Full Circle

by Rosanne Bittner

  “It will only mean trouble for me.”

  “Not when I’m finished with them!”

  He sighed, watching the trees where Luke and Marty had disappeared. He had no doubt Sergeant Jubal Desmond knew about those two. Maybe they would even tell him what had happened. If Desmond could get him in trouble over it, he would. Now he was not so sure that he could live at Evelyn’s cabin, so near the agency, when they married. But it was the only way Evelyn could live, and it hurt his heart to think perhaps his plans to do it all her way could not be realized. “We must go.”

  He pulled away, and Evelyn sensed his doubts. “Black Hawk, we can make it work. I promise you.”

  He looked at her sadly, then turned away and in one swift movement jumped onto the back of his saddleless horse. “We must go,” he repeated, raising his voice against an increasing wind.

  Her own heart feeling heavy, Evelyn walked over and stepped into the stirrup of her sidesaddle, climbing onto her own horse. “Black Hawk, please listen to me—” she shouted into the wind.

  “We have much to think about.”

  She held his eyes. “And you have given me Turtle Woman’s wedding dress. I intend to wear it… soon. I will talk to the agency and to the colonel, Black Hawk, and I will come to your camp and tell you what they say. We will be together!”

  He studied her lovingly. “Just remember that a white man did not die here today. Something worse is going to happen, and because of what happened here, I will be blamed. I feel it in my soul. We cannot marry before all of this trouble is settled.”

  She wanted to argue more, scream at him, but she knew it was no use. As he headed out in front of her, she glanced back at Little Fox, who had remounted his own horse. He showed the same anger and fear in his dark eyes as his father. “Nothing is going to happen to him, Little Fox,” she told the boy. “I promise.” She turned her horse to follow Black Hawk, refusing to let her own doubts get the better of her. Nothing and no one was going to keep her from the man she loved. She would make sure of it, even if it meant fleeing to Canada with him.

  Twenty-five

  Colonel Gere frowned in irritation at being called from a busy schedule to listen to some kind of complaint from the schoolteacher, Evelyn Gibbons. It seemed the woman had done nothing but cause trouble since she’d arrived. It was her fault that Lieutenant Teller and the men with him had been embarrassed at finding nothing when they raided Seth Bridges’s home and property. She had falsely accused Sergeant Desmond of being involved in the whiskey smuggling, and to top it all off, she had taken the word of Black Hawk that Bridges and Desmond were involved, let alone the fact that she had accused his own troops of not doing their job.

  Now here she was again, registering yet another complaint at the agency offices. At least this time she was doing it herself, rather than sending the poor Reverend Phillips to do it for her. He’d been told by his messenger that she was alone, and he did not doubt that Phillips was growing tired of her infatuation with Black Hawk and her fantasies about someone among his own troops being involved in smuggling whiskey.

  He reminded himself to remain the gentleman as he removed his hat and went inside Agent McLaughlin’s office. After all, demented or not, Evelyn Gibbons was certainly refined and educated, not to mention the prettiest woman he’d ever set eyes on. She just needed to get her thinking straight about the Sioux and stop defending them to the point of embarrassment. When he went inside the office, he found her seated in a hardwood chair near James McLaughlin’s desk. She wore a deep blue velvet dress with long sleeves and high neckline. White cotton lace decorated the border of the neck and the ends of the sleeves. The dress made the blue eyes that looked up at him seem even bluer. She wore her honey-blond hair in a very demure bun at the nape of her neck. He wondered if she was trying to look especially prim and proper just to make herself more believable. Rumor had it the woman was more deeply involved with Black Hawk than just as his son’s teacher. He could not imagine that an educated white woman, one raised in a Christian home, could possibly have romantic thoughts for an Indian man.

  He nodded to her. “Miss Gibbons. I hope this interruption in my busy day is for something worthwhile.” He looked at McLaughlin, whose own doubt showed in his eyes.

  “Have a seat, Colonel.”

  The man obliged, and McLaughlin shuffled some papers on his desk. “Miss Gibbons here tells me she was attacked by whiskey smugglers yesterday. She was so upset by it that she left today’s lessons to Mrs. Evans and came directly here to tell us about it.”

  “Something must be done,” Evelyn said, sitting straight and confident in the chair. “I have said it before, Colonel, and I will say it again: Your men are not doing their job. Every day I see drunken Sioux everyplace I go. It is perfectly obvious that whiskey is plentiful on this reservation, and I am here to repeat to you that Seth Bridges is involved. I know it now for a fact.”

  Gere sighed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “And how is that?”

  Evelyn glanced at McLaughlin, then back at Gere. “I visited an Indian village yesterday, then brought Black Hawk’s son, Little Fox, back with me. He is going to live with me while he attends school. Because it was getting dark, Black Hawk accompanied me back. He took me along the Grand River to show me an area of the reservation I had never been before. It was there we were accosted by two men, whiskey smugglers! They rode out to us from the trees and threatened to kill Black Hawk and his son and carry me off. I don’t have to tell you what they had in mind for me!”

  Gere looked her over. “How do you know they were whiskey smugglers?”

  She prayed she would not get Black Hawk in trouble. “Because Black Hawk knew them. He had seen them before, caught them bringing a whole wagonload of whiskey onto the reservation. He destroyed it, and he had every right to do so. If the Army had been doing its job, the whiskey would never have gotten onto the reservation!”

  Gere glanced at McLaughlin. So, it was Black Hawk who destroyed the whiskey and attacked the men who had brought it. He decided to reserve judgment until he heard the woman out. “That’s Black Hawk’s word.”

  “It’s their word! They admitted they were the ones who brought in that whiskey! They even admitted that Seth Bridges was with them that night! I am telling you that Seth is involved in whiskey smuggling, and, furthermore, there is more of it going on than you realize! And you cannot convince me that Sergeant Jubal Desmond is not involved in helping them. The man professes to have no special relationship with Seth Bridges, but he was seen with Seth’s daughter, and it’s a fact that the area where that whiskey wagon was destroyed is a spot where the sergeant was supposed to be keeping watch! How can you not see what is going on, Colonel?”

  The man leaned back in his chair, scowling with irritation and anger. “I am a colonel in the United States Army, Miss Gibbons, and I didn’t get this position by being stupid! I can’t just go accusing someone of doing something wrong when I have no proof! The last time you tried to make trouble over this, we obliged you fully. If you will remember, we raided Seth Bridges’s home and property and found nothing! Nothing! You can’t say we didn’t try, but there is simply no proof to your allegations about Seth Bridges or Sergeant Desmond!”

  “But the smugglers admitted—”

  “Did you see any of the whiskey with your own eyes?”

  “Well, no, I—”

  “And where are those men today? Gone!”

  Evelyn could not help jumping slightly at the anger in the word. She struggled to keep her composure and not let the man bully her. “Only because if Black Hawk had tried to bring them in, they would have tried to twist the story and get him in trouble! You have to stop intimidating these people, Colonel, and give them some credit for their own intelligence and their ability to take care of themselves and this reservation.”

  “Then let Black Hawk join the Indian police,” the man grumbled.

  “The police do not have the freed
om they should have to handle things their way!” Evelyn answered. “They have to kowtow to Army regulations, do everything the Army’s way. The Indian police are a farce, Colonel, and you know it! They’re afraid to do anything about the smugglers because they might be accused of murdering white men, and some of them won’t bother stopping them anyway! They want the whiskey!”

  The man’s brown eyes blazed with anger. “And you, Miss Gibbons, are a worse troublemaker than Black Hawk!”

  Evelyn bristled even more. “I am trying to make things better here for the Sioux! Isn’t that the whole idea? To keep the peace? What would you prefer, Colonel? To watch over six thousand sober, educated Indians, or six thousand drunken, belligerent ones? We have to keep out the whiskey and get these people educated, and we need the Army’s help! I am telling you that there is too much smuggling going on, that Sergeant Desmond and Seth Bridges are both involved! Those men admitted yesterday they run whiskey, admitted they knew Seth Bridges! They threatened to murder Black Hawk and a seven-year-old boy in cold blood because Black Hawk knows too much; and they were going to drag me off and violate me, ship me down to Omaha and dump me off! They came downriver by flatboat from a bigger steamboat on the Mississippi. If you inspected the boats that come upriver from St. Louis and Independence and Omaha, you’d probably find plenty of whiskey on them!”

  “We have no authority to go raiding trading ships that come upriver,” McLaughlin told her. “We can only inspect wagons and supplies that actually come onto the reservation.”

  Evelyn turned her attention to the man, who was at least holding his composure better than the colonel. “Then more men should be assigned to doing just that,” she told him.

  McLaughlin rubbed at his white mustache. “We don’t have enough men at Fort Yates to cover every inch of the Mississippi, the Grand and, the Cheyenne rivers, Miss Gibbons. It’s simply impossible. The colonel does the best he can, and I will do what I can to see if the government will send us more troops.”

  Evelyn sighed. “I appreciate that much. I know we are talking about a very big area, Mr. McLaughlin, but something more must be done!”

  “I’d like to know how you and Black Hawk got out of that situation yesterday,” Colonel Gere asked. “Black Hawk is not allowed to carry any weapon but his knife.”

  Evelyn hesitated. This man was looking for any reason to arrest Black Hawk. She held his gaze steadily. “As I said, there were two of them, an older man with dark hair and beard who was called Luke Smith. His companion was much younger, clean-shaven and quite handsome if not for his despicable personality. His name was Marty Able. Luke was holding a rifle on Black Hawk, and Black Hawk realized he had to do something or take the chance that he and his son might be killed. He risked his life to save both me and Little Fox by bending down and charging his horse right into Luke Smith, knocking him from his horse. Luke dropped his rifle, and when I saw that Marty Able was pulling a pistol to shoot Black Hawk, I picked up the rifle and I shot him!”

  Gere’s eyebrows arched. “You shot one of them?”

  “I most certainly did, and I had every right! I hit him in the shoulder. I still have the rifle if you want to see it. Black Hawk was wrestling with Luke Smith and held a knife to his throat. He could have killed him, but he didn’t. That should show you the man’s wisdom. He knew what would happen to him if he killed a white man, no matter how much that person deserved to have his throat slit! I personally would have enjoyed watching it, considering what he had in mind for me. Black Hawk let him go, Colonel.” She decided not to mention that Black Hawk had cut off half the man’s ear. “Both men rode off and left on their flatboat. They are probably well on their way back downriver by now, and if they have any sense, they will not come back!”

  The colonel got up and began pacing, and the room hung quiet while he gauged his words. “What were you doing riding alone with Black Hawk, of all people, and in that remote area besides? Why didn’t you just go home the usual way, through other Indian villages?”

  Evelyn sensed the man’s thoughts. He didn’t care one whit about the incident with the whiskey smugglers. All he cared about was whether or not a white woman was carrying on with an Indian. Perhaps he was looking for a reason to arrest Black Hawk as well. “I told you. Black Hawk wanted to show me the area—”

  “I think you both just wanted to be alone awhile longer,” he accused, turning to face her. “I think there is more between you and Black Hawk than just a friendship, and that, my dear, is how you get yourself in so much trouble. It makes you less credible because it reflects on your reputation. Anything you say in defense of Black Hawk is only because of your own prejudiced view! I suggest, Miss Gibbons, that you do what you came here to do, and that you take a good look at your personal choices of friends and lovers, if you intend to keep your position here on the reservation! I am sorry for what happened by the river, but you and I both know you shouldn’t have been there in the first place. If you would quit putting yourself in dangerous situations, you would not be having these problems! It isn’t wise for a young, unattached woman to be flitting about by herself on an Indian reservation, to be disobeying all the rules of protocol and to be seen time and again with an Indian renegade!”

  Evelyn slowly rose to face him, fighting to keep from breaking down out of anger and humiliation. The man was trying to make her love for Black Hawk look ugly and sinful, and she would not allow it, nor would she let him turn attention from the problems with smugglers. She faced him squarely.

  “I am not one of your soldiers, Colonel,” she said calmly. “You have no right talking to me this way. Don’t use rumors to invent stories just to make yourself look better. My relationship with Black Hawk, the way I teach, the fact that I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time yesterday—none of those matters give you an excuse for the fact that those men were on the reservation without permission, or that whiskey smugglers are running rampant all over this reservation! If you don’t want me to tell you how to do your job, sir, then don’t be telling me how to do mine! The point is to get Sioux children to school, and I have done a good job of that. More come every day, and soon we will need a bigger school. Keep the whiskey peddlers out, Colonel, and I will educate the children. Between the two, there can be total peace on this reservation. We can teach the Sioux to take care of themselves, let them govern themselves, rely on their own police to keep order so that one day the soldiers won’t be needed at all.” She turned to McLaughlin. “I thought I was doing my civic duty, Mr. McLaughlin. I do not deserve to be insulted and humiliated.”

  The man sighed. “I agree.” McLaughlin looked up from his desk at the colonel. “And I also agree that more must be done about the whiskey peddlers.”

  Colonel Gere’s ruddy complexion turned even redder, making his white hair seem whiter. “I fully agree with you about working even harder to keep whiskey out of the reservation,” he told McLaughlin. He moved his eyes to Evelyn. “But my comments were not meant as insults or an invasion of Miss Gibbons’s privacy. Every word I said is true, meant to protect her job and her good name.” He sighed with irritation, fingering his hat. “Let me ask you, ma’am, do you consider it an insult for a white woman to be hooked up with an Indian man?”

  Evelyn hated him for putting her on the spot. “Not at all,” she answered boldly, “except that I do not appreciate the term ‘hooked up.’ A man is a man, Colonel, and there are good men and some not so good. Black Hawk is a good man, intelligent and talented, and much more compassionate and brave than you will ever know. What I consider an insult is the meaning men like you put into your remarks, trying to make something dirty and ugly out of something beautiful and right.” She turned, walking over to her chair and opening a blanket wrapped around something propped there. She took out Black Hawk’s paintings and held them up. “This is the kind of talent Black Hawk has. This is proof that he wants to learn to live a new way. He is allowing his son to come to school, and he painted these pictures for
me to send to my father to see if they can be sold. He hopes to be able to make money with his paintings.”

  Both men looked taken aback. McLaughlin leaned farther over his desk to get a closer look. “Those are remarkably realistic,” he commented.

  Gere sighed in unwanted resignation. “They are quite good.”

  “They’re better than good,” Evelyn told him. She looked at McLaughlin. “I want your promise that Black Hawk will not get in trouble over the incident with the whiskey smugglers, neither the first time when he destroyed their wagon, nor this last time. He had every right to attack those men. He was only protecting us. He is afraid you will try to have him arrested.”

  McLaughlin leaned back in his chair again. “He has nothing to worry about. He didn’t use a gun, and both times he refrained from doing great harm to those men. Nor will I write any letters advising that you be removed from your position, Miss Gibbons. What Mission Services does is another matter, one over which I have no control. When they find out about your feelings for Black Hawk…” He shrugged. “Who can say? That is a chance you take on your own. I can certainly understand loving an Indian. As you know, my own wife is Sioux.” He glanced at Colonel Gere rather scathingly, and Evelyn could tell Gere was embarrassed over his remarks. He had apparently forgotten about McLaughlin’s wife for the moment.

  “I can tell you that in the past Black Hawk has proved himself to be very unpredictable and sometimes dangerous,” McLaughlin continued. “He has never been cooperative, and I still don’t fully trust him not to use that knife of his in a meaner way if he’s pushed.”

  “Maybe he’s just afraid… of losing everything that is dear to him, of having his son taken away from him. He was at Wounded Knee. He saw his wife and baby son murdered! His whole way of life has changed, and he can no longer enjoy the freedom he knew as a youth. How do you expect him to feel? How do you expect any of them to feel?” Evelyn glanced at Gere, then back to Agent McLaughlin. “I trust him fully, Mr. McLaughlin. Never has he tried so hard to adapt to the changes, to accept what he knows he must accept. He has never felt before that he could trust anyone, but he trusts me, because he knows that I truly care. All any of them need is to know that. They need to see a little compassion. They need to be treated more respectfully on rations day. It hurts their pride to have to come for handouts, and it doesn’t help when the meat they are offered is rotten.”