Eagle’s Song (18 page)

She then introduced him to the other two, James Dillingham and Albert Moser, both older men who were apparently married, as they wore wedding bands. Dillingham was a professor at the University of Michigan, and Moser worked as a consultant for various mining companies.

“You have a fine piece of property here, Mr. Brown,” Dillingham told Zeke. “I can see it’s been a lot of work for you, getting rid of all the stumps.”

“That was the only way I could afford it. The government figures a lot of people don’t want land after all the trees have been logged out of it, considering the work that leaves for someone else. In some areas I’ve left the regrowth alone. I want the pines to come back on the hillsides to prevent erosion. Personally, I
disagree with cutting down every tree in one big area like this. I think it’s a sin against nature to completely strip a forest.” He told himself to be careful. He was tempted to call it a “white man’s folly,” but it might be best if these men didn’t know he was part Indian. Haydon Seger had warned him to be careful about that if he wanted to own land. He’d made sure he talked to the right land agent, but that man had been replaced, so Zeke now kept a low profile with his neighbors and the new land agent.

“I think it’s a shame, too,” Dillingham answered.

Zeke liked the concern in the man’s blue eyes. He was very distinguished, with gray hair and mustache, his suit a fine cut.

“We’re working with Washington, trying to get laws passed to prevent forest stripping,” Dillingham continued, “but you know how it is. When there’s a dollar to be made, nothing else seems to matter. I swear we could all learn some lessons from the Indians if we’d stop to listen to them, but people think I’m crazy when I talk like that. The Indians believed in preserving the trees and the animals and such. I don’t understand it all, but I figured out enough to know that savage as they were, they certainly did love Mother Earth.”

Zeke glanced at Georgeanne, and Robert Higgins did not miss the odd look he gave her. “Yes, they did,” he answered, turning to Dillingham again. “I’m glad to know someone agrees with me.”

“Well, good luck with developing your ranch here,” Dillingham answered, shaking his hand once more. “Miss Temple insisted we stop by so she could see if you were the same person she knew a while back. How long ago was that?”

Zeke looked at Georgeanne. “About ten years, I think,” he lied. It had been only six. If they knew that, these men would realize they were not “childhood”
friends, and they might make something more of their acquaintance. “Isn’t that right?”

He saw the quick confusion in Georgeanne’s eyes before she understood what he was doing. “More like twelve,” she answered. “I wasn’t sure I’d recognize you, Zeke.”

He smiled. God, she was beautiful! If they were alone, he was sure she’d allow his embrace. There was so much to tell her, so much to apologize for, so much to explain. He wanted to know everything she’d done these past six years, where she’d been … if there was a man in her life. He could hardly believe that on seeing her again, those six years were instantly wiped away. He felt he could just take up where they’d left off. He wanted to tell her he still loved her, that no one had been able to fill that void in his life.

“We’d best get going,” Higgins said. “We’re expected in Masonville.”

Zeke experienced a sudden panic. She couldn’t leave like this. “Where do you live now, Georgeanne?”

“In Colorado Springs, at a rooming house there. I came up here for a seminar in Fort Collins. We’ll be at Masonville for a while, and it isn’t far. Perhaps you could come there if you can find the time. I don’t work on Sundays.” She waved her arm. “Look at us! Zeke, we don’t dress this way when we work. We wear very different clothes for that, and we get very dirty! I love the work. Do come and see what we do! Just check at the Masonville Inn first. Not many women are allowed to have any kind of career in this country, you know, but out here women have much more freedom than they do back East. At first the university’s dean didn’t want to let me study geology, but I was not about to take no for an answer. So, here I am! Will you come to Masonville?”

He nodded. “I’ll try.” He could tell she felt the same
as he—so much to talk about—and she needed to feel his arms around her again.

“We’ll be there for about six weeks,” she said, climbing back into the carriage. “I’m so glad I found you, Zeke, and so glad you have a piece of land for yourself.”

“Let’s be off,” Higgins told the driver, obviously anxious to get her away from Zeke, who watched them leave, feeling stunned and slightly bewildered. Georgeanne had blown back into his life like a sudden spring wind. It was incredible, wonderful. Still, although she didn’t really seem any different, she had surely changed after having attended a university and getting a degree, meeting important people, having a career. Somehow it did not surprise him to see her stubbornly going against what society normally expected of a properly bred young woman.

He grinned. Always a little rebellious and extraordinary. That was Georgeanne Temple. She waved as the carriage rolled away, and he waved back, watching until the equipage was out of sight. He sat down on a rock, shaking his head.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “A geologist.” Would he be crazy to go to Masonville and see her again? Risk a return of all those old feelings? Hell, they’d already come back. He told himself to be careful. He
had
to see her again, simply out of friendship, and because so much had been left unsaid. It sure wasn’t likely, after what she’d accomplished these last six years, that she would still be interested in him, not in a struggling rancher with little to offer. He would have to put aside the old longings and just see her as a friend. The trouble was, she was more beautiful even than he’d remembered.

* * *

Jeremy stood up in front of the gathering of Denver’s high society, men and women who had paid fifty dollars a plate to attend the fund-raiser for another orphanage Abbie wanted built for the growing number of children who lived on the streets of Denver. The dinner was held in the banquet room of the Queen City Hotel, owned by Jeremy himself.

Jeremy had never felt so fulfilled. The frustration and guilt over the years he’d abandoned his family and denied his Indian heritage had finally left him. Iris was happy with her husband and family, and in spite of looking Indian and being married to a Mexican, she had been accepted by many of those in the sea of faces before him. She was here tonight, sitting at the head table.

Denver’s elite were determined to prove their city was as advanced and civilized and modern as any city back East, with theaters and parks and a gold-domed capitol building. Most did not like to admit Denver had problems with the poor, the bulk of whom were now immigrants out of work. They did not care to own up to the fact that their city was not perfect, and it was easier to ignore those in need than face reality and help them.

Abigail Monroe was also determined, determined to change the policy of “looking the other way.” She had begun an effort to open people’s eyes. Leave it to her, a woman who knew no fear, to not be intimidated by Denver’s most prestigious. Abigail Monroe was a woman who had faced Crow Indians with a rifle, who had suffered an arrow wound, watched her whole family die on the trail West. She was a true founder of Colorado, made of much more courage and grit than any of the other women present. He was proud of her efforts, in spite of some of the whispers about his mother being married to a half-breed man, then to a
full-blood Cheyenne. He no longer cared that others knew he had Indian blood, or that he and Mary had lost a few friends because of it. Nor did he doubt that some of those who remained friends did so only because of his own wealth and his status with the railroad.

He’d come too far to let such things bother him. What was important was that he’d been able to help Wolf’s Blood by raising his son and daughter. Hawk would graduate from Harvard next year, and he planned to return to Denver to practice law. Joshua had started his novel about Abbie’s life. The excerpts in the
Rocky Mountain News
had brought a few more of Denver’s “finest” around to Abbie’s side, mostly out of curiosity over this fiercely determined and bold pioneer woman. He could not help smiling at what Zeke Monroe would think of his Abbie-girl right now, dressed elegantly tonight, looking as though she truly belonged with this circle of rich folk … a woman who had lived among the Indians for years, then in a simple log cabin on the Colorado plains. She had raised a great deal of money for the orphanage, opened a lot of eyes to Denver’s worst problems. He supposed if his mother could conquer a man like Cheyenne Zeke at fifteen years of age, she could certainly have her way with these soft-handed people at sixty-three; twice widowed but still fighting for what she believed was right.

“I am now proud to introduce to you a true Colorado pioneer,” he said aloud. “This woman came West from Tennessee close to fifty years ago and lost her entire family on the way. She ended up marrying the scout for the wagon train, a man who was half Cheyenne. His name was Lone Eagle, his white name, Zeke Monroe … and he was—” He stopped and swallowed, suddenly overwhelmed with how much he missed his father, how dearly he would like to be able to embrace him once more. “He was my father. And so I introduce to you my
mother, Abigail Monroe, who is the reason for this benefit. She has worked diligently to have another orphanage built for Denver’s homeless children, and I hope all of you realize we have to work together to create programs to help our poor.” He turned to Abbie. “Mother, please say a few words to these people.”

He put out his hand, and Abbie took it, looking at him proudly. She rose, and everyone in the room applauded her, some of them rising in her honor. It was an amazing moment for Abbie; so many memories flashed through her mind. If Zeke could see her now, wouldn’t he have a big grin on his face? She could almost see him standing at the back of the room, in buckskins, his big knife in its sheath at his waist, ready to set straight anyone who might think to insult her.

She set her notes in front of her, as another man came to mind. He was buried in a mass grave at Wounded Knee, never to hold her again. Such a shameful way for such a man to be buried. He should be high on a scaffold in the mountains … with his half brother, Zeke. Pushing aside the memories, she began her speech about some of the sorry conditions she had personally witnessed in the poorer districts of Denver, and she warned that those in power must do something about problems that would not go away by ignoring them, or, as some had tried to do, by giving the poor a change of clothes and a ticket out of town.

“It took great courage to settle this land,” she told them, “and now it will take courage to face the problems we have created with that settlement. This is a land that has grown too fast for its own good, a settlement that has destroyed one class of people, our Native Americans, and yet created another class of people that still cannot cope with this sudden growth. Settlers ignored the Indians, killed them, pushed them off the land into little corners of the country to be forgotten—and
still there is a great problem with the Indian situation.” She thought about Wolf’s Blood, her precious son, gone so long now. “Just as that problem has not gone away, neither will this new one with the poor of our city, men—and their women—who came here to help build the railroads and to work in the mines, enterprises which made many of you wealthy. Now they are jobless, and we try to sweep them under a rug and pretend they are not here. But they
are
and we must do what we can, as Christians and as those who run this city, to help others not as fortunate as we are.”

Jeremy watched her lovingly. Her thick, auburn hair had turned mostly gray since Swift Arrow was killed, but she was still a tiny woman, and the hint of the beauty she’d been for so many years was still there. Sometimes, when her eyes twinkled just so, he could imagine how she’d looked at fifteen when she’d chased after Zeke Monroe. How one woman could survive what she had was beyond imagination, and he realized now that in spite of how strong and wild and skilled Zeke Monroe had been, his real strength had come from this small woman who still carried the family on her shoulders.

He could see people were enraptured by her talk. When she finished she received a standing ovation … his pioneer mother who had lived such a simple, rugged life, standing before Denver’s elite, fully accepted in a society totally foreign to her. But then Abigail Monroe had a way of adapting to any situation, if it meant helping her family or helping someone she considered less fortunate than she.

She deserved this acclamation. He glanced down the table at Joshua, who well knew what it was like to be the recipient of this woman’s love. She had suffered and nearly died at the hands of a man who wanted to find and kill Joshua when he was a boy. He was not
even her own son, yet she had refused to tell where he was. Joshua, too, stood and applauded, tears in his eyes. Denver’s society had a long way to go to match the courage of those who had come before them. He wished the whole family could be here, but all of them were carrying on their lives with just as much bravery as the mother and grandmother who had helped them get this far.

Sixteen

Zeke headed Indian up the slope toward the spot where an old prospector had told him “them fancy-nosed geologists” were exploring the side of a mountain. He dismounted, worried that Indian, getting old for a horse, would become too winded from such a steep climb. It had taken three hours to get this far, along a winding switchback trail that snaked its way nearly to the treeline of the mountain, where the prospector had also said there was, “a good fishin’ lake.”

He had to grin at the memory of the conversation, the prospector a stark contrast to today’s miners with their modern methods. He’d thought about doing some prospecting himself, but he’d been too busy with more practical things, and he didn’t have the money to properly mine a find even if he did discover gold. He knew most prospectors, like the one he’d met in Masonville, were long broke, having sold their claims for far less than their worth to mining companies who then came in and made millions.

Zeke reached the lake, where the water was a deep blue and the entire perimeter was surrounded by boulders and pine trees. It was a peaceful, pristine scene that invigorated him. Everything up here was clean and clear and seemingly untouched. An old man sat on a rock with a cane pole, quietly fishing, and Zeke asked him where the geologists were digging. The man
pointed to the side of a mountain that rose straight up, just to the west of the lake. “Through those trees there and past that first big hill of rocks. They’re on the other side.”

Zeke thanked him and led Indian along a pathway around the edge of the lake to the huge mound of piled boulders. He tied Indian, then hesitated. Was he crazy to be doing this? He walked around the boulders to see five men and a woman working along the base of a mountain that jutted upward hundreds of feet higher than he had just climbed. Its face was much too steep for anyone to scale, but it sloped just enough at the bottom for Georgeanne and the others to dig into it.

Zeke did not recognize two of the men, and guessed they were only there as guides. “No public allowed here, mister,” one of them told him.

“I’m not public. I’m just here to see one of the geologists,” Zeke answered.

Higgins spotted Zeke when he heard the voices. He left his dig and approached him. “Mr. Brown.” He nodded, irritation obvious in his eyes. “If you’re here to see Georgeanne, she is very busy right now. She’s—”

“Zeke!” Georgeanne spotted him then. “Come over here!”

Zeke couldn’t help giving Robert Higgins a wry grin. “I guess she’s not too busy to see an old friend.” He watched the jealousy flare in Higgins’s eyes. “A
friend
,” he repeated, leaning a little closer when he said it. He couldn’t help enjoying the fact that he towered over Higgins and was half again as wide in the shoulders. He walked past him to where Georgeanne was working, wanting to laugh at seeing the dirt on her cheek and the rumpled, wide-brimmed canvas hat she wore. The knees of her split skirt were filthy, her leather boots were badly scuffed. She wore a pair of scraped-up
leather gloves, and her hair was pulled straight back and tied with a ribbon at her nape. She wore no makeup of any kind, and he was struck by how pretty she was even when she was as plain as could be.

“You came!” she exclaimed. “I’m so glad! Did you have any trouble finding us?”

“Not really. Why isn’t the public allowed?”

“Oh, they might step on something wrong or walk around and inadvertently destroy objects we’ve already dug up. You have to be very careful with things like this. Old skeletons can fall apart from being suddenly exposed or handled wrong, things like that.” She looked him over. “Well, I guess it’s the reverse today. You’re the one looking clean and handsome, and I’m the one who’s a mess.”

“I figured I’d catch you hard at work—like you caught me last week,” he teased. Why
was
he here? He knew damn well it wouldn’t take much to want her again, get involved again. He should have stayed at the ranch and gotten his own work done.

She laughed, looking down at herself. “Well, now you’ve seen me at my worst.”

You could never be anything but beautiful
, he thought. “So show me what you’re doing,” he said aloud.

My God, you are absolutely the most handsome man who ever walked
. She wanted to tell him so. The years had only enhanced his dark good looks and virile physique. Why had she invited him here? She knew good and well it only took the sight of him to bring back all the old desires, but there was so much to talk about, so much to explain. “That gentleman over there, the one you spoke to coming in, he’s the one who found the fish skeleton. We’ve found more. See?” She knelt down, pointing to a neat, square dig. On one side of it he could see a fish skeleton beginning to appear. She gently brushed away some dirt, exposing more of
it. “You have to be very, very careful at these digs. Sometimes we spend days or even weeks or months exposing an animal’s bones, because it has to be done so gently, with brushes and such, so that nothing gets broken or mixed up. You can’t go into things like this with a shovel, or you’d destroy something valuable.”

Zeke knelt closer, studying the skeleton. “I’ll be dammed.”

“It’s wonderful, fascinating work, Zeke. I love it. Finding things like this makes me feel so small. It makes me realize that one human’s lifetime is like a breath of wind, so short compared to the millions of years this earth has been forming, and makes me aware of how foolish we are to waste what little time we have.”

He met her eyes, their faces close. “I suppose,” he answered.

“I’m going back to town tonight for the weekend. Men will stay here and guard the dig. Robert and the others decided to camp here. Will you come back down to Masonville? Stay the weekend there so we can talk?”

How could he refuse? “I’d planned on it, if it worked out all right for you. In fact, I’ll watch the dig today and take you back down myself.”

She smiled. “I’d like that.”

He was sorely tempted to lean closer and kiss her. “You look pretty this way.”

She blushed. “I look terrible!”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” he told her. “But I do hope you’ll wear a decent dress tonight when I take you to dinner.”

She laughed again. “I’ll try not to embarrass you.”

He grinned, loving the sincerity in her brown eyes, eyes that reminded him of Grandma Abbie’s. Everything she was feeling was written right there to see.
He lowered his voice then for his next remark. “What about Higgins? He seems a little possessive of you. Are you two … you know … seeing each other? Is this going to cause trouble?”

She scowled. “No. He’d like to
think
there is something between us, but there isn’t. We’re close friends with a mutual love for our work, and we’ve had to work closely the last year or so. He’s taken me out to eat a few times, but that’s all there is to it. He has voiced an interest in more, but I have never given him reason to believe there could be. As a matter of fact, I’ve told him on several occasions I have no interest in any man right now—just in my work.” She saw a hint of disappointment and questioning in his eyes. “You aren’t just any man, Zeke. You’re different.”

He sighed. “And I’m probably crazy.”

She smiled again. “Probably.” She sat down next to her dig. “Do you realize that we’ve dug up dinosaurs in Nebraska?”

“Dinosaurs? I don’t know much about things like that, except that they were huge creatures; some ate plants and others ate meat.”

“There are many different kinds, Zeke. I have a book about them I’ll show you. And yes, they were gigantic monsters compared to the biggest buffalo or even to an elephant. They were here long before any of your Indian ancestors, and no one knows why they’re extinct now, what it was that killed them off. It might have been a tremendous volcanic eruption that spread ash over the entire western half of the continent; or it might have been an earthquake, or a sudden change in climate. Now the winters in the Dakotas are bitterly cold, but we believe at one time this whole area, including Montana, was tropical. Then the glaciers came down from the north, scraping out canyons and rivers, leaving lakes in the low spots when they
finally melted away again. The earth is ever changing, Zeke. It will change even more. Nothing is guaranteed. This work has made me realize how important each hour of each day is.”

He nodded. “You sound like my grandmother.”

She smiled. “I have to get busy right now. You can watch all of us, and if you get bored, you can walk around the lake. It’s beautiful, so peaceful and quiet up here, isn’t it?”

He stood up. “It sure is. I think I’ll take that walk first and then come back here and watch for a while. When will you leave?”

“By three o’clock. Otherwise we won’t get back down to Masonville before dark.”

He tipped his hat. “Whatever you say, Miss Temple.”

She kept her smile, but her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. “I’m so glad you came, so glad we’ll get the chance to talk. You’ve been on my mind ever since finding you a week ago.” She sobered, standing up to face him. “Zeke, I never knew the truth of what my father did to you. He lied to me. I didn’t know until I went to see your parents, but you had already left home. I’m so sorry for what happened. I cried for a week after I found out. I told my father exactly what I thought of him, and then I left. I went to my grandparents in Pennsylvania, my mother’s parents. Father kept sending money, begging me to come back, telling me he needed me, that he was lonely; but I’ve never gone back. I used his money to go to the University of Michigan, and I told him the reason I wasn’t coming back was because of school. I still haven’t been back to see him. I can’t stand the thought of what he did to you. He has no idea I’ve found you again, and I don’t intend to tell him. Has he left your parents alone?”

He nodded. “He has, so far. They have a deed to
the land documented by an attorney in Denver. And my uncle, Jeremy, sent him a threatening letter, telling him if my folks had any more trouble he’d send a Federal Marshal. Ever since I left your father has minded his own business, other than buying up everything he can all around our place. I only know all that through letters from my mother. I’ve never been back myself.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. I know you were close to your family. They must miss you.” She studied him closer, seeing the faint scar on his right cheek. “Is that scar from … ?”

He nodded. “I’ve got more on my chest and back, some on my arms.”

She blinked back tears.

“Don’t worry about it. Although I haven’t gotten over a need for revenge, which is part of the reason I stay away. If I ever see your father’s face, I’m afraid of what I might do to him, so I just stay away altogether. It’s actually been good for me. I have something of my own now.” He touched her arm. “Don’t be blaming yourself. Finish your work here and we’ll talk more tonight.”

She nodded, quickly wiping at her eyes. “Thank you.”

Zeke left her, stopping near Higgins on the way. The man had been staring at him and Georgeanne the whole time they talked. “I’ll take her back to Masonville myself this afternoon,” he told Higgins. “That way your guides can stay here and protect the place at night.”

Higgins looked him over. “Fine. I trust you will be a gentleman.”

Zeke couldn’t help a snicker. “I’ll try to control myself.”

Higgins stiffened. “I am only looking out for her well-being. I have come to admire and respect Georgeanne a great deal.”

Zeke grasped his shoulder, giving it a squeeze to remind the man that even if he were to bring Georgeanne harm, Higgins could do little about it. “I also admire and respect her. And I’ve known her a hell of a lot longer than you have. I told you she was a friend, so quit worrying. She’ll be fine.”

Higgins held his chin high, clearing his throat and trying to appear unimpressed. “I hope so. I suppose I should thank you for taking her back for us.”

“I suppose you should.” Zeke tipped his hat and left them. Already the old fire was creeping through his blood at the thought of being alone with Georgeanne that night, and this time free of the worry of being found out by his parents or her father. Never had they had such freedom to just be with each other. But then, it had been six years. He still could not be positive she felt the same way about him. She’d said she wanted to talk. Maybe that was all she wanted, but he already wanted much more.

Zeke felt awkward in a suit, but he wanted to look his best for this woman he’d loved since he was eighteen, this woman who had never seen him in anything but denim pants and dusty boots. There really was no place fancy to eat in Masonville, so they’d had to settle for the only restaurant in town, a small place where food was served on plain white plates by a woman with stains on the front of her dress.

“I wish I could do better by you,” Zeke told Georgeanne, a little nervous for the first time since he’d picked her up at the rooming house where she stayed. “There isn’t a place to take a real lady in this little town.”

Georgeanne looked him over, realizing why he’d worn the suit. He looked wonderful in it. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is we’re together at last. I enjoyed
being able to talk on our trip down the mountain, learn about your dreams. I’m glad your family is well.”

Her brown eyes were accented with a little color on the lids, her rosy cheeks a bit pinker with rouge, her full lips kissable and glowing with lip color. He liked the way she had of dressing and wearing cosmetics in such a subtle way that they only made her more beautiful, not cheap looking like some women. Her yellow checkered dress fit her perfectly, falling straight in front in apronlike layers, full at the back. Against the chilly mountain night air she’d worn a soft, yellow, knitted shawl, and a yellow ribbon was wound through the long auburn tresses piled on top of her head with combs. It struck him again how educated and refined Georgeanne Temple was, well traveled, working at a job unusual for a woman but daring enough and intelligent enough to do so anyway.

Was he worthy of such a woman? He had no higher learning, nothing to offer her but a struggling ranch with a dilapidated one-room cabin. “I bought this suit in Fort Collins, figured I’d need it. I didn’t stop to think what a small mountain town Masonville was. The way I live, by the time I need another suit, this one will be outdated.”