I wondered suddenly just how close the Cheyenne village was. For some reason I’d always imagined it to be miles and miles away because we rarely saw any Indians around the trading post. Occasionally a hunting party passed within sight of our place, and we caught a brief glimpse of dark brown bodies and feathers as they rode by on their spotted ponies, lance tips glinting brightly in the sunlight. They had seemed colorful and exciting from a distance but now, with news of John Sanders’ death, they loomed ugly and menacing.
With a start, I realized I knew practically nothing about Indians. I had no idea how they lived, or what they believed in, or what they did for fun, if anything. And while I was at it, I had to admit, if reluctantly, that I knew very little about Shadow; only that he was nineteen or twenty and that his mother had died when he was very young. Oh, but I knew he loved me and I loved him, and what else mattered, anyway?
When we reached the trading post, I bid Josh goodbye and went to my room to wait for Shadow. Looking out my window, I found myself thinking of John Sanders. Why had the Indians killed him? I remembered the night I had caught Mr. and Mrs. Sanders kissing on the porch, and the way Mr. Sanders liked to carry Kathy on his shoulder, pretending she was a princess. Depressed by my thoughts, I went downstairs to help Pa in the store. It was a busy time of day, and waiting on customers kept my mind off Mr. Sanders’ death. Every time the door opened, I expected it to be Shadow. But he didn’t come that day.
The funeral was the next day. Everybody in the valley turned out, dressed in their best, for John Sanders had been liked and respected by one and all. It was a somber group that stood at the grave site—the first grave in Bear Valley. The Indian attack had left everyone a little nervous, and I noticed the men were all carrying rifles and the women kept their children close at hand.
Since we had no preacher, Pa read over the grave, using the 23rd Psalm and John Chapter 11, for his text. Many of the women wept as Pa read, “‘I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live…’”
Florence Sanders stood beside my mother, her face white as paper, her eyes blank. She never shed a tear, nor spoke a word. I don’t think she even knew what was going on.
When the services were over, Mrs. Sanders went home with the Walkers.
Shadow did not come that day, either.
Wednesday morning a half-dozen grim-faced men rode into the trading post, led by Saul Green and Jed Tabor. “Mornin’, Sam,” Mr. Green said curtly.
“Mornin’,” Pa replied. “What brings you men out so early?”
“We’re going after them redskins,” Saul declared vehemently. “We don’t aim to let John’s death go unavenged.”
“That’s right,” Jed Tabor agreed. “We’re going after the bastards. Show ‘em they can’t go around killing a white man and stealing his youngun!”
“Yeah,” Charlie Bailey chimed in. “If we let them get away with this kind of thing now, it will only get worse later.”
“I hate to admit it,” Seth Walker said glumly, “but I think they’re right. Are you with us, Sam?”
“I don’t know,” Pa replied thoughtfully. “Just what are you aimin’ to do?”
“Get Kathy back,” Saul Green answered confidently. “And wipe out as many of those Godless savages as we can in the process.”
“Hmmm. How many men you figure to take with you?”
“Every man in the valley,” Saul answered firmly.
“That’d be sixteen men,” Pa murmured. “Eighteen counting Josh and Orin.”
“That’s right.”
“Just what are you leading up to, Kincaid?” Ted Tabor demanded.
“Just this. We don’t have one experienced Indian fighter in the whole valley. And there’s no way eighteen farmers can hope to ride into an angry Cheyenne village and rescue one little girl. No way in the world. And while you’re out getting yourselves killed, who’s gonna stay behind and protect your women?”
The men stirred uncomfortably as the truth of Pa’s words struck home.
“I know a little about Injuns,” Pa went on. “They ain’t likely to hurt Kathy none. Injuns set a store on kids. Any kids. Likely some couple lost a child of their own and the husband took Kathy to perk up his wife.”
“Then why didn’t they steal an Injun kid?” Charlie Bailey muttered.
“I don’t know,” Pa said with an impatient shrug. “Likely they would have if they hadn’t run across John and Kathy first. But that’s neither here nor there. Reasons don’t matter now. What does matter is that you’ll all be committing suicide if you ride against the Cheyenne.”
There was a lot of mumbling and grumbling and cursing while the men talked it over. They finally allowed as how Pa was right, but Ted Tabor and Saul Green were still spoiling for a fight when they rode off.
Things were quiet the rest of the day. Time and time again I found myself at the window, hoping to see Shadow striding through the gate. Later that afternoon I walked outside the stockade, longing to see the man I loved riding up the path from the river.
But he didn’t come that day either.
I hadn’t said a word about going off with Shadow, but my folks both knew he was the cause of my unhappiness. Mother’s eyes were worried when she looked at me, and after asking if there was anything she could do, and receiving a negative reply, she left me alone to work it out by myself.
Pa suspected I’d had a fight with Shadow and he put his arm around me and said, gruffly, that it was for the best.
Thursday came, but Shadow did not.
I couldn’t sleep that night. Plagued by nagging doubts and nameless fears, I lay awake, wondering why Shadow had changed his mind. Had he lost interest in me, now that I had so freely given him my most precious gift? Had he ever really loved me? He had never said so—not in words, anyway. Had my unexpected passion disgusted him? Or had he decided Mother was right after all, and that we were better off apart?
With a sigh, I faced the fact that Shadow was not coming for me. Something, or someone, had changed his mind about marrying me. I was sorry now that I had seduced him. Not because I had lost my virginity, but because my body desperately craved fulfillment. I yearned for the touch of Shadow’s flesh against my own, for the harsh rasp of his breath against my cheek, for the melding of our two spirits into one being.
Restless and unhappy, I crept silently down the stairs and went outside. I shivered as I stepped into the yard. A hint of the coming winter chilled the air, and I drew my wrapper tight around me as I walked to and fro across the moon-dappled ground. Shadow had mentioned that his people were preparing to move south for the winter, and I wondered if they had gone yet. And if he had gone with them.
I knew so little about Indian ways. I wondered how Shadow spent his days. And nights. I wondered, painfully, if he had an Indian girl in the village. Was he, even now, serenading her with a flute shaped like a dove? Or, worse yet, cuddling with her beneath a big red courting blanket. The thought filled me with such a sense of loneliness that I could hardly bear it, and I thrust the image from my mind. However, no sooner had I done so than another even more insidious fear sprouted into being, and I found myself wondering if Shadow had been one of the Indians responsible for the death of John Sanders. I had grown up on stories of Indian treachery. Knowing Shadow, loving him, I could not believe they were true, and yet with so many tales of butchery and mayhem, some had to be based on fact.
I could not imagine Shadow killing and scalping a helpless white man just because of the color of his skin. And yet John Sanders was dead. I had seen his body. And I had seen the arrows that had killed him. And they were Cheyenne arrows.
Florence Sanders was staying with the Walker family. I had seen her just the day before when Mother and I went over for a visit, but Florence Sanders never even knew we were there. Stony-faced, she sat in a straight-backed chair staring out the window, one of her husband’s shirts clutched tightly to her breast. She never said a word. Not one word.
“She hasn’t eaten a bite since John was killed,” Carolyn Walker told us. “Nor slept either. She just sits there, staring out the window. I don’t know what will become of her, poor thing.”
There had been something eerie about the way Florence Sanders just sat there, her face completely void of expression, her eyes staring vacantly at the empty land. I had been glad to leave.
Head aching with troublesome thoughts, I turned to go back to the house when one of Pa’s redbone hounds rushed out from under the porch. Straight as an arrow, he ran toward the stockade gate and began scratching at the gate and whining low in his throat.
In less than a minute, all the dogs were howling. Their cries sent a shiver down my spine, and I was suddenly conscious of being alone in the yard. My imagination, always vivid, began to conjure up all kinds of danger lurking in the dark. I knew most of my fears were groundless, but the threat of Indian attack was real. The death of John Sanders had proven that.
Just then, Pa’s favorite hound began to bark shrilly.
Sixty seconds later Pa was standing beside me, his big old buffalo gun cradled in one hirsute arm. A sharp word from Pa silenced the dogs. Thrusting the heavy rifle into my arms, he scooted up the ladder to the look-out tower, then quickly scrambled down again. Lifting the heavy cross-bar from the gates, Pa hurried outside.
Puzzled by my father’s peculiar behavior, I followed him out of the yard, only to come to an abrupt halt when I saw the copper-hued body sprawled in the dust, and the big roan stallion standing patiently beside it. Shadow!
“Pa,” I whispered hoarsely, my hands shaking as much as my voice. “Pa, is he…?” I could not say the word, could not take my eyes from the inert, bloodied form of the man I loved and yearned to marry.
“No, he isn’t dead,” Pa said curtly. “Not yet.” Scowling, he lifted Shadow as if he weighed no more than a child and carried him into the house.
Inside the stockade, I struggled to drop the heavy cross-bar back into place. Then, burdened by Pa’s rifle, I hurried into the house.
Mother was waiting for us next to the big pot-bellied stove that stood in the middle of the store. One look at Pa’s burden set her in motion. She quickly swept a display of ladies’ hats to the floor, then covered the countertop with a clean white sheet.
As gently as he had ever placed me in my own bed when I was a child, Pa now laid Shadow on the countertop. Face grim, he put a pot of water on to boil while Mother began tearing an old sheet into long strips for bandages.
“Curly, what happened?” Mother asked. Laying the bandages aside, she added salt to the water warming on the stove.
“I can’t say for sure,” Pa answered gruffly. “But it looks like he’s been pistol whipped, and then dragged across half the valley.”
“And knifed,” Mother added, glancing down at Shadow’s right leg. “Hannah, you’d best put that rifle down and light another lamp. Curly, fetch some whiskey, and my sewing kit.”
Wordlessly, Pa and I hastened to do Mother’s bidding. Minutes later the three of us were gathered around Shadow’s inert form. I bit down on my lower lip to keep from crying out as I got a good look at him. He had been horribly beaten. His nose was bloody. Both of his eyes were black and swollen shut. His buckskin shirt hung in shreds, and there was blood and dirt crusted all over the front of him. But worst of all was the hideous gash along the outside of his right leg. It had been slashed from thigh to ankle. In some places, his leg had been cut to the bone. But for all the blood, Mother said no major muscles or ligaments or veins, thank God, had been severed.
“Well, we’d best begin,” Mother said, and taking a deep breath, she began to clean the ghastly wound in Shadow’s leg with the strips of cloth that had been boiling in the salt water.
Shadow groaned and began to thrash about as the hot cloths touched his mutilated flesh, and I cringed to think of the awful pain he was suffering.
“Curly, hold him down!” Mother exclaimed as Shadow endeavored to rise, and Pa draped one big hand over Shadow’s left ankle, and the other on Shadow’s right shoulder. But such precautions proved unnecessary, for Shadow ceased struggling the minute he heard my mother’s voice.
“That you, Mary?” he asked hoarsely.
“Yes, dear, it’s me.”
“Hannah?”
“I’m here. Lie quietly now.”
“My eyes…”
“Swollen shut,” Mother told him. “But don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Who’s holding me down?”
“I am,” Pa acknowledged gruffly. “Mary’s gonna sew up your leg.”
“Let me go,” Shadow rasped, and, surprisingly Pa did just that.
Mother was threading a small needle with silk thread, and I felt suddenly nauseous as I imagined that gleaming bit of silver weaving in and out of Shadow’s torn flesh.
“Lie still now,” Mother admonished softly, and after dipping both needle and thread in whiskey, she began to sew the raw edges of Shadow’s skin together with neat even stitches, just as if she were mending a rip in one of Pa’s cotton shirts.
Choking back my tears, I held Shadow’s hand. Great drops of sweat beaded across his brow, and I carefully wiped them away, wondering as I did so how he managed to endure such awful pain without screaming.
The room grew very quiet, with only the muted swish of silk thread piercing tender flesh, the soft sputtering of the oil lamp, and Shadow’s labored breathing to mar the stillness. He was so pale, his pulse so erratic, I knew he was going to die, and that a part of me would die with him.
Distraught, I glanced up at my mother. Her face was quiet and serene, the gray eyes calm and untroubled. Somehow, the sight of my mother’s peaceful countenance dispelled my fears. Surely, if anyone could save Shadow, my mother could! I had seen her work miracles before. Often, as a child, I had brought injured animals home for her to nurse. She had never failed me.
I glanced at my father, standing beside my mother, ready to give whatever assistance he could, and I felt a quick surge of love for them both. With a pang, I realized that I wouldn’t see much of my folks once I married Shadow and the thought brought tears to my eyes, for I loved them both dearly. But I loved Shadow more.
After what seemed like hours, Mother put her needle aside. Head cocked, she turned a critical eye to her handiwork, then nodded as if she were pleased with the results. Then, with the worst wound taken care of, she began to sponge the dried blood from Shadow’s face and chest.
He shuddered convulsively each time she touched him. It was no easy task, painstakingly picking the dirt and debris from the multitude of scrapes and lacerations that criss-crossed his bronze torso. When, at last, the cuts were thoroughly clean and all the dead flesh had been cut away, Mother applied salve to the wounds, then covered Shadow with a sheet.
Through it all, I wasn’t much help. Numb with anxiety and fatigue, I could only stand beside Shadow, clutching his hand to my breast.
It was nearing dawn when Mother announced, wearily, that she had done all she could. “It’s in the Lord’s hands now,” she said. “Curly, you’d best scoot upstairs and get that extra cot. It wouldn’t do for him to roll off that counter and bust those stitches open.”
Minutes later, Shadow was settled on a cot in the corner, and when he was tucked in to Mother’s satisfaction, she took Pa’s hand and started upstairs.
“Come along, Hannah,” Pa called. “I think we could all use some sleep.”
“I’ll be up later,” I said. “I want to sit with Shadow for awhile.”
My folks exchanged a look I could not read, then Mother sighed, “Very well, dear. Call if you need us.”
And they went upstairs to bed.
“Hannah.”
I flew to Shadow’s side. “What’s wrong?”
“Water…”
“Of course.” I quickly poured him a glass of water from a pitcher, spilling a good deal in my haste. He must have sensed my distress, for after quenching his thirs
t, he whispered hoarsely, “Don’t fret, Hannah,” and then sleep claimed him.
As the sun rose over the stockade walls, I prayed as I had never prayed before—prayed that the awful gash in Shadow’s leg would not fester and that he would recover quickly. I sat by his side all that day, feeding him spoonfuls of Mother’s rich beef broth when he was awake. That night he burned with fever. I refused to leave his side, dozing when he was quiet, waking immediately whenever he called for water, or whispered my name.
About midnight, Mother came downstairs to try and persuade me to go to bed, but I stubbornly refused. Though no one had said the words aloud, I knew there was a chance Shadow might die and I intended to spend every minute by his side. While she was there, Mother examined Shadow’s leg. One area just above his knee was edged with faint red streaks. Ignorant as I was of such things, I knew that was not a good sign.
Mother’s face was grave as she took me aside. “It looks bad, Hannah,” she said quietly. “If it begins to swell, it’ll have to come off.”
Horrified by such a thought, I could only nod that I understood.
“Try and get some sleep, dear,” Mother suggested, and offered me a comforting pat on the shoulder before she went back to bed.
Heavy-hearted, I took my place at Shadow’s side, wondering how my mother could talk so calmly about cutting off Shadow’s leg.
“Hannah?”
“I’m here, darling.”
Shadow took my hand in his, and his eyes, open now but still badly swollen, burned into mine as he said, hoarsely, “Don’t let them cut off my leg. Promise me.”
“It might not be necessary,” I hedged.
“Hannah, promise me!”
“Please, Shadow, don’t ask such a thing. If your leg gets infected, it’ll have to come off or the poison will spread and you’ll die.”
Somehow, Shadow pulled himself to a sitting position and took my face in his hands. His eyes were bright pools of pain and his hands were hot and trembled with fever as he said, “Hannah, promise me. A warrior needs two good legs, and if I cannot live and hunt and fight as a whole man, I would rather be dead!”
Reckless Heart Page 7