The Endless Sky (Cheyenne Series)

by Shirl Henke

  “No more cage?” the boy asked suspiciously.

  “No more.”

  “You Cheyenne?”

  “Yes, but you heard what I told the white woman. My people will offer you a home, food, a warm lodge.”

  The boy digested this for a moment, studying Chase intently. Then apparently deciding he trusted his rescuer, he nodded and murmured something to the girl, who was staring at Stephanie in awe. He turned back to Chase and replied, “I, Smooth Stone. My sister, Tiny Dancer.”

  “I am called White Wolf,” Chase replied with a smile as the boy climbed out of the wagon followed by his sister.

  “Who is she?” Smooth Stone asked after his sister whispered the question in his ear.

  “My name is Stephanie,” she replied to the children, smiling and kneeling down in front of them.

  “Are you White Wolf's woman?” the boy asked.

  Stephanie bit her lip, uncertain of how to reply, not wanting to frighten the children by saying she was a prisoner. Nor did she want to deceive them by saying she was his wife. “Once our families pledged us to wed, long ago,” she equivocated. Their pitifully thin little bodies were filthy and their hair matted with some noisome snake oil, probably mixed up by the wagon owner. “Are you hungry?”she asked. “We have food at our camp.” She opened her arms to Tiny Dancer, who stood shyly beside her brother, a graceful little wraith clad in a garish yellow breechclout covered with cheap feathers dyed red and blue. Both children had been outfitted like performers in some tawdry Wild West circus, with bones tied in their hair and hanging around their necks.

  Tiny Dancer hesitated for a moment, then went into Stephanie's arms. “Smell good,” she whispered with a slight lisp caused by her missing front baby teeth.

  “Come, little warrior,” Chase said to Smooth Stone. “We will let your sister and Stephanie ride my horse back to our camp. We will walk.” He whistled for the dun, then helped Stephanie to mount and handed up the little girl into her arms.

  Smooth Stone followed his savior proudly, while keeping an eye on the white female carrying his sister. “You live Cheyenne, but you part white,” the boy said, looking at Chase's hairy chest. He had spent enough time among white men to recognize the difference between the races.

  “My mother came from far beyond the Father of Waters to wed my father,” Chase replied. “I have chosen as she did, to live with his people.”

  “What of your woman? Did she choose same?” Smooth Stone asked, watching the way Tiny Dancer clung to Stephanie who talked softly to the girl, stroking her head as she carried her.

  Chase found himself in the same dilemma as Stephanie. How should he answer? The boy was uncommonly shrewd, seasoned by bitter experience far beyond his years. There was no way to deceive Smooth Stone. “She is my captive. I am taking her to my band where she will learn that red men have honor...just as some whites do.”

  “Huh! I do not believe white man has honor. Soldiers lie to my father. Share my mother. Sell us to bad men who put us in cage. Others look, spit on us, laugh.”

  Stephanie listened to the boy as they walked back to their camp and her heart broke. That supposedly civilized human beings could behave so callously appalled her. Yet after listening to the other officers' wives discuss the “Indian problem” and witnessing the army resettlement policies, she knew few whites really believed the Indians were human beings, even the children. Nits make lice.

  After they reached camp, Chase left Stephanie in charge of bathing the children who eagerly shucked the chafing and garish costumes they had been forced to wear by their captors. Shrieking in delight they scampered into the pool, laughing and splashing.

  “How could anyone call those beautiful children cannibals! And subject them to such an ordeal,” she said furiously, feeling more than a bit of guilt for the cruelty of her race toward those considered inferior.

  “It's not unusual. Everyone likes a freak show—the Elizabethans thought it a merry jest indeed to trip and kick dwarves and lame children. It isn't unknown among some tribes of Indians. I'm glad those fools got lost and wandered off the trail. At least two little ones have been saved. They'll find a good home with my people.”

  But will I, Chase? She did not voice the question aloud. Instead, she asked, “When I've finished cleaning them up, what shall I dress them in? Do you have any more clothes in your pack?” she asked, thinking she could cut something down, perhaps shirts.

  “They can go naked,” he replied casually.

  “Naked! Most certainly not—why that's...that's—”

  “Barbaric?” he supplied to her sputtering. “Children that young most often don't wear clothes in warm weather. They wouldn't want to be rigged out in layers of hot restricting cloth,” he said, his eyes sweeping over her wrinkled black cotton dress.

  “I'm going after supper. Stoke up that fire while I'm gone.” He turned and strode away, then looked back at her for a brief moment and said, “At least you ditched the corset,” his eyes lingering suggestively on the curve of her breasts. Then he was gone, leaving her standing by the campfire, staring mutely after him.

  How did he know? Her hand came up involuntarily and brushed her breast and she gasped for both nipples were rigidly hard, the points stabbing shockingly against the thin cotton bodice of her dress. She crimsoned in mortification at the tingling ache he had caused with only one scorching look.

  What is happening to me?

  Chapter Twelve

  Chase was gone over an hour. It took him only half that time to locate the birds. He shot enough for them to feast well that evening, but he stayed away from camp, circling his gelding around the area instead of returning. He dreaded the thought of facing Stephanie. God, every time he looked at her his body throbbed and the facade of scorn became more impossible to maintain. He wanted her. How he wanted her!

  When he had seen the impudent outline of her nipples protruding through the ugly black cloth, he had wanted to take her right there on the ground. If not for the children, he might well have lost control and done it. Lord knew, she felt the same way he did—or at least her body did, if not her mind. He could imagine the soft supple grace of that slender body now freed of the hard confinement of corset stays and lacing. No, thinking of that would only bring disaster!

  After stopping at the medicine wagon to unhitch the two mangy nags and put hackamores on them, he turned his gelding back to camp, leading the other horses. They were old and ill treated, but would serve to carry the children. Stephanie could not be expected to ride bareback even if he could have trusted her not to attempt another foolish escape.

  Only one more night of riding with her body pressed so closely to his. He gritted his teeth against the thought as he neared the camp. The children had looked hungry. They would enjoy the fresh meat. He, on the other hand, would just have to curb his hunger for the bronze-haired veho until he could turn her over to his aunt for safekeeping. Beyond that he refused to consider.

  As he approached the pool, dusk was thickening and the tang of wood smoke from the fire filled the air. The musical sound of children's laughter blended with the richer timber of Stephanie's husky chuckles. He reined in the dun and looked down on the scene below.

  Stephanie knelt at the pool's edge with a length of white cotton in her hands as two small brown naked bodies cavorted around her. The three of them played some sort of game. Tiny Dancer skipped near and Stephanie grabbed her in a fierce hug, enveloping the little girl in the cloth, drying her wet glistening body as the child giggled and shrieked. Then Stephanie released the girl when Smooth Stone skipped close enough and seized him with the towel, repeating the process.

  When both children were dry, she gathered them in her arms and spoke softly with them. They squatted obediently beside her on the towel which she laid out. Then she produced a comb and began to work on unsnarling their hair. He could see she had a natural way with children, obviously loved them. Why had she and Phillips never had any of their own? The question seemed to ask itsel
f. Thinking about her bearing a child to the sadistic bluebelly made him angry.

  He kicked the dun into a trot and the nags followed as he rode down the ridge into camp. Sliding from his horse's back, he tossed the hens to the earth in front of the fire. Stephanie walked across the open ground from the pool with the children gamboling around her. When she approached the fire, she glanced down at the blood-spattered game, then met his steady gaze.

  “I see you were successful,” she said neutrally, still unnerved by how savage he looked. Even before he spoke she knew what he was going to say.

  “Prepare these birds and roast them.” He pulled the knife from his belt and tossed it into the earth, then began to secure the horses. The blade sank into the moist ground at her feet with a solid thunk.

  “Aren't you afraid I'll use that on you?” she asked, eyeing the wicked looking knife.

  “In front of the children? For shame, Stevie,” he replied caustically as he completed his task and the horses began to graze.

  “I've never plucked a chicken in my life, much less cooked wild game over a campfire. I haven't the first idea of how to go about cooking quail.”

  Chase was not surprised but Smooth Stone and Tiny Dancer were. “What kind of woman not cook what hunter kills?” Smooth Stone asked in amazement.

  “In Boston my father had servants to do the cooking. Out west Hugh hired a striker to cook and clean for me,” Stephanie said, staring defiantly at Chase, knowing the answer would anger him. She wanted to hit back in any way she could. He was punishing her for marrying his enemy, as if marriage to Hugh was not punishment enough!

  “Since I neglected to abduct a striker, you're on your own,” Chase drawled, mockingly.

  “If I pick up that knife it will most certainly not be to use on creatures already dead.”

  Tiny Dancer took in the exchange between her rescuer and the beautiful white woman with apprehension. She was too bold, speaking this way to a warrior. He would surely whip her! “I watch women cook. I do it,” she said, shyly stepping in front of Stephanie.

  Chase looked contemptuously at Stephanie, then turned his gaze on the little girl and smiled. “It is a kind thing you offer and I am grateful. When you grow up you will make some warrior a fine wife. But my captive is a woman grown and she must learn for herself. Go play with your brother while I teach her what must be done.”

  “It be as White Wolf say. Come,” Smooth Stone said with dignity. He took his sister's hand and pulled her away, leaving the two adults confronting one another.

  Chase knelt and reached for a bird with one hand, retrieving his knife with the other. “I'll clean one. You watch. Then you can do the rest.”

  “And you can go to hell,” Stephanie replied through gritted teeth. “As you've pointed out several times, I'm your captive—not your squaw.”

  “Would you like to change roles, Stevie?” he asked softly, looking up at her with smoldering black eyes, daring her.

  Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. She stared down at him with impotent fury. “Is this the way all Indian women are treated? Brought up from girlhood to wait on men? Tiny Dancer was afraid for me. Already she expects to jump any time a male speaks, to do whatever he asks.”

  “We have a cooperative society. Everyone has their assigned tasks to perform for the good of the group as a whole. Cooking and caring for children are women's work, not all that different in white society—except for the idle rich who have everything done for them.”

  “Now who's being superior and a hypocrite to boot, Mr. Chase Remington of the idly rich Boston Remingtons? At least we idle rich abolished slavery. Servants are paid. Captives aren't,” she snapped back.

  Chase stood up, hiding his anger. She had scored a direct hit with her barb about the idly rich Remingtons. Damn her. His eyes narrowed on her, raking her from head to toe and back. “We might be able to arrange some sort of payment, Stevie...that is what you want, isn't it?”

  The sexual innuendo hung between them as their eyes and wills clashed. “I am not one of Rocky's girls. The only thing I want from you is my freedom!”

  “Is it, Stevie?” he asked in patent disbelief.

  “I've told you not to call me Stevie.”

  “And I'm telling you, you'll learn to clean those birds or you'll go without food tonight. I suggest you make up your mind quickly. The children are growing hungry while you have a tantrum.”

  Stephanie felt a sudden inexplicable urge to burst into tears. She was hot and tired and hungry herself, frightened of this savage stranger, saddened beyond measure by the way things had turned out between them. Swallowing the hard knot of misery in her throat, she knelt and picked up one of the dead birds. “Show me how to clean this,” she said tonelessly

  * * * *

  They rode through the night, Smooth Stone and Tiny Dancer each mounted on one of the old team horses, which they controlled with the ease of those born to ride. Stephanie remained mounted in front of Chase. They stopped to rest for a few hours when they lost the moon. Stephanie's only sense of direction was maintained by the setting and rising of the sun. Otherwise she was utterly lost even as the moon reappeared to illuminate the stark outlines of jagged mountain peaks looming ever nearer. They had crossed untold miles of flat open buffalo grass for the past two days. The third night the topography began to change dramatically. As they drew near the mountains, the plains gave way to hills, gullies and ravines, rocky, rugged land dotted with increasingly taller stands of lodgepole pine.

  “Your village—is close, White Wolf?” Smooth Stone asked excitedly as the eastern sky began to lighten with a faint pearl-gray glow.

  “It is close, yes,” Chase answered with a smile. He reined in and the children did likewise beside a small sluggishly flowing creek. He dismounted saying, “I must make final preparations to greet my people.”

  Smooth Stone and Tiny Dancer slid effortlessly from their horses and sat down to watch with avid interest. Chase assisted Stephanie down, then brought out a razor and shaving gear from his saddlebags. He knelt with the mirror beside the creek to perform the daily ritual which he intensely disliked. “An unfortunate reminder of my white blood.”

  “Apparently the only one,” Stephanie muttered.

  “White men have much hair,” Smooth Stone said. “Is good you cut it off face.”

  Stephanie had heard that Indians considered the facial and body hair of white men to be ugly. Chase had a dark bristly growth of beard every morning and hair on his chest, all reminders that he was half-white. He must hate that, she thought. But you love the feel of it, an inner voice mocked. She turned angrily away from the enticing sight of the razor gliding along his face and stared at the horizon while he continued his toilette.

  When he had finished shaving, he put away the razor and took out the rest of his warrior's regalia—more jewelry and a breastplate. He was aware of Stephanie's apprehensive gaze as he made the final preparations for his homecoming. Smooth Stone and Tiny Dancer understood that a warrior returning to his people after a successful raid always dressed in his finery, but for Stephanie it was merely another indication of how deeply he had sunk into savagery. He finished dressing and motioned for the children to mount up, then swung into the saddle and swept her up in front of him.

  “I'm surprised you don't ride bareback,” she said breathlessly.

  “If there were some place to stow the damn saddle, I would,” he replied, kneeing the dun into a trot. As he flexed one bare arm around her waist, the heavy copper bands on his wrist and biceps gleamed in the dawn's light.

  Chase pressed her back against his chest and felt her spine stiffen when the hard bones of the breastplate touched her. “Nervous about meeting the family?” he whispered lightly in her ear.

  “I'm not ‘meeting the family.’ I'm being dragged in as a captive—a slave for you to parade in front of your friends.”

  He shrugged indifferently, hiding the hurt her stinging words brought. “Have it your way.”

&n
bsp; “If I had my way, I'd be asleep safely in Rawlins.”

  They rode in silence while the children chattered between themselves excitedly in a mixture of English and their native tongue. Just as the sun tipped over the horizon in a great golden ball, they crested a steep ridge and looked down into a wide flat bowl, a shallow valley through which ran a narrow stream of water. Between thirty and forty buffalo skin lodges were arranged in an orderly semicircle facing the rising sun, as was the Cheyenne custom.

  Chase watched as Stephanie leaned forward, peering down at the activities around the awakening camp. “The rider moving from east to south around the camp is the crier,” he explained. “He informs everyone in the village of the day's activities, who is raising a hunting party, who gives a feast this night, any news of interest or restrictions decided upon by the elders. Right now I imagine he's telling them of our imminent arrival.”

  She turned her head back to him quizzically. “How would he know?”

  “Sentries,” he replied, pointing to horsemen whom she had not seen on the perimeters of the valley's ridge.

  Stephanie observed women gathering in clusters, laughing and gossiping as they listened to the crier. Some started cookfires while others already had heavy kettles boiling and were dishing up bowls of some sort of meat and vegetables. A group of preadolescent boys drove a small herd of horses into the center of the village while a dozen or so young girls carried in bundles of firewood. Old men clustered at the openings of some lodges, watching the sunrise and serenely puffing on their pipes while younger ones stood stretching and yawning, preparing to greet the day. Everywhere small children ran giggling and shrieking, as utterly naked and unashamed as were Smooth Stone and Tiny Dancer.

  As they drew closer to the village, an excited buzz began. All eyes were on the White Wolf, who led two little children and brought a captive female back with him. Young boys and girls ran ahead to greet their hero as a number of mongrel dogs yipped excitedly at their heels. Women turned from their chores to smile and men raised their arms in salutes of welcome.