Savage Winter

by Constance O'Banyon

  One of the men raised his hand in greeting and dismounted. “I have heard of the great, powerful Chief Windhawk—your many brave deeds have reached my ears. Why do you cross the land of the Sioux?”

  “My woman was taken by the white eyes—I could do no less than follow them to get her back.”

  “Did you meet the white eyes in battle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you reclaim your woman?”

  Windhawk hesitated. “Yes.”

  “It is good. Too many of the white eyes come to our lands. They search for the gold in our sacred mountains. I will not take your life this day. I have too much respect for the great Windhawk to slay you without even odds. Take your woman and go in peace. Do not again come to the land of the Sioux. Tell this to all your brothers to the south.”

  Joanna felt relief wash over her. Windhawk had faced his enemies unafraid and, in doing so, had won their respect. They weren’t going to harm him! She turned tear-bright eyes to Farley, and he shook his head.

  “I’ll be damned, he’s done ’er! Guess this’ll just be one more thing to add to the legend of Windhawk.”

  Windhawk’s voice reached them once more. “When I tell my people of this meeting with you, what name shall I call you by?”

  “I am called Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Sioux. There will be many in my lodge this night who will speak of my meeting with Windhawk.”

  The two men stared into each other’s eyes with shared admiration—then they clasped arms in farewell.

  “If all our red brothers were wise, Sitting Bull, they would bury their anger with one another and concentrate on their common enemy, the white eyes.”

  “That is true, Windhawk; it is a pity this will not happen in my lifetime or yours. Perhaps our children will be wiser than we are.”

  Windhawk nodded his head. “It will be too late then, my friend—the whites will already have overrun us.”

  “It is so,” Sitting Bull said, turning away to mount his horse. Windhawk watched the Sioux warriors ride away before he climbed back up the hill.

  When Windhawk saw that Joanna and Farley had not gone as he had ordered them to, his dark eyes showed his displeasure. Joanna was still sitting on the ground staring at him when he gathered up his horse’s reins and led him down the steep incline. Knowing it was not wise to anger Windhawk further, she got to her feet and followed him.

  That night was the first time Windhawk allowed them to light a campfire. Farley had killed two rabbits, and they were now roasting on a spit. Windhawk had gone off into the woods, and Joanna was glad to be relieved of his disturbing presence for a while. When he was near, she could feel the coldness he directed toward her.

  She sat down on a blanket, lost in her own misery. How long would this wall of silence exist between her and Windhawk? Sooner or later, she knew they would have to talk. She was determined Windhawk would come to her, because she certainly wasn’t going to go to him! She had done nothing wrong, and she wasn’t going to act guilty just to appease his anger.

  Gray Fox saw Joanna’s misery and wanted to go to her and speak words of comfort, but he dared not. He had never seen Windhawk in such a quiet mood before, and he wasn’t sure what to expect.

  Farley ambled over to Joanna and offered her a portion of the rabbit. “You haven’t eat much lately…we don’t want you getting sick, now do we?”

  Joanna took the meat and bit into it, more to please Farley than out of hunger. “What do you think will happen to me when we get home, Farley?”

  “I can’t say, Joanna. That depends on how mad Windhawk is.”

  “He has no reason to be angry. It is I who have suffered, not him.”

  “Well, I don’t rightly think he seed it just that way. You and me knowed you didn’t go running off, but he thinks you did.” Farley looked into her eyes. “Tell me, Joanna, just what did happen?”

  “I don’t know where to start. You know about the letter I received from Captain Thatcher?”

  “Yep, I knowed ’bout that.”

  “As it turned out, it wasn’t from Harland at all, but from my uncle. Stranger than that, Farley, my uncle is now married to Claudia Maxwell, and she helped him scheme to get me and Tag back.”

  Farley whistled through his teeth. “I don’t knowed your uncle, but seems he woulda been better off marrying up with a scorpion.”

  “You don’t know the worst of it. Claudia told Windhawk that I was carrying Harland’s baby, and he believed her! You know how spiteful Claudia is. She would do anything to hurt me. What makes me mad is that Windhawk took her word against mine—not once has he come to me and asked if it’s true.”

  Farley shook his head. “That woman can’t knowed the trouble she started.”

  “Oh, she knew all right, Farley. Claudia always knows what she’s doing.”

  “Well, her lie can’t last fer long. Windhawk will soon knowed that you ain’t gonna have no baby.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Farley. I knew I was going to have Windhawk’s baby before I was ever taken captive by the Boggs brothers.”

  Farley’s shrewd eyes fastened on Joanna’s face. “It ’pears to me the thing for you to do would be to tell Windhawk the truth.”

  “Why should I? He wouldn’t believe me, anyway. Besides, I don’t care what he thinks.” Joanna picked up a fallen leaf and ran a delicate finger across its smooth surface.

  “Have you heard about Red Bird, Farley?”

  Farley lowered his eyes but not before Joanna saw the truth in them. “One can hear lots of things…that don’t make them true. You oughta know that.”

  A shadow fell across Joanna’s face as someone walked between her and the campfire. She glanced up to see Windhawk standing over her.

  “I will speak to Joanna alone, old man,” he said.

  Farley gave Joanna an encouraging smile before he got up and ambled away.

  The time had come! she thought in a panic. Windhawk was ready to talk. She wasn’t aware that she was plucking at her skirt nervously.

  “Come,” he said. “We will walk.”

  Joanna suddenly realized she was still holding the uneaten portion of meat and laid it aside. Getting to her feet, she followed Windhawk into the woods. For some reason, she was feeling apprehensive. How could they solve all that had gone wrong between them? She was still hurt because he had brought Red Bird into the village and angry because he had believed the worst about her.

  Windhawk was some distance ahead of her, and Joanna had to run to catch up. There had been a time in the past when he had slowed his pace to match hers. Now it seemed he was unwilling to walk beside her.

  Windhawk came to a fallen log and stopped, motioning for her to be seated. Joanna automatically obeyed.

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence—Joanna refused to look up at Windhawk, but she felt his dark gaze burning into her and knew he was watching her closely.

  “I have heard it said, when one is guilty of dishonor, he cannot look into the face of the person he has shamed,” Windhawk accused.

  Joanna’s head snapped up, and she purposely allowed her eyes to fuse to his. “That must not be true, because you do not look away from me!” she retorted.

  His expression didn’t change. “Do you play games with me, Joanna?”

  “No, I am dead serious. Who would dare play games with the all-knowing Windhawk?”

  “You insult me…and I will not speak to you if you talk in the white man’s tongue.”

  “You will have to forgive me, oh mighty one—you see, that was the language I was born into. If it offends you, so be it!” she deliberately replied in English.

  He ignored her outburst, giving her the look of indulgence that one would bestow on a rebellious child. “First, I will ask you one thing. Do not speak falsely or I shall know it. Are you with child?”

  Joanna closed her eyes for just a moment, wishing she could blurt out that she was now carrying the child he had wanted so badly.

  Windhawk mistoo
k her silence for an admission of guilt. “I see. You do not have to answer my question. You are with child.”

  She raised her head proudly. “Yes, I am going to have a baby.”

  “Did you lay with the long knife?” This was said in a painful whisper.

  Joanna felt her anger climb. “Do you dare ask this of me after you took Red Bird to your mat?”

  His eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “Did you do this thing with the long knife because you wanted to punish me for sending Red Bird to my village?”

  Joanna was so angry she was shaking all over. “You can think what you will. I shall no longer talk to you. What I do not know is why you came after me in the first place. Why did you not just leave me alone?”

  He reached out and drew her up beside him. “I wonder that myself,” he hissed. His grip was like a vice, and his face was so near hers she could feel his breath on her cheek.

  He didn’t tell her that his heart had been ripped apart when he had heard that she was carrying another man’s child. He had been in torment the last few days, fearing to ask her about the long knife. Now she stood before him as if she had been the one betrayed.

  “I know the Blackfoot custom of cutting off the nose of a woman who has taken a lover over her husband. Perhaps you will want to have that done to me.”

  Windhawk shoved her away from him. “I will speak to you no more. To me…you are dead!”

  Joanna clenched her hands tightly together. “Does this mean I am free to go?”

  “Go from my sight. I no longer want to look upon your face.”

  Joanna straightened her back. “I’m sure Farley would…take me to the nearest army outpost.”

  Windhawk grabbed her arm. “You will go nowhere! I shall no longer look upon your face, but you will return with me to my village. You shall move into my mother’s lodge, but do not ever seek me out for any reason.”

  Joanna could feel a sob rising up inside her. “Why are you doing this to me, Windhawk?”

  “Leave me in peace,” he said, before stalking off into the night.

  Joanna bit her lip to keep from crying out to him. How easily he had cast love aside when he took Red Bird. Joanna knew she had no choice but to return to the Blackfoot village. She would be forced to watch Windhawk and Red Bird together.

  “I cannot bear this,” she said, leaning against the trunk of a tree. It was clear that Windhawk hated the sight of her. Had his love for the Indian woman wiped out the love they had shared?

  “I will never allow Windhawk or anyone else to see my pain,” she moaned. At that moment, she felt the child within her body move, and it brought tears to her eyes. Poor little baby, she thought; your father doesn’t want me, and he will not claim you, either.

  Windhawk stood overlooking the valley they would descend into the next day. He felt an urgency to reach his village so he could be rid of Joanna. He wanted to put some distance between them. Even now, he felt a weakness within him. He wanted to go to her and take her in his arms, to feel the silken texture of her skin. Joanna had a hold on his heart that even her deceitfulness couldn’t loosen. She had as much as admitted that she was going to have the long knife’s baby. He closed his eyes, wishing he had driven his knife into the white man when he had the chance.

  He would have sworn that Joanna had loved him! Could he have been so mistaken? He was in no mood to face her again tonight. He needed some time to think.

  Joanna, Joanna, he thought in agony. Why do I still want you? He raised his face to the star-bright night. Why can I not let you go?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Farley noticed Joanna was unusually quiet when she returned to camp. He watched her curl up on her blanket and turn away from the fire.

  The old man got up and kicked dirt on the campfire. Spreading his blanket out, he sat down on it and gazed up at the stars. He loved Joanna and didn’t like seeing her so unhappy. He was beginning to think it would have been better if Windhawk hadn’t found her.

  Farley thought of what his life had been like before Joanna and Tag had come into it. He had only a vague memory of his own youth. He had lived in a small coastal town in New Jersey with his mother and stepfather. Farley had never known his own father and had never cared much for his stepfather. He had been twelve when his mother had died. The day after her death, he had decided he would light out on his own. He had always had a hankering for the wilderness, so he had headed West.

  He grew up fast in the Indian territory, and had soon learned, if he were going to survive, that he would have to be smarter than the Indians. That was when he decided that he would make the Indians believe he was crazy, knowing they would never harm anyone they thought touched by the spirits. More than once he had saved his life by acting the fool. Once he had convinced the Indians he was touched in the head, he had been allowed to move freely over their land. He had made a good living by trapping on Indian land, since he was allowed to go to places that were denied to the other trappers.

  Farley had lived a solitary life until his twenty-ninth year. That was when he had taken She Who Sings as his wife. She had been a young Blackfoot maiden, and they had been happy together for twenty years. They had had no children.

  After She Who Sings had died, Farley wandered the wilderness, trapping just enough to get by. His only thought had been to survive. That had changed after Joanna and Tag came into his life. He remembered the first time he had seen Joanna and Tag. They had been traveling with a wagon train, and had seemed to stand out among the other travelers. He remembered thinking that day that he had never seen anyone as fair as Joanna James. When he came to know her, he admired her goodness and spirit. He stayed around the Blackfoot village just to be near her and Tag, sort of an unofficial grandfather.

  Farley liked and admired the young chief of the Bloods, but, like everyone else, he knew no one dared cross Windhawk. Farley had once been on the receiving end of Windhawk’s anger, and he knew that had it not been for Joanna’s intervention that day he would now be walking among the spirits.

  He couldn’t believe Windhawk would ever take Red Bird for his wife. Surely, deep down, he would know that Joanna must know that, too. He didn’t know how this thing would turn out between Joanna and Windhawk, but he would just hang around and find out. He had gone against Windhawk once before for Joanna’s sake and, if he had to, he would do it again.

  Joanna slept fretfully that night. Each time she awoke, she noticed that Windhawk wasn’t lying on his blanket. He didn’t return to camp all night, and she wondered where he could be. She had no way of knowing that he was spending a sleepless night, agonizing over their relationship.

  Before sunrise the next morning, when they were ready to move out, Windhawk suddenly appeared. He spoke to no one as he waited for them to mount their horses.

  Farley couldn’t help but notice that not once did Windhawk look in Joanna’s direction. There was bad trouble between them, the old trapper reckoned. He caught Gray Fox’s eye and realized that the young warrior realized it also.

  The scenery was becoming more familiar to Joanna, and she knew they were nearing the Blackfoot village. She dreaded this homecoming more than she had realized. Windhawk had told her she would be staying with his mother. Did that mean Red Bird had already moved into his lodge?

  Glancing over at Windhawk, she saw the scowl on his face. She would live with Sun Woman and Morning Song until her baby was born. She would look the other way whenever Windhawk passed by with his new wife, but she wouldn’t spend the rest of her days as a forgotten woman in the Blackfoot village. As soon as her baby was born, she would decide what would be the best thing for her to do.

  The only happy part of her return would be seeing Tag again, she thought. She had no idea how Windhawk’s mother and sister would feel about her homecoming. Would they believe that she had run away, as Windhawk did?

  When they topped a hill, Joanna pulled Fosset to a halt and gazed down upon the mighty Missouri River that stretched on as far as the eye could see. Thr
ough the woods she could see the village nestled on the bank of the river. There was no joy in her heart that she had come home as she nudged her horse forward to descend the hill.

  Windhawk rode just ahead of Joanna. She noticed how stiff and rigid he held his back. He looked so magnificent with his black hair rippling in the wind.

  Her heart cried out at the injustice of his accusations. He hadn’t wanted to hear anything she had to tell him. In believing Claudia’s lies, he had justified his reasons for taking Red Bird. Not that he needed any justification; he was free to take as many wives as he chose under Blackfoot law. He could fill his lodge with a dozen women, she thought, but she would not be one of them!

  Joanna tried not to remember the love they had once shared. She battled within herself to push aside the memory of how she had felt when he touched her. His declarations of love had all been a farce. When he had sworn eternal love to her and told her he would never take another woman as his wife, he had only been trying to appease her. Or perhaps he had meant it at the time. She would fight within herself to be rid of this deep longing she felt to return to the life they had once shared. In time, she would forget that she had ever been Windhawk’s woman, but right now all she could think of was how much she loved him.

  She watched Windhawk enter the river at a shallow spot, and she moved forward. No, she reminded herself honestly, she could never forget Windhawk. The baby she carried would be a constant reminder of the love she and Windhawk had shared a lifetime ago.

  Sun Woman welcomed her into her tipi with open arms. When she learned that Joanna was having a baby, she could hardly contain her joy and rushed about the village telling everyone she would soon be a grandmother.

  Joanna had been back in the Blackfoot village for three weeks. She hadn’t seen Windhawk since the first day they had come home. Sun Woman told her that he had rejoined his warriors in the buffalo hunt. Tag had not yet returned to the village, and Joanna was anxious to see him.

  No one bothered to ask Joanna whether she had run away on the night she disappeared. The Blackfoot always accepted people for what they were and rarely pried into others’ private affairs.