Heart of the Sandhills

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  Willets interrupted him. “I know the doctor at Fort Laramie. He’s an old friend and his wife is your kind of Christian. She’d see to Mrs. Two Stars if it came to that. “

  “My kind of Christian?”

  “You know what I mean. Most of the men around here are just the go-to-church-on-Sunday kind. Then there’s your kind. The do-what-the-Good-Book-says-every-day kind. That’s Mrs. Beaumont. Mrs. Two Stars will like her. Trust me.” He grinned again. “I haven’t told you the best part of all this yet. The special commissioner is some old soldier from ‘the recent unpleasantness.’ Got his hand blown off at Antietam and took to diplomacy. Name’s Elliot Leighton.”

  “Genevieve!” Elliot Leighton gripped her around the waist, lifted her off her feet, and spun her around. He pounded Daniel on the shoulder. “Living with this renegade obviously agrees with you,” he said lifting her chin, thoroughly enjoying the blush rising on her cheeks. “Daniel.” Elliot grasped Daniel’s hand and held on. For the moment, neither of them said anything. Then, Elliot broke the spell. “Where’s the boy?”

  “Here, Uncle Elliot.” Aaron stepped forward.

  “No!” Elliot exclaimed, taking Aaron’s outstretched hand and pulling the youth into a hug. “It can’t be. You’ve grown another foot.” He turned his head sideways and squinted. ‘And you’re growing a beard?!”

  Aaron smiled shyly and brushed his cheek with his hand. “Trying.” He laughed self-consciously.

  Behind the group, laborers began hauling trunks and bundles down the gangplank from the steamboat to shore. When a small black trunk came into view, Elliot yelled, “Here! Bring that right here!” He grinned at Aaron. “There you go, muscle-man. Load that on that wagon over there. I’ll watch for the other provisions. They should bring the horses down soon.” He talked while watching crates and boxes being carried off the steamship. “I couldn’t believe it when I got Captain Willets’s letter about who my escort was going to be!” He frowned slightly. “Obviously there’s a lot that I haven’t been told. We got your letter about leaving New Ulm. But you seemed to be thinking you’d just be going north to farm near the old agency. What happened?”

  “Abner Marsh is what happened,” Aaron said abruptly.

  “Who?”

  Daniel sent a warning glance to Aaron. “Abner Marsh,” he said quietly. “He was one of the neighbors. We can talk of that later.”

  Gen interrupted. “Tell us about Meg.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Here!” Elliot called out, waving toward another crate.

  “I’ll get that one,” Daniel said and headed off.

  “Meg’s doing well, Gen,” Elliot said while they watched Daniel retrieve a crate and hoist it into the wagon. “A letter from Jane arrived just before I left St. Louis.” He patted his coat. “It’s right here, and as soon as we’ve settled in camp—never mind. No need for you to have to wait.” He pulled out a thick stack of papers out of his coat. “Here it is. Take it with you.” He held out another, thinner envelope. “And one for you, Aaron. From a Miss Whitrock.”

  Aaron reached out for the envelope and tucked it in his coat pocket. Gen clutched her packet and headed for Elliot’s wagon, oblivious to the crowd. Presently there were more boxes to load, and then there was another surprise when Big Amos was seen leading Elliot’s team and an extra horse down off the steamship.

  “Three Dakota scouts,” Elliot said. “I hope Captain Willets won’t mind.”

  “Mind?” Willets said, hurrying up and pumping Big Amos’s hand up and down.

  That evening around the campfire, Big Amos regaled the group with his version of Washington, D.C., which included an emphasis on the Willard Hotel’s cherry pie. When he learned that Robert had left to take Nancy to the reservation, he nodded. “We have a good church and the land is much better than Crow Creek.” He went on to explain that Rosalie was helping the Mission teachers teach in one of the schools. “We are going to have a baby. Scouting this summer will help us get a better team for next year’s plowing.” Leaning back against a tree, Big Amos put his hands behind his head and smiled. “I promised Rosalie this is my last time to be a wild Indian.”

  Elliot’s interpreter and guide, Zephyr Picotte, wore his hair in two greasy braids and chewed tobacco constantly. He could have been middle-aged or he could have been ancient. His face was so lined with deep creases that no one would venture a guess at the man’s age. But his experience was unchallenged. Zephyr had traveled with the likes of Jim Bridger. He knew the territory they would be traveling much better than anyone else in the party, and he eyed the Dakota scouts who had seldom been west of the James River with no small amount of suspicion.

  One evening when everyone else had bedded down for the night and Zephyr sat up alone by the campfire, Aaron slipped into the warm glow of the fire. “You don’t like Daniel,” he said abruptly. “Why not?”

  Zephyr continued whittling on the stick in his hand. Presently he squinted up at Aaron. “Not much for small talk are you, son?” When the boy met his gaze with clear gray eyes and didn’t look away, the interpreter spat on the ground and said, “Guess I’m of the same mind as most of my kin.” He explained, “Had me a Cheyenne woman once. Good woman. Most of the western tribes figure that after what the Dakota let the government do to ‘em, they aren’t worth much.”

  “You know better than that,” Aaron said. “You know about the army and how strong it is. And you also know the same thing is going to happen to every Sioux in the West if they don’t find a way to make peace. So what’s the real reason you don’t like Daniel?”

  “It ain’t that I don’t like him, son. I just don’t know if I can trust him.”

  “You don’t trust any man until you know them, do you?”

  Zephyr looked sharply at Aaron. “Now what makes you say that?”

  “You watch everyone around you like you think they might be getting ready to jump you.” Aaron pointed to Zephyr’s pistol, still in the holster around his waist. “And you never take that off. Except maybe when you sleep.”

  “I’m not asleep yet,” Zephyr said with a grim smile. Unconsciously, his hand went to his pistol. “But I probably won’t take it off then either—except maybe to put it under my head as a pillow.”

  “Can I see it? I’ve never seen a Colt .44 before.”

  “Where’d you learn about .44s?” Zephyr asked.

  “Oh, my uncle has quite a collection of pistols back home,” he said. “I just paid attention when he wanted to talk about them, that’s all.”

  Zephyr withdrew the gun and handed it to the boy. “She’s loaded. Be careful.”

  Aaron looked down the barrel of the gun. He spun the chamber, opened it, then slapped it shut and handed it back. “Nice one. Better than the one Uncle Elliot has.” He stretched and yawned, then got up.

  “I thought you was going to tell me all about your friend Daniel so I’d know what a hero he is. Captain Willets already told me a few things to get my interest up.”

  Aaron paused and smiled. He shook his head. “Nope. You’ll figure Daniel out without my saying anything. Besides,” he grinned, “I’m just a kid. What do I know?”

  The troop left Fort Randall the next day, going overland and stopping at various Yankton lodges in the vicinity. Elliot kept careful records of every visit for the benefit of Senator Lance and his committee back in Washington. He wrote that all the bands he had met thus far were “very friendly and well disposed toward the whites. They like agriculture and seem to be cheerfully about planting crops with the assistance of their agent and farmer.”

  At each group of lodges, the troops stopped and waited. While Elliot smoked peace pipes and took notes, Daniel and Robert rode ahead scouting the area. A week after they left Fort Randall on the Missouri, they rode into Fort Thompson where more than one hundred Indian lodges were camped. With Zephyr Picotte’s help, Elliot interviewed Brules, Two Kettles, and more Yanktonais. He assured them of the Great White Father’s peaceful intentions toward them and im
pressed upon them the absolute necessity of their keeping away from the hostile bands to the north.

  Several chiefs, among them Iron Nation and Two Lances, made speeches assuring Elliot of their peaceful intentions. ‘White Bear concluded the meeting with a moving speech in which he declared that he was getting too old to fight anymore and that his many children wanted only peace. “We only wish to stir up the ground to feed our wives and children. We will trust our Great White Father to take pity on us and to help us. Send us tools for working the earth. Help us grow corn.”

  While espousing their intention to become farmers, the chiefs reminded Elliot that they were often visited by their more warlike brothers to the north, and that while they themselves were content, they could not promise that some of the younger warriors would not be induced to join the trouble to the north. “We cannot this year grow enough for all our families. We will still need to hunt, but we will do so in peace with all white men we may meet. We only want to find buffalo. Our women will dig roots and gather berries. We will not fight.”

  Robert Lawrence caught up with the party after two days into their trip up the Niobrara. That was the day Picotte’s horse tossed him next to a rattlesnake hole. The trader was eye to eye with a huge rattler when Daniel blew its head off. Picotte scrambled to his feet only to hear the sound of another rattler nearby. Two more were crawling out of the hole. He clubbed one and Daniel got the other. The two men stood side by side clubbing snake after snake after snake. When the last rattler was dead, the two men stood in the center of a circle of nearly fifty dead rattlesnakes. Picotte decided Two Stars—and by association, Robert Lawrence and Big Amos—were exceptions to his rule about the Dakota Sioux, after all.

  Sixteen

  To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend …

  —Job 6:14

  “Enlist? In the army? You can’t be serious!” Genevieve Two Stars stared past Aaron to where his Uncle Elliot stood looking uncharacteristically nervous. They had been traveling up the Niobrara for a week now and were about to descend into what Zephyr Picotte called “the most God-forsaken land you’ll ever see. Makes the Mauvaises Terres look like Paradise.” This was where Gen had expected Aaron to head back to Fort Randall and board a steamboat for St. Louis. He would visit family friends before taking the railroad home to New York. But Aaron had other ideas.

  “I can’t officially enlist,” Aaron said. “Not until I’m twenty-one. But Captain Willets said he would treat me just like one of his soldiers and give me a taste of real army life. Civilians go along with army units all the time as volunteers. I’d be a volunteer.”

  One look at Daniel and Elliot told Genevieve Two Stars she was defeated and there was no reason to begin a campaign that could only be interpreted as being overprotective. She had been around military men long enough to know better than to burden Aaron with the moniker, “Mama’s boy.”

  “You know I’ve wanted to be a soldier for a long time, Ma.”

  “You always call me Ma when you are set on getting your way, Aaron Dane,” Gen snapped. “I don’t appreciate it one bit.”

  “Well,” Aaron said smiling coyly, “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. And besides that, it usually works.” He tapped his foot nervously. “I don’t want to displease you. But I can’t see any better time or place to learn soldiering than now and here, with Daniel and Uncle Elliot to teach me. And Captain Willets is willing to put up with a raw recruit. At least I can ride. That’s more than Pinky could do.”

  Pinky. Poor Pinky. He had met them in Fort Randall with a commission but no assignment to a specific company. The day he reported to Captain Willets for duty, he was outfitted in his version of what a half-breed guide would wear—tomahawk, sheath-knife, Colt revolvers tucked in a red sash around his waist, a Springfield rifle lying across his saddle, and enough blankets and coats piled up to nearly hide what appeared to be a very good horse. Daniel and Robert had recounted Pinky’s demise so many times the troop had begun to call one another Pinky every time they made a mistake. The first time he gave chase after a buffalo, Pinky had left a trail of belongings across the prairie. When Daniel shot down a calf and it bleated with pain, its mother charged Pinky’s horse. Pinky was picked up half-conscious and taken back to camp. The next day when they broke camp, Pinky was gone. Yes, Genevieve considered, Aaron Dane was a good deal more prepared to soldier in Indian country than Pinky. She wondered if Pinky had a mother that worried about him. At least, Genevieve thought, she was not sitting back East worrying about Aaron in the West.

  “All right,” Gen heard herself saying. “I won’t fight you on this. But –”

  “Thanks, Ma!” Aaron smothered her with a hug, and she was suddenly aware of just how tall he was becoming.

  “You have to write Aunt Jane and tell her how you roped me into agreeing.” She smiled at Elliot. “And you, my dear Captain Leighton, have to write Jane and tell her why this is such a wonderful idea.”

  Elliot removed his hat and ran his hand through his long silver hair. “I’ll handle Jane,” he said quickly. “She’ll understand.” He did handle Jane. Lucky for him, Jane was too far away for her husband to witness her blustering response when she finally read his letter. And, after considering all the options, Jane Leighton arrived at the same conclusion Genevieve had, and she understood. She didn’t like the idea of Aaron soldiering. But she looked at Meg and Hope and realized that, do what she would, the children were going to grow up. And if God had called Aaron Dane to serve Him in the military, He was certainly providing excellent training for a successful career. Jane didn’t need to know about Pinky to know that.

  June 15, 1867

  Dear Amanda,

  I am an expert now, for I have killed a buffalo with bow and arrow. It’s true. At first Daniel and Robert would not listen to my pleas to be taught to hunt like the Sioux, but when they finally believed I was sincere, they said all right. It took them a while to find the right feathers, the right wood the right sinew to create a true bow and arrows as their fathers taught them to make, but when it was all finished I think they enjoyed it. At least they enjoyed laughing at me and my poor attempts at target practice. But then I began to improve and finally, today, we have chased down a small herd and would you believe it, I brought down one of the old fellows.

  We are traveling through some of the strangest country. Zephyr Picotte calls it “God-forsaken” and says that it is worse than the Badlands up in Dakota. Everyone agrees that no one will ever live here but Indians and buffalo, who seem to thrive on the strange grasses that cling to the sandy earth. We call this land the Sandhills. At times it seems we are in the middle of a vast desert. Our horses’ hooves sink into the sandy soil, and they labor so to get up the hills that at times we must dismount and lead them and then we all flounder along. Then at the top we may have to take a different route because on the other side of the hill there is a crater, like God reached down from heaven and scooped a huge amount of sand up. The wind creates these “blow-outs,” and there is plenty of that.

  Gen rides in the cook wagon, and lately we have left most of the cook’s things on the pack mules so the wagon will be lighter and the wheels don’t sink so. Zephyr Picotte says that when we reach the Platte we will have a road so wide to travel that we will think the Corps of Engineers has gone ahead of us to make a perfect wagon road.

  We have not seen a tree for three days now. That should tell you something about how dry it is. The horses and men suffer greatly from alkali water and the dust and grit blowing in our faces.

  I will post this letter when we reach Fort Laramie. When you receive it, Miss Whitrock, I ask that you think fondly of the one who sent it, who today carved your name into a rock jutting out of the sand above our camp here in the Sandhills of Nebraska.

  “He did what?!” Stephen Bannister dabbed his barely visible dark moustache with the corner of his napkin.

  “He carved my name,” Amanda said, tossing her blonde curls.

 
“Rather impertinent, don’t you think?”

  “Impertinent?! Indeed not,” Amanda said. “I think it’s romantic.” She fluttered her eyelashes and glanced sideways at Stephen, sprawled on the silk chaise in her parent’s drawing room. Pretending to shiver she said, “Just think Stephen … some savage all done up in feathers and war paint could be looking at it right this minute. Wondering what it means.” She gave a sigh. “I do miss Aaron. I wish he’d come home.”

  Stephen stood up and stretched lazily. “Oh, I expect he will sooner or later. With all sorts of stories to entertain the ladies this winter.” He smiled at Amanda. “And the rest of us poor, boring New York lads will have to take a back seat. For a while.”

  “Ladies?!” Amanda sputtered. “He’s my beau, Stephen Bannister, and you know it. Aaron’s not the kind of boy to be simpering around all the ladies.”

  “Forgive me, Miss Whitrock.” Stephen bowed stiffly. “I was not aware that your interest in Master Dane was quite so intense.”

  Amanda tossed her curls again and looked out the window. Her lower lip trembled and a tear gathered in the corner of her eye. “I do hope he’s safe,” she said. “It sounds dangerous, what he’s doing.”

  “I doubt it’s very dangerous,” Stephen said, reaching for his hat. “Mrs. Leighton would have her husband’s head if she thought her dear, sweet Aaron were in any real danger.”

  “Don’t, Stephen,” Amanda ordered. “Don’t make fun. I like Mrs. Leighton. I like both Mrs. Leightons. In fact,” she said, getting up, “I think I’ll just call on them this afternoon. I’ll read Meg a story. And play with Hope for a while.” She smiled. “You can escort me over there on your way home.”

  Stephen put his hat on and went out into the hall. “Whatever you say, Miss Whitrock.” He leaned against the sideboard beside the front door while Amanda pulled a short cape over her shoulders and perched a hat atop her head.

  “I’ve a letter from Aaron,” Amanda said when Jane Leighton appeared at the front door of Leighton Hall. “I thought I’d share it with you. With Meg. If that’s all right.” Amanda shifted nervously from foot to foot beneath Jane Leighton’s no-nonsense stare. “And I wondered if it would be helpful to you if I played with Hope for a few minutes. In the garden? I’ve been so busy this summer, but mother finally let me off some of the chores, and—”