Untamed

by Sharon Ihle

  "I'll be ready."

  Waiting until she'd ducked into the tipi, Daniel wandered through camp and finally found his sons playing down by the creek. Each of them was wet, probably because of the early morning bath their grandmother had given them rather than the fact they were throwing sticks into the icy water.

  "Gather your things," he said to them in Cheyenne. "I'm taking you boys back to the ranch to live with me."

  Bang, the youngest by several minutes, beat his brother to his father's outstretched arms.

  "Good Papa. For how long?" he said, his husky voice high-pitched and excited. His twin asked the exact same thing at the exact same time.

  "I'm hoping this will work out permanently. Would you two like that?"

  "Oh, yes, Papa, yes," they cried in unison, hugging Daniel until he thought they'd break his neck.

  "All right then, let's get busy. We have to go to your grandma's tipi and gather up your things."

  Two Moons tugged on his trouser leg, bringing up the next subject before Daniel could. "Is that white woman coming home with us?"

  "Yes, she is," he answered in English. "She is my wife now, and I want you to start practicing your English again so you can speak it whenever she is around." He looked from Bang to Two Moons, making sure they still understood the language even though they rarely used it. "Do you both know what I just said?"

  "That we must learn to speak the white man's language again," said Two Moons in deliberate, calculated Cheyenne. "But we don't want her to live with us. She is ugly."

  "Ugly?" Daniel figured the boys might have some objections to Josie, especially to some of her decidedly un-Cheyenne ways, but he assumed they'd find her as attractive as he did. "How can you say that? She's a very pretty lady."

  Again Bang tugged on Daniel's pant leg. Speaking Cheyenne as his brother did, he explained, "She has sickness spots on her face and she was ugly when she looked upon us and did this."

  He squeezed up his mouth until it resembled the ass end of a hog, and then made a stern expression, drawing a perfectly clear picture for his father.

  Daniel laughed. "Well, the spots on her face are called freckles, something white folks are born with, not from sickness. As for her expression, I reckon she'll pretty up some once the three of you get to know each other. Josie is probably just worried that the two of you won't like her. I'm counting on you boys to show her she's wrong by treating her as right as you know how."

  Bang, easily the most agreeable of the two, nodded solemnly. "I will make quiet with her and never cry."

  Two Moons let his round features fall into a hard pout. "I will not call this ugly woman Ma."

  Daniel nodded, easily able to understand this problem. "We'll just have to think of an appropriate name for you to call her. How about Ma Josephine? That's a respectful version of her name."

  The twins tested this suggestion, in English at Daniel's request, but both of them tripped over the long, difficult name, time and time again. Finally in frustration, he decided to let them use the shorter version they came up with. Then came the difficult chore of packing their belongings on a travois and watching while their brokenhearted grandmother cried over them as she bade them farewell. No matter that she'd be seeing them as frequently as he could arrange it, Daniel knew he'd be hearing She Bear's sobs until they were deep into the forest.

  By the time he had the boys mounted, on the back of the horse he'd gotten them for their second birthday—an old sorrel they called Broomtail because that's all there was left of his tail—Daniel figured his troubles were all behind him. Of course, that was before he rode up to Long Belly's tipi and found Josie waiting for him outside.

  "I'm ready," she announced, climbing to her feet with a small bundle in her arms. Squinting into the sunlight, she looked beyond Daniel to the horse carrying the twins. "Why are they following you?"

  "Those are my boys, remember? They're coming home with us,"

  Josie's rosy cheeks blanched. "What? I thought they lived here on the reservation with that mean old bitch."

  He winced, wondering if the boys remembered that word and what it meant. "They stayed with She Bear after their mother died because I couldn't raise them alone and run the agency at the same time," he explained. "Now that I have a wife, I'm expected to take them home with me. I also want to, very much."

  Daniel didn't know what he expected from Josie, but it was not the disgusted look-in her eyes or the heavy sigh as she said, "This was not a part of the bargain. I signed on as your wife and housekeeper, not as anyone's mother. I hope you'll understand that when I leave the care and feeding of them up to you."

  He didn't understand and he wouldn't just let it go at that, but now wasn't the time for a discussion on the matter, especially with the twins listening in.

  Tempering his voice until it matched the chill in Josie's, Daniel said, "I'm sure we can work all that out when we get back home."

  She returned a curt nod, then approached The Black and tried to give Daniel the wedding dress she'd worn yesterday. "I don't know who this belongs to, but I figure you ought to make sure it gets back to its rightful owner."

  "It's yours," he said irritably, still smarting over her attitude toward his sons.

  "Mine? Why?"

  "My mother-in-law wants you to have it. It belonged to Tangle Hair."

  "Was she your wife?"

  Daniel was not going to allow her to draw him into a discussion of Tangle Hair in front of her sons. "Yes, but the dress was something she wore at ceremonies, not the one she had on at our wedding before we moved to the reservation. Give it to me if you don't want it." He reached out to snatch the garment from her hand, but Josie withdrew, clutching the elk-skin tightly against her breast.

  "I'd like to keep it, if you don't mind. And I'd also like to go thank your mother-in-law for giving it to me. Do we have time?"

  This wasn't simply unexpected, but such a surprise that Daniel wasn't at all sure how to respond. "Well, yes, if you're sure that's what you want to do."

  "It is." Nothing but sincerity shone in her dark eyes. "Where will I find her?"

  Daniel stuck his thumb over his shoulder. "In the tipi where they dressed you for our feast. I'll walk you there if you like."

  "No, thanks. I'm sure I can find it myself. I'll be right back."

  Suddenly it was very important to Josie not only to do this, but to do it on her own. Dress in hand, she set off for the heart of the camp, winding her way through tipis and squaws performing their morning cooking chores. Nowhere did she see any warriors, who were presumably still snuggled in their beds. Men lounging around while women did all the chores—as Daniel had said, not so unlike the family she had left behind. Of course, thinking of the Baums made her think of the twins and the nasty surprise of learning that she would be living under the same roof with them.

  Mulling this over, wondering how she would ever survive until spring, Josie came across the tipi in which she'd been dressed for her wedding feast. She paused before the closed flap. Thanking She Bear for her generosity had seemed like a really good idea at the time, but now she wasn't so sure of the plan. What if the old biddy was still in a cranky mood, and she came flying out of that tipi, going after her tooth and nail?

  Josie glanced down at the dress, giving a fleeting thought to just dropping it and running away, but couldn't make herself leave without at least trying to express her gratitude. After all, the poor woman had not only lost her daughter, but thought she was losing her grandchildren to a replacement who hailed from another world. A successor, she had no way of knowing, who didn't want to have a thing to do with raising her daughter's precious little pisspots.

  Swallowing hard, Josie called to the woman, knowing better now than to disturb the closed flap. "She Bear? I've come to say good-bye. Are you there?"

  After a few groans and a little rustling, the flap parted and out came the old woman. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, and her back was stooped in defeat. When she looked at Josie, her
expression sagged even more than her shoulders, but there was no hatred there. Just a weathered face that looked as if it had been carved from an ancient pine.

  Her heart going out to She Bear, Josie said, "Good morning."

  She Bear waved her arms in reply and uttered something sharp in Cheyenne. Josie had an idea it wasn't, "How'd you do?"

  Forcing a big smile, she held up the dress, and then clutched the garment to her breast. "Thank you so much for sharing your daughter with me this way. I'll treasure this always."

  She Bear's expression immediately lost some of its deep grooves, and her eyes took on a fresh shine. She understood, if not the words, the intent.

  Josie impulsively slipped her free arm around the woman's shoulders and gave her a hug. She Bear responded by throwing her arms around Josie in a fierce embrace, then held onto her while she chanted a few Cheyenne words, soft pleas, probably in regard to her grandsons.

  When She Bear released her, she quickly broke away and ducked back inside her tipi. Josie figured the abrupt departure was meant to hide the flood of tears on the old woman's cheeks and the sudden sorrow in her eyes. A good thing, too, considering that Josie's vision was also blurred with her own tangled emotions. Turning away from the tipi, she ran blindly through the camp to where her husband and his sons awaited her return.

  * * *

  Daniel was sullen all during the ride back to the cabin. No matter how hard he tried to rationalize Josie's surly attitude toward tending his children, he simply couldn't come up with an excuse good enough to have any effect on his sour mood. Hell, she'd mentioned having a lot of brothers, which meant she undoubtedly understood little boys and their ways. Why did the thought of having his two sons around seem to disturb her so?

  No matter how hard he worked on it, Daniel simply couldn't figure it out. Understanding why Josie didn't want her own babies with him was a hell of a lot easier to grasp. Either she was dead set on ending their marriage come spring and didn't want to get stuck raising a child alone, or she couldn't abide the idea of giving birth to a baby with Cheyenne blood in its veins. Neither of these excuses set well with him, especially the latter, but at least he could understand her feeling that way. What he couldn't fathom, no matter how hard he tried, was her obvious aversion to mothering Bang and Two Moons a little. How hard could it be?

  Daniel was still in that grumpy frame of mind when he rode into his yard and saw that Long Belly was pounding nails into a new brace he'd attached to the barn door. When his Cheyenne brother heard the approaching horses, he dropped the hammer and ran to greet them.

  "You have returned, my brother," he said as The Black came to a halt just inches from his feet.

  "I can't keep anything from you, can I?" Daniel replied sarcastically.

  Grinning up at Daniel, Long Belly had the gall to say, "At least I think my brother has returned. You look like him and smell like him, and yet I am told that my brother has made a bride of a very bad gift. Can this be true of the wise man I once called brother?"

  "Get out of my way, you obnoxious fool, or I'll let The Black run you down."

  Daniel half meant the threat, but he did climb down off the stallion and drop his reins to the ground. By then the twins had hopped off Broomtail and had come running at their uncle, each of them claiming one of his legs as a way of gaining his attention.

  After greeting the boys in Cheyenne, he rubbed their little heads as he said to Daniel in English, "I thought we agreed this woman was a bad gift. What craziness crawled into your brain and made you take her as your wife?"

  From the corner of his eye, Daniel saw that Josie had dismounted and gathered her belongings, and was headed their way. "I'd change the subject if I were you, brother," he said under his breath. "You know how riled up that woman gets when your tongue gets to flapping about her."

  Long Belly glanced over his shoulder as Josie strolled by. "Welcome home, Missus Daniel. I congratulate you on your fine marriage."

  She frowned. "Thanks, I guess. Is Sissy in the cabin?" He nodded. "Buffalo Hair is busy with her chores, and very good at them, too. As a woman should be."

  Josie rolled her eyes. "For heaven's sake, you heathen. Is that all you ever think about, women's chores?"

  She didn't stick around to hear his answer, but marched straight to the cabin instead.

  Long Belly smiled at Daniel. "I see Broken Dishes has not changed now that she is a married woman. Again I wonder—what craziness made you do this?"

  "I married her, and that's all there is to it." Daniel was not about to admit to this, man, especially in front of his children, that he'd been trapped into marrying Josie or that he'd stepped willingly into the snare.

  "But Broken Dishes is a bad choice as a wife," Long Belly persisted. "She can do nothing required of her, and have you forgotten? She is diseased."

  Glancing at his sons, Daniel said, "I was wrong about that. She's as healthy as I am. She can also cook and tend to my sons. They're reason enough for me to marry, aren't they?"

  Long Belly nodded thoughtfully. "In this, you are correct. Perhaps Broken Dishes will be a good mother for these two."

  In Cheyenne, Two Moons said, "Papa's wife is ugly and we do not want her to be our mother. We do not like her."

  Bang tugged on his uncle's leggings. "I do not like her either."

  Long Belly glanced up from the boys to their father, "I hope if she can do nothing else right, my gift can learn to be the mother your sons deserve."

  Daniel heaved a weary sigh. "Me, too, brother. Me, too. In fact, I'm counting on it."

  Inside the cabin, the woman in question was sitting at the table across from Sissy, but she was looking out the window, staring at the identical four-year-old boys raising hell with their uncle.

  Her gaze suddenly shot to Sissy. "Did you know that Daniel had those twins?"

  "Nope," she claimed, glancing out the window. "I didn't even know he'd been married before. Them boys are kinda cute, though, ain't they?"

  "Cute?"

  Josie took another look at them, conceding that she'd seen uglier children in her day, but that was as far as she'd go. "They're all right I guess if you just have to look at a kid, but I wish to hell that they'd stayed on the reservation with their grandma."

  "You don't want Daniel's boys?" Sissy sounded shocked.

  It wasn't that Josie didn't understand such a reaction to her 'unwomanly' attitude toward children, and she recognized full well Daniel's need to keep his sons with him, but something ugly rolled over inside her at the thought of caring for those two pisspots, and nothing she could think of would make it go away. She also knew that explaining those feelings to anyone, even a prostitute, would be next to impossible.

  "It's not Daniel's boys so much as it is me." Josie paused, making sure that she chose her words with care. "I got stuck raising up twelve or so of my brothers from the time I was old enough to reach the stove. My entire life so far has been tending snot-nosed boys, and I'm sick to death of it. Maybe if they were girls I'd feel differently, but I doubt it. Does that make any sense to you?"

  "A little, I guess." Sissy chuckled, her gaze fingering on the twins as they played in the yard. "You might think you hate kids now, but I bet you won't when your own little fellahs come along."

  Josie bit her tongue, forcing herself to slow down and think her answer through. "Maybe," she said, lying. "But I know I'm not ready to be a mother yet. Think you can give me some hints on how to keep that from happening too soon?"

  Sissy brightened, "Now that's something I know about. Trouble is, out here with no store, you ain't got the luxury of deciding if you want a rubber ring, a sponge, or a syringe for douching. Ain't but one thing you can do to keep from getting knocked up, and that's pulling out."

  "What on earth is that?"

  Sissy eyed her suspiciously. "You been with Daniel as a full wife yet?"

  A sudden heat warmed Josie's cheeks. She had to look away as she said "Yes, but just the one time last night."

&n
bsp; "Well? What'd you do then?"

  "I didn't do anything. Daniel had..." She looked around, making sure they were still alone, then whispered the foul word. "A rubber. He said it was only good for the one time, so we need to think of something else."

  Sissy laughed and sat back in her chair. "Overcoats is good for that, I guess, and they're supposed to last a lot more than one time, but even them newfangled rubber ones can get old or leak a little. Sometimes they just plain fall off."

  Josie's face was growing hotter by the minute. "Daniel didn't have but the one... overcoat. What else can we do?"

  "Pulling out, like I said."

  "How do you do that?"

  Again Sissy eyed her, this time with amusement. "I'll tell it as proper as I can, princess, so's I don't flusterize you no more than I have to. Let's say pulling out is like you inviting Daniel in for supper, but he don't stick around for the main course. See what I mean?"

  Josie thought about that for a minute. By the time she'd figured it out, her entire face felt as if it were on fire. "Oh, my—yes. I think I understand perfectly. How often does that work?"

  Shrugging, Sissy admitted, "Hard to say. Trouble comes, even if he don't, when a fellah don't know how hungry he is and he just has to have a little nibble on the way out the door."

  She paused, making sure that Josie was still following along. She was, even though her face had to have been purple by then.

  "Anyway," Sissy went on to say, "that little bit there can make you catch a baby, and it ain't something men are too happy about either. Sometimes when they leave before the main course, it fouls everything up so bad, a fellah can't even get his gun off afterwards."

  Josie buried her face in her hands, too embarrassed to look Sissy in the eye any longer. Even if there were more options, she couldn't bring herself to ask about them. "Thanks, Sissy. You've been very... helpful." Then, forgetting herself, she asked, "What about you? Is pulling out what you and Long Belly are doing to keep you from getting in a family way?"

  The amusement left Sissy's eyes, replaced by a deep sadness. "No, princess. I don't got to do nothing cause I'm barren."