Bittner, Rosanne (64 page)

"Pa, none of us expects... I mean, I hope you don't think we're greedy or sitting around waiting for an inheritance," Katie spoke up.

Luke sighed. "I know that. I'm just saying that this family has always been close, and I don't want Nathan's arrival to bring on any unwarranted hard feelings or worries that somehow he's going to take anyone's place. Tyler, you're in charge of the Double L now when I'm gone, and that won't change. I want you to help Nathan learn the ropes. With having to travel more, I won't have time for it. You heard Nathan's reasons for wanting to be here, and it has nothing to do with money. His children are Lettie's and my grandchildren, your niece and nephew. I will not let them go hungry or be taken away to some damn school back East where they get a beating just for being themselves, nor will I allow them to be abused or treated rudely while living here. Is that understood?"

"Of course it is, Pa," Katie answered.

Luke watched Tyler. He knew his son was good-hearted and understood the importance of family, but he could also see that he still felt somehow pushed out of place. "Above ail else, we're all Fontaines. We're family, and we'll support each other and help each other and defend each other." He looked over at Nathan. "The same goes for you, Nathan, once you come back here. I understand that you feel more like a Sioux, that you consider them your family. But the fact remains that
we
are your family. I don't want you treating your brothers and sisters or your mother as though they are some kind of hated enemy."

Nathan nodded, glancing at Tyler again. "I am a Fontaine." He looked at Luke then. "But I will always have a place in my heart for the people who raised me. It was wrong for them to steal me away. I know this. But Half Nose was good to me. I thought of him as my father for many years, and I wept when he died." He looked at Lettie. "My Indian mother is also dead, from white man's disease. There is only Ramona."

"You'll stay until Christmas then?" she asked.

He nodded. "I will stay."

Lettie approached him hesitantly, her mind reeling with memories and the shock of realizing how fast the years had gone by after all. "All those lost years," she said quietly, studying her son lovingly.

Nathan could not help feeling affection for her. He had never forgotten how she had looked at him when he was there eight years ago. Such love he had never seen in anyone's eyes, except perhaps in Leena's; but that was a different kind of love, one of desire for her husband. The look in his mother's eyes was one of anguish and terrible longing.

Tyler rose. "I have some saddles to wax and bridles to repair." He walked toward Nathan. "Come on out to the barn," he said rather sullenly. "You want to learn the ropes. Might as well start now." He walked out, and Nathan glanced at Luke.

"He'll get used to it," Luke told him.

Nathan turned and walked out to pull on his wolfskin coat and a beaver hat, then hurried out the door, and Lettie broke into tears. "He's come home, Luke. Nathan is home." Luke walked over and put his arms around her. "With Elsie and Peter living in our old log house, we'll have to build Nathan a cabin for his family," she told Luke through tears.

"I already thought about that," Luke answered. "I'll have the men get started on it right away."

Outside Nathan ran to catch up with Tyler, who said nothing until they got inside the barn. He turned to face Nathan then, a glint of warning in his deep blue eyes. "I'm doing this for Pa, because I love him more than anything on this earth. Don't you ever hurt him or my mother, you understand? You hurt them enough when you left last time. You'd better appreciate what good people they are, and you'd better remember that
I
am Luke Fontaine's firstborn —by blood! Nobody else could ever be as close to my pa as I am.

Nathan shook his head, smiling sadly. "I do not expect to take your place in Luke's heart, Tyler. I have not come here to take
anything
that is yours. I do not even care if you hate me. I only want a place for my family to live and be safe and have full bellies."

Tyler scowled. "We'll see about that after you're here awhile." He opened a can of hard wax and handed it to Nathan, then pointed to a saddle that hung over a sawhorse. He slapped a rag into his hand. "Here. Put some of that stuff on the rag and rub it over the saddle. Wait a few minutes, then wipe the saddle off with a dry towel."

Nathan shrugged and got to work. "We use bear grease."

"What?" Tyler took down a bridle and looked at him with a frown.

"Bear grease. It works about the same. Did you think the Indian does not understand about taking care of leather?"

Tyler blinked. "I never thought about it."

Nathan grinned. "We do not use such big saddles, though. Ours are small and light. A horse can run faster and longer if it does not carry so much weight."

"Yeah, well, from now on you'll be using a regular western saddle, so get used to it. You're supposed to start thinking like a white man."

"Maybe the white man can learn something from the Indian. Did you ever think of that?"

"No. There isn't anything I want or need to learn from any Indian. All I know is they caused a lot of people a lot of trouble and heartache here in Montana. I'm glad they're on reservations where they belong."

Nathan rubbed vigorously at the saddle. "And you do not think the white man has caused the same heartache for the Indian? Whose land was this before the white man came along?"

Tyler studied a tear in the bridle, hating this intruding brother for making sense. "The Indians', I suppose."

"Right. And for every white man or woman killed by the Sioux, the Sioux lost ten times that from being killed by soldiers, women raped, little babies murdered, families torn apart. Sometimes hundreds would die at one time from white man's diseases. You do not have to tell me about troubles for the white man, Tyler. You have no idea what the Indian has suffered. Everything has been taken from us.
Everything.
Even our pride."

"You're ready enough to be white
yourself
when it's convenient for you," Tyler said grudgingly.

"I do not come here as white. I come here as an Indian on the inside, a man who happens to have white parents who can help his family."

"You aren't supposed to think of yourself as one of them anymore. If you're going to come here to live, then you're a Fontaine now."

Nathan kept working. "What is it you fear, Tyler? Your father's love for you will never change. He is a good and fair man, and I can tell that you love him as much as any son can love a father. My presence will not change any of that."

"I also love the Double L," Tyler answered. "My brother and two sisters don't want anything to do with running this ranch, so it's up to me. Nobody is going to take that from me."

Nathan shook his head. "I do not want to take that from you, but you do not believe that right now. Someday you will understand."

Tyler did not answer. He tried cutting the bridle strap off so he could replace it, but the knife he had picked up from a bench to use was too dull. He sliced vigorously, angrily, then realized Nathan was standing beside him. He handed out a pocket knife.

"Here. I have kept it sharpened. It works well." He opened it. "Luke gave it to me the last time I was here, as a gift. Now I give it to you."

Tyler frowned as he sliced easily through the strap. He closed the knife and handed it back, feeling a hot jealousy that Luke had given Nathan the knife. "I don't want it," he said quietly. "Pa gave it to you. You keep it."

CHAPTER 32

August 1884

"Mom, they're here!" Robbie ran back outside without explaining himself further, but Lettie knew what he meant. She wished Luke was here for this moment, but he was in Helena. She would have to handle this herself. She hurried out to the entrance hall, stopped to look at herself in a mirror, wondering why in the world she worried about how she might look to an Indian woman who knew little about the way white women dressed and probably didn't care one whit for jewelry and fancy hairdos. She wore her own hair wrapped into a roll around her head today, and was dressed in a simple blue summer dress with no petticoats because of the heat.

She had been helping Mae bake this afternoon, and she noticed she had flour on her cheek. She brushed it off and tucked a strand of hair back into a comb, then hurried out to the front of the house, where several Double L men had gathered to stare. Tyler drove a rickety wagon packed in the back with supplies, upon which sat two dark-eyed children. Their long, black hair blew in the hot summer wind, and their eyes were wide with curiosity. Lettie felt sweet joy at the sight of the two grandchildren she had never seen. Now there were five. Katie had had her third child in June, a boy named Robert Bradley. Three grandsons and two granddaughters! Not only had God brought back her Nathan, but a whole family with him, and she wondered when she had been happier.

She rushed down the steps to greet them. The woman sitting next to Nathan was beautiful, needing not an ounce of color or creams or fancy clothes to bring out that beauty. It was a simple beauty, her dark skin clear and looking smooth as satin. She wore her long hair in a bun, like a white woman, and Lettie was surprised to see she was wearing a yellow calico dress. Somehow she had expected Nathan's Indian wife to arrive in a fringed deerskin dress, her hair in braids. She took hold of the woman's hands as soon as she climbed down from the wagon. "Hello! I am Lettie, Nathan's mother. I'm so very, very happy you've come!"

The woman looked apprehensive. "I am Leena," she said quietly. She turned to the wagon. "These are your grandchildren, Julie and Luke. Julie is four summers, Luke is two."

"Oh, they're so beautiful," Lettie exclaimed with tear-filled eyes.

"I take it we're at the right place, ma'am?"

Lettie had hardly realized that three soldiers had accompanied the wagon. She turned at the voice to look up at a bearded man in a blue uniform. "Yes. This is my son and daughter-in-law. Why are you here?"

The man scratched at his beard. "We were assigned to come along to make sure they got here all right. Some people still don't like the sight of Indians, if you know what I mean. Without us along, some folks might not have believed they had a right to be off the reservation. I'm Sergeant Reeves, and these two are Private Dillon and Private Frazer, from the Standing Rock reservation. You're Mrs. Luke Fontaine then?"

"Yes, I am. Thank you for accompanying my son. Please stay for something to eat and drink. We can put you up in a bunkhouse for the night so you can rest your horses before you start back."

"That would be right nice, Mrs. Fontaine." The sergeant scanned the lovely Fontaine home, its well-manicured lawn, flowers blooming everywhere, ivy growing on the house. It didn't seem fair that any Indian should get to live this way, but it wasn't his business. If the Fontaines were crazy enough to take them in, they could have them.

Lettie turned back to help lift down the children, her heart bursting with love at the sight of their beautiful, round faces. Little Julie smiled, revealing dimples, and Lettie hugged her close, feeling an instant bond. She was hardly aware of a second Indian woman, but Tyler noticed her right away when he walked around to the back of the wagon to open the gate. She rode behind the wagon on a pinto. Although she wore a white woman's dress, rather plain and a little too big for her, he noticed her feet were bare, and some of her bare leg showed from straddling the horse. She rode bareback, the horse's bridle made from simple rope. Her long, dark hair hung loose. He had been seeing more of Alice Richards lately, but neither Alice nor any other girl in town was as exotic looking as this one. She must be Nathan's step-sister, Ramona. Considering his resentment of Nathan, he knew he should also resent the intrusion of this full-blooded Sioux girl, but there was something exciting about her. Perhaps it was because he thought she ought to be forbidden to any white man, maybe not even worthy of one... or could it be the other way around? The proud look in her eyes made him realize she might think
he
was unworthy. He remembered that she was only sixteen; but she had a provocative beauty that made her seem older, and the breasts that filled out the bodice of her dress looked full and firm. There was a soft, free look about them that made him wonder if it was true Indian women never wore anything under their dresses. She didn't appear to be wearing a white woman's stiff undergarments.

He quickly chastised himself for the thought. The girl sat there unsmiling, and he nodded to her. "Hello. I'm Tyler, Nathan's half brother." He still did not like admitting to people in town that his "Indian" brother was coming home; but for the moment he was glad, for one reason. That reason was sitting on a pinto horse looking back at him.

"I am Ramona," she answered in a small voice. Ramona wondered if the young white man watching her knew what she was thinking—that she had never seen a white man before who stirred odd new urges deep at her insides. What a fine-looking man this Tyler was, with eyes much bluer than Nathan's, and such a handsome smile! He was big and strong looking, a fine specimen of a man, for being white.

"Welcome to the Double L," Tyler told her. "My pa had a house built for you and Nathan and his family." He pointed to a log cabin about a half mile down the hill from the main house.

She glanced at the cabin, seemingly unimpressed. "This is my own horse," she said. "Her name is Star." She patted the horses's neck proudly.

"Looks like a fine horse," Tyler told her, looking the animal over. His eyes kept going back to her own slender calf and bare foot. He finally moved his gaze to meet her stirring dark eyes. "We've got plenty of horses here on the Double L. If you'd like to try riding any of them, I'd be glad to show them to you, take you out riding and show you the Double L."

"The Double L?"

"That's what we call the ranch—for my pa and ma— Luke and Lettie."

She held her chin proudly. "I see. Two L's. I know all my letters, you know. I have had some of the white man's schooling at the reservation, but Nathan would not let them send me to the Indian school in the land of the rising sun. Many children go there and never come back."