White Owl

by Veronica Blake

  Long minutes passed, and White Owl couldn’t stand the wait. He clasped his rifle tightly in his hand and raised up slightly as he yelled as loud as possible. “I do not want to fight. I only come for my wife.” He ducked back down behind the rock in case the reply was a bullet. Another long pause followed, and finally, a response.

  “She’s gone. She doesn’t want to see you again.”

  White Owl hunkered down behind the rock and tried to absorb the man’s words. They didn’t register in his mind. He rose up again.

  “Where is my wife?” he demanded.

  “I told you. She’s gone. She left the minute you finally brought her home. She doesn’t want to see you again,” was the immediate reply.

  White Owl fell back down on his knees. The man’s words raced through his head. He felt like he had just been punched in the gut. No, it was not possible. He leaned forward and raised up again. “I don’t believe you.”

  There was a pause before the man answered. “If you put down your weapon, I’ll prove it to you.”

  The punch in his belly felt more like someone was shoving a long spear into him now. He fell back on his heels again. The love they had shared in the past few months flashed through his mind in vivid detail. There was no way that he could believe that she had left him voluntarily. She loved him as much as he loved her, or so he had thought. He swallowed the metal taste in his mouth and felt a sick feeling wash through his body.

  “I’m putting my gun down and coming out,” he hollered. As he rose to his feet, he raised his hands in the air to show the shooter that he no longer held his weapon. He took a step to the side, exposing himself completely. Waiting the next couple of seconds felt like a lifetime.

  At last, a man stepped out from behind one of the small sheds. White Owl was surprised to see Rose’s twin brother holding the gun. He had been prepared to meet her father first. He glanced around, expecting to see the older man step out from one of the other buildings, but only Tate walked forward.

  “Take off that coat.” Tate waved the rifle in a threatening manner. White Owl obliged and tossed the fur coat at his feet.

  “Drop that knife on the ground,” Tate ordered next. “And then come down very slowly.”

  White Owl did as instructed. He pulled the knife from its fringed sheath and let it fall to the ground. He began moving cautiously down the slope. He kept his hands raised the entire way. When he was within several yards from the man, he stopped and waited for further instructions. The younger man was watching him through narrowed eyes with the rifle leveled at his chest. White Owl was still expecting the appearance of the old man, but so far, only Rose’s twin had greeted him.

  A movement at the house caught White Owl’s attention and he glanced in that direction. He saw an older version of Rose, but with pale brown hair, and the younger brother, Donavan, standing on the stoop. Pepper, the troublesome black dog, came running toward him wagging his tail. He didn’t bark or growl even once now.

  “Tate,” the woman called. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

  “He doesn’t believe that Rose left. I’m gonna prove to him that she doesn’t want to be with him, and then he is gonna leave and never come back,” Tate hollered. “Isn’t that right?” he added as he motioned toward White Owl with his gun.

  White Owl nodded slowly. The pain in his belly was radiating through his entire body. How could they prove something to him that couldn’t possibly be true?

  Tate shoved his rifle in White Owl’s back and pushed him forward. As they approached the house, Rose’s mother and little brother backed through the front door. By the time they had entered, the woman was standing across the room with a shotgun in her hands. The younger brother was beside his mother. White Owl looked around the room as his anxiety increased. Wild Rose was nowhere to be seen.

  “What have you done to her?” he demanded from Tate in an angry tone.

  Tate chortled in a hateful tone. “You talk pretty good for a savage. I told you, she left because she didn’t want to see you again. She asked our pa to take her to the train in Rawlins on the very day you brought her back. She’s headed back to Ireland right now where she’ll be safe from the likes of you.”

  White Owl clenched his fists at his sides and fought to control his raging emotions. “I don’t believe you. She would not leave me,” he said as he clenched his jaw. He glanced at the woman and saw a strange expression flit across her face. Had he only imagined that she looked sad and regretful for one brief second?

  “Well then, I said I can prove it,” Tate retorted as he motioned with his head toward a doorway that was covered by a heavy woolen curtain. He shoved the gun in White Owl’s side and pushed him toward the doorway.

  White Owl moved forward as a feeling of dread overcame him. He could not imagine what was on the other side of the curtain, and he didn’t want to know. But he had no choice. He pulled aside the thick curtain and stepped into the room.

  “This was her room,” Tate said. “Look around. She packed all her belongings and asked our father to take her as far away from here as possible.”

  As Tate’s words penetrated his mind, White Owl turned back to the room. It was a room . . . just a room, void of anything personal that could distinguish it as Wild Rose’s room. He stepped inside and took a closer look around. It wasn’t until he noticed the shiny object lying on the bureau that he realized it was true.

  There in the center of a delicate white lace doily was the shimmering gold heart necklace that he had seen her wear on so many occasions when they had met in the barn or she had come to watch him at the racetrack. His insides twisted into a tight ball, and his knees felt weak as the reality settled in to his aching heart. She was gone.

  “See, I told you, Injun,” Tate spat out as White Owl remained unmoving in the middle of the room. “Now, I want you off of our land. I should just shoot you, but I will give you this one chance to leave. I will kill you if you ever come back.”

  White Owl stood mute. He couldn’t speak, but he thought about provoking the younger man so that he would fulfill his threat to shoot him. Why would he want to take another breath if Wild Rose was not here anymore?

  In a stupor, he stumbled out of the room and past Wild Rose’s mother and younger brother. He let Tate use the gun to shove him out the front door and to the base of the slope that led away from the ranch. The stupid dog ran beside him, wagging his tail and jumping up against his leg as if he was his best friend. White Owl walked, but he couldn’t talk, couldn’t think, couldn’t imagine a future without Wild Rose. Tate’s ongoing threats went unheard as he trudged back up the slope and gathered up his things. He pulled himself up on Niwaa’s back. His body felt as heavy as his heart. She was really gone. Only three days ago they had been planning a lifetime together. And now, she was headed to some faraway place called Ireland.

  Colleen Adair stood outside the house with her shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders. The wind was chilling, but her heart felt like a block of ice. She had helped destroy two lives in just a few days. It had nearly killed her to see the light gone from her daughter’s blue gaze as she had left for Denver. After Rose had fainted and then been revived, she had been a changed girl. She had done exactly as they had told her—took a drink of water, ate a piece of cornbread, loaded up into the wagon beside her father, and left for Denver without saying another word. Her blank, lifeless eyes had stared straight forward the entire time, and as Colleen had watched the wagon pulling out of the yard, she felt so horrible she could barely live with herself.

  When the storm had hit with such ferocity later that day, she had prayed that her husband would change his mind and come back. But the storm had continued to rage, and her regret had turned to resignation . . . and then White Owl had come.

  When she saw the look in his dark eyes, she realized the extent of the horrible mistake they had made. It was more than apparent that White Owl loved her daughter more than she had ever imagined that a man could love a woman, and
Rose loved him equally.

  She watched as White Owl disappeared from view at the top of the ridge. Her hands clasped together as she prayed for forgiveness for her part in this terrible tragedy.

  On his way back to the village, White Owl visited every place that he had ever been with his Wild Rose. The places along Milk Creek where they had first fallen in love and made love for the first time; he stopped under every tree where he had kissed her, and he even chanced going close to the agency so that he could see the spot where they had first met. He saw soldiers patrolling not far from the area where the racetrack was located, however, so he had not gone any farther. Several times he had found himself turning Niwaa around with the intention of riding back to the Adair ranch. He would make them tell him exactly where she was, and then he would go all the way to this place called Ireland and make her tell him to his face that she didn’t want to be with him anymore.

  But he knew that was foolish. Her family would never tell him anything more than they already had; they hated him and would do whatever it took to keep them apart. And besides, if it were true, if she really didn’t want to be his wife anymore, he was sure he could not survive having her tell him this in person, anyway.

  It was late when he returned to the village. He was grateful that nearly everyone was already asleep, because he was certain he could not have talked to anyone about the events of the day. He entered the cold, dark tepee—the same tepee he had planned to fill with her presence tonight. Instead, the blackness was filled with her ghost, because now she was the same as dead to him. If she really was in this faraway land called Ireland, he would never see her again. He stumbled through the darkness until his foot found the furs and blankets he had spread out for their bed, but he could not make himself lie down on them. Surrounded by only emptiness, he realized he could not be here at all. It would be too painful to be here without her.

  He reached down and gathered up a couple of the blankets and then made his way over to the area where he had left his pack with his clothes and other necessities. He grabbed the bag and headed back out of the tepee. As he passed by his parents’ tepee, he hesitated. He knew he should tell them that he was leaving, but they wouldn’t understand. With all the turmoil surrounding the tribe right now because of the massacre at the agency, he knew that they would want him to stay, at least until they had moved to the winter location.

  But he couldn’t stay. There was only one place he could be right now. He made his way back to the horses, placed the saddle on Niwaa’s back, and led him away from the corral. Through the night he rode until he reached the place where he had camped with Rose on the first night of their wedding trip.

  For the next two days, he rode and stopped in the same areas they had stayed, until he was back in Vermillion Basin.

  As he rode down the mystical canyon with the sacred etched pictures on the high cliffs, he felt a strange transformation taking place inside him. The past couple of days he had felt as if he was in a daze. It didn’t seem real that Wild Rose was really gone and that he was traveling back here without her.

  But still he rode on as if he had no place else to go. And now that he was here, he understood this odd quest. The daze lifted as he rode out into the meadow and glanced up where the hidden cave was carved deep into the stone.

  If he could no longer be with his Wild Rose, he could at least be where her memory would always remain. This was all he had left of her, and so this was where he would stay.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Maggie Carroll was Colleen Adair’s youngest sister, but she was nothing like Colleen. Although they had both been raised with a strict Irish up-bringing, once they had immigrated to America, Maggie had fully embraced the more modern ways of their new country. She had turned down every suitor when they had asked for her hand in marriage because she claimed she had no desire to cater to a man and a passel of children—her own, anyway. It didn’t bother her in the least bit that she was considered an old maid at the ripe old age of twenty-five. To her family’s despair, she had chosen to be a teacher, which was the typical profession for spinsters.

  Rose absolutely worshiped her Aunt Maggie. She was the most vibrant woman Rose had ever known, and she was also quite beautiful with her strawberry-blonde hair and flashing blue eyes. In some ways Rose looked even more like her aunt than she did her own mother, and people always mistook them for sisters, rather than aunt and niece.

  When Rose and her father had arrived in Denver a few weeks earlier, Maggie had welcomed them with open arms, and much to Rose’s relief she had not asked any questions until after Paddy Adair had left. Even then, she had only asked Rose if she was going to be all right. Still sick with heartbreak, Rose had not been able to tell her aunt why her father had deposited her on her doorstep without any advance warning. For those first few days after her father had left her, she had barely been able to talk at all. Every time she had even opened her mouth to speak, the tears that always teetered on the rims of her eyes would start to fall, and her voice would crack; it wasn’t worth the effort to talk.

  The worst part of this horror was wondering what had happened when White Owl had came to pick her up from her parents’ ranch. They had planned to meet on the ridge at midmorning, but what had he done when she didn’t show up? She prayed that he had gone down to the house and that her mother or Donavan had told him what happened to her and that Tate had not tried to shoot him. She would not consider that possibility. She spent the majority of the first leg of the journey sitting next to her father on the wagon seat and looking over her shoulder, hoping and praying that her husband would catch up with them before they reached Rawlins.

  But the weather had turned bad, and she had no way of knowing whether the storm had also hit the Milk Creek area. Once they actually reached the city of Denver, she had given up on the dream that White Owl would catch up to them. Although she had no doubt that he would never believe she had left of her own free will, she still figured it would be up to her to get back to him now.

  Denver was rapidly becoming a big city, and she could not imagine that he could find her here, even though he had been here in his youth. Plus, coming here would be far too dangerous for him after the White River Agency Massacre. Since her arrival, there was rarely a day that Rose didn’t read something about the battle in the local paper. If the Colorado leaders—and most of the residents—had their way, the Utes would be completely exterminated, or at least, run out of the state altogether. The most recent headline in the newspaper had screamed, THE UTES MUST GO!

  Rose’s worries about her husband and his family were heavy crosses to bear, and she preferred to carry the burden alone. Thankfully, her Aunt Maggie never pried.

  She asked Rose to help her grade her students’ papers in the evenings, and she gave Rose chores to do during the day to help out around the little house that she lived in next to the school house along the Platte River, but she never asked any questions.

  When Rose finally felt strong enough to leave the house and be around other people without wanting to cry, she agreed to go with Maggie to her grandparents’ home for Thanksgiving. They lived in downtown Denver, where they owned a house and a general store. Rose had not even allowed Maggie to tell them that she was here yet, but since it was a holiday, Rose knew she could not disappoint her aunt. She had to go.

  They planned to stay with her grandparents for four days, and there was no way her Grandmother Carroll was not going to drill Rose over and over again as to why she had returned to Denver unannounced.

  As they sat down for breakfast before they left on Thanksgiving morning, Rose sighed and turned to look at her aunt. “Aunt Maggie, I need to talk to you.”

  “Of course, dear,” Maggie said in a cheery voice as she sat at the little kitchen table opposite from Rose. “Are you feeling all right? You are awfully pale. You know, I heard that there was an illness going—”

  “I’m fine,” Rose cut in. “I just need to . . . to tell you why my father brought me her
e.”

  Maggie placed her napkin daintily in her lap. “Only if you are ready to talk about it.” She smiled as she met Rose’s gaze.

  For the first time since she had arrived, Rose did not look away. She had to talk about it . . . and she especially needed to talk about him. “I was married, against my family’s wishes.” Rose did not let Maggie’s gasp from her gaping mouth stop her. “Aunt Maggie, I was happier with him than I’d ever been. I had no idea it was possible to love someone so much—or be loved back so much.”

  Maggie’s shocked look had now turned to one of confusion. “I don’t understand. It’s apparent how much you loved this man—your husband. I can’t imagine why my sister wouldn’t want you to be happy. She was much younger than you are now when she married Paddy.” She clenched her teeth and added, “It was your father, wasn’t it? I have always thought he was too domineering and your mother just lets him—”

  “My husband is a Ute warrior,” Rose interrupted again.

  Maggie’s tirade abruptly ended. “A-a what?” she finally asked.

  Rose forced herself not to give in to the rising panic. She realized her aunt might hate the Utes as much as her father, but it was a chance she had to take.

  “His name is White Owl, and he is the strongest, proudest, most loving man. When spring comes, I will go back to him. I would have already left, but his tribe moves to a warmer climate for the winter, and I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find them. And traveling this time of year would be foolish.” Rose fidgeted in her chair. “I will completely understand if you want me to leave now, though.”

  Maggie stared at Rose with a shocked, glazed look upon her face. Her silence only served to increase Rose’s anxiety.

  Maggie finally took a deep breath and pressed her napkin to her forehead for a moment before speaking. “Well, I think it is wise not to travel at this time of year, dear.” She put the napkin back in her lap, picked up her spoon, and began to stir her tea in the delicate flowered teacup that sat in front of her on the table. “And you know you are always welcome to stay here with me, so no more of that kind of talk.”