the side, confusion still clouding her eyes. “You will not marry the woman you love?”
Had she not heard a word of what he just spoke?
“I can’t.”
A shrug lifted slender shoulders. “Then perhaps she would be better off joining Swooping Eagle’s tribe.”
The very thought sent knives of fear through his entire body. “Yellow Bird. Toni does not want to go with Swooping Eagle.”
“Even if it means she could free the two hostages who have family here, and another child? She will not even consider this?”
Sam didn’t know if she’d consider it or not, but there would be no discussion about that scenario while he had breath in his body. Besides, Toni had no idea that Swooping Eagle had even made the offer. Only five people knew…Sam, Blake, Timothy, Brian, and Yellow Bird. Sam had threatened Tim and Brian should they reveal the bargain to her, and of course Blake wouldn’t breathe a word of it. Not even to his own wife.
Yellow Bird gave a jerky incline of her head. “You have not spoken of this with the one you call To-ni.”
Sam made no apologies. “I have not. Nor will I.”
“But perhaps she will choose to accept Swooping Eagle’s offer. A Sioux woman has the right to refuse. Why should this woman not be given the same choice that your own mother was given to choose your father?”
“She has already refused him once.” Granted, there were no other captives involved at the time, but Sam couldn’t imagine Toni agreeing to such a bargain anyway. Nor would he allow her to do so.
Yellow Bird remained silent after that. She stood, her food untouched, and began to clean up. Despite her cumbersome burden, she moved with the same grace he remembered his own mother possessing. His long desire was to return to the Sioux nation and bring the gospel to his mother’s people. Now that Yellow Bird had entered his life, he was beginning to question God. Was she the helpmeet he’d been waiting for? If so, he had no choice but to put thoughts of Toni from his mind and concentrate on getting to know the Indian woman.
Distant Heart Page 16