With an inward groan, Marcy joined him on the porch.
“You look tired.” His voice was kind, his eyes warm.
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been through a horrible experience, Marcy. You need to rest. To get your strength back.” He drew her into a tender embrace. “The funeral can go on without you.”
“I need to be there.”
“Why?”
She didn’t have an answer, not one she could put in words. But deep within her soul she knew she had to see Black Elk and Moon Hawk again. She had to be there when their Beloved Child was laid to rest.
Benjamin had never lost anyone he loved. He would never understand.
“I know what it’s like to lose a parent. To lose a child,” she shuddered, “I have to be there.”
Benjamin pushed her from him and closed his hands around her upper arms. “I forbid it.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“You’re not needed there, Marcy.”
“Let go of me.”
“My parents will not approve. Do you think my mother will be there? What will they think of you?”
The words echoed in Marcy’s head—she’d heard versions of them so often. Too often. Always before she’d given in when faced with Benjamin’s tiresome argument.
But not this time. She was too weary to care what his parents thought. Bone weary. Soul weary.
She pulled her arms from his loosening grip and rubbed the sore spots. “Surely your parents would feel the same compassion for the loss of a child that I do.”
“An Indian child? I don’t think so.”
His callousness cut into her heart. Joel’s reaction had been so different. He hadn’t hesitated to do all in his power to help the Ponca.
The contrast couldn’t have been greater between the two men.
“I’m going to the funeral, Benjamin. Your parents’ opinion of me won’t change my mind.”
He stared at her, his eyes turning from bluish-gray to a hard steel. She could almost see the wheels turning inside his mind as he considered her unexpected rebellion.
“What about your father?” he finally said, his voice quiet.
“Pa doesn’t mind if I go. He understands.”
“Will he understand if it costs him trade?”
“What are you talking about?”
“My father sends a great deal of work his way, you know.”
“He does?” Momentarily puzzled, Marcy’s mind flipped over the commissions her father had in his workshop, the ones he’d worked on in recent months. It was true that he was sought after for his carpentry work. But …
“People come to him because he’s good at what he does.”
“People come to him because they owe my father a favor. Or because they want to ingratiate themselves with him.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Your belief doesn’t change the facts.” Benjamin reached for Marcy’s hand, but she backed away. He smiled as he gave her a conciliatory look.
“You stood me up last night,” he said. “Make it up to me now. Forget the funeral, and we can go on a picnic. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“In this weather?”
“If it’s not too bad for standing at a grave, it’s not too bad for lunch by the river.”
“I can’t, Benjamin. Not today.”
His face smoldered. “Go then.”
“I will.”
“I’ll give my parents your regards. My father will be especially interested to know that your father is making a cross instead of working on the desk he ordered.”
“And my father will finish your father’s desk when he’s good and ready.”
“We’ll talk about this again later. When you’ve come to your senses.”
Before Marcy could reply, he turned his back to her and headed for town. She waited till he reached the boardwalk, then went inside the house. Shaking with anger, she splashed cool water on her face from the porcelain basin. After unpinning her hair, she pulled the brush through the long strands, yanking at the tangles.
All the while, Benjamin and Joel occupied her thoughts.
She blamed herself for Benjamin’s confidence in his ability to bend her to his will. Since the first time they met, she’d allowed him to dictate practically everything she did—the books she read, the events she attended, even the thoughts she had. His mother lavished her with clothes and made Marcy feel guilty when she protested. Eventually the hints, the tacit agreement that she was being groomed to join the prominent family allowed her to take the expensive gifts with a clear conscience.
But months had slipped by, and a formal engagement still had not been announced.
Maybe that was a good thing.
If only Joel hadn’t been the one looking for Doc, the one who accompanied her to the army camp. Benjamin suffered by comparison with the compassionate farmer. But why had she never noticed it before?
Because she’d enjoyed Benjamin’s attention? Because he made life easy for her?
Because he shielded her from the injustice occurring only a few miles away, from the knowledge that the Ponca were being harassed by their enemies and the army planned to unjustly remove them from their homelands.
She’d been so willing to allow his opinions to be her own.
No more.
Not when she’d seen their suffering with her own eyes. The Ponca loved their home. They didn’t want to leave all that was familiar and good.
And they shouldn’t have to.
If only there was something she could do to stop them. But what?
She entered her bedroom, an addition Pa had built onto his two-room house shortly before her arrival. The rear window, framed by her grandmother’s heirloom lace curtains, overlooked a gentle slope leading to the river. A few trees grew along the bank, their branches vibrant with rain-sprinkled leaves.
Marcy resisted the urge to stretch out on the pastel quilt covering her bed. As tired as she was, she might fall asleep and not waken till tomorrow. Instead she sat on the edge and gave a silent prayer of thanks for the blessing of this comfortable room in this snug little house.
It still didn’t feel like home, even though she’d brought her treasures with her on the long journey west.
Her treasures.
The beloved china doll Ma had given her on her sixth birthday. The cedar box, the size of a small valise, that held packets of ribbon-tied letters. All the ones Pa had sent her in what she now thought of as the gray years.
War had been declared, one that pitted family against family, and Ma had moved in with her widowed mother while Pa marched off with the others in his unit. He expected to return home within a few months, but the battles raged on, one after another after another.
By the time he returned, wounded and distant, Ma was buried in the churchyard next to her father. Eight-year-old Marcy didn’t recognize the emaciated, limping stranger who’d been gone half her lifetime.
Unable to settle down, Pa soon headed west. Marcy refused to go with him. He wrote her faithfully every week, but she threw the letters away, unopened and unread. Grandma saved them, though, placing each one in the cedar box. When Marcy was a teen and recovering from a serious bout with the influenza, Grandma had handed her the box.
Marcy read the letters and discovered her pa, the wounded carpenter, had a poet’s heart. She wrote to him, eagerly awaited his replies, and forgave him all her childhood grievances. When Grandma died, Marcy packed the things she cherished most, sold the rest, and traveled west to join Pa on the Nebraska frontier. Except for missing Grandma terribly, Marcy never regretted the move. But that didn’t mean she never got homesick for the southern Ohio hills she loved.
Her move had been her choice. She was free to return if she wished. Or to move somewhere else.
She held the china doll in front of her. “Why don’t the Ponca have the same freedom?” she asked. The doll’s blue eyes stared. “Why did White Buffalo Girl have to lose her doll?”
What if I could find it?
The thought, a mere whisper, rooted in Marcy’s heart. “That would mean going to the village,” she whispered. “Pa would never allow it.”
Pa didn’t need to know.
She rose from the bed and walked to the window. The broad river appeared gray beneath the slate-colored sky, as if all nature mourned the Poncas’ loss of their child and their homeland. The rooted thought sprouted, and Marcy knelt on the floor in prayer, her doll clasped in her arms.
“Father, my Lord. A thing is never a substitute for the ones we love. But when Ma died, it kind of helped to have something from her to hold on to. Moon Hawk has nothing. Nothing from her home. Nothing belonging to her precious daughter.” Her voice cracked, and she paused to steady her thoughts.
“I’m not sure I can do this, Lord. But the Bible says ‘to them that have no might he increaseth strength.’ Pa wrote that to me in one of his letters. You gave him the strength to start over out here in this hard country. I’m asking You now to increase my strength. Give me the courage to search for White Buffalo Girl’s doll. Give me a plan.”
She sat in silence, her knees tucked beneath her skirt, listening for God’s still voice. An indescribable peace filled her spirit, and her lips curled upward. She knew exactly what she needed to do.
Chapter Seven
Inside his farmhouse, Joel pulled on a dry shirt and rotated his shoulders. After spending the night in the damp tent, it felt good to be moving his muscles. If only he could rid himself of the ache inside his soul as easily. But he wasn’t even sure what caused it—sadness over White Buffalo Girl’s death certainly. And also the unfair treatment of the Ponca by high-falutin’ officials a thousand miles away who knew nothing about the situation here on the prairie. Who didn’t care that the Ponca were the only tribe who had always maintained friendly relationships with the white settlers. Who never caused any trouble to the army but were pestered by warrior tribes.
Yet if those griefs were the only reason, he’d know how to handle them. Something else caught at him like a burr under a saddle.
He only had to close his eyes to know what it was. Every time he did, he saw her face.
Marcy.
In the few hours he’d tried to sleep, his dreams had been filled with her. Her good-natured laugh as she fixed the bandage on Copper’s foot. Her intensity as she did everything she could to save White Buffalo Girl’s life. Her grief and helplessness when she failed.
Closing his eyes, he relived the memory of holding her in his arms, of her tears dampening his jaw. It had taken all his self-restraint not to kiss them away and promise he’d never leave her to grieve alone.
As soon as Joel halted in front of the Whitts’ home, Marcy came through the door, carrying an oilcloth bundle. He jumped down from the wagon to take it from her. “What’s this?”
“A few canned goods and a bag of flour for Moon Hawk. I wish I could do more.”
“Almost everybody is contributing something. Word’s gotten around, and folks are giving what they can.” He placed Marcy’s bundle under the wagon seat and went inside the mill to help Mr. Whitt.
At the cemetery, Joel stood beside Marcy as Mr. Whitt packed the rain-soaked dirt around the base of the simple oak cross.
Many of the townspeople, hearing of the child’s death, had come to see her buried. It seemed as if everyone was here except the children. They were in the schoolhouse with Miss Taylor. The Hollingsworth family was also conspicuously absent.
No surprise there.
The women dabbed at their eyes with their embroidered handkerchiefs, and more than one man cleared his throat of an unfamiliar lump. Everyone seemed genuinely sorrowful at the loss of the Ponca couple’s Beloved Child.
“Moon Hawk isn’t here,” Marcy whispered.
“Jarrett told me she was too distraught to come,” Joel whispered back.
“I’m worried about her.”
“She needs time.”
“Will time ease her grief?”
He shrugged. The memories of other funerals haunted him—his ma’s, Sadie’s ma. Then his pa. Grief didn’t ease, but time dulled its sharpness. Made it possible to breathe again.
“We need to do something for her.”
Marcy had said the same thing on the wagon ride from the lumber mill. She’d sat beside him while Mr. Whitt sat in the back with the newly formed cross. Joel didn’t have a response then, and he didn’t have one now.
The army had its orders. And the soldiers had guns and bayonets. Another storm darkened the horizon, and Jarrett had told Joel the captain had decided to delay the journey for one more day. But in the morning, the soldiers would force the Ponca to head south. Away from the land of their forefathers. Away from the only home they’d ever known.
The minister closed his eulogy with a word of prayer, and then Jarrett asked for everyone’s attention. “Black Elk has a few words he’d like to say.”
He stepped forward, his broad face stoic, his back straight. All the murmuring ceased in the pause before he spoke.
“I want the whites to respect the grave of my child,” he said, his voice clear and strong, “just as they do the graves of their own dead. The Indians don’t like to leave the graves of their dead, but we had to move and hope it will be for the best.”
He halted and slightly bowed his head. Not a sound could be heard except for the lonely song of a distant bird.
“I leave the grave in your care. I may never see it again. Care for it for me.”
Turning, he left the cemetery, trailed by Jarrett and the Poncas who had accompanied him.
Touched by the words, Joel twisted his hat in his hands. Beside him, Marcy shivered and sniffed. He pulled out his bandanna and handed it to her. She peered at him below her dark lashes and murmured a strangled thank-you.
Mr. Whitt touched Marcy’s arm. “We should go home now.”
“I’d like to go to the camp,” she said.
“Why?”
“I brought food for Moon Hawk.”
“You should have given it to Black Elk.” Mr. Whitt shook his head, as if he knew it was useless to argue. But he wasn’t ready to give in yet. “Marcy, she is grieving. Allow her to grieve in peace.”
“Please, Pa. If I don’t now, I may never—” Her voice caught again, and she turned away.
“I’ll go with her,” Joel heard himself volunteer. If only he knew his true motive—to be a helpful neighbor or because he wanted more time alone with her. He gazed into Marcy’s hopeful expression. Maybe it was a little bit of both. “That is,” he said, “if it’s all right with you?”
“Please do.” She turned expectantly to her pa, hope written across her face.
“Just don’t be gone long,” he said, resignedly. “I’m sure Benjamin will be waiting for you at the mill.”
Marcy frowned slightly at the mention of Benjamin’s name. “Why would he be?”
Mr. Whitt shrugged. “I imagine he wants to keep an eye on you.”
“Then he should have been here.”
Joel silently agreed, though he wasn’t sorry Benjamin had stayed away.
“Don’t worry if I’m not home before supper.” Marcy lightly kissed her father’s cheek. “I want to stay with Moon Hawk as long as possible.”
Joel grinned at Mr. Whitt’s pretense at grumbling. He hadn’t realized how tightly Marcy had her pa wrapped around her little finger.
No real surprise. She had that effect on him, too.
Marcy perched on the wagon seat and prayed the rain-filled clouds wouldn’t let loose—at least not yet. The funeral lingered in her imagination, as if she were still there, watching herself mourn. Standing between her pa and a strong, thoughtful man who made her heart flutter.
Not her fiancé.
Joel.
As if he knew she was thinking of him, his elbow bumped hers and he smiled.
“Sadie took that fool rabbit to school with her today.”
“How is Copper?”
“Seems to be fine.”
“Do you need me to change the bandage?”
“Sadie’s taking care of that. Probably more often than it’s needed.”
“She’s such a sweet child.”
“She admires you, too.”
“Anyone could have cleaned out that cut.”
“Maybe. But not everyone can do it the way you do,” he said. “Not everyone has your gift.”
“It’s not a gift.”
“What is it then?”
Marcy didn’t know. She’d been tending injured animals for as long as she could remember. The compassion she felt, the need to do whatever she could to alleviate pain was central to her being. A fact. She sighed. “It didn’t do me any good when it really mattered, did it?”
“There wasn’t anything else you could have done. Not even Doc could have comforted that little girl the way you did.”
She looked away from him, not wanting him to see the tears that had sprung to her eyes. Besides, she didn’t want to talk about the child she couldn’t save.
After they rode in silence for a few moments, Joel pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket.
“Thought you might want this.”
“What is it?”
“What Black Elk said at the funeral. His very words.”
Marcy unfolded the paper and read the plea written there. Not that she needed to—the words were already engraved on her heart.
“Thank you.” She gazed at Joel’s profile, her heart caught in the intensity of his focus as he maneuvered Toby around the worst of the mud-filled ruts. “We need to do this. In all the years to come, we need to do what Black Elk asked.”
“The church has already started a fund. For a monument.”
“I’m glad.” She read the words again and sighed heavily. Inside one of the tents at the army camp, a grieving mother had been too stricken to attend her only child’s funeral. The plea Black Elk had made to the people of Neligh would be kept. But would their promise soothe Moon Hawk’s heart?
The Courageous Brides Collection Page 4