She walked to the bedroom window and stared out across the wide, barren land to the north. In the distance she could see the scattering of tipis and log houses, a couple of little frame homes. Although she could not see it from here, she knew that only a few miles away was the church… and the school… and Miss Gibbons. She already loved the woman for the way she had stood up to Seth that day at the agency.
She was sure no prettier woman existed on the face of the earth, perhaps none kinder. Since her days at the orphanage and then being literally sold off to Seth Bridges, she had never known one person whom she felt she could trust, one person who might really care, until watching Miss Gibbons the other day. For the first time since becoming the property of Seth Bridges, she saw a ray of hope. Until now, there had been no one to whom she could turn if she decided to run away. Not even Reverend Phillips had been brave enough to talk to Seth the way Miss Gibbons had talked to him. The trouble was, she knew how mean Seth could be. She did not want to visit the man’s wrath on poor Miss Gibbons. She could not just run off with Katy and expect the woman to gladly take them in with Seth right on their heels, probably with a shotgun.
She had to think this through carefully. She had no particular plans yet. All she had was that glimmer of hope, and it stirred something in her, a bit more courage, even a hint of pride, something she had not felt in a long time. How she wished she could be as pure and beautiful and educated and well-dressed as Miss Gibbons. Maybe if the woman knew about her and Seth, she would be shocked and want nothing to do with her… but then, if she could get Katy to safety, find a way to let her sister be raised by a woman like Miss Gibbons, she would have at least saved Katy. It didn’t much matter what happened to her anymore. She was soiled goods. But Katy was still good and pure and innocent. There was a chance for her to lead a normal life.
She saw Seth coming then, detested the sight of him. He slouched in the saddle, riding a sagging gray mare he had abused for years by not properly caring for the poor horse. She knew without seeing him close up that he had probably not slept more than three hours last night and would not have taken the time to shave or clean up this morning before heading home. If she was lucky, he would be too tired to give her the time of day, and too broke to buy much whiskey. Where he got it, she was not sure; but she was sure that a soldier or soldiers were part of the plan, probably being paid by whiskey smugglers to keep quiet and let them slip through so they could keep the Indians drunk and ignorant. She felt very sorry for the Indians sometimes, even though most of them frightened her. This land had been theirs, after all, once. As far as she was concerned, they could keep it. She would gladly move on to more civilized places, if only she could find the money and the means.
Someday that would happen. She already had some money saved, money she stole from Seth’s pockets at times he was in a drunken sleep. She had it hidden in a secret place in the corn crib, a spot even Katy didn’t know about yet. She would keep adding to it as much as she dared until she had enough to run away with Katy.
She glanced down to see Katy scurrying off to the chicken house. The girl had apparently heard or seen Seth coming and decided to stay out of sight. How much longer she could keep Seth from setting his hands on Katy, Lucille was not sure. If he did touch her sister, she would have to kill him after all and suffer the consequences. Maybe there would be a way for Miss Gibbons to help her before that happened.
She quickly ran her fingers over the dust of the windowsill and rubbed it onto her face. The last thing she wanted was to look pretty for Seth Bridges. She wore a faded blue dress that was too big for her, her hair pulled back into the plain bun. She hurried downstairs to the kitchen to appear busy, deciding to go ahead and start working on a stew for supper, even though it was only midmorning. The longer it simmered, the better it tasted; and the better meal she served the better mood Seth would be in. She began peeling potatoes, and minutes later she heard Seth outside shouting to Katy that she had better come out from where she was hiding and tend to his horse, or he would give her extra chores.
“Goddamned lazy brat,” he muttered as he came through the back door. “You’d better straighten out that little bitch of a sister, Lucy, or I’ll tan her bare bottom till she can’t sit down.”
“She’s feeding the chickens,” Lucille answered without turning around. “She’s just doing the chores she’s supposed to do. She’ll take care of the horse. Don’t worry about it. Go on upstairs and get some sleep.” She shivered when she felt the man move up closer behind her. He moved an arm around her middle from behind.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Get me out of your hair for a while?” He yanked at the bun at her neck, and with one painful jerk he tore out most of the pins and the ribbon that held it. “You know I hate it when you wear your hair like this!”
Lucille stood rigid refusing to turn around. “It’s hot. It feels better away from my face. Let go of me, Seth. Can’t you see I’m trying to peel potatoes? Do you want a good supper when you get up later? You must have ridden most of the night if you came all the way from Fort Yates.”
He moved a hand over her breasts before finally releasing her. “I’ll want more than a good supper.” He chuckled, then walked over to the wood stove to pour some hot coffee from a blue-speckled metal pot into a tin cup. “I made some plans for you, girl, somethin’ that ought to please you.”
The remark brought a tingling alarm to her blood, and she stopped peeling and turned to face him. “What plans?”
He grinned, showing teeth stained dark from too much chewing tobacco. Some of those teeth were missing. “You get to go to a dance at the fort. What do you think of that?”
Lucille knew the man too well to think he was allowing such a thing so that she could have a nice time. “Why?” she asked.
“Why!” He wiped at his nose with his shirtsleeve. “Now, that’s a pretty stupid question! I figured you’d like to go, that’s all. Wouldn’t you like to get all prettied up and go dance with some of them nice young soldiers? Wouldn’t you like a good time away from here? There will even be a beef roast. You won’t have to cook—just eat and enjoy. Don’t that sound nice?”
Lucille watched his filmy gray eyes warily. “What’s the real reason, Seth?”
He slugged down the rest of his coffee and slammed the cup on the table. “I told you the reason! I even fixed you up with a date, that fine, handsome Sergeant Desmond. He was gonna ask that bitch of a schoolteacher, but the stuck-up, prissy snob turned him down. When I told him I figured you was old enough to go to a dance with a man, he lit up like a full moon and said he’d much rather take you anyway, says you’re lots prettier than that old maid Gibbons. Now, don’t that make you feel good? Wouldn’t it be fun goin’ to a dance all prettied up, bein’ escorted by a sergeant in the United States Army?”
Lucille knew Seth too well to think that was all there was to it, and no man in his right mind would think she was prettier than Miss Gibbons! Besides, she was not terribly fond of Sergeant Desmond. She had met him a few times when he and Seth talked whenever they ran into each other. She didn’t like the looks Desmond gave her, and she suspected he and Seth were in some kind of deal together involving whiskey smuggling. She could understand why Miss Gibbons had turned him down. She was much too good for the likes of Jubal Desmond. But I’m not, she thought.
There was something Seth was not telling her, but to question him was to ask for trouble. She forced a smile. “That sounds real nice, Seth, but please let me take Katy. She would love going to something like that. If the sergeant is a man of honor and respect, he won’t mind my bringing my sister.” She prayed inwardly he would agree. Her biggest fear was that the dance was just a ploy to get her away so that he could force himself on Katy while she was gone.
Seth scowled, and for a moment Lucille thought he would refuse her request in a explosion of curses, but then he only shrugged. “Sure, you can take her. Just make sure she understands that she ain’t to dance w
ith any of the soldiers. She’s too young. And if the sergeant wants to be alone with you a time or two, tell Katy to mind her business. She can help with servin’ the food or somethin’. I’ll be there, too, so if either one of you messes with another man, or if I see you talkin’ to that Miss Gibbons, you’ll suffer for it, understand?”
Lucille turned back to the potatoes, breathing a sigh of relief that at least Katy would not be left behind alone with Seth. “I thought you said Miss Gibbons wouldn’t be there.”
“I said she turned down the sergeant’s invitation. That don’t mean she won’t be there with somebody else. I expect there’s plenty of soldiers who’d like to get under that woman’s skirts and get a feel of her. You can bet somebody else will ask her.”
Lucille gripped a potato tightly in her hand hating the way the man had of making everything ugly. “When is the dance?” she asked.
“This comin’ Saturday. You’ve got that one pretty yellow dress that fits you good. You wear that. It shows your shape real nice. And wear your hair down long.” Seth walked toward the back stairs. “I’m goin’ to bed. Wake me when supper’s ready.”
“I will.” Lucille listened to him climb the stairs. She looked down at the knife in her hand, thinking how easy it would be to sink it into his heart while he slept; but if he awoke and caught her, he would most likely wrest the knife from her and put scars on her that would never go away. Worse, he would vent his wrath on Katy. No. There would be a better way. Someday she would figure out what it was.
She raised her head and watched out the window. Katy had untied the gray mare and was leading it to the barn. She wondered about the dance. Why did Seth care that she might want to go to something like that? Why had he even set her up with the sergeant? There was more to this than Seth suddenly allowing to let her go out and have a good time. Was he just trying to show others what a “considerate” father he was, showing off his lovely, young daughter? Was he considering getting someone else interested in her so he could marry her off and have Katy all to himself? And why the sergeant? There were lots of other soldiers at the fort who would probably love to have a date for the dance, men much younger than Jubal Desmond.
She returned to peeling potatoes, her mind racing with questions that she knew would not get answered until the night of the dance. She was not sure if she should be happy about going… or if there was some unknown reason she should dread the occasion.
Otter Woman awoke, taking a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the moonlight that filtered into Black Hawk’s tipi through the opening at the top. Because of the heat, all cooking was done outside, so no fire had been built inside the tipi. She lay quietly, finally making out Black Hawk sitting and staring at his sleeping son. As far as she could tell Black Hawk was still naked.
Otter Woman smiled at the memory of their reunion. She had ridden out here in the hills to find Black Hawk again, for she had not been with him since the Sun Dance, and she had felt a fire in her loins that only he could quench. She thought of him as a sturdy bull buffalo. He pleased her greatly. She, in turn, tried to please him, and she was sure she had done a good job of it earlier. Still, she had sensed something different about him. The man was always moody and thoughtful, but it seemed now that something more than his usual restlessness over the fate of his people was bothering him. He had never told her about the vision he had had at the Sun Dance, but it had changed him somehow, and she wished it had never happened.
She sat up, throwing the blanket away from her naked body and moving to where Black Hawk sat, running her hands over his bare back, then reaching around his neck from behind and pressing her breasts against his back while she rubbed at his nipples. “What is it that makes you sit awake in the night, my lover?” she asked.
He grasped her wrists and pushed backward, forcing her away from him. “I have much to think about.”
Otter Woman pouted, moving to lie back down on the bed of robes where earlier the man had made love to her in wild passion, filling her almost painfully. She had seen something in his eyes then, a strange anger. It almost seemed to be directed at her, yet she knew that it was not. He wanted her, yet by the look in his eyes, she felt as though he saw someone else stretched out naked beneath him. “Is it a woman who disturbs your thoughts?” she asked.
Black Hawk sighed deeply. “You would not understand.”
“I understand everything about you, Black Hawk. Something has taken you away in spirit. Is it the vision you had at the Sun Dance?”
Black Hawk could not answer. He knew how possessive Otter Woman could be, even though they did not love each other and were not man and wife. She considered him her bull, someone who could please her whenever she had the need; and he did not mind. She served a purpose, and when she came to him, she scrubbed his clothes and cooked for him and Little Fox. Surely she knew that perhaps one day he might want to marry again, and if he did, it would not be her. If he could tell her that the woman who ate at his insides was another Sioux woman, he would not worry so much about her reaction; but to have it be a white woman! He was himself ashamed and embarrassed at his thoughts, yet he knew that the schoolteacher, Miss Gibbons, that feisty, fast-talking, yellow-haired blue-eyed vision, was the one Night Hunter had told him would help him someday.
When you feel you have found this woman, do not shun her, in spite of how you feel about the wicasa ska, the man had told him. Only your own heart can tell you what you must do, and only your heart will know when you have found this woman… You will know, Black Hawk, and you will not be able to turn away from her.
But he had turned away from her. He had shunned her. When he saw her that day at Many Birds’s puberty ritual, he had been so stunned that it angered him to know that the woman might have some kind of power over him. Was the Great Spirit angry with him for chasing the woman away? And how on earth could a white woman help him in any way?
“You know I cannot tell you of my vision,” he answered Otter Woman.
Otter Woman felt a hot jealousy forming in her soul. Something… or someone… had taken Black Hawk from her. This time when she had come to him, it had been of her own accord not because he had sent for her like all the times before. This time it seemed he would not have cared if she did not come at all, yet once she offered herself to him, he had taken her gladly, and fiercely; almost as though he thought that through her he could forget someone else. “Who is she?” she asked him. “There is another woman in your heart. I can feel it, Black Hawk.”
“It is not what you think. It is not anyone you know.”
Otter Woman thought a moment, remembering something Anita’s brother, Broken Knife, had told her not so many nights ago. Broken Knife was another man she often visited to bestow sexual favors in return for food and trinkets; but Black Hawk was her favorite. He was built the biggest and strongest, and to grant him his pleasure was an honor. She began to wonder if the woman who was torturing Black Hawk’s soul was the white woman Broken Knife had told her about.
Anita was an assistant to the new teacher who had come to the reservation, a woman with golden hair and pretty blue eyes, Broken Knife said. She had not seen this woman yet, but Black Hawk had seen her, according to Broken Knife. He said that when Anita visited him recently, she had laughed about how Black Hawk had tried to chase the white woman away from his sister’s puberty ritual. The woman had apparently talked right back to him and had shown no fear. She had said she would leave out of respect, but not because Black Hawk frightened her, even though Black Hawk had grabbed her arm and hurt her. According to what Broken Knife said, Anita had told him that the white woman had daringly told Black Hawk they would meet again, that there was something that must be settled between them.
Surely it was not the white schoolteacher who plagued Black Hawk’s thoughts! It was not like him to give a moment’s consideration to someone like that. She watched him as he leaned over Little Fox and touched his hair for a moment.
“My only son,” he said
softly. He looked over at Otter Woman. “Perhaps it is wrong for me to continue the fight. Perhaps it will destroy my son’s chance for survival in this new way we must live. Perhaps he should have some of the white man’s schooling.”
“What!” Otter Woman could hardly believe her ears. “I have never heard you talk this way before, Black Hawk! What is it that has made you so weak? Is it the white woman? That new schoolteacher? I heard through Broken Knife that she has turned you into a cowering little rabbit.”
In a split second he was on her, grasping her arms painfully and pushing her back onto the bed of robes. “No one calls me a rabbit!” he growled. “What do you know of any of it? And how is it you were talking to Broken Knife? I think perhaps while you were talking, he was planting himself between your legs to feed your craving to have a man inside of you!”
She spit at him. “Maybe he was! But it was because you had not sent for me like you always have before! I get lonely, Black Hawk, especially for you! That is why I finally came here on my own!”
He remained straddled over her legs and jerked her to a sitting position. “From this moment, you will not talk with others about me or my private visions or feelings or anything I have done or said, or of things you know nothing about!”
Otter Woman’s breath came in heavy pants, a mixture of fear and desire. “It is her, is it not? The white schoolteacher has somehow touched you. Was she a part of your vision, Black Hawk?”
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