Kiowa White Moon

by Jeanie P Johnson

  I didn’t want the Indian to die. One reason was, it would be difficult for me to bury him, and now I had a vested interest because I had gone to the trouble to try and save him. I wanted to be successful in my efforts, not thinking what those consequences may bring.

  I took an apple from my flour sack and started eating it, as I studied the sleeping face of Muraco. I didn’t even know what kind of Indian he was, because they all looked alike to me. He had to be Kiowa, or Comanche, though, because those were the two tribes that were usually found in the area.

  As I watched him, his eyes slowly opened, and he caught my stare, giving me a half smile, when he saw I was still there. His full lips stretched pleasantly at me, showing stark, white teeth.

  “Would you like some of my apple?” I asked, coming closer.

  I saw a knife in a sheath on his money belt, and started to reach for it. When he saw what I was about to do, he reached out and grabbed my wrist, to stop me. Now his eyes held fear.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “Why would I want to use your knife to stab you, after bandaging you up?” I questioned.

  I knew he couldn’t understand me, but I acted like he could, as I firmly removed his hand. Then I took the knife from its sheath, and cut a piece of the apple, and handed it to him.

  His smile broadened, as he slowly started to eat the apple I had handed him. When he finished it, I cut another piece. “Apple,” I said, pointing to the fruit in my hand.

  His eyes widened. “Ah-law-baw,” he stated.

  “Ah-law-baw… Apple,” I repeated.

  “Apple,” he said slowly, and then grinned when I nodded. He took another bite. “Apple thaga!” (good)

  I smiled, repeating the word, even though I did not know exactly what it meant, but knew it had something to do with the apple. “Yes, apple thaga!”

  “Khni thaga,” he said soberly, reaching out and touching my arm.

  “Connie is here to help you,” I murmured, cutting another piece of apple and handing it to him.

  When he had finished eating the apple, he closed his eyes again. It took all of his strength to even eat. I put the knife back in the sheath. Then I brought the flour sack and canteens, close to where he was, placing the bottle of whisky beside him as well, incase the pain got too strong for him. Lastly, I took the quilt and covered him, then went over to Buttercup.

  “Time for us to head home,” I said to Buttercup, as I picked up Hope and put her legs around my neck, to carry her home.

  Buttercup stood up and started to follow me, when she saw I had her calf over my shoulders. I gave one long-last glance at Muraco, over my shoulder, as I left the shelter of the cave, and walked back across the meadow, feeling excited and anxious at the same time. I kept hoping I was not making a big mistake.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As I reached the outer yard of our farmhouse, Darie and Nigel came out to greet me. “It took you long enough,” Darie complained. Then she rushed up and started cooing over Hope.

  Nigel also came up to pet the newborn. “I put some straw in the barn for them,” he informed me. “Emmet went to check for mail, since the supply wagons are due to come along the Santa Fe. It’s hard to tell any more though, because it is so dangerous to bring supplies along the Santa Fe trail, since the Indians are always attacking them.”

  “I hope Emmet is careful, if there are Indians along the trail,” I murmured.

  I wondered if maybe the wounded Indian in the cave was from a raid on the supply wagons, and had gotten shot during the attack.

  Nigel took Hope from my shoulders. “I call her Hope,” I told him, as he put the little soft brown heifer on his own shoulders.

  “A fine name,” Nigel stated, as he headed to the barn with Hope. Buttercup was following close behind, reaching her nose out and nuzzling her calf.

  “You have blood on your dress,” Darie said in shock.

  “It’s from the calf, I guess,” I explained. “I should go change my clothes.”

  “Supper is almost ready. I am waiting on the buns to finish baking.”

  “Will Emmet be back in time for supper?” I asked, as I headed into the house.

  “He should be. He left right after eating lunch.”

  Nigel came through the door, and started washing up for supper, using the tin basin on the counter, and I went into my room to change my bloodstained dress. I was not sure if it was blood from Muraco, or from his horse when I washed it. Either way, it was still Muraco’s blood. Luckily, I had Buttercup’s calf to blame it on.

  As we sat down around the table, and Darie placed the basket of warm buns, wrapped in a dish towel, on the table, Emmet came bursting through the front door.

  “You’ll never guess what has happened,” he said, as he removed his hat, tossed it on the hook, and went to the basin to wash up. His shaggy blond hair fell over his forehead, and he pushed it back with a wet hand.

  “I can see you are just busting to tell us,” I laughed. He seemed excited, so I was thinking that it had something to do with the Indians attacking the supply wagons, since he had just come from checking on the mail.

  “Remember the stories we heard about Kit Carson being called to take care of the Indians? Well, it has finally happened! Yesterday, he and his troops rode into the Kiowas and Comanches winter camp and wiped them all-out. Well not exactly wiped them out, but they were chased from their camp, and the camp was burned, so they would have no way to survive the winter. By spring, there should be a lot fewer Indians to worry about, and they will think twice before attacking the supply wagons again.”

  “That is a horrible thing to do!” I stated with shock, thinking that Muraco must have come from the Indian village that had been burned. “How would you like to have your house burned down so you had no shelter for the winter?”

  “That is neither here-nor-there,” Emmet frowned. “It serves them right for attacking the supply wagons as well as anyone passing through! The man from the supply train, who gave me the information, said Kit Carson brought a twelve-pound howitzer that shot explosive shells. It’s sort of like a small cannon, used during the Civil War. Kit Carson only lost about six men, while the Indians lost sixty, and there were at least 160 of those heathens wounded.

  I knew one of those wounded Indians, I thought in a panic. If anyone discovered I was sheltering an Indian who Kit Carson himself came to get rid of, they may drag me away and put me in chains, I thought. I tried to keep from shaking, as Emmet went into great detail of the so called battle. The tale had been, given to him by someone who claimed they knew about it. To me, it sounded more like a massacre, since the army came to a peaceful village unaware.

  I always thought wars were fought when one group of warriors stood against another, to settle a disagreement. This was a whole village with women and children in it, and Kit Carson had brought a cannon! While I felt sympathy for those the Indians themselves had killed on wagon trains and supply wagons, I could not help but defend their right to protect their land, which we were trespassing on. After all, it was set aside as ‘Indian Territory’ according to the maps. We knew the dangers of going through land which was claimed by the Indians. Now we suddenly felt like we had the right to claim the land as our own, because we had a cannon, and the Indians didn’t!

  “You seem mighty quiet,” Emmet said, turning to me. “Is the calf all right? Darie told me Buttercup finally had her calf.”

  “Hope is fine,” I murmured. “She is in the barn, if you want to see her.”

  “You look tired,” he said.

  “Did we get any mail?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “Father got a letter from Dodge. I didn’t even know he knew anyone from Dodge.”

  “He said that is where he is going to pick up the buggy he had ordered. Maybe it has something to do about the buggy,” I said, glancing at the letter, Emmet had set upon the table. “I hope there isn’t going to be a problem with getting it.”

  “You think we should open it?” Nigel asked
.

  “It wouldn’t make any difference what the letter says,” I pointed out. “Father has already gone to pick it up.”

  “But if it isn’t ready or can’t be built because of the shortage of supplies from Missouri, he would be making that trip for nothing. I could ride out on Lightening and catch up with him, since he is in the wagon, and has only been out one day. Then he could get supplies from someplace closer, rather than going all the way into Dodge. I hear it is rather dangerous and a lawless town. It can‘t be very safe to travel through.”

  “Not any worse than traveling through Indian territory,” Nigel pointed out.

  “I don’t think it would be proper to open his letter, though,” I said, eyeing the letter as I spoke. “After all, it is his private correspondence, and he might get angry at us if he knew we opened it.”

  “He’s been getting a lot of letters from Dodge,” Emmet mentioned, picking up the letter, and turning it over in his fingers. “He never mentions who they are from, so I just figured it had something to do with his ordering the buggy.”

  “How many letters does it take to order a buggy?” I wanted to know.

  Emmet shrugged. “I don’t recall him ever going all the way to Dodge, when he got supplies, so it can’t be someone he met on his travels. It probably does have to do with the buggy.”

  “Which is why we should open it,” Darie suggested.

  Emmet handed me the letter. “You open it, Connie. Father left you in charge, and you would have a good excuse to open it.” I smiled, because Emmet always complained that I was left in charge, when he was the oldest son, and should be the one left in charge.

  I looked down at the letter in my hand. For some reason, it did not appear to look like a business letter. There was no business stamp, or seal, or anything indicating it came from a business concern. Maybe he was having a private person build the buggy, I thought.

  “Are you going to open it?” Emmet asked impatiently. “If I need to catch up to father’s wagon, I will need to get started as soon as possible.”

  Something about the letter bothered me. I noticed the scrawl looked rather feminine to me, all flowery and swirling, almost like Aunt Sally’s handwriting. Only I knew that Aunt Sally was not in Dodge.

  I vaguely remembered, rummaging under a bundle of letters in my father’s drawer, when I got the bottle of whisky. I had barely looked at them, because I was anxious to find the whisky, but then I started to wonder again why father would keep the letters in his own chest of drawers, instead of in his desk drawer?

  “Wait,” I said, jumping up from the table. “I’ll be right back.” I rushed up the stairs to my father’s room, and opened the drawer where I had retrieved the whisky. I picked up the bundle of letters, tied in a ribbon, and when I saw the handwriting on the other letters, I saw it was the same as the letter I held in my hand. Since there were several letters bundled together, it meant who ever was writing my father had been writing him for some time now, and he had saved the letters separate from his business dealings. I was afraid to look into one of the open letters, because now I felt this was more personal than just casual letters from friends or business acquaintances.

  Instead, I brought the bundle of letters back to the table.

  “You are right. This isn’t the first letter father has received from this person,” I informed Emmet, as I lay the bundle on the table, next to the unopened letter. “They look like they are all written in the same hand, so they have to be from the same person, but father has not mentioned having a long-time correspondence with anyone in Dodge.”

  “I suppose he doesn’t have to tell us everything,” Emmet defended.

  “Then we won’t open the letter, since it is probably not about the buggy,” I stated.

  Emmet tapped his finger against the unopened letter. “But why wouldn’t he tell us about the friend he has in Dodge, especially since he was planning on going there to purchase the buggy?”

  “Because I believe the friend is a woman. You can tell by the handwriting,” I reasoned.

  “Do you think he felt guilty writing to a woman, because of his love for our mother?” Nigel asked.

  “It’s been four years,” Darie stated. “But father said he could never love another woman, now that Mother was gone. Do you think he changed his mind, and just didn’t want to admit it to us?”

  “It couldn’t be as serious as that,” I insisted. “She is probably just someone he corresponds with in order to exchange news. Maybe she is a friend of Aunt Sally’s.”

  “There is only one way to find out,” Emmet stated, eyeing the bundle of opened letters. “The proof would be in the reading of the letters.”

  “But they are addressed to father. If he discovered we read them…”

  “How would he know? They are already opened. We won’t open the new letter, because after we read the others, we will probably know what kind of relationship father has with this woman.”

  “If it is a woman,” Darie added. “You can’t tell just by looking at the handwriting,” she insisted.

  “If you are so anxious to find out, then you read them,” I said to Emmet. “I will not put myself in the position to be blamed for it.”

  “Fine!” Emmet snapped. “Give them here!”

  He reached out and grabbed the bundle of letters. For a breathless moment, he just held them in his hand and looked down at them. He knew how angry father would be if he ever discovered we were going through his personal correspondence. Finally, he pulled the end of the white ribbon, releasing the bow, and took one of the letters out.

  I watched his face, as it first showed interest, next shock, and after that, anger. Whatever the letters said, seemed upsetting to Emmet. He took one letter after another and read them, then neatly put them back in a pile and tied the ribbon around them.

  All eyes were on Emmet, as his eyes roved around the table, gazing at each one of us before he spoke. “I cannot believe the deceit of our father,” he said between clenched teeth. “This past year, he has been writing to a woman in Doge, named Bertha. She was a mail-order bride, who was turned down because she brought her son with her, when she showed up to be married. That was ten years ago, when she was much younger and her son was only ten. Her intended husband claimed the boy was born out of wedlock, and would have nothing to do with her. She was forced to work as a Hurdy-Gurdy girl in order to support herself, and now, of all things, father plans to marry her! Her son still lives in Dodge with her, and father claims he can use an extra hand on the farm. Can you believe it? He has gone to Dodge to collect her and her son, along with the buggy he ordered. He ordered the buggy, so he would have a way to convey her back to the farm with him.”

  My mouth fell open in shock, and Darie bursted out in tears, and ran from the room. Nigel followed after her.

  “Why didn’t he tell us?” I breathed, unbelievingly.

  I always felt I was close to my father. He should have at least told me. I thought back, and realized he was acting nervous when we said our good-bye. He could have at least warned us, so we would be prepared when he returned. Then I remembered him saying something about bringing back a surprise other than the buggy. Bertha must have been the surprise he was speaking of.

  I thought of the last four years, and how I had taken over the place of my mother, trying to care for the family and help around the farm, while father spent most of his time secluded at the stream panning for gold, or at his desk going over finances. He had left it mostly up to me and Emmet to take care of things, and now for a year, he had been planning to bring strangers back to the farm, after we had done all the work to make it successful. He didn’t even consulted us on his decision.

  Maybe I wasn’t as close to my father as I thought I had been. Perhaps he had been so caught up in his loneliness after mother died, that only another woman could fill that emptiness for him, no matter what we did to help him get over his loss. I thought about how he was usually secluded, panning for gold and was always too t
ired when he returned home to have much interaction among the family. Nevertheless, the very thought that he was going to spring a new wife on us when he returned, made me hot with anger and disappointment. I suddenly lost my appetite. I also lost all respect for my father.

  “One more thing,” Emmet whispered into my ear. “I didn’t want to say it in front of Darie and Nigel. Father has promised you to her son, Clinton. He claims there is no one out here for you to marry, and you are past your prime. It seems he has also procured a husband for you, while getting a wife for himself.”

  “What?” I hissed, jumping to my feet. “How dare he do this to me… to us! He may be our father, but to just go behind our backs and plan our lives for us without so much as a howdy do, is beyond forgivable!”

  I could feel the sting of tears behind my eyes, and I too fled from the table, but instead of going to my room, I went out to the barn where Buttercup and Hope were. I threw myself in the straw beside the shocked animals and sobbed uncontrollably. The surprise father had been talking about, that he was going to bring me, apparently was more than just some material for a dress, I fumed inside. If he brought me material, it was probably intended to be for a wedding dress!

  At length, I cried myself out, but could not bring myself to go back to the house. Instead, I took a lantern from the hook on the barn wall, lit it, because by that time it was becoming dusk, and headed out across the meadow, to check on Muraco.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  My stumbling feet, propelled me across the grassy meadow towards the cave. I heard the quiet neigh of Muraco’s horse, as I approached. The moon cast ghostly shadows over the meadow, as the clouds passed before it. Then I was cautiously entering the cave. The lantern light gleamed through the darkness, until it caught against Muraco, with the blanket flung over him. His eyes were open, and he looked tense, with one hand upon the hilt of his knife, until he recognized who I was and started to relax.