Bittner, Rosanne (18 page)

His heart raced. He prayed as he had never prayed before that finally he would have his son back. Poor Nathan. What must he think? That his parents had deserted him? Was he down there somewhere amid that circle of tepees? "I'm going down with you," he told the lieutenant.

"I'm not sure you should, Mr. Fontaine."

"I'm going. We've come this far. If my son is down there, I want to see for myself. If those Sioux wanted us dead, they would have killed us a long time ago."

"They still might," the lieutenant said. He took a white flag from his gear, unfurled it, and held it up in the air. "Let's go."

He headed down the hill. Almost immediately several warriors who had spotted them in the distance jumped on the bare backs of their mounts and rode out of the village toward them. Many more painted, half-naked braves rode up the sides of the hill. In moments they were surrounded. Obviously they had been watched all along. It irked Luke to know that these past two months Half Nose had probably been leading him on, watching him, laughing at him, teasing him. Now he had finally allowed himself to be found. Maybe that meant he was ready to give up the boy.

All of them could almost feel their scalps being lilted as they rode into the village, but Luke was too angry and too anxious to be afraid. Dogs barked, women and children gathered to stare at them. A couple of the braves who rode beside and behind them finally charged around in front of them, holding up their hands and ordering them to halt. One of them said something to one of the Shoshone scouts, and the scout answered him. By now Luke recognized the Sioux words for Half Nose. Their Indian hosts turned and led them to the tepee with the red horses painted on it.

"He is here," one of the Shoshone men told Luke.

Luke's heart pounded with anticipation. At last, after all the days of helpless searching, of great hope and terrible despair, he had found Half Nose, the one man who could tell him if Nathan was dead or alive, the one man who might be able to give his son back to him.

The proud, muscled warrior came out of his tepee as they approached it. Luke wondered if they would all get out of this alive.

"This is a well-armed, well-fed camp," Lieutenant Jiggs told him calmly. "Don't do anything stupid, Mr. Fontaine. One wrong move and we're all dead. I know how much you hate Half Nose and would like to kill him, but don't do it. The last thing your wife needs is to lose her son
and
you."

"It isn't easy looking right into the face of the man who stole away your own son," Luke answered through gritted teeth.

"He's holding all the cards. You remember that."

They halted their horses and dismounted. Luke stood before Half Nose, glaring at him. They would have been well matched if Luke had not suffered so in his quest that he was not up to full strength. Half Nose outweighed him, but Luke stood a little taller, and he had a hard edge to him now that would intimidate most men, except for this Indian brave who knew he had nothing to fear at the moment. The brave looked him over, said something to him in the Sioux tongue, the words bitter. They sounded familiar. Luke thought maybe they were the same words the man had spoken that night in the cabin when he grabbed him by the hair.

"He say you are child killer," Slow Deer, one of the Shoshone scouts, told him. "Bad white man."

"Tell him I was defending my family and my possessions, just like he would do," Luke answered. "Tell him I didn't know the brave who shot arrows at me was his son and so young. Tell him I am deeply sorry."

Luke hated having to apologize to this man, but he would do whatever he had to do to get Nathan back, and he truly was sorry about Red Hawk.

Half Nose sneered at him as he replied, speaking several sentences before waiting for Slow Dear to interpret.

"He say it is to late to be sorry. His son is dead. He say he has let you find him because it is time you give up searching. It is also too late for you. Your son is also dead."

Half Nose's look of defiance did not waver when he saw the terrible sorrow move into Luke's eyes. Luke studied the man's dark eyes. "Tell him I don't believe him. He wants me to stop looking for my boy because he wants to keep him."

Slow Deer told Half Nose what Luke said, and Half Nose stiffened at the accusation. He shook his head, then looked over at Slow Deer. He carried on in his own tongue, waving his hands, using sign language as he spoke. Luke recognized the sign for water. They'd found Nathan's slippers and nightshirt by a river, evidence that the boy had drowned. No! He would not believe it.

"He say the little boy run away while they are camped, fall in river, and drown. It is probably so. Sioux and Cheyenne do not like to swim in deep river water, afraid of spirits beneath the waters. If the boy fell into the river, they would not have saved him."

"Then ask him why we didn't find Nathan's body when we found his clothes by the river."

Slow Deer interpreted, and Half Nose carried on some more.

"He say body must have drifted farther down the river from where you look. They never find it. It probably washed up on shore, and by now wolves and buzzards have torn it to pieces and dragged it away. It will probably never be found."

The words were spoken matter-of-factly. Luke felt ill. He needed to hit something, to scream, to weep, to kill someone. Surely God wouldn't have let little Nathan's life end that way! He struggled to keep his composure. He had to protect Will and the other men who had so faithfully helped him. And the lieutenant had been right: He had to go back to Lettie. But if he returned without Nathan maybe she wouldn't want him anymore.

He had only one chance left to see if Half Nose was lying.

"Tell him I'm not the boy's real father. Tell him he hasn't hurt me as badly as he thinks, because Nathan was not my son by blood. He might as well give him back to me, because if he was looking to steal my son, he hasn't. I don't have a son of my own."

Slow Deer told Half Nose what Luke said. Half Nose studied Luke's blue eyes for several quiet seconds. He spoke more calmly then.

"He say now
you
lie. He say even if the boy was not yours, he can see by your eyes that the hurt is the same. He say a child does not have to be a man's by blood for the man to love it."

Luke was taken back by the mention of the word love. What did this man know of such feelings? Perhaps more than he'd been given credit for. "Tell him he is right. Tell him if he'll give me my boy back, I'll furnish horses to him for as long as he needs them... even guns, if that's what it will take."

The Shoshone scout repeated the message, but Half Nose shook his head, spoke, then waved them off as though he was finished with them. He turned away.

Luke grabbed his arm. "No!"

Hatred filled Half Nose's eyes, and he jerked his arm away, his lips curling into a sneer.

"Goddamn it, Luke, be careful!" the lieutenant told him. "You'll get us all killed."

"What did he say?" Luke asked Slow Deer.

"He say all the horses and guns in the world cannot bring back a dead boy. Even if the child was alive, he would not believe your promise, because no white man has ever kept a promise to an Indian; but it does not matter. The boy drowned. He is dead, and that is the end of it. We must leave now, or they will kill us."

Luke began to tremble at the awful truth of it. He had come to the end of the road. He had to go back to Lettie without Nathan. How in God's name was he going to face her? "Ask him what happened to the stuffed horse my son always carried with him."

In response to Slow Deer's words, Half Nose shrugged, then barked out a reply.

"He say the boy must have dropped the horse somewhere along the way. He remembers it, but suddenly it was gone. It could be anywhere. He say if you do not believe he does not have the boy, you may search every tepee, but you must do it quickly. He wants us out of here."

Luke glared at Half Nose. "Fine," he answered with his own sneer.

He proceeded to search every single dwelling in the camp, beginning with Half Nose's tepee. Some of the women and children shrank from the tall white man with the mean look in his eyes, but the men in the village watched him defiantly, showing no fear.

When Luke exited the last tepee, he thought he might pass out from a mixture of grief and weakness from the hard journey that had led to this moment of utter defeat.

He walked back to face Half Nose. "Tell him I think he is a coward for taking his revenge through a helpless little boy," he told Slow Deer, his blue eyes blazing with hatred. "His own son was bigger, already an experienced warrior. He came at me like a man, and I killed him with the thought that he was a brave warrior. Half Nose has taken revenge by stealing away an innocent little boy and then allowing him to die. I have no respect for Half Nose. Yes, he has hurt me, as deeply as any man can hurt another, but I would have respected him more if he had taken me and not my son, if he would have tortured me, let me suffer any way he chose. It would have been the more honorable revenge."

Slow Deer looked at the lieutenant, not sure he should interpret the words.

"Tell
him!" Luke ordered, standing only inches away from Half Nose and glaring at him.

Slow Deer swallowed, then repeated the words. Half Nose stiffened, drawing in his breath. He folded his powerful arms, spoke briefly, then turned and went inside his tepee.

"He say you can take back eight of your horses and four of the foals. He say it is all he can do to make up for your son. We must get the horses quickly and leave, or we all die. I know these Sioux. We must do what he say."

"Let's go, Fontaine. There isn't one more thing we can do here," Lieutenant Jiggs told Luke. The man mounted his own horse.

"I don't want my horses. I want my
son!"
Luke answered.

"Your son is dead, Mr. Fontaine. I'm damn sorry about that, but that's how it is. Let's go cull out some of your horses and get the hell out of here."

"Come on, Luke," Will told him. "There ain't nothin' more you can do. Go on home to Lettie and your new baby. You've got a wife and two other kids waitin' for you."

Luke looked at the man with tear-filled eyes. "I can't go home without Nathan."

"You've got no choice, friend." Will grasped his shoulder. "Luke, we've got to get out of here."

Luke turned away, wiping at tears with his shirtsleeve as he mounted Paint. "You know my brand. Go pick out a few of the better horses and four foals like he said. I need to be alone for a few minutes." He mounted up and turned his horse to ride out of the village.

Will gazed after him, his heart aching for the man.

Something had happened to Luke Fontaine these last two months. There was a raw edge to him now, a man hardened by adversity and personal loss. This was not the same Luke Fontaine he had first met when he came to Billings. That Luke was gone forever.

Lettie looked up from the rocker in which she sat on the porch of her own home. Every day she came out here to nurse her new son and watch the horizon for her husband and another son. She had wanted to come here to wait, so that Nathan could come back to his own house, his own room. The baby had been three weeks old when she asked Henny to find a man to bring her back. That was a week ago. Henny was still with her, and Lettie knew she was worried their husbands would never return, that they, too, had been killed by the Sioux.

It was July now, 1865. The garden had been overgrown with weeds and drying up when they returned, and Henny had kindly pulled some of the weeds and watered what plants had survived. She had brought Bear and Patch with her for company, knowing how much Nathan enjoyed playing with the animals. She had cooked and cleaned, helped with Katie. Lettie wasn't sure what she would have done without the woman's help and company over the nearly three months since Luke had left with Will and the others to find Nathan.

One by one the others had returned, each with the same reports. No Nathan, but Luke and Will had not given up. Meanwhile Lettie and Henny had hired two men to keep the ranch going, and to protect them, until Luke returned. There was irony in that, Lettie realized, since she no longer felt she needed protection from the Indians. Half Nose had already gotten what he wanted.

"Riders coming!" one of the new hired help shouted then. His horse thundered up to the front of the house. "Coming in from the northwest. I think it's your husband, ma'am."

Lettie's heart pounded with both hope and dread. "Did you see whether there is a little boy with them?"

"No, ma'am. Too far away, but they are bringing a few horses back with them. They must have made some kind of deal with the Sioux to get those horses."

Henny came out of the house to stand beside Lettie and wait. Minutes seemed like hours for the two women as they watched the distant figures approach. The two hired men rode out to greet them. Lettie could see them well enough now to know Nathan was not with them. She recognized Luke, knew how he sat in a saddle, recognized Paint. She wondered if she was going to faint. "Oh, God, Henny, they didn't find him!"

Henny touched Lettie's shoulder reassuringly. "Wait and see what he tells you."

Lettie slowly rose as Luke came closer, and for a brief moment she forgot her own sorrow at the sight of him. He was somehow changed, leaner, harder, a terrible sorrow in those blue eyes, but also a new determination. And older. He looked older.

The men dismounted as they reached the house. Henny ran to Will, who embraced her and led her away to give Luke and Lettie a few moments alone.

They stared at each other for several long, silent, miserable seconds.

"I figured we'd ride through here first, check the damage," Luke told her then. "I didn't think you'd be here."

She swallowed back the lump in her throat. "I wanted to come home."

Luke glanced at the bundle in her arms. "I told you I'd be with you when this one was born," he said, his voice strained. "I'm sorry, Lettie, sorry about a whole lot of things." He dismounted wearily. "Where's Katie?"

"Sleeping inside."

He came up the steps, looked down at the baby again, his eyes questioning. She noticed that the scars the grizzly had left on the side of his face were beginning to fade a little.