Then he slid his hand from her cheek and brushed it against the outside of her breast, his touch seeming deliberate. Flame took an unsteady step away from him.
“Father?” she said, her voice wary.
Colonel Russell’s gaze raked, slowly over her again, and then he gazed into her eyes, suddenly aware of the alarm and question he saw in their depths.
He cleared his throat nervously. “Eh, what were we talking about?” he said, awkwardly running a forefinger around the tight collar of his uniform.
“Father, we were talking about . . . about . . . my happiness,” Flame stammered out. Suddenly, there seemed something more to their relationship. She did not want to think of where it had just taken her father. It was too frightening a thought. She would not allow herself to think of it.
“Yes, your happiness,” Colonel Russell said, wiping a bead of perspiration from his brow with the back of a hand. “Tell me, darling, what would make you the happiest? I shall see that you get it.”
“You shall?” Flame said, again thinking of White Fire, and their future together.
“Speak up, daughter,” Colonel Russell said, clasping his hands tightly behind him. “Tell me quickly. I’ve business awaiting me in my study.”
“Father, I want to marry White Fire,” Flame blurted out. Then she took a step away from her father when she saw how her words had seemed like a slap across his face.
Weaving, as though he might faint, he grabbed a chair and steadied himself. Then his face flooded with color. His eyes narrowed. His breathing was a low, sharp hiss.
“Never,” he growled out.
He turned to leave, but Flame ran to him and grabbed him by an arm. She forced him around to look at her.
“I am going to marry him,” she said, her voice quavering from emotion. “Please give us your blessing. Moments ago you said—”
“To hell with what I said moments ago,” Colonel Russell said darkly. “To hell with White Fire! I forbid you to marry him. Do you hear? Forbid!”
“Forbid?” Flame said, her hands at her throat. “You truly think you can forbid me anything? Never! I didn’t want to go behind your back and marry him! I wanted to show you the respect most daughters owe their fathers by telling you of our plans. Now I see that I was wrong to tell you anything. I was wrong to be tricked into thinking that you care.”
She shuddered. “To think that only moments ago I was in your arms as though I belonged there,” she cried. “I don’t! And never shall I hug you again!”
Colonel Russell stepped closer to her. He spoke into her face. “Don’t you be foolish enough to think that I will ever allow you to marry that damn ’breed,” he hissed out. “Don’t you know that Indians, all Indians, are a menace and should be killed?”
Paling, seeing her father’s hatred for Indians, Flame stared at him for a moment, then ran past him.
She ignored his shouts as she ran down the stairs. She cared not that she was dressed in an expensive gown as she ran to the stables and saddled her horse.
The moon high overhead, she rode from the wide gates of the fort, the soldiers shouting at her to stop.
Chapter 21
Leave all for love;
Yet, hear me, yet,
One more word more thy heart beloved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
After his tiring day, White Fire sat down on the edge of his bed to remove his moccasins. He stood up again with a start when he heard a knock on his front door. Wondering who might be at his home this late, he lifted an eyebrow.
He doubted it would be Flame. Surely she knew better than to leave the safety of the fort this late at night, after darkness had fallen over the land like a black shroud.
Then who else? he wondered as he left his bedroom and walked toward the front door.
When he reached the door, never trusting anyone who might come this time of night, even with a polite knock, he grabbed his rifle. “Who’s there?” he called out.
“It is I, Red Buffalo. I have come with a message for you from Chief Gray Feather.”
Knowing Red Buffalo, with whom he had been friends when he had lived with the Chippewa, and no longer feeling a threat, White Fire set his rifle aside. Then he swung the door open.
He placed a hand of friendship on Red Buffalo’s shoulder. “It is good to see you, my friend,” he said. He dropped his hand away and stepped aside. “Would you want to come inside and give me the message by lamplight?”
“Moonlight is ample enough,” Red Buffalo said, not offering any smile of friendship, or hand clasp.
“All right, then tell me what you have come to say to me, Red Buffalo,” White Fire said, his spine stiffening at the warrior’s cold attitude, which was unusual for this man who was known for his humor and lighthearted manner.
“Your woman was abducted tonight as she rode alone in the forest. She is being held captive at my village,” Red Buffalo said guardedly, the moon sheening his copper face and revealing his eyes which narrowed as he spoke. “Your woman is being held for ransom.”
“What . . . ?” White Fire gasped out, taking an unsteady step away from Red Buffalo. “What do you mean by saying that she is a captive and that she is being held for ransom?”
“My chief says that if you will come to his village and promise to marry Song Sparrow, then Flame will be set free,” Red Buffalo said blandly. “If not, the woman with the flaming-red hair will not see another sunrise.”
Stunned, and suddenly feeling betrayed by his long-time friend Gray Feather, White Fire could not find the words to express his depth of disappointment in the chief.
And to think that Flame was surely filled with fear, and that what Gray Feather, an Indian, had done, might turn her against Indians made White Fire feel a desperation he had never felt before.
Ignoring Red Buffalo, White Fire grabbed his rifle and brushed past him in hurried steps.
Almost as quick as lightning, he had his horse saddled and was riding into the forest in the direction of Chief Gray Feather’s village.
His thoughts were scrambled as he tried to sort out what had happened, and why. Anger filled him in hot splashes that Gray Feather would think that White Fire could be forced in such a way to marry his daughter. It was hard to understand how the chief would think that they could stay friends after threatening him.
“And Flame . . .” he whispered as he yanked, then slapped the reins as he steered his horse one way and then another around the trees. He was glad when he reached the meadow that would lead him to the Chippewa village.
He rode beside a stream which watered Chief Gray Feather’s people and horses.
He sank his heels into the flanks of his horse. He ignored Red Buffalo when he caught up and rode alongside him.
“I saw that this that my chief has done tonight is wrong,” Red Buffalo said, drawing White Fire’s eyes to him. “But I have tried to understand his logic.”
“There is no logic in what he has done!” White Fire said. Yet he was glad to see that he was not alone in his upset over Chief Gray Feather’s actions.
“His daughter is the world to him,” Red Buffalo said. “You are important to him. That year you lived with our people, as one with them? That was when my chief singled you out for a future with his people. Not only as a possible husband for his daughter, but someone who could lead when his body and mind are too weak to lead. In his eyes, you became the son his wives never bore him. He is too old now to have sons by wives. He does not even have a wife. When his last wife died, he laid to rest all feelings of a man inside his mind and heart that would usually belong to a woman.”
“I truly am touched over and over again to have someone as great and powerful as Chief Gray Feather think so highly of me, but surely he can see that I cannot be coerced into marrying his daughter and into being his son!” White Fire said, his hold on the reins loosening as his anger waned. He knew Gray Feather well enough to realize that he would never harm F
lame.
It was surprising that Gray Feather had tried this tactic tonight—taking a captive—when it was well known to everyone that it was not his practice to do so. He had not even kept Sioux captives after his attack on the Sioux camp while rescuing his daughter from them.
It made White Fire know how much the chief wanted him to marry his daughter, if he would go to such lengths to convince him that he should. It was hard to understand, yet he did recall the chief’s dreams about him. There had been more than one dream that told Gray Feather to choose White Fire over others to marry his daughter and to rule at the chief’s side as though he was his son. White Fire now understood just how much faith the chief put in his dreams!
His jaw tightened. He had to prove to Chief Gray Feather once and for all that he should depend on reality more than dreams to bring a son into his life. He must look elsewhere to fulfill what was lacking in his, and his daughter’s, lives.
The reddish-yellow reflection of the outdoor communal fire in the Chippewa village showed in the heavens a short distance away. White Fire glanced up, then sank his heels into the flanks of his horse and rode onward in a hard gallop. He could only hope that Flame would understand that he would not allow anything to happen to her, and that he would be there soon to see that she was released from captivity. And he hoped that she knew him well enough to realize that he would not be blackmailed into marrying another woman—that his heart was hers, alone, forever.
“Be gentle with my uncle the chief,” Red Buffalo said as he sidled his horse closer to White Fire’s. “You can settle your differences without harsh words or warring.”
“I am certain you believe that or you would not allow me to enter the village without aiming your gun at my back,” White Fire said, his voice drawn.
“I know you well,” Red Buffalo said, a slow smile twitching on his lips. “Have we not hunted together? Have we not sat beneath the stars and wished on them? Are we not the same as brothers?”
“Yes, we are close, you and I, and that is why I was surprised to see your frown when I opened my door tonight and found you there,” White Fire said.
“It was because I felt pulled between two loyalties,” Red Buffalo said. “Yours and my uncle’s.”
Hearing that made White Fire draw his reins tightly and stop his horse. He took the time to reach a hand of friendship to Red Buffalo. “Friends always,” he said.
When Red Buffalo circled his hand around his, and their fingers tightly intertwined, White Fire smiled broadly at him.
“Friends always,” Red Buffalo said, then eased his hand to his side. “Let us go now. Soon your woman will be released. Soon you will ride from my village without malice in your heart toward my chief or my people.”
They rode on into the village, where wigwams made of birch bark sat in a wide circle, the large outdoor fire burning in the middle of the circle. Only a few Chippewa sat outside by the fire. Most were inside their lodges, as well as their dogs.
But White Fire could feel many eyes on him as flaps were lifted at the doors and people watched him dismount and walk, square shouldered, toward their chief’s much larger lodge at the far end of the circle.
Just as he reached the chief’s wigwam, White Fire stopped suddenly when Chief Gray Feather stepped outside. A possessive hand was clasped to Flame’s right arm as he forced her outside with him.
“White Fire, help me,” Flame said, her eyes on his.
Her soft plea, the fear in her eyes, ate away at White Fire’s heart, for never had she shown this vulnerable side to him, that things could alarm and frighten her.
He wanted to reach out and grab her from the old chief, but he knew that words would work better now than harsh actions.
“She will be released and escorted home if you make promises to Chief Gray Feather that please him,” Gray Feather said in a low rumble of a voice.
“Gray Feather, what you have done tonight could start a war between you and the white eyes,” White Fire said, hoping that Flame would understand that he must, at this moment, ignore her and give his full attention to the chief. “Had I gone to Flame’s father and told him that she had been abducted, there would be an instant war between the Chippewa and the pony soldiers.”
Chief Gray Feather smiled slyly at him. “I knew that you would not go to the white eyes before coming here,” he said, laughing softly. “You do not want warring any more than I. Now do we have a bargain? She is set free if you will stay and be a husband to my daughter, a father to her daughter, and a son to this old chief whose dreams tell him that is the way it must be.”
“Dreams, dreams, dreams!” White Fire said, frustrated, raking his fingers through his long hair. “You depend too much on your dreams.”
“You have said, also, that you know the power of dreams,” Chief Gray Feather said, tightening his hold on Flame as she tried to wriggle free.
“Yes, I have dreamed that which has eventually come to pass, but this dream of yours never shall,” White Fire said, glancing over at Flame, wishing he could reach out and comfort her. But that would come later. He had the chore of first making the old chief see things which he stubbornly wished not to see.
“‘Then you refuse to do as I ask?” Chief Gray Feather asked somberly. “You do nothing tonight to guarantee the freedom of this flame-haired white woman?”
“I cannot do as you ask because my love is for this woman, not your daughter,” White Fire said sadly. “Flame is my choice. We are going to be married. Nothing you say or do will change our feelings for one another. Set her free, Gray Feather. Let her come to me. Let me comfort her and tell her that you meant her no true harm. That you are not the sort of Chippewa leader who would provoke the whites into warring over a woman.”
Out of the corner of his eye, White Fire saw Song Sparrow inching toward her father on the opposite side from where he held Flame hostage. Feeling Song Sparrow’s eyes on him, White Fire turned her way. Their eyes locked and held as she stepped fully to her father’s right side.
“Song Sparrow, you would not want to marry a man whose heart belongs elsewhere,” White Fire said, feeling the pain that was so visible in her wavering eyes.
He hated hurting her, for she was like a sister to him. Surely she understood now that she could never be anything more to him but that. She had heard.
He prayed that she would speak up and say what she knew had to be said to free Flame without any altercations.
“Gee-bah-bah, Father, set her free,” Song Sparrow suddenly said, her eyes still locked with White Fire’s. “I no longer want him. Tonight, for everyone to hear, he has openly declared his love for another woman. I would look foolish in the eyes of our people if you still hold the woman as hostage.” She lowered her eyes. “I perhaps already look too foolish ever to feel good about myself again.”
Flame swallowed hard. She leaned over and gazed at the beautiful Chippewa woman. Although Flame was angry through and through for what had happened here tonight, she could not help but feel a deep sympathy for the woman for whom this had been done. Flame knew how deeply it would hurt her to lose White Fire. She could tell that this Chippewa woman’s hurt was as deep; as devastating.
She felt the hand on her wrist drop away. Her heart throbbed wildly within her chest to know that she was free, to know that the Chippewa chief was no longer a threat to her.
Stifling a sob of relief in the depths of her throat she went to White Fire and flung herself into his arms. “Thank you,” she murmured, clinging to him. “Oh, Lord, White Fire, thank you. I was never as afraid as I was tonight while alone with the Chippewa!”
“I am sorry that it had to happen,” White Fire said, cuddling her close as his gaze moved now to the chief. “You did a wise thing, Gray Feather, by releasing her. But it might be too late. Surely her father is searching for her.”
“He would have no reason to search at my village,” Chief Gray Feather said, sighing heavily. “During my entire reign as chief, and my father’s reign before me, no w
hite captives have been taken. The pony soldiers will look everywhere but here. I imagine, for now, the fault will be laid at the doorstep of the Sioux.”
He took a slow step toward White Fire, then stopped and placed a gentle hand on Flame’s head. “Child, turn and face me,” he said thickly.
He dropped his hand to his side as Flame slowly turned around and gazed at him. “White woman, whose hair is like flames of a fire,” he said softly, “it is my sincere apology for having given you such cause to be afraid tonight.”
“Yes, I was afraid,” flame said, swallowing hard. “But I see now that I was never in any danger. I apologize for showing such fear of you. White Fire has told me nothing but good things about you and your people.”
Gray Feather smiled at White Fire. “Ay-uh, he would have much good to say because only good came to him while he lived among my people,” he said, nodding.
Then Gray Feather’s smile faded. “White Fire, please, you and your woman, stay awhile with my people,” he said, his voice filled with melancholy. “Eat with my people. Spend the night. Let this old chief have a chance to strengthen our ties again after having weakened them tonight by his harsh, foolish action.”
Flame looked over her shoulder at White Fire. They gave each other questioning stares.
Chapter 22
We have walked in Love’s land a little way,
We have learnt his lesson a little while,
And shall we not part at the end of day,
With a sigh, a smile?
—Ernest Dowson
Although White Fire knew that Colonel Russell would be fit to be tied over Flame’s absence, he felt that he had no choice but to spend the night with the Chippewa. He felt that he needed this time to console Gray Feather over his plan having gone awry, and for learning for certain that White Fire would never live with him, and would never marry his daughter.
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