Reckless Heart

by Madeline Baker

  Further down the line, I saw David. He threw me a crooked grin and waved, and I waved back. Hobie Brown and his four sons were good shots, and the ground beneath their part of the stockade wall was littered with the bodies of more than a dozen Indians.

  Only one of the Indians wasn’t dead. Slowly, he sat up, shaking his head as if to clear it. He had been hit twice, once in the leg and once in the side. Bracing his hands against the stockade, he slowly gained his feet.

  We were all watching him now, including the Indians. The injured warrior must have felt our gaze, for he turned and glanced up at us. His dark eyes glittered with hate and contempt as he pushed away from the wall and started to walk boldly toward his comrades.

  He had gone only a few feet when his wounded leg buckled, and he fell to the ground. Paul Brown raised his rifle and sighted down the barrel, the Indian his target, but he hesitated to pull the trigger as one of the Indians out of range broke away from the group.

  With a wild cry, the warrior raced his horse toward his stricken companion. Dropping to the side of his paint pony, he reached out to grasp the fallen warrior’s upraised arm.

  It was a brave act, but one that cost him his life. Simultaneously, two shots rang out as Paul Brown and his brother, Benjamin, killed the two Indians.

  It seemed cruel, to kill a man who was trying to rescue a friend. And yet I knew Paul and Benjamin were just trying to even the odds against us.

  “Hell of a shot,” Pa murmured.

  And then the Indians charged us a second time, and there was no more time for talk.

  For a while we held our own, and I prayed the Indians would get discouraged and retreat. But then the tide began to turn as half a dozen braves pulled out of the battle and began lobbing fire arrows over the stockade walls. Others found a log and began ramming the gates, while their companions kept up a steady stream of covering fire, forcing us to keep our heads down or risk getting them blown off.

  When it looked like the gates were about to give way, Pa hollered for us to retreat to the house. It was, I knew, the only logical place to hole up. There were only two windows upstairs, both too small for a grown man to crawl through, so we wouldn’t have to worry about them sneaking in on us, and there was no back door.

  Pa and Hobie were the last to leave the catwalk. They were running for the house when the gates collapsed and a horde of screaming Indians poured into the stockade. Hobie cussed as an arrow caught him in the back, and I felt my heart skip a beat as I saw my father stop, whirl around, and spray a murderous stream of bullets toward the charging warriors.

  Paul and Benjamin immediately laid down a hail of covering fire while Pa scooped Hobie up in his arms and sprinted for the house. David slammed the door shut and shot the bolt home as soon as Pa crossed the threshold.

  While Mother looked after Hobie, the rest of us manned the windows. Pa and I took one of the front ones, David and John the other, leaving Benjamin and Paul to cover the single window in the rear of the house.

  Once we gained the safety of the trading post, the Indians ignored us. A few warriors caught up our animals and drove them outside the stockade, while others disappeared from sight around the corner of the house, presumably toward the barn and the smokehouse.

  I felt a great sadness when I saw one of the braves leading Nellie away. She had been mine ever since I was a little girl, had been my first friend—my only friend before I met Shadow.

  But there was no time for memories, no time for regret. The Indians were firing again, circling the house as they looked for a way to break in. There were footsteps on the roof, and Mother quickly lit a fire in the fireplace to discourage any brave who might be thinking of dropping through the chimney.

  Time lost all meaning. The past and the future ceased to exist, there was only the horror of now. Bullets and arrows whistled through the air like angry hornets, and I cringed, frightened by the confusion and the noise and the sudden realization that I was going to die a horrible death. Our house, which only moments before had seemed like a haven of refuge in a world gone mad, had become a death trap. There was no way out, no way we could possibly escape.

  Across the way, John Brown screamed and fell forward. A torrent of blood gushed from a bullet hole in his throat. David’s face contorted with rage and grief when he saw his brother fall, and he began to fire recklessly, wasting precious ammunition as he hosed off a dozen rounds.

  “David!” I yelled. “David, get down!”

  But my warning fell on deaf ears. A bullet exploded in David’s face and he toppled over backwards, his body awash in a sea of bright crimson.

  “David,” I whimpered, and turned away as Pa ran over to the now unguarded window and fired point blank into the paint-daubed face of a howling Sioux warrior. Vomit rose in my throat, thick and hot and vile, and I could not choke it back. Retching violently, I doubled over, and as I did, I felt a warm rush of air sweep past my head. Behind me, Mother cried out in pain, and then there was a terrible silence as all firing suddenly ceased.

  As if from far away I heard Pa whisper Mother’s name, heard him curse the Indians and his own hard-headed stubbornness—and I knew that my mother was dead. The realization hit me with such force that for a moment I was numb, unable to move or think. Tears of grief welled in my eyes as I stared blankly out the window into the smoke-filled yard.

  A lone Indian had ridden into the stockade, and I surmised that it was his unexpected arrival that had brought the shooting to a halt. The stranger’s face and chest were hideously streaked with broad slashes of vermillion. A single white eagle feather adorned his waist-length black hair. A black wolfskin clout covered his loins, moccasins beaded in red and black hugged his feet. For a moment he sat unmoving, his narrowed eyes sweeping the yard, the burning barn, and the house in one long glance.

  He dismounted with the lithe easy grace of a panther as a stocky Sioux warrior wearing an elaborate warbonnet called to him. The two warriors conferred for some time, and although I could not hear their words, I could tell by their gestures that they were arguing and that we were the source of their disagreement.

  After several minutes, Warbonnet gave a shrug of resignation, and the lone warrior strode toward us, unfurling a square of white cloth pulled from inside his clout.

  About twenty feet from the house he stopped and called out, “Sam Kincaid, can you hear me?”

  My knees went weak as the warrior’s voice penetrated my mind. Unable to believe my ears, I leaned out the window for a closer look, whispering his name as I recognized the face beneath the hideous red paint.

  “Shadow.”

  “I hear you,” Pa hollered. “Speak your piece and then say your prayers, cause you’re dead where you stand.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Kincaid.”

  “You’re the fool, redskin,” Pa retorted, levering a round into the breech of his Winchester. “I cut you down, that’s one less guteater to kill later.”

  “I am not fighting you,” Shadow replied evenly. “I am not carrying a weapon.”

  Pa studied Shadow thoughtfully for a few moments before he said, “What is it you want?”

  “You and the others have no chance of getting out of here alive,” Shadow said dispassionately. “The Sioux can burn you out or starve you out. You agree?”

  “Maybe,” Pa allowed grudgingly. “What are you getting at?”

  “I cannot save you, Sam, or the other men, but the Sioux chief, Tall Cloud, is willing to let me take Hannah and Mary and ride out of here.”

  “Mary’s dead,” Pa said hoarsely, and the pain of my mother’s death tore through me again. She had been so gentle, so kind and loving, it was inconceivable to me that she should die so violently and leave me bereft.

  “I am sorry, Kincaid. She was a good woman.”

  There was a long pause, and then Pa said, “How’d you know Hobie and his boys were here?”

  “I have been watching your place for the last two weeks, waiting for something like this to happen.”


  Pa laughed bitterly. “How come the Sioux beat the Cheyenne to the punch?”

  “My people have gone to Montana to meet Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Tall Cloud and his warriors are headed that way, too.”

  Pa let out a sigh that seemed to come all the way from his toes. “So it’s started, huh?”

  “I warned you, Kincaid. You should have listened. There is going to be a big battle between your people and mine, one that will make all the others look like child’s play. I do not know where or when, but I know it is coming.”

  “Your people will lose,” Pa said tonelessly. “Unless you can figure out a way to unite all the tribes, the Army will rub you out one by one.”

  “I think you speak wisdom,” Shadow remarked. “The good times are gone. The whites will not rest until they have killed every Indian on the plains or confined them on reservations. Myself, I would rather be dead than penned up like the white man’s cattle. But enough of this. We are wasting time. Let me take Hannah out of here before Tall Cloud changes his mind.”

  I saw the struggle in Pa’s eyes as his hatred and distrust of Shadow and all Indians crumbled beneath his love and concern for me. Shadow had once remarked that he thought Pa would see me dead before he’d let me run off with an Indian, and I had agreed. But we were both wrong, for Pa pulled me to my feet and said, gruffly, “Go with him, Hannah.”

  “I can’t leave you, Pa!” I protested. “I won’t!”

  “You’ve got to go, Hannah. Shadow’s right. We haven’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of here alive. Now go on, get out of here while you can.”

  “Pa!” I sobbed, throwing my arms around his neck.

  “There’s no time for tears, Hannah,” he said sadly. His big, work-worn hands patted my back. “No time for long goodbyes. Give me a kiss now, like a good girl.”

  His cheek was cool beneath my trembling lips, rough with the stubble of a day’s growth of beard.

  “She’s coming out, Shadow,” Pa called gruffly.

  And then, with gentle determination, my father pushed me out the door.

  “I will take good care of her, Kincaid,” Shadow promised.

  “Thanks,” Pa murmured.

  Blinded by my tears, I stumbled out into the yard. I heard Pa close the door behind me, and the sound was like a death knell in my ears.

  I would have fallen then but for Shadow. Wordlessly, he grabbed me by the arm, steered me to where Red Wind stood patiently, helped me mount—and I hated him! I hated him because my Mother and David were dead. Hated him because my father and the others were going to be killed, and he couldn’t do anything about it. Hated him because he was an Indian.

  And even as I hated him, I loved him.

  With ease, he swung up behind me and walked Red Wind out of the stockade. I could feel his arm tighten around me as we approached the gates, and I realized he was not as calm as he looked.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the Indians watching us. A few of the warriors were stroking their rifles, and I knew suddenly why Shadow was so tense. I could almost feel their anger and hatred as he carried me out of harm’s way. I knew it would only take one small, hostile move to ignite that hate into action.

  I was holding my breath when we cleared the stockade gates and reached the cover of the trees outside.

  We had gone only a short distance when he reined Red Wind to a halt. Dismounting, Shadow retrieved his weapons—bow, arrows, knife, and rifle—from behind a large boulder.

  He was swinging aboard Red Wind when the first gunshot sounded behind us, quickly followed by a heavy barrage of rifle fire as the Indians renewed their attack against the trading post. Sensing my distress, Shadow put the stallion into a gallop and held him there until the sound of gunfire was no longer discernable above the quick tattoo of Red Wind’s pounding hooves. We were across the river and well into the trees on the other side before Shadow reined the lathered stallion to an easy canter.

  We rode without saying a word, with only the sound of hoofbeats and the whisper of the rising wind to break the awkward silence between us. I shed bitter tears for the loss of my family, glad that I had not looked at Mother’s body, glad that I would always remember my parents as they had been in life and not in the still, eerie pose of death. I remembered the sweet patience of my dear mother as she taught me to read and write, remembered her serene beauty as she knelt at my bedside while I dutifully recited my childhood prayers. And Pa… Like all little girls, I had once planned to marry my father when I grew up. I’d thought him the most perfect, wonderful man in the whole world, and he had never done anything to tarnish that image.

  At dusk, Shadow reined the stallion to a halt in a fragrant grove of juniper that grew along a shallow underground spring. Dismounting, he spread his buffalo robe on the ground and gazed at me speculatively as I slid from Red Wind’s back and dropped onto the blanket.

  “I am sorry, Hannah,” he murmured compassionately. And kneeling before me, he held out his arms.

  I knew then that I had a decision to make. Shadow had promised my father to take care of me, and I knew he would keep his word. I also knew that if I asked, Shadow would take me to Steel’s Crossing. Pa had friends there who would take me in.

  I stared hard at Shadow. He had not moved a muscle. He still knelt before me, arms outstretched, face impassive, and for the first time since I had fallen in love with him, I saw him not just as a man but as an Indian. The hideous red paint on his face, the eagle feather in his long black hair, the wolfskin clout that covered his loins—all bespoke Cheyenne blood, Cheyenne ways.

  How could I spend the rest of my life with this man, this stranger? How could I ever forget that he was Indian, and that it was an Indian who had killed my mother, an Indian who might even now be taking my father’s scalp?

  I thought of John Sanders, of Florence, and Kathy. I thought of all the people in our little valley who were now dead because of Indian hatred and Indian vengeance.

  I gazed deep into Shadow’s eyes, but I saw nothing there—no trace of love to persuade me—and I knew this was a decision I had to make entirely on my own. Only Shadow’s outstretched arms betrayed his inner feelings.

  For endless seconds, I did not move. My parents were dead, killed by Indians. My friends, everyone I had ever known, had been killed by Indians, and hate for the whole red race churned in my breast. But wrestling with that hatred was my love for Shadow, for love him I did. And I knew that no matter what happened, my love would remain unchanged. Our people might turn the sun-kissed grassland red with blood in their efforts to slaughter each other, but I knew our love for each other would survive.

  With a sigh, I went into Shadow’s waiting arms, and he held me close while I cried again, deep, racking sobs that tore at my throat and scalded my eyes. And yet, even as I wept, I felt a curious sense of warmth and peace steal over me, a wondrous feeling of contentment that permeated my soul whenever Shadow took me in his arms.

  I cried until I was empty inside and Shadow held me all the while, lovingly stroking my hair and comforting me with his gentle touch and reassuring presence.

  That night there were no words spoken between us, no promises of undying devotion and loyalty. There was only the silent communication of Shadow’s heart speaking to mine, and mine answering. And from that night on Shadow was not an Indian, and I was not white. We were simply a man and woman desperately in love.

  Chapter Ten

  1876

  When I awakened, it was morning, and I was alone. Frightened, I sprang to my feet, only to go weak with relief when I saw Red Wind grazing peacefully nearby. A warrior might desert his woman, I mused drily, but never his prized war horse. Shadow would be back, I thought, and then he was striding toward me, a young deer slung over his shoulder.

  “Breakfast,” he remarked as he began skinning the buck. “When we reach the Cheyenne, you will have to do the skinning and the butchering and the cooking,” he reminded me.

  “I remember,�
� I said. “A warrior never does squaw work when there’s a woman nearby.”

  “Right,” Shadow said, grinning. “I am only making an exception this time because I am too hungry to wait while you butcher the meat. As I recall, you usually did it with your eyes closed.”

  “I’ll get better,” I promised. And all at once I realized what I was saying. And where we were going. I could not help but feel apprehensive at the thought of living with Indians. Sitting there, watching Shadow skin the deer, I was suddenly filled with doubts. What if my mother had been right? What if Shadow’s people would not accept me? Much as I loved Shadow, I had no desire to live as an outcast among alien people, scorned and mocked because I was the enemy.

  “How far is it to the Cheyenne?” I asked tremulously.

  “Three or four days from here. Do not worry, Hannah,” he said, reading my mind as he always did. “My people will welcome you as warmly as your mother once welcomed me. And they will love you because I do, if for no other reason.”

  It was the first time he had ever said he loved me. The words filled my heart with a warm glow, and all my doubts vanished as I threw my arms around him.

  Laughing softly, he put me away from him long enough to wash the blood from his hands and arms, and then he drew me back into his embrace and kissed me.

  How was it possible for one kiss to arouse me so completely? Shamelessly, I removed his buckskin shirt, boldly running my hands over his broad shoulders and chest.

  Shadow stretched out on the ground, pulling me down beside him. He grinned with pleasure as my hands roamed over his flesh. I laughed aloud as a sudden telltale bulge appeared beneath his loincloth. When he reached for me, I scrambled to my feet.

  Still laughing, I ran away from him, anticipating the thrill of the chase and the joy of surrender. But when I looked over my shoulder, Shadow was still stretched out on the grass, arms folded behind his head.

  Pouting, I walked toward him, stopping out of reach of his long arms.

  “Come here, woman,” he called softly. “I have something to show you.”