Embrace the Wild Land

by Rosanne Bittner

  “That’s right. The man who fathered Joshua.” Zeke thought about the happy, handsome boy with the brace on his leg. There was so much to tell his children about where he had been and what he had seen. But there was no time now. First they must find Abbie.

  “But… how do you know this?” Wolf’s Blood was asking him.

  Zeke put an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “I will explain at the council tonight. I want all of the warriors to meet. I need to talk to all of them, and to the priests. I have an idea, and I need their advice and their blessing. We will have Black Elk call a council. We will pray and smoke the pipe and ask the spirits for strength and cunning. We will need both if we are to go after a man like Garvey. But we will go, and we will find Abbie, and you will be by my side. No more sitting here pining. I know where she is and we’re going after her.”

  The boy dropped his eyes. “Are you sure you want me to go?”

  Zeke squeezed his shoulders. “Look at me, Wolf’s Blood.” He moved around to face the boy, and Wolf’s Blood raised his eyes to meet his father’s. Zeke’s own gaze dropped for a moment to the scars on Wolf’s Blood’s chest and arms from the Sun Dance sacrifice. “Of course I’m sure I want you along,” Zeke told him. “Just as sure as I am that you are man enough for it, and sure that you did everything you could to help your mother and would have fought to the death for her if she would have asked you. But I know Abbie and I know why she made the choice that she made. You just remember that it was her decision, a mother’s decision, a practical decision. She would have had it no other way. So stop blaming yourself.”

  The boy swallowed. “But what if … if she is … dead?”

  Zeke’s eyes hardened. “Winston Garvey isn’t that stupid. He’ll keep her alive, thinking I’ll tell him about Joshua to get her back. But I’m telling him nothing. I’m getting my woman, and once my hands are on Winston Garvey, he will find out he is just an ordinary man, capable of pain and death like all men!”

  Wolf’s Blood stood straighter at the words. “I want to kill the one with the scarred face who hurt my mother when he pulled her onto his horse,” he said coldly. “I need to kill him myself!”

  Zeke grinned with the joy of impending vengeance. “Then that one is yours, my son. For the next few weeks there will be no white in us. We will be the savages that Winston Garvey and the other whites say we are!”

  Drums beat rhythmically, and Cheyenne men danced the war dance. They had obeyed the treaties and caused no trouble. Yet harassment, disease and starvation had been their only reward. The men, even those who had become drunk and lazy because of their disillusionment and despair, joined in the dancing, most agreeing to riding with Lone Eagle to the mountains near Denver, where they would await instructions before raiding the ranch of the man called Winston Garvey. They were friends to Lone Eagle. They would help him get his woman back. It would be like the old days, when they raided Ute or Pawnee camps to recapture their own women who had been stolen from them.

  Zeke and Wolf’s Blood sat side by side. And as Zeke had commanded, there was not a white person alive who would have thought there was any white blood in the veins of either father or son. Both had pierced their chests and let blood in sacrifice to the spirits for the loss of Abbie, in accordance with the custom of suffering physical pain to relieve the emotional pain. They wore only loincloths and bone necklaces, their bodies and faces painted in their war colors. Zeke wore his eagle feathers, the sign of an accomplished warrior, his body much more fierce looking than his son’s because of the man’s many battle scars. The years had not softened the hard muscle or the swift movements and keen alertness of the man.

  Father and son shared the pipe with a priest and with Black Elk. Black Elk’s acceptance of the pipe from Zeke signified his agreement to take his Dog Soldiers to Denver. It would feel good to ride and raid and be a man again, to fight back at least once against the forces that were against them. Winston Garvey represented the worst of the white man.

  “Wait in the hills,” Zeke told his brother. “We must be silent and cautious. Soldiers must not see us. I will go first to the woman called Anna Gale. I know that she will know about this thing. And I know that she will help me. When I know all that I need to know, I will come to you and tell you what to do. It is important that you stage a good raid. Steal horses—kill as many men as you can. Make it look as though it is an Indian raid and nothing more. Ride off with the horses. Then they will think all the Indians have gone, and they will send out more men to come after you and get the horses back. Lead them on for many miles, then let the horses go. The men will quit the chase then and bring the horses back. And you will have none of the horses with you, so the soldiers cannot come to your camp later and accuse you of being the ones who raided the ranch. I want no blame to come to you. But your raid will give me time to get into the house and get Winston Garvey out. From then on it is my risk. Your job is to get as many men away from there as you can.”

  Black Elk nodded, and Wolf’s Blood’s heart pounded with great anticipation. This would be his first true Indian raid, his first real mission of vengeance. He was ready.

  “There is the chance that the soldiers will ride down on the village, Black Elk, or on another village, hitting out aimlessly in retaliation,” Zeke told his brother. “I will be very sorry if this happens.”

  Black Elk waved him off. “It does not matter. They ride through our villages even when we are peaceful, threaten us, bother our women. These volunteers, they are the worst, just citizens who want an excuse to ride around and shoot at us.” He frowned and took out a tomahawk, fingering the blade. “The runners came to us not long ago—told us that the leader of this Colorado, called Evans, wanted all of us to gather and meet with him and put signatures on that worthless treaty. But we did not go. The whites are settling on our land, claiming it for themselves. But talk at Bent’s Fort is that the men who award the land in Denver will not file the claims because there are not enough names on the new treaty that takes all that land from us and gives it to them. So some say the land is still ours. At the fort they say the whites have written to their father in Washington. Now we wait to see what will happen next. We try to wait peacefully, but every time we go out on a hunt, we are shot down. White men steal and rape our women. Whiskey traders come into the camp and ruin good men with their bad spirits. Our own men are giving up, Zeke, some selling their wives and daughters for whiskey and food. Especially for food. We cannot go out and hunt, and there is no game on this little piece of land they have given us. Other land is fenced off and is dangerous because we are shot at. We starve, we die of disease, and we sit here going crazy, trying to decide how we are to survive.”

  “It will get worse, Black Elk. I am afraid for all my people. But as long as there is a way to fight, you should fight. I ride the terrible road in the middle. You cannot understand the pain of walking that road. But I am happiest when I am Cheyenne. Never have I felt stronger than at this moment! I have great faith that we will accomplish our mission.” He reached out and touched his brother’s shoulder. “But I don’t want to bring you pain and death. It would go hard on me.”

  Black Elk grinned. “The spirits are with us this time. I feel it.” He sat straighter. “Now it is not like the days of freedom, when we followed the seasons and the buffalo, when we rode as far as the sun sets, or far to the north or the east or the south, and we knew that all that we saw belonged to us. In the north the Sioux fight, and the soldiers ride down on them and bring them harm. Here we try to keep the peace, and still the soldiers ride down on us. It does not seem to matter which we do. We are blamed for anything that happens, whether it is Comanches or Apaches or the Northern Cheyenne. Sometimes even the white men dress like Indians and fool the stupid settlers and raid them, so that the settlers say that Indians are raiding again and shout about how bad we are.” He tossed his head. “I spit on them! If they are going to blame us for things we do not do, then let them blame us for a good reason! We will go with
you and raid this man’s place. We will get your woman out of there. She is one of us. She is my sister. She is Swift Arrow’s sister. She saved Tall Grass Woman’s little girl from the deep waters. She has killed three Crow and been wounded by a Crow arrow. We wish to help your Abigail. She has been our friend, nursed our sick ones, helped with the skinning and meat curing and the sewing of tipi skins. She has been a good friend.”

  Zeke nodded. He turned to the priest with questioning eyes. The priest nodded. “The men of Black Elk’s warrior society have voted to help you,” he told Zeke in the Cheyenne tongue. “The sacrifices are good. The signs are good. You are a man pure in thought, true to the Cheyenne in your heart, a warrior of respect in spite of your white blood. The council has voted. When the sun rises, you will go to Denver.”

  Zeke’s heart raced with fiery vengeance and an eagerness to get his hands on Winston Garvey. He could almost taste the man’s blood. He rose and pulled out his knife, feeling as though he was exploding, as the beating drums and jingling bells and frenzied whooping and chanting of the dancing men penetrated to his soul and made him feel wild and strong and fearless. He left the council to join in the dancing, shouting the chants in the Cheyenne tongue, his long, black hair hanging straight and loose, framing his painted face and burning eyes. His handsomeness was marred this night by his almost hideous wild look. The gentle side of the man was nowhere to be seen. It was as though Zeke Monroe had totally disappeared and had been replaced by the fierce warrior called Lone Eagle. And soon, behind him, his son also began to dance, and other than Zeke’s more mature, filled-out manliness and the lines of hard living on his scarred face, there seemed to be little difference between the two.

  The rest of the Monroe children sat with the women of the camp in the shadows of the huge campfire around which the men danced, watching the frenzied preparation for battle. Jeremy watched Wolf’s Blood, knowing in his young heart he could never be like his brother. He liked the Cheyenne, yet deep inside he wanted to be white. He liked books and learning, and he wanted to go to a white school when he was older. But he kept the thoughts to himself for now. He was not ashamed of his Indian blood, but he was fast learning that to be Indian was to face starvation and insults. To be white meant being respected and educated. To be white meant not being shot at and called names. Little Jeremy was not so sure he wanted to be Indian at all. He did not look Indian. Why should he say that he was? It was something to think about.

  LeeAnn watched with the same doubts. She of all the Monroe children looked the least Indian. She was white in every way, always feeling out of place in the village with her blond hair and blue eyes. She turned to her beautiful sister Margaret, whose dark features were such a contrast to her own, both of them beautiful in opposite ways. Margaret was like Wolf’s Blood, looking all Indian, but bearing the exquisite beauty that comes to women of mixed blood.

  “What will we do if Mother can’t be found?” she asked her sister. “Will we live here in the village, Margaret?”

  Margaret looked at her in surprise. She had not even considered such a thought. “I don’t know. When I look at Father tonight, I see only an Indian. I think he would like to always live with the people.”

  LeeAnn blinked back tears. “But … I don’t want to live with the people,” she answered. “I mean I … I love them. But I want to live in the cabin, Margaret. I’m white. I don’t belong here.”

  Margaret turned back to watch the dancing. “You are lucky that if you want to be white, you can be, because you look white. I have no choice.” She looked at her sister again. “I am Indian. I do not want to be white. But I am afraid, LeeAnn. I am afraid because of what that white soldier told me when he … touched me. I was proud to be Indian … until he told me what white men think of Indian squaws.” She blinked back tears. “I am not like that. But they think it. It will be hard being Indian.”

  “But … what will we do, Margaret?”

  Margaret took her hand. “We will be ourselves. And until our mother comes, we will help our father. He loves us. I think he would understand, LeeAnn, if you told him how you feel. He would not make you live the Indian way if it is not what you want. You see how Mother lives. She has her cabin and her oven and her potbelly stove. Father understands the white ways, and his white woman’s needs. He will understand yours also. We will all be different, because of our two bloods. Don’t be afraid, LeeAnn.”

  LeeAnn looked back at the wild dancing, wishing she were at home in front of the fireplace knitting or reading. “But look at Father! He looks so …so mean!” she said in near awe. “Tonight he has no white blood at all. I’ve never been afraid of him before. But tonight it’s like … like he’s not my father, but someone else—a fierce warrior come to kill me and take my scalp!”

  Margaret just smiled. “Don’t be silly.” She watched her father. “Look at him! He is our father. He is Cheyenne and he loves being Cheyenne. And he looks mean because he is pulling all his meanness from his soul so he can go after that man who took Mother from us. I like the way he looks! It means he will win his battle, LeeAnn. He will find Mother and bring her home. I know it! You should be glad he looks that way. Mother will come home and we’ll all be together at the cabin again. We’ll be happy and safe, LeeAnn.”

  Margaret turned to the rest of the children, feeling suddenly mature and motherly. “All of you pray for Mother.” Little Jason crawled onto Margaret’s lap. “Mother is coming home. Father and Wolf’s Blood will bring her,” Margaret announced.

  “Mama sleep with me?” Jason asked his sister.

  “Yes,” Margaret replied with confidence. “Mama will sleep with you. And she’ll bake and sew and read to us. You’ll see. Our father will bring her.”

  The campfire raged, its flames lapping upward into the dark sky. But its flaming roar could not compare to the rage that burned in the soul of Lone Eagle.

  Twenty-Four

  Anna brushed out her lustrous, dark hair, studying her still firm, silky body in the mirror and adjusting a ruffled nightgown around her breasts, pulling it down so that they were enticingly exposed. In a half hour a very prominent banker would be paying her a call. He paid well, and he was kind to her. She leaned closer to the mirror to put a touch more color on her eyelids. It was then she heard the soft tapping at her door.

  She frowned. Apparently her customer had come early. She sighed disgustedly. She was not ready. She walked to the door and flung it open, and immediately she paled to a ghostly white, feeling weak and suddenly sweaty with shock. “Zeke!” she exclaimed, her livid blue eyes wide with surprise and sudden fear. He looked wild and ready to kill.

  He just glared at her, faint scratches on his cheeks that she suspected were the remnants of self-inflicted wounds out of sorrow. She had lived in the West long enough to know something about Indian ways. Her fear was suddenly mixed with the old, burning love and desire for this man of men, and she stepped back to let him in, not even caring if he meant her harm. Just to see him again, to be close to this man whose masculinity permeated the very air, was a thrill.

  But the fear came back to overwhelm all other feelings when he grasped her hair painfully tight in his hands as soon as she closed the door. “Traitor!” he growled. He backhanded her hard, knocking her to the floor. She lay there a moment, half expecting to feel his knife slice into her, but he only came and stood over her. Her gown had fallen away from her legs, exposing slender, milky thighs. He took his foot and stepped on one of her legs, pinning her down. “How much did Garvey pay you to find out we were the ones who knew about his half-breed son?” he demanded, no sign of remorse in his eyes for the huge red welt that was forming on her cheek.

  She blinked back tears and put a hand to the hot skin. “Nothing,” she replied calmly. “I never told him a thing. He figured it out for himself, Zeke.”

  He smiled in a sneer. “Slut! You told him!” He reached down and jerked her up by the arm and she winced as he slammed her close to him, holding her in a viselike grip wit
h one arm while he grasped her chin with his other hand. “Say it again, Anna Gale. Look me in the eyes and tell me you had nothing to do with this. You helped us once. I owe you. I do not want to hurt you, but I know when someone is telling the truth. If I see you are lying, I will slice up your beautiful body so that no one recognizes it.”

  She gazed into his dark, hypnotic eyes. God, how she loved this man! How she wanted him! But that could never be.

  “I didn’t tell him,” she said with confidence. “He came and told me. Somehow he …he figured it out, Zeke.” Tears began to form in the blue eyes. “I love you,” she whispered. “Why would I betray you?”

  She watched the hardness in his eyes battle with a softness that lay behind them somewhere. “If you are not a traitor, Anna Gale, then tell me what you know. Help me find her!”

  He released her, and for a moment she could not talk as she struggled against the tears that wanted to come. She walked to a dresser and dipped her hand in a bowl of water, pressing its coolness to her cheek.

  “He … found out somehow,” she told Zeke. “I swear to God I don’t know how. But he discovered you had been to Denver four years ago. He put it all together. And he hit me with it unexpectedly. Then he … he gloated about it. There was nothing I could do, Zeke. And later … I found out he’d taken your wife. He gloated over that, too.” She turned tear-filled eyes to him. “If I even knew where he had her, I’d have tried to help her, Zeke. But he says she’s not at his place, and he won’t tell me where she is! God, I’m sorry, Zeke! I’m very fond of your wife. I swear to God I’d never bring her harm if I could help it. I know how you feel about her. I’d never do that to you!”

  He watched her, walking closer then. “Where is Garvey’s spread?” he asked.

  “West of here. There’s a valley called Tumble Rocks. He owns the whole valley. His house is a big, gaudy thing, made of granite—two stories. His bedroom—” she looked away—“his bedroom is on the second floor,” she continued quietly, “on the right end as you face the house.” She turned back to look at him. “His son is off to college and his wife has gone east for a visit. He’s there alone. If you could find a way to get to him, you could make him tell you where Abbie is. The man’s a stinking coward. He’ll tell you in an instant.”