by Merry Farmer
A sharp reprimand from Magpie Woman pulled Katie to attention. She jumped and spun to face the woman. That wasn’t good enough. Magpie Woman snatched her wrist and tugged her to sit down and finish her work. With no one in sight who could help her, there was nothing Katie could do but what she was told, though it rankled. She should be fighting for her freedom. Instead she picked up the stone tool she had been working with and went back to grinding corn the way Magpie Woman had shown her, too weary and heartsick to protest.
Hardly a minute later, Sky Bear came striding up to the spot where they worked. As soon as he opened his mouth in greeting, Magpie Woman was on her feet scolding him. Katie couldn’t help but grin as Magpie Woman gave him the same tongue-lashing that she had given to Katie. Sky Bear was just as helpless to do anything about it. He gaped and stammered as she laid into him. It would have been more enjoyable if Magpie Woman hadn’t kept pointing at Katie as she gave her son a dressing down, as if she had something to do with it.
When Sky Bear attempted to argue back, and the two of them focused on each other, Katie saw her opportunity. She stood slowly, keeping her eyes on the arguing pair. Then, drawing as little attention to herself as she could, she stepped away from them. One step, and they didn’t seem to notice. Two, and they continued to argue as if she wasn’t there. Three, and she made a break for it.
Both mother and son noticed her flight, stopped their confrontation, and shouted at her before she could scurry more than a few yards away. Sky Bear dashed around the workspace to catch her, clamping an arm around her waist. The strength of his grip and the closeness of his smooth, bare chest sent ripples of fear through her.
“Let go of me,” she shouted. She tried to put up a fight, but with little sleep, a bruising ride through the night, and being put to work all day, she couldn’t manage it. “I want Aiden,” she wailed as Sky Bear dragged her back to his mother. At last, her tears broke in earnest. “I want Aiden. Aiden,” she repeated his name.
When Sky Bear let go of her, Katie sank to her knees in front of Magpie Woman. She was too worn out and disheartened to do anything but weep and pick up the stone she had been working with to grind corn. She didn’t even look at the woman, though she heard her snap one final, quiet comment at her son before sending him away. Then she resumed her seat by Katie’s side, continuing her own work.
Katie stopped to wipe her eyes and peek at Magpie Woman. She expected to find the woman gloating over her show of pitiful weakness. Instead, Magpie Woman watched her with a wary, almost concerned expression. Her mouth was pinched and her eyes betrayed that she wasn’t happy, but somehow Katie knew that she wasn’t the problem. At least not the only problem. She wondered what Magpie Woman and Sky Bear had argued about. She wondered if it could help her get back to Aiden.
Just because he was being treated as an honored guest didn’t mean Aiden felt like he was any less than a prisoner of the Cheyenne. The people treated him as a special person, someone with talents, but when Katie had been dragged off and he had leapt after her, two sets of strong arms had held him back. He’d struggled, he’d tried to explain to the old man who spoke English that Katie was his woman, he’d even tried charming his way out of the crowd that demanded he keep playing his fiddle, but none of it got him one step closer to Katie.
He searched for her from the spot where he sat in the center of the camp, playing or singing, all afternoon. The Cheyenne village was a fascination to him. He’d only ever seen pictures of Indians and tipis. Within minutes, he had learned that most of what he knew about the wild savages of the North American Plains was laughably wrong. They were industrious. Everyone within his sight had some sort of job to do that added to the survival of the whole, save for the old men, whose job was to listen to him. They were peaceful. Even the braves that he could see were more interested in caring for their bows or constructing tools than scalping him where he sat. And they were appreciative of his music. So much so that by the time supper rolled around that evening, his fingers were tender from playing and his throat was sore from singing.
“You will sit beside me at the feast,” the man called Grandfather told him as people began to gather in the center of the village once more.
“Thank you.” Aiden forced himself to smile and nod, even as his eyes wandered for any sight of Katie.
“But you cannot come to a feast like that.” Grandfather nodded to his bare chest.
It was a warm day, and Aiden was confident enough in the picture he presented in nothing but his drawers to only feel slightly awkward sitting around mostly naked all afternoon. Most of the braves were shirtless in the summer heat anyhow. But it was a relief when Grandfather went on to say, “Come. I have an old tunic you can wear.” He stood, gesturing Aiden to rise with him. “Stone Bird made it for me when we were young. She was my wife, and a good wife she was too. She is dead now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Aiden said, stunned that the old man would be so frank with him. He followed to a tipi close to the center of the village and ducked inside when Grandfather gestured for him to go in.
“I am not,” Grandfather said. “She lived a good life and had many sons, and met Death bravely when he came for her.”
Aiden didn’t know how to reply, so he remained silent. The inside of Grandfather’s tipi was neat and homey. Bundles of personal possessions lined the walls, and a small fire pit with the blackened remains of a fire was in the center, under the opening in the top of the tipi. The space smelled of tobacco and wood smoke. It was pleasant, all things considered. Grandfather crossed to a bundle on one side and sorted through it.
“Where are your people?” he asked as he searched.
“My people?” Aiden asked.
Grandfather found what he was looking for and stood, a bundle of old, soft leather in his arms. “Yes,” he went on. “You are a white man, but you do not speak as the other white men speak. You have a song in your voice.”
“Ireland,” Aiden said. “Katie and I come from Ireland.”
Grandfather paused as though he was listening for something. “I do not know this place. Where is it?”
A tug pulled at Aiden’s heart as he thought of deep green and rolling hills. “Far, far away. Across the great ocean.”
“So very far?”
Aiden nodded.
“We are far from our homeland too, but we have come here so that the white soldiers will not find us. Why did you come so far?” Grandfather asked.
Aiden set his fiddle and bow down as Grandfather handed him the bundle. It proved to be a painted tunic and what looked like breeches made of soft leather. “Several years ago, there was a great famine in our land,” he explained. “Many people died because of it. So much of the land has been bought up by rich Englishmen who don’t care a fig for those of us who have lived there for centuries. All we wanted to do was live and farm in peace, but they had other ideas.”
A sad look came over Grandfather. “I know this story,” he said with a sigh. “It is the story of the Cheyenne.”
Aiden paused in the middle of putting on the breeches to look at Grandfather, really look at him. He knew far too little about what had happened in America as the West filled with intrepid pioneers, but he knew enough to feel a sudden twist of kinship with the old man in front of him.
“We tried fighting back,” he went on, continuing to dress. “We tried, and more good men died.” Grandfather sighed and nodded. “It was Katie’s idea to come to America, to build new lives here on the frontier, in Oregon.”
“Katie?” Grandfather asked.
Aiden shrugged into the tunic. It fit surprisingly well. “Katie Boyle, my heart and my home.”
“The one who burns with fire.” Grandfather nodded. When Aiden blinked, he said, “She has much fire within her. So much that it comes out of her head.”
The description fit Katie so well that Aiden laughed. “That’s my Katie. She never could keep her passions bottled. Sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes it’s not.�
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This time, Grandfather chuckled. “Stone Bird was like that too.”
Since Aiden was finished dressing in the borrowed Cheyenne clothes, Grandfather crossed to him and laid a hand on his back. They left the tipi to return to the central fire pit. More people had gathered for the evening meal.
“Sky Bear has claimed Burns With Fire as his own,” Grandfather said.
It took Aiden a moment to understand what he had said. As soon as he did, his gut clenched with restless anger. “He can’t have her,” he said. “She’s mine.”
Grandfather stopped walking and turned to him. “She is your wife?”
“No.” Aiden clenched his jaw at the admission.
“She is promised to you then?”
“Not exactly,” he was forced to admit. “But I love her. I’ve always loved her. I think she loves me too.”
“You think she loves you.” Grandfather gave him a long, thoughtful look.
“I know she does.”
“She has told you this?”
Again, Aiden found himself grinding his teeth before answering, “Not in so many words, but I know it to be true.”
Grandfather nodded, and they walked on. “Sky Bear will not like this. His wife was killed several years ago when soldiers attacked the village where they lived. It is time he took another. He has his heart set on Burns With Fire.”
“Her name is Katie,” Aiden growled, “and he can’t have her.”
Grandfather let out a weary breath. “More trouble. There is too much trouble in the world these days.”
They reached the fire pit where several of the elders were gathered to eat. Grandfather invited Aiden to sit with them. Judging by the looks and murmurs from the other elders and some of the younger people nearby, it was an honor. Aiden treated it as such and nodded respectfully to the other elders as he sat.
All plans to treat the elders with the deference they deserved were cast aside when Katie walked past carrying a large clay bowl of something.
“Katie.” Aiden jumped to his feet and hopped over an old woman and a corner of the fire to run to her. “A ghrá.”
Katie twisted so sharply at his call that she spilled some of the corn cakes from her bowl. “Aiden,” she shouted. Relief flooded her worn and weary face. “Oh, thank God. I was so worried something had happened to you.”
She thrust her bowl into the arms of the young woman walking next to her, not caring that the young woman already held a platter and stumbled as she balanced the two dishes. She ran to Aiden and threw her arms around him.
It felt so good to hold her in his arms again that Aiden moaned. He squeezed her tight, breathing in the scent of her. “I’m fine, a ghrá,” he told her. “I’ll get you out of here. I swear, I’ll—”
He was cut short as a strong hand clapped over his shoulder and yanked him back.
“Aiden,” Katie shouted. A middle-aged woman with her hair in two long plaits over her shoulder grabbed Katie’s arm and pulled her away, scolding her to high heaven.
The man who had Aiden, Sky Bear, pushed him around to stand face-to-face with him. He hurled something that was clearly an insult at Aiden. The young woman who had two odd white spots on her face and had been by Katie’s side when Aiden first entered the camp rushed up to stand between them.
“Sky Bear says that no man will touch his woman, especially not a man who sings like a child,” she said.
Aiden stood taller, squaring his chest and balling his hands into fists. “She’s not your woman,” he addressed Sky Bear directly.
The woman translated for him, and the brave replied, staring arrows right at Aiden. “Sky Bear says he took her, she is his, and you are not man enough to take her back from him.”
“Well, you can tell your little friend here that if he wants a big, fat serving of Irish pudding, he can come and get it.” He raised his fist, flexing his bicep so that it strained against his tunic.
Sky Bear leaned toward him, his own fists formed. All around them, people gasped and murmured.
Before either man could throw a punch, Grandfather’s low, strained voice broke through the tension. He spoke something firm but wistful to Sky Bear, then said to Aiden, “This is not the time to make war. This is the time to eat. Come and sit with me and eat.”
Grandfather said one more thing to Sky Bear, who relaxed by a hair and took a step back.
Aiden let out a breath and unclenched his fists. “You’re right,” he said. “I was wrong to impose on your hospitality. I’m sorry. But Katie does not belong to this man.”
He glanced to where the middle-aged woman was still holding Katie by the arm. Katie was tense and alert, eyes darting back and forth between Aiden and Sky Bear like a rabbit that might run at any moment. But she was also exhausted. Dark circles under her eyes marred her beautiful, pale face. Aiden couldn’t force a confrontation now, not when Katie wasn’t up to it. He would have to go along for now and look for an opportunity to get her out of here later.
“Come,” Grandfather repeated. “Sit with me and eat.”
The woman with spots had continued to translate for everyone watching, and as soon as she repeated Grandfather’s words, Sky Bear burst out in anger.
“Sky Bear says it is a disgrace for a white man who sings to sit with the elders,” the woman translated. Sky Bear went on, his anger growing, stabbing the air and pointing away from the village. “He says that all who accept this man or his music will be cursed, that he is no warrior, he is no better than a woman.”
The people watching the confrontation murmured. Grandfather raised his arms, half appeasing, half appealing. He spoke something in a sage and calming voice, almost as if telling a story. There was more murmuring from the people. Sky Bear backed down, but he was clearly as angry and frustrated as ever. He snapped one last, grumbling statement at Grandfather, then turned on his heel and stomped off. A couple of his friends marched off with him, the ones who had bullied Aiden earlier.
“Come.” Grandfather beckoned to Aiden once more. His face seemed older and more lined with cares than ever.
The confrontation was over and the people who had gathered to watch started back to their places for supper. Aiden hated to leave Katie, but the middle-aged woman dragged her off before they could have another word. There was nothing left for him to do but follow Grandfather.
“That one should be called Angry Bear, not Sky Bear,” Grandfather said as they returned to their places by the large fire pit.
“What did you say to him?” Aiden asked.
“I reminded him that you were sent by the Wise One Above. He does not believe it, of course,” Grandfather added with a shrug, “but others do, so that will keep him from bringing more trouble for now.”
They sat and Grandfather’s shoulders sagged as though he carried a great weight.
“I’m sorry I brought this trouble with me,” Aiden apologized. His chest squeezed tight with frustration. He had to do something, had to rescue Katie and get her to safety, but at the same time, he was loathe to double-cross a people who had seen as much hardship as he had.
“Trouble came to us long before you did,” Grandfather told him. “Sky Bear is angry because of his wife. She and many others of our people were killed for no reason we can see. He wants to make war to avenge them. He and many other braves. They do not understand that this is a war we cannot win.”
A chill passed through Aiden at those words. It felt too much like the defeat he had experienced before his family and Katie’s had made the decision to come to America. “There has to be something you can do,” he said.
Grandfather shook his head. “I have seen it. We will not win the coming war.”
Through his whole speech, he stared into the flickering flames of the fire. Now he glanced up and looked Aiden directly in the eye with a power that felt like a touch, like a spear pinning Aiden down.
“You should leave this place,” Grandfather said. “Your music is medicine, but soon even that magic will not protec
t you. You must go as soon as possible.”
“I’m not leaving without Katie,” Aiden replied. It was the one thing above all that he was certain about.
Grandfather nodded as though he’d expected the answer. “She is the song of your heart.”
“She is. If she stays, I stay. If I go, she goes with me.” It had been that way for as long as Aiden could remember and it would not stop until the day they died.
“Hmm,” Grandfather hummed. “Then we will try to keep trouble away as long as possible. This is a difficult thing.”
Aiden nodded in agreement, but as far as he was concerned, it was simple. Katie was everything to him. He would find a way to rescue her or he would die trying.
Chapter Eleven
Katie waited for something to happen all through the feast. She served along with the other women, then ate with Magpie Woman, Yellow Sun, and Two Spots by Magpie Woman’s tipi. She saw Aiden several times throughout the evening, but wasn’t able to break away to speak with him. She waited for Sky Bear or one of the other braves to snatch her away, for Grandfather to appear and tell her the elders had changed their mind. Nothing happened. The village hummed along as Katie suspected it always did.
When supper was over, Aiden played his fiddle again. He played her favorite love songs and lullabies. She could hear them, even though she couldn’t see him. He was sending her a message, telling her he loved her and he would keep her safe. Only a few days ago she would have chafed at his overt message. As she lay down inside Magpie Woman’s tipi and slipped into the sleep of the exhausted, she reveled in it.
Katie expected something to happen the next morning. The other shoe would drop and Sky Bear would cause a fight or drag her off to make her his wife. But when the sun rose, Magpie Woman roused her from sleep and set her to work all over again.
She expected something to happen that afternoon, for the militiamen from Ft. Caspar to ride into the village with her father and Aiden’s brothers. But there was only more work to do, more chores. Two Spots was ordered to take Katie to an old woman of the village, who showed her how to scrape buffalo hides and treat them to make them soft. It was smelly, dirty work, but she learned it.