Full Circle

by Rosanne Bittner

  Seth’s smile faded. He glanced only briefly at Desmond, then back to Teller. “Who the hell told you a lie like that?”

  “I am not supposed to reveal the source. Please let us pass peacefully. Don’t make us use force.”

  Seth shrugged and stepped aside. “I don’t know who told you I’m a whiskey runner, but they’re a goddamn liar! You won’t find nothin’ here.”

  The soldiers came inside, and Teller began directing them to begin the search. Desmond came through last, and he quickly shoved a note into Seth’s hand when the others were not looking. Seth eyed the rest of them, realizing they were involved in their task, then read the note. Keep your mouth shut, and remember, we hardly know each other. I’ve taken your daughter out a couple of times, that’s all. We’ll talk later. Seth shoved the note into his pocket.

  “Mr. Bridges!” Teller shouted in typical commander voice. “Come here, please!”

  A scowling Seth walked into the parlor. Teller was standing beside his favorite, sagging chair, holding a half full bottle of whiskey in his hand. “Where did you get this?”

  Seth rubbed at his lips. In his rush, he had forgotten about the one bottle he’d been drinking from. “Well, sir, I do manage to get a bottle or two once in awhile, just for my own purposes. I know it’s against reservation rules, but hell, it’s just one bottle and, I don’t never associate with the damn Indians. I sure as hell don’t sell them whiskey. If I did, I’d have to have a lot more than one little bottle now, wouldn’t I?”

  “And where did you get this?”

  Seth ran a hand through his hair. “Hell, Lieutenant, can’t one white man on this whole damn reservation have himself a private little bottle of whiskey without havin’ to say where it come from? I ain’t no damn dealer. Besides, I don’t ask names. When I run into a peddler, I just buy me a bottle and leave.”

  Lucille and Katy peeked around the corner. The lieutenant caught sight of them. Both girls looked tired and unwashed. Like Evelyn Gibbons and Janine and Reverend Phillips and the rest of them, he would enjoy catching Seth Bridges doing something illegal so that he could have the man arrested and get his daughters out of the house. “Keep up the search, men!” he ordered. “Hit every room!”

  Teller walked closer to Seth, posing threateningly. “Mr. Bridges, things will go easier on you if you just tell us the truth! Our source says you met a riverboat a week ago, took them a load of corn. You just told me you haven’t been picking your corn or delivering it anywhere because of the cholera epidemic. Why did you lie to me, Mr. Bridges, and what did you get in return for that corn?”

  Seth swallowed, scrambling to think. Who had seen him? Who would report him? Desmond didn’t even know about his last deal, didn’t know his bags of feed were stuffed with whiskey bottles. Besides, Desmond would never tell on him. He could get in too much trouble himself. If it was some other Army man, he would have stopped him right away and searched his wagon. He scratched his head in wonder and sighed, putting on a look of resignation and apology.

  “Look, Lieutenant Teller, I lied because I figured Colonel Gere would be angry if he knew I took some corn to that river-boat, what with everybody supposed to be under quarantine and all. I needed the money, and I needed feed for my animals. That’s all I got for the corn. Some sacks of feed, a little money. Hell, you know a man can’t just let his corn rot in the fields. When there’s some ready to be picked, it’s got to be picked, so me and the girls here, we picked a wagonload and I took it to the river to see if I could sell it. Now I’ll admit that while I was there, I talked the riverboat captain into sellin’ me a bottle of whiskey. He didn’t want to do it, on account of I live on an Indian reservation, but he finally let me have one bottle.” He put on a show of indignation. “Just one bottle!” he said, shaking his finger. “You gonna arrest me for that? I’ve got aches and pains, Lieutenant, and the whiskey helps ease them. They’re the reason I have the girls do so much of my work for me. I don’t like makin’ them work so hard, but this old body just don’t cooperate so much anymore. The whiskey makes me feel better. You gonna arrest a man for havin’ one bottle of whiskey around for medicinal purposes?”

  Teller glared at him, hating the man for having such a ready answer. Unless he could find more whiskey, there was nothing he could do but believe the old bastard and let him go. He glanced at Lucille and Katy. “That true, girls? Is that the only bottle of whiskey around here? You know anything about Seth here dealing in whiskey?”

  “No,” Katy answered honestly. “He gets whiskey sometimes, but I never saw him sell any to Indians. It’s just for him.”

  Lucille gave her a nudge, afraid in her innocent honesty she would say too much. She glanced at Seth, caught the warning in his ugly eyes. “We’ve never seen more than one or two bottles of whiskey around at a time. Seth just drinks it for aches and pains, sir.” She confirmed Seth’s story to the lieutenant.

  Teller sighed, glancing from Lucille to Seth. He walked past them then and shouted up the stairs. “Anything up there?”

  “No, sir,” someone yelled down to him.

  “Check the mattresses! Make sure they haven’t been slit open to hide something!”

  Lucille and Seth glared at each other. Lucille’s plan becoming more concrete as she saw the worry in Seth’s eyes that he would be found out. The search went on for several more minutes. It included cupboards and closets, and produced nothing. Teller ordered a couple of his men to check the barn and corn crib, then shouted for Sergeant Desmond to come over to where he stood. Desmond quickly obeyed, giving Seth a warning look. “Yes, sir,” he answered.

  Teller looked from Seth to the sergeant. “Our source, Sergeant Desmond, implied that you have also been involved in whiskey running, in the form of allowing whiskey traders to pass through certain checkpoints. We are also told it is possible you are in collaboration with Mr. Bridges here in dealing with whiskey smugglers.”

  Desmond reddened with guilt, but he pretended his color rose from being offended. “That’s an out-and-out lie! Who is telling you these things, Sir! I have a right to know!”

  “How well do you know Mr. Bridges, Sergeant?”

  Desmond’s hands moved into fists. “Only as well as everybody else knows him, sir. You know he sells corn at the fort, sometimes plays poker with some of the men. You also know that I have seen his daughter a couple of times. You yourself saw me with Lucille at the dance, and I took her to the circus. Am I to be punished for being attracted to the man’s daughter? If that is so, sir, then every man at the fort should be punished! Lucille is a very lovely young woman.”

  Teller glanced at Lucille. He did not miss the contempt in her eyes as she stared at Desmond. No woman who had just been complimented would look at a man that way. “That true, Lucille? Is Sergeant Desmond just a casual acquaintance? Is there anything serious between you and him, or any problems? Do you know anything about Seth here having other dealings with the sergeant?”

  Lucille’s confidence in having something on both Seth and Desmond grew stronger. She folded her arms and faced the lieutenant. “I know of nothing going on between my father and the sergeant, Lieutenant. Yes, I did go with Sergeant Desmond to the dance, and to the circus. That’s all there is to it. There is no reason for the sergeant to get in trouble over that.”

  Katy looked up at her sister. She knew Desmond had been visiting, doing bad things to Lucille, but she also knew that if Lucille said they should not tell, then she had better not. She loved Lucille for the sacrifices she made to protect her, but she was not sure how much longer she could go on letting her do it and not sure what she could do to stop it.

  The lieutenant scowled in disappointment. “All of you wait right here!” He walked through the kitchen, where two of his men were still rummaging through cupboards and looking inside every cavity and cranny. The lieutenant then went outside and headed for the barn.

  Jubal, Seth, and the two girls all glared at one another, each wanting to keep
the secret for different reasons. Lucille’s reason was foremost pure shame at having anyone know what Jubal Desmond had been doing to her, and secondly because she was afraid of what the consequences would be if she told. Keeping quiet could be an advantage for her, and the thought gave her courage. A smirk came across her face as she faced Seth, and she held her chin a little higher. Neither Jubal nor Seth could say anything at the moment because of the presence of other soldiers.

  After several minutes Teller came back inside, sighing as he faced Jubal and Seth. “There is nothing out there but some sacks of feed. I guess I owe you both an apology.”

  “I told you I didn’t have no big stash of liquor,” Seth told the man. “You had no right comin’ in here and searchin’ my personal possessions and scarin’ my girls like you did! I ought to—”

  “You ought to treat your daughters a little better, Mr. Bridges, and clean this place up! You ought to do a better job of running this farm! I will remind you that you’re living on government property! If you want to continue the privilege, you’d better do a little more work around here and show you’re taking care of the place; and no more whiskey, not even for personal use! It’s forbidden. That’s the law, Mr. Bridges, and if I had found even one extra bottle, I would have you taken to jail!” He turned and shouted for one of his men to dump out the remaining whiskey in the bottle they had found.

  “You can’t—”

  “Yes, I can, Mr. Bridges! And considering the mess this place is already in, I don’t think my men did much damage.” He moved his gaze to Desmond. “Sergeant, my apologies, although I do think Lucille here is a bit young for a thirty-two-year-old man. If you don’t want to be investigated again, I suggest you stay away from Mr. Bridges and his family, and I think you could be doing a better job of routing out the peddlers.” He turned and tipped his hat to the girls. “Good day, ladies.” He walked past Seth and out the front door, ordering his men to follow.

  After they were all out of the house, Jubal glanced once more at Seth. “We have something to settle!”

  “I never said anything! Why in hell would I do that and get myself in trouble!”

  Jubal glanced at the girls. “You two been talking to the wrong people?”

  “Hell, they ain’t that stupid!” Seth put in for them. “They know what I’d do to them if they did somethin’ like that. Besides, they’ve been right here with me since the cholera thing. The lieutenant said somebody saw me at the riverboat. The girls wasn’t even with me. It had to be somebody else.”

  Their eyes turned to slivers of hatred when they both thought the same thing at the same time. “Black Hawk,” Seth sneered. “Either that, or somehow that damn bitch of a schoolteacher has somethin’ to do with this. She’d pull any trick to get her hands on the girls, goddamn troublemaker!”

  “I’ll see what I can find out. You just make sure Lucille keeps quiet about my coming here. I’ve got to get out there before they suspect we’ve both been lying.”

  Desmond quickly left, and Seth turned to Lucille. “It’s damn good they didn’t go snoopin’ inside them feed bags.”

  “Why?” Katy asked innocently.

  Seth leaned closer, leering at her. “Because that’s where the whiskey’s hid, you stupid brat!” He poked a finger into one of her developing breasts. “And you’ll keep quiet about it, or it won’t be Lucille sharin’ my bed!”

  Katy jerked back, her eyes tearing from shame.

  “You leave her alone,” Lucille instructed the man, her voice low and cold.

  Seth straightened, eyeing her carefully. “You did good,” he told her, deciding it might be best to appease her for the moment. “You and your sister both. I’d have beat the hell out of you both if you had said anything. You just remember, if you talk and I’m arrested or the sergeant gets in trouble, I’ll by God come back, and I’ll make you both pay!” He marched into the parlor to watch out the window and make sure all the soldiers left before he hollered for Lucille to get him one of the bottles of whiskey hidden under the kitchen floorboard.

  Lucille obeyed, grinning to herself as she did so. “We’ll see who pays,” she muttered.

  Evelyn paced in front of her cabin. It was nearly dark, and Reverend Phillips had just returned from the agency with word about the raid on Seth Bridges’s farm. She had insisted on talking outside so that Little Fox could not hear their conversation. What the reverend had told her left her angry and frustrated.

  “Black Hawk would not lie,” she told Phillips. She stopped and faced the man. “He would not lie!” she repeated.

  “He did not actually see any whiskey loaded into the wagon, Miss Gibbons. He only guessed.”

  “Not that day, but he has seen Seth Bridges dealing with whiskey traders before this, and maybe Sergeant Desmond also! He knew no one would believe him directly. That’s why he asked me to tell you and have you tell the colonel without revealing your source.”

  “And now I feel like a fool!” Phillips answered angrily. “The colonel pressed me to tell him who told us this in the first place. I felt it was my responsibility to do so.”

  Evelyn’s eyes widened. “You told him it was Black Hawk?”

  “I did. He was very upset to know that. The whole army knows Black Hawk hates Sergeant Desmond. The colonel said that if he had known, he would never have ordered the search of Seth Bridges’s house.”

  “Why would Black Hawk have implicated Bridges in addition to the sergeant? There is no history between Black Hawk and Bridges. He had no personal reason for doing that.”

  The reverend ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. “I don’t know the reason for that. I only know that the colonel told me that a few months ago Desmond and his men found a camp along the reservation’s border where there were the remains of a destroyed wagon and hundreds of smashed whiskey bottles. Desmond claims Black Hawk all but admitted to him later that he had attacked a camp of whiskey peddlers. Maybe Seth Bridges was with them. The point is, routing out whiskey peddlers is a job for the soldiers, not the Indians. If Black Hawk wants a job like that, let him join the Indian police. To just do it on his own will only get him in trouble. If a man gets killed, he’ll be accused of murder and hanged, no matter how right he was to do what he did. You had better warn him when he comes back for Little Fox.”

  Evelyn felt the frustration of knowing she was right and being unable to do anything about it. “Maybe when Sergeant Desmond found that destroyed whiskey wagon, he was more upset that his plans to let it through had been foiled than with the fact that an Indian had done what he was supposed to be doing. I still think the sergeant is involved in allowing whiskey onto the reservation, just as Black Hawk says he is.”

  Phillips sighed, putting his hands on his hips. “We could go on like this the rest of the night, and it wouldn’t solve anything. The point is, they never found any proof of any wrongdoing. You have got to stick to your teaching, Miss Gibbons, and stay out of Army and agency affairs. You also have to stop interfering with Seth Bridges. The man can’t be trusted.” He stepped closer. “Most of all, you have to stop being involved with Black Hawk. When he comes for Little Fox, let him take the boy and go. You’re putting yourself in a bad situation, linking yourself with a renegade. I worry it will cost you your job, maybe more than that. It could cost you your reputation, Miss Gibbons, this infatuation with civilizing a renegade Indian who probably has only one thing in mind when he is around you. Someday—”

  “Stop it!” Evelyn’s eyes teared. “I have done nothing wrong. I am trying to do what’s right, what I came here for! Aren’t we all here to help the Sioux? To guide them toward learning new ways so that they can assimilate into white society? I know of only one way to do that, and if the agency and the Mission Services don’t like my methods and I lose their support, then I will find another way to go on! As far as Black Hawk, he is not an ignorant, uncivilized renegade. He speaks very good English and is quite intelligent, and, I might add, very talented. I
have seen some of the things he has painted, and they are exquisite enough to sell. If he has been raiding whiskey smugglers, it is because he knows what liquor does to his people and he wants to keep it off the reservation. He has every right to do that! If he seems the renegade, it is because he is still hurting from Wounded Knee. He saw his wife shot in the head and his baby son stabbed through the heart! How is he supposed to feel toward the Army after a thing like that? I don’t have one ounce of fear of the man, Reverend, and I don’t care one whit for what others think of my trying to help the Sioux through Black Hawk, a man they honor and whose judgment they trust. I will continue seeing him and teaching him and Little Fox as long as they will allow it!”

  Phillips studied the beautiful woman standing before him intently, wishing she would carry the same look in her eyes for him that she did for Black Hawk. “You love him, don’t you?”

  Evelyn blushed deeply, turning away. “I don’t know.” She leaned her head back and sighed deeply. “I might as well tell you that part of the reason I came out here… part of the reason I was determined to get to know Black Hawk better, was because of recurring dreams I had back in Wisconsin.” She explained her dreams to him in the same detailed fashion she had explained them to the others. “The first time I saw Black Hawk…” She folded her arms across her chest and stared at a wild rosebush. “Somehow I knew he was the man in the dream. I think I am supposed to stay here, that there is something unfinished, Reverend. I don’t know what it is. I only know that Black Hawk told me he had the same dream, of riding toward a white woman, reaching out to her. It is the dreams that have brought us together, and we both need to know why. You know how important dreams and visions are to the Sioux. For two people who had never met to have the same dream… it’s ironic and chilling. It has drawn us together in a special way.”