by Diana Palmer
"My heart shivers at the thought," she teased.
He caught her gloved fingers in his and took them to his mouth."I'llescort you back to Ellen's house. Then I have a few things to tend to. It may be a week or more before I see you again." He was solemn all at once. "Don't lose faith in me, Tess. I won't let you down."
"Inever thought that you would," she said quizzically. She smiled. "I love you."
He sighed. "And I love you. I hope that we have a hundred years to enjoy each other."
"And a son and daughter to keep us company," she said with dogged optimism, expecting him to argue.
He didn't. He just smiled. The conversation on the way to Ellen's was pleasant but not intimate, and he left her at the door with only a soft kiss for comfort.
* * *
Aweek later Matt sent the society section of theChicago Daily Times to her at the hospital by messenger.
She waited to read about a wild west troupe and studied first the accompanying large photograph that covered most of the top of the page. Pictured were several Oglala Sioux men who were appearing with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in a specialChicagoperformance before they traveled on toNew York City. Among the Sioux dignitaries were two minor chiefs, a medicine man named Old Man Deer, and right there, in the middle of them all, Matt Davis, local detective, in full regalia right down to the war-bonnet, looking every inch a credit to the tribe.
The article read "Famous Chicago detective Matt Davis poses with comrades from the Oglala tribe inSouth Dakota. Mr. Davis was known by the name Raven Following when he fought the white soldiers during skirmishes in the Indian Wars until the bitter defeat of the Sioux atWounded KneeonDecember 30, 1890. Mr. Davis spoke with pride of his heritage and passed several hours speaking in his native tongue with the members of his tribe and with Bill Cody. The next appearance of the Wild West Show, which Mr. Cody calls an educational spectacle rather than a sideshow, will be inNew YorkCity."
Itwent on to detail the movements of Cody's troupe, including plans for a European tour. Tess stared at the photograph with mingled pride and delight. Underneath it, written in bold ink, was a question: "Would you marry this man?"
Itwas the middle of a workday. Tess didn't even take time to think that she might be fired outright for what she did next. She took time only to find her purse, then ran out of the hospital, in the cap that was never supposed to be worn more than a hundred yards from the front door, her apron flying as she hailed a passing carriage, the newspaper held tight in her fingers.
Christmas was on the way, and everything was gaily decorated, from streetlights to front doors. She barely took note of the gay garlands adorning the streets as she stared impatiently out the window on the way to Matt's office. It was a dream come true, she thought, a miracle. Whatever had caused him to reveal his heritage so publicly? She was so proud of him that she could have burst.
The carriage finally got through thenoontraffic and deposited her on the sidewalk in front of Matt's office. She handed the driver all her change and ran into the building and up the staircase.
Stanleywas in the hall, looking at some papers, when she came tearing up the steps.
He grinned like the Cheshire cat when he saw the newspaper in her hand. "Isn't it swell?" he exclaimed."Iknew, or at least I suspected, but I had too much respect for Mr. Davis to pry into his private affairs. Imagine that, he led a war party! And he told me that the Oglalas have a proud heritage. Crazy Horse was Oglala, and so was Red Cloud, who fought the whites to a standstill back in the 1870s!"
"Yes, it is a very proud heritage," she agreed.
Matt had heard her voice. He came to the door of his office. He was hatless, and his glorious black hair was loosened for the first time in public—and in daylight, she thought with a scarlet blush. He looked magnificent.
"What do you think?" he asked her in Sioux.
"Wachia ka cha i bedush kien che,"she replied. "I am happy when I see you."
"And I am happy when I see you," he returned in English.
"My go-gosh, you speak Sioux?"Stanleystared in fascination at Tess.
"Indeed she does," Matt told him. "And she can shoot a bow and skin a deer and ride a pony bareback. I taught her those things, back inMontana."
"You're cousins, of course. Are you Sioux, then?"Stanleyasked politely.
"We're not cousins," Matt returned. "That was a fiction to keep people from asking too many questions. Actually, Stanley, Tess is my wife."
"Yes, I am," she replied. She and Matt gazed at each other with such love thatStanleywas faintly embarrassed.
"Only among the Sioux, though," Tess added.
"Only until I can find a minister to perform a ceremony that's legal inChicago," Matt told her with a chuckle. "Stanleycan give you away. Would you like that?"
Stanleygasped. "You would…honor me in such a way? Oh, sir!"
Matt clapped him on the shoulder affectionately. "You're a fine young man, Stanley, and I'm going to give you a lot more work in the future. You've proved yourself to me in every necessary way. You're a credit to my agency."
Stanleybeamed. "Thank you, sir!"
"Thank you,Stanley."
The young man, red-faced with pleasure, beat a hasty retreat to his own office. Tess went with Matt into his. He closed the door behind them and leaned back against it to study her.
"I gather your answer is yes?" He nodded at the paper she still held in her hand.
"Yes!"
He moved toward her, glancing at the photograph. "It's rather flattering, isn't it?"
"You're very handsome," she replied softly. "And I love you with or without long hair."
He grinned. "I'm glad."
She held the paper up. "Why?"
"You taught me the futility of running from the past," he said simply. "You never run from anything, Tess, and I never used to. But I'd let myself become demoralized by what happened atWounded Knee. When I finally turned around and looked into my darkness, all I saw there were shadows without substance." He drew her close. "Our children will be unique," he murmured, bending to her surprised mouth. "And I want a lot of them…"
She didn't say another word. Her lips parted under his hard mouth, and she clung to him with every ounce of her strength. They would be beautiful children, she thought, and she would be grateful every day of her life that she had helped Matt make his peace with the past.
Snowflakes struck the windowpanes, and the wind was howling. Tess seemed to hear sound from far away: the rhythm of drumbeats and the sizzling of campfires. A noble people were rising up from the ashes of their ancient civilization. Their voices called across the years, across the miles, and breathed beauty into the faraway future.
One day, she thought, the Oglala would once again be a proud nation, a nation of educated men and women who would challenge prejudice and demand their rightful place in the world. Women would do that as well. The outcome was as inevitable as life itself, as certain as the happiness she would share with her own Raven Following. And the two of them would be vanguards in the fight to make those dreams come true. Her heart was full…of love, of hope.
«^
Chicago,
Late autumn, 1938
Tess squeezed her husband's hand, and he shot her a grin. They were watching their daughter, their second born, being sworn in as the first woman to hold public office in the state ofIllinois. Her brother, a famous trial lawyer who fought for the rights of all minorities and especially of the Sioux people, stood at her side. His dark good looks drew as many admiring glances from the women present as his sister's beauty drew from the men. The weather was blustery, promising yet another cold, snowy winter, and the windows rattled. It sounded like sweet music to Tess.
How her savage heart had gentled, Tess thought, remembering the wedding and the joining with this man at her side that had produced these wonderful and accomplished children. She and Matt had married during Christmas week in a lovely ceremony that led to a gloriously happy marriage. Of course, Mat
t was obliged to bail Tess out of jail from time to time—until the early 1920s. There was a great drop in the frequency of those trips to police stations in 1920 when the amendment to the Constitution giving the vote to women passed both houses of Congress. They stopped altogether in 1924 after the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act, giving citizenship and the right to vote to all native Americans born within the territorial limits of theU.S.She glanced across the room, where the now very upright citizenJimKilgallen, whom no one for twenty-five years had dared call Diamond Jim, sat with his beloved wife,Nan.Nan's sister, Edith, represented by Jared Dunn, had been acquitted of murder and had received a suspended sentence for manslaughter all those long years ago, and lived far away now, in the South.
Sighing, Tess thought about how Matt had once worried so obsessively about having children who would have to bridge two worlds. Through the passing years, all those doubts of his had vanished.
"And you thought our children would end up as victims," she chided him in a near whisper as their tall, slender daughter placed her hand on the Bible in preparation for taking her oath of office.
Matt, his hair laced with silver, as was Tess's now, held her hand warmly in his and chuckled softly. "While you never had a single doubt about their potential." He pressed her fingers closer to his and looked lovingly into her age-lined green eyes. "Tell me now, before we take her and our son and his companion to dinner, do you regret any part of our lives together?"
She frowned thoughtfully, and mischief flared briefly in the pale eyes that met his dark ones. "Well, maybe just one thing."
"What?"
She leaned close and pulled his head down so that she could whisper in his ear without fear of being overheard. "I regret that we can't go back and do it all over again!"
The glorious light in his eyes was eclipsed only by the wonder in his achingly tender kiss. And if people stared at the elderly couple kissing so devotedly in the audience in front of God, a handful of reporters, and half of theChicagopolitical machine, they didn't mind at all. Neither did their daughter, who chuckled unashamedly as she shook handswiththe governor and stepped down from the stage to join them. As for their son, he raised an amused eyebrow and shared a secret smile as he walked over to join the pretty girl in the front row.
"I thought you said both your parents were Sioux," the girl remarked.
He glanced at them, love shining in his eyes. "They are."
"But your mother's complexion is so fair and—"
"It isn't her complexion that makes her a Sioux. It's her heart."
He would have expounded on that theme, but Tess waved to him, standing in the circle of Matt's strong arm. She was laughing like a young girl in the throes of her first love. And in her heart, she was.
Matt drew her closer. For an instant he imagined that he heard the thud of the hooves of fast ponies racing free across the plains, and the throb of the drums around the campfire, and the melancholy falsetto of the singers. The old days were gone forever. Men could fly without wings, and motion pictures were rewriting the history of the struggle over possession of western lands. But when Matt closed his eyes, he could hear the wind whisper to him, of brave deeds and harmony and boundless freedom. His children would never know those things. But he and Tess had lived the old ways.
"What are you thinking?" Tess asked softly.
He opened his eyes and looked down at her. "I was remembering the sound of old voices raised in prayer songs."
She moved closer and laid her cheek against his jacket. "One day," she whispered, "the old voices will sing to us again, and we'll ride our ponies across the plains."
He kissed her forehead with tender lips and drew her even closer. "Together."
She smiled. "Of course, together. God would never divide a soul. And ours is a shared soul."
He laid his cheek against her silver hair. He couldn't find the words to tell her how strongly he shared that feeling. But he didn't have to; she already knew.
Above Tess's head, their son and daughter were grinning wickedly. Matt didn't move a muscle. He just winked.