by Shirl Henke
“I only saw him but there was a powerful lot of shootin' goin' on. Musta been a whole bunch of ‘em. I was lucky to get away. Like I said, Marty 'n' Laben, they didn't make it.”
“How far from town did this take place?”
Wallaby shrugged. “We got lost comin' from Cheyenne. Musta overshot the turn off to Rawlins. I ain't sure.”
“And I imagine you aren't sure what tribe the buck was, either.”
“Cudda been Sioux, mebbee Arap, or even Cheyenne, I reckon. But whatever he was, he was big, 'n' tall 'n' pure mean.”
Hugh pulled a five-dollar banknote from his pocket and shoved it across the desk. “I better not hear anything about this matter or you'll answer to me, Wallaby,” he said, indicating the man was dismissed.
Wallaby looked into those deadly cold dark eyes and shuddered. He needed a drink. Clutching the banknote he backed out of the room, nodding his assent.
But the gossip spread all too quickly once the first whispers about the snake oil man's visit were out. Wallaby had spoken to several people in town, once he sobered up enough to learn there was a Lieutenant Phillips at the nearby fort whose wife was missing. A drummer stopped off at the post from Rawlins, discussing with several troopers whether or not the female whom Wallaby had seen was the officer's missing lady. The corporal, eavesdropping at the door during Hugh's interview with Wallaby, quickly substantiated the fact.
By the following morning, Hugh Phillips was the object of sidelong glances and pitying looks from the officers' wives, awkward attempts at condolences, even false wishes for a blessed reunion with Stephanie from their husbands, and outright sniggering and foul jokes behind his back from the enlisted men, who detested the martinet lieutenant. If he had been eager to win military distinction before, now he became obsessed with finding Stephanie and the mysterious savage who had abducted her. He drove his men to the brink of exhaustion and past it, taking out one patrol after another, riding from first light to full dark. But weeks of scouring the foothills of southern Wyoming, from the Medicine Bows to the banks of the Sweetwater, yielded not a trace of any Indian war party or a white captive.
They did run across a pitiful bunch of Arapaho so decimated by smallpox that Hugh ordered their execution instead of taking any prisoners, then had the village fired to prevent contagion. Each time he returned to Fort Steele to face the other officers and men, his plight grew more unendurable. Soon winter would envelop the High Plains and surrounding mountains in a lethargic coat of deep white snow. When the winds howled across Wyoming, only fools ventured out.
Hugh knew the Indians were already splitting up into small bands to go to ground until spring. The odds of locating his wife were growing more remote with the passing of each day. He considered resigning his commission and going east to live in luxury on old Josiah' s money, but money had only been a means to an end for him. Hugh wanted the recognition, the glory of being a general, of moving among the highest echelons of power in Washington, of showing his supercilious Southern family that his choice in attending West Point had been the correct one. Still, he despised the dust and the silence, the crude tobacco spitting troopers and opinionated settlers—he despised everything about the West. Most of all he hated the savages for threatening his plans and humiliating him by stealing his wife.
But he loved the killing.
Nothing would stop him until he had found Stephanie and her abductor and that damned renegade raider White Wolf. He would see to it they all died. Then he could return East, bathed in glory, a tragic hero. Meanwhile, he relentlessly patrolled in ever widening circles, searching tirelessly. Every opportunity he found, he attacked the Indians he located, searching their villages for a trace of Stephanie, bringing in the captives to be herded onto reservations. His energetic efforts came to the attention of General George Crook, head of the Department of the Platte. Lieutenant Phillips was commended...but not promoted.
Hugh's idol Custer also languished in rank, chomping at the bit during the summer and fall of 1875, albeit he “languished” with the rank of lieutenant colonel. On the far northern plains at Fort Lincoln, Custer had seen no outbreaks of hostility by the savages. South at Fort Steele, Hugh had at least consoled himself with the activity afforded by the White Wolf's raids. When he was not pursuing the renegade or searching for Stephanie, Hugh went into Rawlins and drowned his frustrations with cheap whiskey and cheaper women.
Chapter Fifteen
The days grew colder now that they were living in the Bighorns. The valley Chase and Stands Tall had brought them to was isolated, impossible for any army patrol to locate—if the army was even searching for her, Stephanie thought bleakly. She wondered from time to time what Hugh had thought when she vanished. Was he relieved to have her gone? Frustrated by her imagined defiance? She was certain how acutely Hugh would feel the embarrassment of having his wife desert him.
But her thoughts were seldom on her husband. They centered on Chase. He was gone now, as he was so often, off on some sort of spying mission this time. He had ridden with a saddle and worn white men's clothes, his hair unbraided and a beard bristling on his jaw line. No one knew when he would return or where he had gone. At least, no one told her and she did not ask.
His avoidance of her caused both relief and heartache. She knew they could never act on the desire that had drawn them to each other over the years and the miles, but just seeing him walk across the camp or leap gracefully onto Thunderbolt's back gave her pleasure. Watching him covertly became a habit. Just knowing he was nearby gave her comfort. When he left her alone in this strange isolated place among his people, she had at first been frightened, but as the weeks wore on, she began to grow used to her new routine.
Every morning she awakened to the voice of the crier, rose and went out to watch the golden glory of sunrise in the mountains. The Bighorns were wild and magnificent and the hidden valley in which they lived was deep and fertile with clear running streams. There was even a remarkable natural hot spring that bubbled up into a series of pools. Everyone could bathe no matter how cold the weather. Wild fruit trees and bushes grew in abundance and small game was easily snared. All in all, it was an idyllically beautiful place, the sort she had fantasized about when a youthful Chase first described the West to an impressionable eight-year-old girl.
This morning she arose and donned a tunic and leggings, then pulled on a pair of the soft doeskin moccasins that were so comfortable. When she stepped outside she picked up a bucket and walked to the stream that flowed a few dozen yards from their lodge to draw fresh water as Red Bead smiled approvingly. Her second morning in camp she had used the clean water left sitting from the night before. The old woman had upbraided her for washing in “dead water.” Each morning the women all drew fresh water for the day.
She made her way across the awakening camp, smiling greetings at those who had become friendly to her, bypassing others who still looked upon her as an outsider whose Blue Coat husband might yet bring them to grief. The village seemed to be split into three factions. Many were members of the Crazy Dog Society. They and their families resented Chase, mistrusting his white blood and thus, his captive. Others were grateful for the White Wolf's prowess as a warrior who could outwit the White Eyes and provide his people with weapons and supplies. They were willing to accept Stephanie. The third group simply waited to see how the strife would end, withholding judgment and their friendship from the white woman.
After splashing her face and hands in the icy waters of the river, Stephanie dried off, then completed her simple toilette by combing her hair and plaiting it into one fat long braid which hung below her waist. She lowered the bucket and filled it from the cold swift current. When she rose and headed back to Red Bead's lodge, she saw Kit Fox some distance downstream, but before she could call to her friend, a young warrior approached, smiling a shy greeting at the lovely Cheyenne. The morning air was chilly and he wore a heavy buffalo robe draped across his shoulders like a blanket. He opened it in invitation and Kit Fox
stepped inside. The sounds of soft laughter echoed faintly as they stood, sheltered thus, talking in plain view of the camp. Such was the way a man courted a maid among these people. Kit Fox seemed well pleased by the comely man, whose name was Blue Eagle.
Stephanie felt a sudden pang of loneliness as she watched the young couple, then reminded herself that it was good Kit Fox had found someone who made her happy. When Chase had created that scene throwing Stephanie on the travois in front of the soldiers, she knew Kit Fox was aware of what still lay between them and had been hurt by it, abandoning her hopes of wedding the White Wolf. The white woman would not have blamed the Cheyenne if she had withdrawn her friendship, but Kit Fox remained her staunchest ally.
Now she has found someone who returns her affection. Be happy for her, Stephanie chided herself. Chase would not wed her friend. But Chase could never wed her either. Even if the insurmountable barrier of race did not separate them, Hugh would always stand between them. What will become of me? Forcing herself to abandon the melancholy thought, she walked briskly back to Red Bead's lodge to begin the day's chores. Today she would learn how to clean and tan the heavy buffalo hides which provided shelter, bedding and blankets.
Red Bead took the bucket of “living” water and dipped a bone ladle into it, drinking deeply, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and said, “Smooth Stone has gone with some of the older boys hunting rabbits. Tiny Dancer will spend the day with us while Crow Woman goes with the other women in search of the last of the grapes. Soon the frosts will kill them.”
Stephanie's heart filled with joy for she loved nothing as much as watching over the winsome little girl. “I've seen some of the other girls with dolls. Could you teach me how to make one for her?”
Red Bead nodded. “If you wish. We will gather sticks and cattails for it this afternoon. Your heart is good for children.”
“I always wanted children...but...”
“Sometimes the Powers withhold the gift of children. I, too, was barren.” She studied Stephanie a moment as the young woman cleared away the simple breakfast. “I knew it was my lack, for my husband had children with his second wife. Perhaps your man, not you, was the one at fault.”
Stephanie colored with embarrassment at the matter-of-fact way Cheyenne women discussed such intimate matters. The first time her monthly flow had begun, Red Bead had explained to her about their custom of sequestering menstruating women in a “moon hut” for the duration of her cycle. The blood taboos of their society seemed primitive but she had been even more distressed by the open discussion of bodily functions. Yet in spite of their candor in regard to speaking about sex, Cheyenne women were every bit as chaste as the most moral of white society. Courting couples did no more than innocently share a robe the way she had seen Kit Fox and Blue Eagle do. There were no whores and no marital infidelities among these people.
She floundered for a reply to Red Bead's speculations about Hugh. “I...I don't know if my husband had other children.” Lord knows, learning of his repeated infidelities, he could have left a string of bastards from Baltimore to Bismarck. “We have only been married for three years.” She could not explain their estrangement or the humiliating reasons Hugh had quit her bed. It might well give Red Bead ideas about matchmaking between her and Chase.
“Three years is plenty time to make a baby,” the old woman said with a grunt. “Come, we work now.”
They stepped outside the lodge into the cold. A stiff wind had arisen with the hint of a few frosty flakes of snow in it. Stephanie did not look forward to working outdoors all morning. When they collected Tiny Dancer, the little girl seemed impervious to the icy wind, dressed warmly now in a long-sleeved deerskin tunic and high leggings. She skipped alongside Stephanie, chattering happily in a hybrid of English and Cheyenne. The latter she endeavored to teach Stephanie.
As they approached the place where three large hides had been staked out on the ground, she observed the women rigging a windbreak around the area. They drove lodge poles into the earth at regular intervals and stretched lodge rolls across the spaces between them. Inside the shelter several small fires burned, affording warmth in which the women could kneel on the cold ground to scrape and cure the raw skins. Red Bead handed her an adz made of bone and illustrated how to use it. Stephanie set to work, letting the hard repetitious task cleanse her mind of troubling thoughts about Chase Remington.
* * * *
Chase sat in the small shabby tent on the outside of the old frontier trading settlement of Fort Laramie, now the largest army post in southern Wyoming Territory. The waitress in the crude restaurant, an Arapaho woman, poured him a second cup of coffee as he scanned the newspapers in front of him. The information was several months old and not encouraging. Zachariah Chandler, former senator from Michigan and lifelong friend of George Armstrong Custer, had been appointed secretary of the interior. An avid expansionist, Chandler shared the views of Sheridan and Custer with regard to Indian removal. The Interior Department had been the last frail bastion against the onslaught of white settlers into the territories of Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.
The net is tightening with the passage of each season, he thought grimly. The Union Pacific Railroad ran seventy miles below the fort, effectively sealing off the Arkansas River hunting grounds to the south. Even though the stock market panic in 1873 had temporarily halted Jay Cooke' s plans for construction of the Northern Pacific through Montana, Chase knew it was only a matter of a few years before it, too, would encroach. When he first began raiding as the White Wolf, he had resigned himself to dying as a warrior, but he had hoped to preserve for a short while longer the freedom of his people, even though he knew their way of life was doomed.
But that was before Stephanie had come back into his life. He wanted to live for her, with her, to have children and build a life with her. But where? How? He could not turn his back on the Cheyenne and she could not live as his mother had. Even if she could, Stephanie was bound by her vows to the Blue Coat Phillips, the very man who had brought him to Fort Laramie. The man he planned to kill. And once he had done so, he knew she would never forgive him.
When Chase had left the stronghold, his original purpose was to scout out a likely target for his raiders. The army would not expect them to strike during the winter. However, the more he drifted, the more tales he heard of the intrepid Indian killer, Lieutenant Hugh Phillips. Chase's plans changed. Now, he stalked the two-legged predator who had slaughtered so many of his people.
He had spent the past month traveling from one small army outpost to another, always a few days behind the damned butcher, who had become a worse scourge on the plains than Custer, Crooke and Mackenzie combined. In his pursuit of the White Wolf, Phillips systematically hunted down, searched out and destroyed every Cheyenne, Arapaho and Sioux village he could find. Chase had to face the fact that abducting the man's wife had added to his fanatical zeal. Before Phillips had been politic and cautious, attacking only when there was some slim pretext of Indian provocation to justify the wanton slaughter, but now he charged in, saber drawn, to give no quarter as Chivington and Custer had done at Sand Creek and Washita. He was a mad dog and Chase meant to stop him. He knew it was something that needed to be done, a matter of simple justice, regardless of the old enmity he felt for Phillips, regardless of the woman. Yet he still felt guilty prosecuting a personal vendetta. This was a weight on his conscience he would have to bear the rest of his brief life, a life alone, apart from all others.
What will I do about Stevie? Once her husband was dead, Chase could send her home to Boston. Since old Josiah, too, was dead, she would be a wealthy widow with good prospects for remarriage, this time to a man of better character than Hugh Phillips. The idea of Stephanie with another husband did not sit well but he pushed the thought aside. Right now his task was to deal with Phillips.
The lieutenant was having dinner with the post commander after another “successful mission.” He had ridden in yesterday, herding with him the piti
ful remnants of an Arapaho band. Chase had learned the lieutenant favored a bit of entertainment on the seamier side, frequenting brothels and saloons in the towns and outposts along his way. For some utterly perverse reason known only to the twisted workings of Phillips's sick mind, lately he preferred to use Indian or mixed blooded women and he used them hard. Like most army outposts in the region, Fort Laramie boasted several such establishments. Setting aside the newspaper, Chase tossed some coins on the table to pay for his meal, then left the tent. It was getting dark. Phillips would be on the prowl shortly. So would he. Within half an hour he had located the lieutenant in a big old two-story clapboard structure called the Burning Bush Saloon and Palace of Pulchritude.
Since Indians were not allowed as customers, he sneaked into the place through a back window on the second floor by climbing a rotted old trellis that had supported rose vines in the establishment's better days. Once inside the dim hallway, he wrinkled his nose at the smell of cheap whiskey and stale sweat. The air was heavy with the musk of sex, couplings done roughly and repeatedly by the occupants of the long rows of tawdry rooms. He had no idea which one belonged to Phillips's partner, but knowing the man's predilections, he figured he'd soon hear enough to give away the location. Grunts and moans sounded through the thin warped doors as he moved soundlessly down the hall. At the fourth door he heard a pitiful thin cry of a woman, pleading in the Lakota tongue and Phillips's muttered oaths as he struck her repeatedly. The ugly sounds brought no one from downstairs to intercede.
Chase tried the door, which was unlocked. Easing his knife from its sheath, he slipped noiselessly inside. In the pale green light cast by a cheap chartreuse shade on an oversized lamp, he looked at the hellish scene. Phillips had his back to the door, kneeling on a bed behind a slender dark-skinned girl with long black hair. She was naked, tied to the heavy iron bedpost facedown, on her knees, writhing in pain as her tormentor pinched and slapped her buttocks. His belt, lying beside him on the bed, had already left an angry crisscross of welts on her soft flesh.