Forever by Your Side

by Tracie Peterson

  Connie shook her head. “And I’m sure our family would never have spoken of it to strangers or acquaintances.”

  Uncle Lance’s expression darkened. “No, but something else comes to mind. When Lakewood was still alive, he forced the medical college to dismiss Faith because she was . . . supposedly part Indian. Lakewood had learned that her father, Isaac Browning, whom Connie’s brother was named for, was a quarter Cherokee. Whoever told him didn’t realize Faith was adopted by Isaac and Eletta Browning, so that rules out family. Clint must have been the one who told Lakewood.”

  “That ties Lakewood and Singleton to each other, if that’s the case,” Major Wells added.

  Connie knew her uncle was being very careful to avoid revealing Faith’s half-Cayuse heritage.

  “At the time,” Uncle Lance began, “we wondered who could possibly know and have told Lakewood, but at the same time not realize Isaac Browning wasn’t her biological father. This makes so much sense.”

  “And if Singleton was coming here, posing as Adam Browning,” the major said, “he could have easily pulled it off. He knew Adam rarely left the reservation, so it wasn’t much of a risk that someone would question or recognize him.”

  “Exactly. And in the beginning, he would have known through the family about Nancy and her husband, Albert Pritchard. At least enough to connect with him.” Lance shook his head.

  Not only was Connie’s father in jail because of Clint, but Tom was at the reservation. She knew Clint saw Tom as a rival. He’d made more than one comment about Tom being in love with her. What if Clint decided to have Tom killed just to be rid of him?

  She jumped up. “You have to protect Tom. Clint hates him.”

  “There are already several companies of soldiers at Grand Ronde. No one is going to hurt anyone at this point,” Wells replied. “Clint’s father, Senator Singleton, has made a stop there on his way home to California. He’s an avid supporter of the Indians and is even traveling with a newspaperman.”

  She shook her head. “His father being there won’t stop Clint from hurting Tom, if he has a chance. He’s jealous of him.”

  “Clint sees Tom as competition for Connie’s affection,” Uncle Lance explained.

  “Tom’s in love with me. And though it’s taken me much too long to realize it, I’m in love with Tom.” Connie hadn’t meant to speak the words aloud, but now that she had, she knew they were the truth. She loved Tom. Loved him more than life itself, and the very thought of losing him was too much to handle.

  “I’ve got a supply detail heading to the reservation first thing in the morning,” Wells declared. “I could arrange for them to secretly pass information to Tom and for a group to escort him back to Portland. We could even say that he’s under arrest.”

  “Clint would probably like that,” Uncle Lance said, looking at Connie. “That should solve the problem.”

  She nodded, but already she was trying to figure out how she could be a part of the army detail. Now that she knew she was in love with Tom, she had to see him again. Had to tell him how she felt.

  “Now if we can just figure out who the mysterious Mr. Smith is,” Wells said, shaking his head. “We believe he’s the top man—the one holding all the purse strings. The one who ordered Seth beaten and those others killed.”

  The name sounded familiar, and Connie tried to recall where she’d heard it before. Then it came to her. “Smith—that was the name I heard the night Clint caught me spying on the delivery. Someone asked where Mr. Smith was. I always presumed the Indians were asking about someone who should have been with the boat men.”

  “But what if they were asking for someone there on the reservation?” Uncle Lance suggested.

  “What if Clint is Mr. Smith, as well as the hotel’s Mr. Browning?” Connie murmured. “Maybe he used both names.”

  “What do you know about God listening to prayers?” Tom asked as he and Isaac slipped through the forested lands. They were making their way to a secret meeting of the Indian Legislature at James Menard’s house. Few knew about the meeting, and that was the way Tom wanted to keep it. The last thing he needed was the army finding out and storming the place.

  “What do you mean?”

  Tom thought back to what he’d read in the Bible. “There’s a passage in the ninth chapter of John. Jesus healed a blind man, and the Pharisees were all up in arms about it because He did it on a Sunday and that was against the law. I can’t remember why, but at one point someone said that God doesn’t hear the prayers of sinners, but that if a man is a worshiper of God and does His will, then God will hear him.”

  Isaac paused to catch his breath. “Well, the Pharisees had all sorts of rules and regulations for how a man could be a good person. They followed the law, but Jesus was all about grace and forgiveness. He offered people a way for God to hear their prayers by coming through Him.”

  “Your father said something about that. What was the way?”

  “To put their faith in Him. In Romans, it says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead—you will be saved. Pa always said it isn’t nearly as hard as some men like to make it.”

  A noise disturbed the otherwise silent woods. Isaac put a finger to his lips, and he and Tom crouched down. A doe crossed the path directly ahead of them. She caught their scent and darted off through the trees.

  “Come on,” Isaac said. “We’re going to be late. I sure wish you would have let us ride the horses.”

  “We couldn’t risk being seen. You know that.”

  “I guess so. My feet think otherwise.”

  A half hour later, Tom and Isaac stood before the Indian Legislature. Tom had just explained that Adam Browning had been arrested. Apparently Clint had said nothing to the Indians about what had happened.

  “Adam told me that we should come to you. He told me this before the army took him and his family away from the reservation. Adam told me you are all good men whom I could trust. I realize you don’t know me, but Isaac Browning stands here as a witness to my character, and you know what kind of man he is.”

  “Go on,” the eldest of the bunch said.

  Tom drew a deep breath. “I need your help before disaster strikes.”

  “What is it you want from us?” another man asked.

  “There are plans for an uprising. Your young men have been deceived by someone. This person has convinced them that if they rise up and kill the white men and soldiers, the government will have no choice but to set the Indians free. That simply isn’t true. If you doubt me, think of what has happened to your brothers who have fought against the government in the past. None have won. They might have a momentary victory, but in the end they are captured and jailed—sometimes even put to death.

  “We must stop the attack before it starts, but I need your help. You have power over your people. They respect you and look up to you. We must convince them to remain in their homes and not join the uprising.”

  “It won’t be easy,” an older man declared. “My son has been helping, and he is convinced this is the only way. He would rather die fighting for his freedom. I told him it was foolishness, but he said Agent Singleton had promised he would be victorious.”

  Tom’s eyes widened, and a jolt shot through him. “Agent Singleton promised him this?”

  The older man nodded. “He has guns for them and plans to poison the soldiers. Agent Singleton told him.” He looked to the Legislature. “He promised that if we rose up together and killed the white settlers and soldiers, the government would set us free.”

  “Nothing could be further from the truth.” Tom chose his words with care. The idea that Clint was behind this war was something he couldn’t fully grasp. He’d had his suspicions about Clint, but it was still hard to believe. What was in it for Singleton? “Fighting against the law—the government of the United States—would not bode well for the Indians. They always end up losing everything.”

  “He spe
aks the truth,” James Menard said. “This war is not to our benefit.”

  “But what can we do? Our young men’s hearts are full of fire. They want revenge for their people,” the old man countered. “They no longer care what the old chiefs say. They don’t listen to us.”

  Tom knew what he said was true, but there had to be a way. “We have to try. Remind them what has happened to others who rebelled. Do whatever you can to encourage their peace. Explain that their house of rifles was discovered, so there will be no weapons. Explain to them that once I talk to the army colonel, Clint Singleton will be arrested. They will have no leader and no arms.”

  The men began to talk amongst themselves. Tom hoped it was enough to move them to action. While the Legislature discussed the matter, he prayed they would come to the right conclusion. Adam had told him this reservation lived peacefully because there were reasonable men in its leadership. He had to believe calmer heads would prevail.

  “We will do what we can,” the old man finally said after the discussion concluded. “We will go now and talk to our young men.”

  Tom breathed a sigh of relief and looked to Isaac, who offered him a smile. Hopefully the Indians would work together to dissipate interest in the uprising, explaining to the young men that war would not ensure their freedom but would guarantee their demise.

  James Menard approached them. “We will ride with you part of the way back to your house.”

  “We didn’t bring our mounts,” Isaac said. “We were afraid to be seen.”

  James nodded. “I will lend you horses.”

  “My feet will be very grateful,” Isaac said, smiling.

  The men from the Legislature rode a little more than half the distance back with Tom and Isaac. When they reached the first collection of closely built houses, they parted company. Tom and Isaac, now on foot, went different ways in order to keep suspicion to a minimum. Isaac needed to check on the family’s livestock, but they agreed to meet at the army’s camp.

  Tom made his way toward the Browning house, where he planned to saddle up one of the horses in order to go in search of Colonel Bedford. He was an old-fashioned soldier who had refused Clint’s offer of a room in his house and insisted on tenting with his men. With the soldiers camping at both the old fort and just beyond the church, Tom wasn’t sure where he’d find Colonel Bedford. Nevertheless, it was imperative that he locate him and warn him of Singleton’s plans to poison the soldiers.

  Tom didn’t know why it hadn’t dawned on him sooner that Clint was the inside man on the reservation. Everyone thought he was of the same mind as his father and brother, but instead he’d been working against the Indians all along. Even Adam Browning had thought Clint in support of the Indians and a strong man of God. Funny how Clint had pulled the wool over Browning’s eyes. It seemed he was good at deception. He’d toyed with Connie, and Tom doubted he even cared for her. He probably just wanted to use her for the short-term fun he could have.

  Tom wondered if Connie was safe. The family would no doubt be staying with the Carpenters. Hopefully it would be a simple matter for them to clear things up for Mr. Browning. Once they did and this was all over with, Tom intended to ask for Connie’s hand. He knew Connie cared for him—maybe even loved him a little. He intended to prove to her they belonged together. He’d never been surer of it.

  Tom was deep in thought when he heard a rifle fire and felt an immediate searing against the outer part of his upper arm. He looked down at the blood already turning his coat crimson. Then another shot was fired, and Tom felt the bullet skim his head in the same spot where the soldier had hit him with his gun. There was an explosion of pain. He put his hand to his head and drew it back bloodied.

  Dizziness and nausea flooded him at once, and he slumped forward and fell to the ground. He fought to stay conscious. It was funny, but of all the things that came to mind, he suddenly remembered a portion of a verse Adam Browning had shared at Tom’s first morning devotional with the family. Part of a Psalm—one he’d reread several times since.

  Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.

  Tom stared up at the sky and realized he very much wanted those words to be true.

  Help me, God. I don’t know you very well—but I do believe and . . . I confess with my mouth . . .

  “Jesus is Lord.” His voice was just a whisper.

  The world was going black, closing in from the sides and leaving only a tunnel of light. Just enough to see the man who’d done this terrible deed rise up from the brush.

  Clint Singleton.

  Clint was about to check that Tom was dead when he heard a bugle being sounded. He’d never bothered to learn the various calls. The army had already pulled out when he’d taken over as agent, and while he and the soldiers continued to have their encounters, the army was no longer a daily part of reservation life. Still, they were here and had to be dealt with.

  The plan was easy enough. Clint had poisoned a large portion of beef and was even now having it made into stew for the army. The poison was fast-acting, as his trial run with the Indians’ flour had proven. He smiled, remembering how no one had been able to prove what was wrong because he had cut the dose down so that it would only cause illness and not death.

  Sam Sheridan called to him from the direction of where Clint had left his horse. He decided to see what Sam needed. He felt confident that he’d killed Tom. The last shot had been to the head, and few survived head wounds.

  He made his way through the brush to where he’d tied his horse. Mounting, he saw Sam. “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s trouble. The Indian Legislature met with Isaac Browning and that man who is making a record of the tribes.”

  “Thomas Lowell. I just took care of him, and he won’t be any more trouble.”

  “Well, he was trouble enough. The leaders are spreading the word to abandon our plans. Apparently Lowell found our guns and took them.”

  Clint shook his head. “That’s impossible. No one knew where they were except people I knew I could trust. Men who wanted this plan to work.” He fumed and wished he could kill Lowell all over again. It wasn’t like the guns would have been much use. Only a few had firing pins—the others were useless. But the Indians would have gone to war with them, believing they were of the best quality. “Did you check on the weapons?”

  “No, but I sent others to do the job.”

  “Well, let’s find out what the truth is and then modify our plans as needed. There’s no sense canceling our plans until we know it’s true.”

  Sam scowled, and his eyes turned dark. “We can still kill the soldiers with the bad meat.”

  Clint nodded. “Yes, we can do exactly that. Killing the soldiers might be enough. We can take their weapons and distribute them as the men gather for war.”

  The plan wasn’t ideal. After all, he had never meant to give the Indians a fair fighting chance. Fully functioning weapons would mean more killing—more white deaths. Clint shrugged. The times called for tough measures, and if innocent people had to die . . . well, that was life.

  Elias Carter sat down opposite a group of men he didn’t know other than Major Wells. His conscience had bothered him terribly since the death of his friend Samuel Lakewood, and he found it impossible to continue with Mr. Smith’s plans. Then, when he’d read in the paper that Adam Browning was being held for the crime of killing Lakewood and Berkshire, Elias knew he couldn’t remain silent.

  With a secretary writing down his every word, Carter explained his part in the planned Indian uprising. “I worked with Samuel Lakewood to raise money from among the wealthier men of Portland. We were determined to see the Indians moved far away from here. The reservation land would then return to white settlers, and Oregon would no longer have to have so many reservations.”

  He licked his dry lips. “We determined that if the Indians were warring against us, the g
overnment would have no choice but to move them. The threat against white settlers and towns would make it necessary. We paid off people at every reservation to help us get weapons into the hands of the Indians, as well as whiskey and anything else that won them over to our side. Samuel told me that Mr. Smith had seen great success doing things this way.”

  “Who is Mr. Smith?” Wells asked.

  “It’s an alias used by Senator Singleton’s son, Clint Singleton. He went by the name Mr. Smith so that no one could tie them together. His father helped finance everything, and since Smith—Singleton—was an Indian agent at Grand Ronde, he was the perfect man to work with us. He helped us connect to the other reservations.

  “The plan was that the Indians would rise up with faulty weapons. Most wouldn’t have firing pins, but some would. We knew the Indians would kill some settlers, but it was necessary to force the government’s hand. The Indians would be shot down by soldiers or by white men who had been let in on the scheme. The hope was that all of the Indians would be killed, and if not, then they would be rounded up from the various reservations and sent together to another location. We knew the public outcry would be enough to force the government to do as we demanded and get rid of the Indians once and for all. Then the reservation land would be available to us to purchase.”

  The poor secretary could hardly keep up.

  “I never wanted to be a part of the scheme, but Samuel Lakewood threatened to destroy my business and see me bankrupt. I have a family to care for and could hardly ignore the threat.”

  “We understand that, Mr. Carter,” Major Wells replied. “That’s why we’re offering you a deal. You tell us everything you know and agree to testify against Singleton, and we will protect you and your family.”

  Carter took out a handkerchief and mopped his perspiring brow. “I’m just so worried that we won’t be in time. The attack is set for tomorrow.”

  Chapter 21

  Realizing how long it would take to reach Grand Ronde with the supply detail, Connie changed her plans and chose instead to take the train to Sheridan. From there she could rent a horse and ride the twelve remaining miles to Grand Ronde. This would allow her to sneak back to her house without being seen.