by Don Bendell
Wednesday said, “Yes, yes, I will.”
He said, “Good. You may not understand all my words, but you will get the meaning. I want you to get your pretty red diseased ass out of this bed and Lakota the hell up!!!”
This totally caught her by surprise, made her angry, and gave her hope all at once, since she had been expecting him to say good-bye, as she was going to make the journey.
Wednesday said, “Yes, I will,” and she put her hands down, and with her arms shaking, she pushed herself off the bed.
She was breathing hard, but very proud of herself, and he was proud of her, too. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her.
She smiled and seemed much more alive.
She said, “I thought you would tell me good-bye, that I must make the walk.”
He laughed and said, “Heck no. You never heard me say a curse word before, did you?”
“What does curse word mean?”
He laughed again. “Bad words for Americans.”
She said, “Oh, no, I had not. You, a what does it mean, you shock me.”
She giggled.
He said, “How about some food?”
She said, “Yes, my stomach thinks a wolf lives inside it.”
Strongheart said, “Nurse!”
Teresa, who had been welcomed by the hospital, came in from the hallway and smiled at Wednesday.
She said, “Hi, Wednesday, do you remember me?”
Wednesday said, “Yes, you are Teresa. You help me. Thank you.”
Teresa said, “I am glad to see you have decided to live. How about some nice beef stew?”
Wednesday smiled and gave her a quizzical look.
Strongheart said, “That is soup with beef from cows, carrots, potatoes, and onions all in gravy.”
“That sounds like very good. Thank you.”
Wednesday was not used to saying thank you in her society, as it was usually understood, but was learning the white man’s ways rapidly.
Strongheart said, “I’m going to let you eat. I want you to get stronger. It is a long way back to the Dakota Territory, and a hard journey.”
She said, “What about Victoria?”
He said, “Right now, I just want you to worry about getting better.”
She said, “Wanji Wambli, she was part of killing many of our people. I want to be there when you put chains on her and she goes to jail.”
He said, “Heal fast, and we will talk about it.”
He went to his room and lay down, as he was feeling a little weak. Joshua was very excited about the way Wednesday had responded to him. He drifted off to sleep. An hour passed, and Strongheart felt a presence. He opened his eyes, and there in the doorway was Brenna Alexander. She came to his bedside, bent down, and kissed him.
“Brenna,” he said, “what are you doing here?”
She said, “I ran into Lucky Champ in a restaurant in downtown Chicago, and he told me what happened to you and where you were. I booked a ride on the next train here. How are you feeling?”
When she walked over and kissed him, she and Joshua did not see Wednesday being wheeled into his room in a wooden wheelchair by Teresa. The nurse quickly backed out of the door and wheeled Wednesday back to her room. The Lakota woman could hardly contain her tears until the nurse wisely left the room and closed the door.
Strongheart got out of bed and grabbed his crutches. His pain was terrible as the pair walked out the door and down the hallway. She told Joshua what had been happening in her life. He felt strange talking to her, even getting a kiss from her, because of Wednesday being in the next room and professing her love for him so freely. They walked to the end of the hallway and turned down another one and ended up at a window facing the cityscape of downtown Denver, which was actually blocks away.
Brenna said, “I missed you so much and have been so worried about you since I heard. I cried most of the way to Denver on the train.”
For some reason this statement bothered Joshua. Why did she tell him that? he wondered.
She moved up close to him again, wanting to be kissed. He stopped and looked out the window. Brenna turned him toward her.
She said, “I love you, Joshua.”
He did not know how to respond. He pulled her close in a hug. Strongheart was very confused right now about women. After his realistic dream, he really felt the final bit of healing after losing Belle. He would always love her and have a special place in his heart for her, but he felt she somehow, from Heaven, had told him it was okay to love again. He knew Wiya Waste grew up in the lodges of the Lakota, and it was not even fair to ask her to live in the white man’s world.
Just now, his long-held fantasies about her were coming to the fore, since he had learned after all these years that they were not actually cousins. They were unrelated as far as blood goes. He was also very impressed that she was actually the daughter of Crazy Horse. He did think, What a family of warriors we could breed and raise!
Brenna said, “Joshua, do you love me?”
He smiled softly and said, “Do I love you, or am I in love with you?”
She said, “Yes, are you in love with me?”
He said, “Brenna, this is crazy, but right now I am not sure about anything or anybody. I do love you, but I do not know if I am in love with you. You are beautiful, and you are really a wonderful lady. I just don’t know.”
She smiled and walked slowly down the hallway and around the corner.
Joshua felt bad for her and did not know how he should have answered her. He knew he was not ever going to see her again. They had been through a lot together, but she now lived the life of a wealthy woman in Chicago. He had to concentrate on getting better and stronger. He still had unfinished business with Victoria Clinton and her gunmen.
Joshua visited with Wednesday most of the next day, and she seemed like she was normal except for still needing to gain strength. She seemed somewhat withdrawn from him. He did not understand, but he also grinned, knowing he would never understand women.
The next day, they ate together, and they spoke.
Strongheart said, “It is hard for you among the wasicun?”
“No,” she said. “It is easy. I am learning to speak American. I mean English. And learning many things about the wasicun.”
He said, “The past two days you have been different, like you are far away. What troubles your heart?”
The beauty replied, “Who was that pretty woman who came to see you?”
“Oh,” he said, realizing she must have seen them in the hallway, or maybe had even seen her kissing him.
He said, “Her name is Brenna, and she lives very far away in a city like this one called Chicago.”
Wednesday said, “On the big lake.”
He said, “You are learning a lot.
“She is my friend,” he said. “She came to see me because she heard I was hurt.”
Wednesday said, “Zach is your friend, but I did not see you kiss him.”
Strongheart chuckled, and his face reddened.
He said, “She is my close friend. She has counted coup with me. She is a good woman.”
“Is she your woman?”
“No, she is not,” he said. “She loves me, but I am not in love with her. I am very confused right now.”
Wednesday was very relieved when she heard his answer.
She said, “Your heart is not thinking about love right now. Your heart only thinks about Victoria and her bad men. You should just think of that right now, and your heart will tell you when it wants to talk of love.”
He grinned, and then chuckled. She was right.
Two days later, Lucky appeared at Joshua’s door and soon met Wednesday. Strongheart told him the story about them being cousins for so many years and then finding out that she was actually not related to hi
m and was the daughter of Crazy Horse.
Lucky said, “Young lady, do you realize how fortunate you are?”
Wednesday liked this man.
“What do you mean, fortunate?” she asked.
“How lucky you are. . . . How honored you are,” he responded.
She turned to Joshua for help, saying, “Owákahniğe šni,” which meant, “I don’t understand.”
The handsome half-breed smiled and said, “You are like a queen because you are the daughter of Crazy Horse. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but he is the enemy of the wasicun?” she said.
Lucky commented, “But he is famous. He was a hero . . . a mighty warrior of your people. Not all white men hate the Indians.”
She smiled and said, “Not all red people hate the white people.”
Later, Strongheart and Lucky walked outside the hospital and talked.
Lucky said, “Joshua, Allan Pinkerton despised Robert Hartwell, too. This woman, this Victoria Clinton, is the devil’s mistress. He wants you to bring her castle down around her ears.”
Strongheart said, “Happily. But I can’t leave Wednesday alone here in the hospital. I have been waiting for her to get the strength to travel, then I’ll send her home.”
Lucky chuckled. “Mon ami, my friend, do you think I am blind?”
Strongheart said, “Yeah, I have feelings for her, boss, but she grew up in a lodge tanning hides, gathering firewood, hunting, and so on. I am not going to spend my days in a teepee, and I could never ask her to live in a house like a white man.”
Lucky said, “Sacre bleu! Joshua, don’t you think that should be her decision? You mentioned she hunts. Didn’t you teach her how to be a good hunter?”
“I thought she was my first cousin then, alone without a man,” Joshua said. “I told her to hold out until the right man came along and that she had to survive until then.”
Lucky laughed and lit a cigar.
He said, “Monsieur Strongheart, if you taught her to hunt and such things, could you not teach her how to live in our society?”
Strongheart looked off at the distant peaks, saying, “I suppose. Lucky, why are you trying to push me into a relationship with Wednesday?”
Lucky said, “Because I know you better than anybody. I see how you look at her, and how she looks at you. Most men would keel to have a woman love them so strongly, my friend.”
Strongheart said, “She should be plenty strong in a few days, and I will send her home, and then head back myself to get Clinton and her gang.”
Lucky said, “She came all those miles to you to warn you about her and tell you who she was. She did that in a white man’s world. She told me that she wants to be there with you when you go after Clinton. I think your father’s people, by what she told me, want her there with you to see this through.”
Strongheart said, “It is pretty amazing that she traveled so far in a white man’s world to find me. I never even took the time since then to think on it. How did she do it?”
“She and her horse traveled by boxcars and stock cars,” Lucky said. “You still think thees woman could not live in a white man’s world?”
Strongheart said, “She is pretty amazing.”
13
THE FINISH
It was a week later that a much-rested Joshua Strongheart and a much healthier Wednesday boarded the train at Union Station to make the journey back to Pueblo, then to Cañon City. Strongheart picked up Eagle the next day at the blacksmith’s. His hoof had healed, and he was wearing four new shoes and seemed excited to see his master and buddy, Joshua. The blacksmith, who also ran the livery stable on Main Street in Cañon City, had a well-broke Appaloosa gelding named Pebbles that had been owned by a local rancher who had died in a flash flood. Joshua had met the man one time, and he was quite a character.
Strongheart had asked the man, who was named Adamic, one time why he rode an Appy when so many cowboys frowned on them and said they were only fit for Indians. Adamic took a big bite out of his plug of tobacco, chewed on it a few minutes, then looked at the Pinkerton and replied, “Son, this here country is nasty, nasty. There’s a bunch a rocks around these parts that like ta move from time to time, and when they do, I want me a horse that don’t. A good Appaloosa can go and go all day, like an Arabian, and they are fit and bred fer the mountains. This here is a mountain horse.”
Then grinning, he added, “Mah horse might be ugly, but he’s stupid.”
Pebbles was well muscled and beautiful. He was called a leopard Appaloosa, which meant he had white over his body, covered by evenly spaced sorrel, or red, spots all over, looking somewhat like a leopard in his overall appearance. He had a white mane and tail and black-and-white hooves, which were loved by blacksmiths, as they had both hardness and give to them. They lasted much longer than white hooves and did not crack as easily as brittle solid black hooves.
* * *
Scottie rode into Cañon City and found Strongheart and Wiya Waste riding along the Arkansas River.
Joshua said, “Come on, Scottie. I’m buying you two a great dinner.”
He led them to the French Restaurant, and they entered. The same waitress smiled broadly when she saw them, but then her smile turned to a frown as she looked at Wednesday.
Strongheart said, “Bonjour, mademoiselle. Comment-allez vous?”
She replied, “Bonjour, Monsieur Strongheart. Je vais bien, merci. Et vous?”
He said, “I’m fine, but why did you make the face? Do you have a problem with us being here?”
“Non, monsieur,” she said, red-faced. “I do not, but—but thees ees the headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan in the territory, and . . .”
Strongheart put his hand up, smiling, and said, “The hell with the Klan. If they have a problem with the company I keep or me, send them to me.”
She laughed at this prospect, saying, “Oui, monsieur. Please be seated where you would like.”
Joshua led them to a table in the corner, and he sat facing the door.
She handed each a menu and said, “Drinks?”
Strongheart said, “Do you have iced tea? We do not want any liquor today, thank you.”
She said, “Oui, monsieur.”
He said, “Iced tea for each of us, with sugar.”
Wednesday said, “Iced tea?”
Scottie said, “You’re going to love it, Wednesday.”
It was soon placed before them, and she did.
The two let Joshua order for them, so after hors d’oeuvres he ordered. For himself, lamb noisette, a fennel and lavender roasted rack of lamb with a sweetbread and roasted-shallot stuffing with plum tomato and olive tapenade.
Then, for Wednesday, he ordered filet mignon à la Bordelaise, which was grilled medallions of beef tenderloin sautéed in Chablis, shallots, thyme, lemon, and veal glacé, with potato gratin, and topped with mushrooms.
Scottie had poulet chasseur, made with braised chicken, roasted beets with beet greens, garlic chive mashed potatoes, and tomato-flavored demi-glace.
Wednesday looked at him and, eyes opened wide, said, “Do the wasicun eat like this all the time?”
Joshua and Scottie both got a very big chuckle out of this.
Strongheart said, “No, this is a very expensive restaurant with fine foods from France. I will show you a globe and explain where it is, where we are, and where Denver and your home are. I thought you might like a nice meal. Tomorrow we will be up in Westcliffe, and we might not eat well like this for a while.
“Scottie,” Strongheart said over hot coffee some time later, “how is your arm?”
Scottie said, “It’s fine. Just a new scar now. Joshua, while you were gone, I made a very important decision. I think it was because of what we went through up there and things I have seen since I have been with you.”
“What’s that
, Scottie?” Joshua said, curious.
Scottie smiled. “Well, sir, I am not going to become a Pinkerton.” His face reddened, and he continued, “I have seen things like what we just saw when we first came in. There is so much hate and anger all the time. I have seen how people sometimes treat you and now Wednesday because of skin color. I had all that hatred in my home with my drunken uncle, and even in the way my folks died. Instead of sending bad people to hell like you do, Joshua, I want to catch them early and try to direct them toward Heaven. I’m going to get my education like you and my aunt have told me to do over and over, and I am going to become a sky pilot.”
“You’re going to become a preacher!” Joshua said. “That is wonderful, Scottie!”
Strongheart shook hands with him and then directed his attention to Wednesday to explain, “He will become a medicine man like Sitting Bull is.”
She leaned forward and said, “Scottie, that is a very good thing. With my people, that is much better than to be a chief. Being a medicine man is the same as number one, instead of number three or four.”
Strongheart shook his head, smiling. In Denver, she had started to learn about numbers from Teresa and was now using the number one to place a top value on being a medicine man. With the Lakota, medicine was faith and spirituality, not actual medicine. The Pinkerton was impressed that she assigned the number to show how important the position was.
Scottie beamed.
Strongheart said, “Scottie, when it is time for you to start college, you let me know, and I am going to pay for it, all the way until you become a preacher.”
Scottie was very moved and could hardly speak to explain it.
He nodded and meekly mumbled, “Thank you, sir. God bless you.”
They left the restaurant, and Joshua took Wednesday to his small ranch south of town, and she was very impressed. Unlike the arid soil all around the area, the soil at the ranch was very good because of its proximity to the Arkansas River, which flowed—or, actually, roared—through town. She started cleaning and placing items in more efficient spots.