“Young Rand announced his engagement to Lenore then?” She took a deep breath, almost as if she were in pain.
“I don’t know, Grandmother,” she shook her head. “I came to realize tonight that I don’t belong here, that Rand would be better off without me, so I’m going away.”
Elizabeth’s eyes closed briefly, and then she turned and looked toward the painting. The beauty in the portrait almost looked as if she were smiling cruelly. “So Camelia, you had the last laugh after all—God’s punishment for an old woman.”
Was Grandmother losing her mind? Absently Kimi reached up to touch the medicine charm hanging around her neck. Daddy, she thought, remembering now how he had held her, trying to carry her to safety. “He loved me every much, didn’t he?”
Elizabeth stared at the painting and the handsome man with the watch in his hand. “He loved you very much,” she whispered, “almost as much as I loved my child and his father.”
“Oh, Grandmother.” She took the old lady’s frail hands in her own. “I know this will hurt you, but I must go away.”
“Back to the Indians?” Her mouth trembled, revealing how much she cared for her granddaughter.
Kimi nodded. “Please try to understand. That little girl in that portrait is gone, long gone with the passage of time.”
Grandmother nodded. “Everyone gone, all but Camelia. She will be with me always. I hear her sometimes, her mocking laughter, the rustle of her skirts. I saw her reincarnated tonight; my punishment.”
Kimi didn’t know what the frail lady was talking about, but maybe it didn’t matter. “It’s just that, well, I love Rand, but I’ll never fit into his life, not like Lenore would. Whatever Laurel Carstairs was, she was lost along with her father far away from here. In her place is a girl who is really Sioux in her heart and who will never feel at home any place else, so I’m returning to them.”
Elizabeth Carstairs turned away, her shoulders shaking, stared at the portrait. “So Camelia, everything works out even in the end. This is my final punishment for what I did that long ago night, I find my granddaughter, only to lose her again.”
Tears ran down her cheeks, and Kimi hugged the frail body to her own. “Nana, I don’t know what you think you’re guilty of and I don’t care. I love you and I’m glad we found each other again, if only for a few days.”
They put their arms around each other, and for a long moment they clung together.
The old lady looked at her, tears on her wrinkled cheeks. “How can you do this when you love him so?”
Kimi sighed and turned away. “That’s precisely why I’m doing it, because I love him and want him to be happy. I would only humiliate him and make him regret marrying me. No sacrifice is too great when you love someone.”
“Spoken like a true Carstairs.” Nana seemed to force herself to smile. “All right, if your mind’s made up, I’ll help you. I’ve got some cash in the house and I want to give you that mare you like, Onyx. Nero will take you to the train. Now get ready.”
Her heart breaking, Kimi ran upstairs, changed out of the beautiful ball gown. For one evening she had been almost like the Cinderella she vaguely remembered from her story books that Daddy used to read to her a long, long time ago. Except this time, the girl didn’t want the palace and the lifestyle that went with the prince.
In moments, she had a few belongings and was hugging her grandmother one last time. “Pilamaya,” she whispered. “Thank you. I love you, Nana; I love you so!”
As Kimi went outside, she paused, waiting for Nero to put her things in the buggy. No doubt Lenore and Rand were announcing their engagement now and everyone was drinking toasts of champagne. Kimi only regretted that she hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye to the kindly judge. She turned one last time and looked off toward Randolph Hall, thinking about the man she loved. She would never, never forget him, but she loved him too much to stay and ruin his life. “Wakan Tanka nici un,” she whispered. Good bye and may the Great Spirit go with you and guide you.
She was sobbing as Nero helped her into the buggy and tied the mare on behind.
Elizabeth stared after them long after her granddaughter had left. God had a way of dealing out justice after all. She almost seemed to hear her daughter-in-law’s mocking laughter drifting through the house and the ghostly strains of her own piano echoing through the eerie mansion. Alas my love, you do me wrong, to caste me off discourteously.. . .
Almost blindly, she went to the French doors, opened them, and stared out into the shadowy plants of the conservatory. More than the pistol had been buried hastily in the east lawn. Ironic, maybe, that her daughter-in-law not have a respectable grave in the Carstairs family plot in the churchyard. The beauty slept forever with her paramour under the camelia bush in the conservatory Elizabeth had built later. She’d had to live with that secret all these years and the stress was gradually killing her. Elizabeth would do it again to protect her son and his child, but it had all come to naught. God is not mocked.
The sound of a carriage in the drive. Laurel had changed her mind and returned after all. With a glad cry, Elizabeth ran to the door and flung it open. It was Pierce Hamilton and young Rand Erikson. They both looked grim.
“What is it? Where’s Lenore?”
Pierce took her arm. “I think we’d better go in the music room and sit down, my dear. Something terrible has happened.”
Someone knew, she thought, but Pierce seemed to read her thoughts, shook his head. “No, not that. Let’s sit down.”
Woodenly, she let him lead her into the music room. She sank down on the sofa, waiting. Pierce put a goblet of sherry in her trembling hand.
She watched the judge pour himself a brandy and offer one to Rand, who shook his head. “Lenore was a heroine tonight,” Pierce said softly as he turned around to face her, “she did the Carstairs name proud.”
Was he never going to tell her what had happened? She took a sip of sherry, looked questioningly at young Rand. He nodded agreement. “Yes, Lenore behaved like a true Carstairs, everyone says so.”
Something terrible has happened, she thought, and abruptly, the sherry sloshed over her frail, trembling hand. “Tell me, Pierce.”
“It was all over when I got out on the balcony. Shelby Merson’s in jail and the sheriff will be over to question you later.”
The clock ticked and ticked and ticked. Elizabeth seemed to hear her daughter-in-law’s mocking laughter drift through the old house. “You’re telling me Lenore is dead, aren’t you?”
Young Rand’s face twisted with pain as he looked at her, nodded. “She—she was trying to stop Shelby from throwing me off the balcony,” he whispered. “Terrible accident.”
Elizabeth tried to feel something, some hurt, but she felt only guilt because she had never loved Lenore, knowing she was not really her granddaughter. Lenore had had her mother’s looks and Clint Nutter’s morals. Elizabeth cleared her throat. “We’ll give Lenore a beautiful funeral and headstone in the Carstairs family plot next to my James.”
Pierce got up, poked up the fire so that it blazed brightly. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, although her chest was hurting again.
The young man made a helpless gesture. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Carstairs.”
“It’s all right,” she answered numbly, thinking of all the people who would be coming, the flowers and food, everything she had yet to deal with. She saw the question in his eyes that he had been waiting to ask.
“Mrs. Carstairs, if I might see Laurel—”
“No,” she shook her head. She must stall him, give Laurel time to make her train. “She didn’t want to see you, young man. It was probably a wise decision. I’m not sure you care enough about her to make the sacrifice it would take to have her.”
He swore softly under his breath. “Excuse me, ma’am, I sympathize with you on your loss, but I had already let Lenore know I was going to break the engagement, that I loved Laurel.”
She looked into Pierce’s ey
es, back to Rand’s pale blue one. She saw the truth in their eyes. She knew Lenore better than anyone. Lenore wasn’t the heroine type. No doubt she had tried to push Rand off the balcony for jilting her and had gone over the rail herself. “Does anyone else but we three know the truth?”
Rand shook his head. “My father knows just that I’d made a decision to marry Laurel, if she’ll have me.”
So Jon Erikson had finally told his son about his own lost love. Would that affect the way young Rand looked at life?
Elizabeth sighed. “We’ll not smear Lenore then. Let everyone think she was a noble heroine, a true Carstairs.” She exchanged glances with Pierce, saw the puzzlement in Rand’s pale eyes.
“Mrs. Carstairs,” he knelt by her side. “I know this isn’t the proper time, with this great tragedy and all, but I need to talk to Laurel.”
She sighed, shook her head sadly.
“I love her,” he insisted. “You must let me see her, explain.”
“Somehow I think you really mean that,” she whispered. “My James loved me that much. Such love is rare, young man, and for some people, it only happens once.”
She looked into Pierce’s eyes and saw the tears there. He had loved her as she loved James.
“Mrs. Carstairs,” Rand said again, “I demand you let me see Laurel, or I’m going to go upstairs and break her door down. I won’t leave here until I talk with her.”
She looked at him a long moment, listening to the clock tick and wondering if Rand loved her granddaughter enough. Not that it mattered now. It would have been a difficult choice for him to make, giving up his whole world, turning his back on everything he’d ever known for a woman’s love.
She shook her head. “It wasn’t my decision, young man.” A sudden look of comprehension crossed Pierce’s face, and she nodded. This was the way Laurel had wanted it and it was not her grandmother’s place to question that choice. She put her hand on Rand’s arm. “You’re too late; she’s gone forever.”
Twenty-four
Kimi sat on a windswept rise under a barren tree, staring out across the rolling prairies of the Dakotas. November. Moon of the Falling Leaves. The warm, cozy winter she had looked forward to sleeping in Hinzi’s arms now stretched ahead of her as bleak and cold.
It was beginning to snow and she should go back to the Lakota village. Soon it would be dark and the snow would be falling harder. She shivered, pulling her buffalo robe closer around her and thinking tenderly of Rand Erikson. To her, he would always be the white warrior, Hinzi, Yellow Hair.
Had she made a mistake, returning to the Sioux? She had arrived yesterday and been greeted warmly. No, these were her people. She would never have fitted in with the wealthy, snooty friends of the Eriksons. They might have accepted her because of her grandmother’s money, but they would have always laughed at her behind her back.
She could only pity them for their shallowness and lack of empathy. Kimi folded her arms on her knees, rested her small chin on them, remembering. She would miss Nana and the judge and old Nero. Most of all, she would miss Rand, the man who had once been her slave and then had made a captive of her heart.
Her soul ached at the thought of him, remembering his ardent kisses. Once she had been an innocent girl, and his passion had turned her into a woman. She didn’t regret that. She regretted that she would have to spend the rest of her life without him. When she had returned yesterday on the black mare, Onyx, with gifts of flour and coffee and sugar bought with Grandmother’s money, the whole camp had turned out for her. Many had asked about Hinzi, especially his friends, One Eye, Gopher, and Saved By the Wolf.
“Hinzi has chosen to remain with the whites.” She had blinked back a tear. “His heart is there as mine is here.”
One Eye nodded in understanding. “The easy white life is hard to give up.”
“Yes,” Kimi said, “I could not ask him to make that sacrifice, so I came alone.”
Young Saved by the Wolf frowned. “You did not even give him a chance to choose?”
She shook her head. “There is a beautiful white woman with much money, who wants him. I made it easy for him by leaving without saying good-bye.”
Gopher looked at her gravely. “Perhaps Hinzi will think you didn’t want to be his woman.”
“Perhaps. I think he will be happier without me, so I made that sacrifice.”
Had she been wrong to do so? What was her future going to be? Tomorrow she would face all that. Possibly she would accept Gopher’s offer to be his second wife. Tonight she could sit out here and watch the snow beginning to fall and think of Hinzi.
Was it snowing in Kentucky? She knew now that a part of her heart had been left there with her man, but she would manage somehow. After a while maybe she would finally stop hurting when she thought of him.
It was growing dark and the snow fell faster. Behind her, Onyx whinnied and stamped her feet. It was time to return to her lonely tipi fire, even the mare knew that. Still Kimi hesitated, remembering the times when he had been there waiting for her and she had run into the protective embrace of his big arms.
From the camp in the distance she heard children running and playing, dogs barking. The scent of camp fires and cooking meat drifted on the cold wind. Yes, she must return. Kimi stood up slowly. The mare whinnied again and a horse close by whinnied back.
Surprised, Kimi whirled around. In the shadows only a few yards away a big man sat a buckskin horse. The last of the daylight caught the gleam of yellow hair.
It was a ghost, she thought. She had wanted him so bad, she had conjured up a spirit. Her hand flew to the charm around her neck and she took a step backward.
And then the figure slid off the horse and walked toward her. “Kimi? They told me I would find you here.”
For a long moment, she stared at him. “Hinzi?” She forced herself to disobey her impulse to run into his arms. He had only come to take her back to the white man’s country, and she would never return there. When he knew that, he would leave again. No, she couldn’t stand the pain of losing him a second time.
“Kimi, come to me,” he commanded. And then he smiled ever so slowly and held out his arms. She forgot everything but the fact that she loved him and he was here. With a cry she went into his embrace, and he crushed her against him, holding her close, kissing her face, her eyes, her lips. “Kimi, oh, sweet butterfly, I don’t intend to ever let you out of my sight again!”
His mouth was sweet and hot on hers, the feel of him warm and protective as he enveloped her. Only then did she realize he was dressed as a warrior, not a white man. She looked up at him, a question in her eyes.
He kissed the tip of her nose, holding her against his virile body. “Yes, I’m back for good, Kimi.”
“But Lenore, all your wealth, your parents—”
“There’s a lot to tell, but not right now.” He kissed her again, deeply, lingeringly. “All you need to know is that your white warrior is back and I will never never leave you again.”
She felt the tears on her cheeks. “Hinzi, you don’t know what you’re doing! There’s been new trouble between my people and yours. They say the wasicu build new forts. They say Red Cloud will start a war—”
“Then we’ll take whatever time we have left and be thankful to be together.” He swung her up in his strong arms. “Even if we only have a few months, it will be worth it. Love is all that matters in this world, and I love you, Kimi, more than wealth or family or even life, I love you!”
“Oh, Hinzi, if you only knew how I’ve longed to hear you say that.” She kissed him deeply and lingeringly as he carried her to his horse. He swung up on the buckskin, still cradling her against his broad chest. Snowflakes clung to his lashes over eyes pale as mountain streams. “Yes,” she whispered, “if we only had tonight, it would be worth it!”
Leading the mare, Hinzi nudged Scout forward. Kimi clung to him, thinking of the ecstasy to come in their warm tipi. They rode through the snowy darkness toward the village of their p
eople. The white warrior and his woman had finally come home.
To My Readers
Did a white soldier ever really turn his back on his own civilization and ride with the Indians of the old West? I did a lot of research in this area and found Comancheros, “squaw” men, trappers, and hunters, but the only white soldier I found is a vague legend among the Kiowas. There is a possibility that a black “buffalo” soldier rode with the Indians attacking Adobe Walls in 1874. I’ve already mentioned that in an earlier novel, Comanche Cowboy.
I know many of you have seen or read: Dances With Wolves, but may be surprised to know that the landmark novel on the subject of a soldier joining up with the Indians is an old novel published in 1950. It is called: No Survivors, by Will Henry, and was voted one of the best Western novels of all time by the Western Writers of America, of which I am a member.
What of white women, kidnapped as children and reared by Plains tribes who chose to stay with the Indians? I know of at least four and I’m still researching. The first was the well-known Cynthia Ann Parker, mother of the great half-breed Comanche chief, Quanah Parker. Both are buried here in Oklahoma at Fort Sill. Less widely known was little Millie Durgan, carried off during the Great Outbreak of 1864 which I wrote about in Cheyenne Princess. Millie spent her whole life as a Kiowa and is also buried here in my home state.
A third was Lizzie Fletcher, stolen along with her sister, Amanda Mary, by Arapaho Indians from Wyoming in 1865. Her sister was later freed, but when she tried to reclaim Lizzie, now fifteen years old, the girl denied being white and would not leave the tribe that had reared her.
Yet another was a Spanish girl by the name of Tomassa. Recaptured and returned to Mexico, she ran away and went back to the Comanche. She married a half-breed Cherokee and spent the rest of her life in Oklahoma.
I’ve heard from some readers telling me that some of you are catching scorn from scoffers who say that Indian romances are “fantasy,” and never really happened. Tell them about the four girls I mentioned or suggest two research books on the subject that back me up. One is Comanche and Kiowa Captives by Hugh. D. Corwin, privately printed in 1959. The Oklahoma Public Libraries have several copies. The other book is: Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1825-1915, by Glenda Riley, University of New Mexico Press.
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