Eagle’s Song (6 page)

Through all the introductions, Wolf’s Blood remained standing quietly at a distance. Mary was taken aback by the sight of the man Jeremy had told her looked so much like his father. If that was the case, then Zeke Monroe truly had been very Indian. In all her years here in Colorado, she had never even met a real Indian. How strange! Jeremy said the Cheyenne once roamed all over Colorado. Now there were none left.

“And this is Jennifer, Wolf’s Blood’s new wife,” Abbie was saying, introducing a beautiful young woman with red hair and green eyes. “These are Wolf’s Blood’s children by his Apache wife who was killed several years ago, Hawk and Iris, fourteen and thirteen. And this is Emily, Jennifer’s daughter by her first husband.”

So, she had met them all … all but Wolf’s Blood. Mary had felt his eyes on them, knew Jeremy felt the gaze too, and that he probably wanted to avoid this final introduction. Wolf’s Blood remained a few feet away, waiting his turn. Abbie led them up to where he stood proudly, arms folded. He wore buckskin pants and just
a vest because of the hot day. His bare chest and arms showed hard muscle, very dark skin. He was a handsome specimen of a man, who looked every bit the warrior, and Mary couldn’t help but wonder how safe she’d be if this were twenty years ago and Wolf’s Blood and Swift Arrow still rode with the infamous Dog Soldiers of the Cheyenne.

“My God,” Jeremy muttered, staring at Wolf’s Blood. “You look …” He turned to his mother, unable to keep more tears from coming to his eyes. “It’s like looking at Father,” he said in a voice gruff from emotion.

Abbie turned to look at Wolf’s Blood. “Yes,” she answered. “Anyone who wants to have known Zeke, has only to meet his firstborn son to see that Zeke Monroe most certainly still lives.”

Mary just stared as Abbie introduced them. Wolf’s Blood looked her over, and she could see why Jeremy was nervous about his older brother’s reaction. Here was a man who had raided and killed at one time, a man who was obviously very proud to be Cheyenne and who probably could not understand why anyone would want to hide his Indian blood.

“Welcome to the family,” he told Mary.

“Thank you. I am proud to be a part of it,” she answered wisely. She saw a flicker of appreciation and acceptance in Wolf’s Blood’s eyes, dark eyes that he then turned to his brother. They simply looked at each other for several silent seconds before Wolf’s Blood finally spoke.

“So, my brother, you have finally come home. You have made our
mother’s
heart glad.”

Jeremy nodded, again feeling the sickening sense of shame as Wolf’s Blood’s eyes drilled into him. He knew the remark was meant to hurt, that behind the statement Wolf’s Blood was saying he had broken their father’s
heart. No two people could be closer than Wolf’s Blood and Zeke had been.

Mary spoke up. “
I
am the reason Jeremy didn’t come back sooner. He loved and missed his family very much, but he was afraid to tell me the truth, afraid I would stop loving him. For a while I was all he had, or so he thought.”

“You don’t need to speak for me, Mary.” Jeremy stepped closer. “We have a lot to talk about, Wolf’s Blood. Now isn’t the time, but if you want to get it out of your system and take a swing at me, go ahead and do it. I don’t blame you.”

Wolf’s Blood lowered his arms, and Mary waited with a pounding heart. “We
do
have much to talk about,” he answered. “I would very much like to hit you, my brother, but I will not do it. Father would not want me to.” He put out his hand. “In his memory, and in honor of my mother’s wishes, I give you my hand.”

Jeremy could so easily picture this brother wielding a tomahawk, or the big knife their father had given him years ago. How could brothers be so utterly different? He took hold of Wolf’s Blood’s hand, and they exchanged a handshake full of brotherly challenge. Then Jeremy turned away, walking with Abbie back to the others, but Mary continued to stare at Wolf’s Blood a moment longer.

“I hope you know your brother respects and admires you more than anyone else in this family, except perhaps your mother. He wanted to be like you, but it just wasn’t in him. Perhaps there was too much gentleness in him, which he got from Abbie. Is that such a terrible thing, Wolf’s Blood? He’s a good man who took a different path in life, and he is as honorable and respected in his own circle as you are in yours. In that way he is as much a Monroe as any of you.”

Wolf’s Blood’s eyes narrowed as he studied her intently.
“I think my brother picked a good woman. You are wise in your words.”

Mary stepped closer. “I am asking you not to hurt him, not just physically but emotionally. No more piling on the blame. He considered suicide once. I can have no children, Wolf’s Blood. Jeremy is all I have, and I do not intend to lose him anytime soon.”

Some of the animosity left Wolf’s Blood’s eyes, and he glanced over at Jeremy before meeting Mary’s gaze again. “I had no intention of hurting him physically, although landing my fist in his face is something I have often dreamed of doing. Still, he is my brother. No son or daughter of Zeke Monroe ever touched each other that way, and neither my mother nor my father ever once had to hit us. Pride and obedience and respect were simply understood. I will not bring him harm, in any form.”

Mary prayed he meant what he said. Wolf’s Blood took her arm and led her to the table, where the feasting had begun. Now there were twenty-six of them, plus the hired hands, and the surrounding air was filled with talking and laughter.

Through it all Jeremy studied each sister and brother, each niece and nephew he’d never known. It struck him then that even though he had no children of his own, he most certainly did still have family. Perhaps some of his nieces and nephews could visit them during the summers in Denver. He would like to know all of them better.

They ate their way through several courses, most of them hardly noticing that Wolf’s Blood had left. They were eating dessert when he returned, riding bareback on a painted Appaloosa, looking every bit the warrior. He’d brought along a roan gelding, saddled and ready to ride. “For you, my brother,” he announced. “You
do
still ride, don’t you? Perhaps in Denver you only ride in carriages.”

Everyone around the table quieted as Jeremy rose. “I can ride.” He remembered their younger days, when Wolf’s Blood could ride circles around him. Every morning Wolf’s Blood and Zeke would ride off together, racing, Wolf’s Blood practicing tricks. Jeremy never had been able to do some of the things Wolf’s Blood could do on a horse, and most of the time, when Wolf’s Blood would be out riding the wind, Jeremy preferred to be inside studying his lessons.

“It
has
been a while,” he told Wolf’s Blood as he mounted up, a stark contrast to his brother. Jeremy sat astride, in a suit, on a full-saddled mount while his brother sat bare-chested on a painted horse with only a blanket on its back. “I suppose you can still do all those fancy riding tricks,” Jeremy said.

Wolf’s Blood grinned. “We all begin to get a little old for some of that,” he said. “I leave most of that to young Hawk. He is a very good rider.”

“How could he not be?” Jeremy answered. “He’s your son.”

Wolf’s Blood grinned proudly. “Still, I am not
that
old,” he answered. He turned his horse and charged off, letting out a chilling war whoop, grabbing the horse’s neck and falling to the side, jumping off and touching his feet to the ground while the horse ran, then leaping up onto its back again.

Jeremy just shook his head. “Good Lord,” he muttered. He rode off to catch up with him.

Mary looked at Abbie with worry in her eyes, and Abbie only smiled. “He’ll be all right. They need to do this, Mary.”

Mary nodded. “Yes, I suppose they do.”

The whole family watched them disappear over a rise.

Six

Jeremy rode hard to catch up to his brother, not an easy feat even for an experienced rider, but he had not been in the saddle for quite some time. He remembered there was talk lately of some kind of gasoline-powered carriage having been invented and people really believed that someday everyone would be using them. He smiled at the thought of how someone like Wolf’s Blood would hate such a contraption.

Wolf’s Blood finally slowed down, turning his horse and riding back to meet him. They were entirely alone, in the middle of wide, rolling hills with not a tree or animal in sight. “This is all part of the old ranch,” Wolf’s Blood told his brother. “I went riding yesterday, and I saw barbed-wire fencing around the northern and eastern borders. Whoever bought the Tynes property has put it up. We should talk to Margaret about that. I think there is some kind of problem with the new owners.”

Sweat glistened on his dark skin and on his horse’s neck. The animal tossed its head and shook its mane, and Wolf’s Blood himself shook his hair behind his shoulders as though imitating the horse. “I remember another time, when Father and I came across that ugly wire. Do you remember that day? One of Father’s Indian brothers’ horses was badly injured on the wire.”

“I remember a little bit about it,” Jeremy answered.
“We were all headed north, I think. You were going to your first sun dance.”

Wolf’s Blood nodded. “I got in a fight with Charles Garvey that day. He was with some men who tried to keep us from going across their land. Do you know that I killed Charles Garvey a few years ago?”

Jeremy studied the man who had made the statement as though it were nothing. He scrambled to think, and it all began to make sense. “I’ll be damned,” he said quietly. “At one point Mother wrote me that LeeAnn had been married to Garvey, that she never realized what a hated enemy of the family he was. She said LeeAnn was back home and getting a divorce, that Charles Garvey had been found murdered by highwaymen …” He frowned. “
You?
”

Wolf’s Blood swung a leg over to sit sideways on his mount. “You do not know the whole story about the Garveys, because you were gone when it was all revealed. We kept it quiet because, if you remember, Garvey’s father disappeared one night after an Indian raid on his estate outside of Denver. We never wanted our name linked to any of that. In truth, Father and I killed him. He had captured our mother, beaten and raped her, trying to make her tell him who his Indian son was, where he was. Mother would not tell him it was Joshua, because she knew he would find and kill him. When Father came back from the Civil War and found out Mother had been taken, he managed to find out the truth, and he and I went after Winston Garvey.”

Jeremy felt sick at learning what had happened to his mother. “I remember when she was taken away, but when you and Father brought her home, you never said what had really happened.”

“It was best no one knew, not even the rest of the family. They were all told many years later, after LeeAnn came home with her son, Matthew. Josuha is
the one who helped her get away from Charles. Charles was furious with her when their baby son looked Indian. She had to admit to him she was part Indian, and he beat her and said he would kill her.”

Jeremy ran a hand through his hair, trying to get it all straight in his mind. “How do you know all this?”

The look of bitterness and hatred that came into Wolf’s Blood’s eyes would frighten anyone who did not know him. “Because I came across him on the road from Bent’s Fort to the ranch. He did not realize who I was. He offered to pay me to murder his white wife and their little boy.”

Jeremy’s eyes widened with horror. “I can’t believe that!”

“Believe it! Would I lie about such a thing?”

Jeremy closed his eyes and looked away. “My God.”

“I killed him that night. LeeAnn knows, as do Joshua and Mother. I think Margaret and Morgan know, too, but no one else. LeeAnn does not want Matthew to ever find out. He thinks his father was killed by outlaws. He does not know the whole truth about his father and grandfather, or that Joshua is really his uncle, half brother to Charles Garvey. I thought that you should know because you never realized the extent of what our mother suffered. Your desertion of the family only added to the other heartaches she had to bear over the years. I knew it, and that was why I resented you even more. I could not stand to see how her heart was breaking. It was hard on Father, too. When we saw you in Dodge City, he already knew he intended to die because of the arthritis, but he would not tell you. He was too proud. He wanted to die like a warrior, and so he helped the Cheyenne escape from Fort Robinson, knowing the soldiers would shoot most of them down,
hoping
they would shoot him. He died proudly, but I know that deep in his heart he was thinking of
you and LeeAnn, the two children he never got to see again.”

Jeremy’s throat ached with a renewed need to weep, and his fingers tightened around the reins he held. “Damn it, Wolf’s Blood, I loved him as much as any of you! I just … I never was able to show him that love. You knew all the right ways, did all the right things. You and Father were like one person. I realized I could never be to him what you were.”

The words caught in his throat, and he stopped to swallow and wipe at his eyes.

“Damn it,” he muttered. He took a deep breath before continuing. “I tried to show him, did my chores, forced myself to learn to ride better, even though I hated it. But I was never
you!
I just wanted him to love me for
me
, not try to make me something I could never be. Do you know how much I envied you? Do you have any idea how much I would have loved to go with you on those morning rides? I didn’t go because I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up, and because I suspected neither of you wanted me along!”

He turned his horse and trotted a few feet away, angry at himself for breaking down in front of this brother who was always so strong. He could not remember ever seeing him cry, but he could just imagine what it had been like for Wolf’s Blood to hold his dying father in his arms, to bury him alone. “I wish I could have been there with you … when Father died … could have helped you bury him. It must have been … awful for you.” He took the handkerchief Mary had given him from his pocket and blew his nose, then felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Get down, Jeremy.”

Jeremy dismounted without looking at his brother.

“Sit here in the grass.”

Jeremy sat down beside Wolf’s Blood, and they let the horses graze loose.

Wolf’s Blood sighed. “I did not realize how much of this is my fault,” he told Jeremy. “When I think back, I realize I was very possessive of Father. I
wanted
to be the favored one. I was proud to be Indian, and I treasured our morning rides. I could have urged you to come with us, but I liked being alone with Father. Deep inside I suppose I knew you felt left out, but I thought it didn’t matter that much to you. You liked your books, and you never liked horses so much.”

He quickly wiped at his eyes, and Jeremy was surprised to realize Wolf’s Blood was also fighting an urge to weep.

“I will tell you one thing, Jeremy, one thing I know is the truth. Zeke Monroe—Lone Eagle—he loved every child equally, each one for different reasons. Perhaps he was even more proud of certain ones than others, but that had nothing to do with how much he loved each of us. The love itself was always the same. You remember what he went through trying to keep the Comancheros from taking LeeAnn. I was not there, but Mother told me, and I have no trouble picturing it.”

Jeremy bent his legs and rested his elbows on his knees. “I don’t think any other man could have kept fighting in spite of such awful injuries,” Jeremy told him. “It was so vicious. He was beaten and cut everywhere, but in spite of all that and most likely a concussion, he went after them anyway. It was a bad time for all of us, especially Mother. She had to worry about what was happening to LeeAnn, wonder if Father was dead or alive; and then Lillian died of pneumonia and Margaret ran off to Denver, ending up a prostitute.” He shook his head. “I remember Sir Tynes had an eye for Mother. I think he actually offered to make her his wife, let her live like a queen. After all she’d been
through, what woman wouldn’t be tempted to take a man up on such an offer?” He smiled through his tears. “But not our mother. No, sir. Zeke Monroe was her man, and the devil himself could not have made her an offer that would have made her leave him. Father came back, bringing LeeAnn with him safe and sound. He went to Denver and brought Margaret home. Of course, by then she had met and married Morgan. She was okay. Down deep inside she had that Monroe pride and spirit, and that got her through.”

Wolf’s Blood pulled at a blade of bunch grass and stuck it in his mouth. “Father would have done what he did for any of us. If it was you the Comancheros had taken, he would have done exactly the same thing. I don’t think you ever understood how much he loved you. And I know he held nothing against you or LeeAnn when he died. He is with us now, you know. Do you feel him?”

Jeremy watched the horses graze. “Sometimes.”

Wolf’s Blood got to his feet. “Do you remember some years back, when Mother and I came to Denver and tried to see you? You were gone to Europe with your wife. We left you a note.”

Pain pierced Jeremy’s heart at the memory—a note he’d never answered, the note that told him his precious father was dead. “I remember.”

“We came because we were on our way back from the mountains. I took Mother there to see where our father was buried. She insisted on going higher up the mountain alone. She spent the night there. When she came back down she told me an eagle had come to her, floating on the wind. It came so close it brushed her cheek. She knew then that it was Father touching her through the eagle spirit. And just a few days ago, when we were on our way here to the ranch, an eagle circled overhead and swooped down close to us before
flying off. Do you know how rare it is to see an eagle this far east? There are no high trees here, no mountains, no place where an eagle would nest. There is only one explanation for the eagle’s presence. It was our father. I know it in my heart. I also know that he is aware that you are here, and that if he could be here, he would tell you how much he … loves you.”

Jeremy rose to face Wolf’s Blood. “I’m sorry, Wolf’s Blood, that you went through all that alone.”

Wolf’s Blood nodded, his lips pressed tight, tears running down his face. “I do love you, Jeremy. If someone were to try to harm you, I would kill him, just as I killed Charles Garvey to keep him from hurting LeeAnn.”

Jeremy’s head ached from a continued struggle not to break down. “And in that respect, you truly are our father’s son,” he answered. He could not control the urge to walk up and embrace his brother. Only at that moment did they both realize that in their entire lives they had never embraced. They clung to each other, allowing the tears to come, tears too long buried. For several minutes they wept, letting go of all the hurt and all the sorrow. Wolf’s Blood finally released his brother and turned away, walking to his horse and wiping his nose and eyes with the blanket, the only material available.

Jeremy managed to find enough left of his handkerchief to use for himself. “Mother probably thinks you’re beating the hell out of me right now,” he joked, looking for a way to brighten the moment. “God knows I wouldn’t have a chance if you tried it.”

Wolf’s Blood grinned. “Father would see. He would be very angry with me.”

Jeremy walked over to his own horse, removing his suit jacket because of the heat. “I can’t help wondering now why I was always a little bit afraid of him, considering the fact that he never once laid a hand on any
of us. He was just so damn big and fierce looking. But then, when he was around mother …” He laughed lightly. “Our mother sure did have a way with Zeke Monroe, didn’t she?”

Wolf’s Blood leapt onto the back of his horse in one swift movement. “She has a way with all of us.”

Jeremy grunted as he mounted his own horse, using a stirrup. “She’s an incredible woman.”

“Do not mention to her that I told you about the rape. She probably would not want you to know, and she does not like anyone mentioning it. It took her many years to get over it.”

Jeremy nodded. “I won’t even tell my wife.”

“Your wife is a good woman. I see it in her eyes. I am sorry you have no children. Children are the best thing that can happen to a man.”

Jeremy sighed. “It’s been hard for her. I’d like to at least get to know my nieces and nephews better, if you’ll ever let any of your children come to Denver. I want to help, Wolf’s Blood—make up for my absence somehow, if that’s possible.”

Wolf’s Blood walked his horse closer. “I will tell you something, my brother. It is not bad yet, but I am suffering from the same disease that began to cripple our father.”

Jeremy looked him over in surprise. “What? You appear so strong.”

“I am. For my age … and for the moment. Like father, it comes and goes. Some days are worse than others, especially in winter. I want your promise to do what you can for my children if things get worse and I should die. Hawk is a fine young man, and both he and Iris have enough white blood that they are not legally required to stay on the reservation. I want Hawk to have a good education. I want him to learn how to live in the white man’s world, to fight his battles the
legal way, not the old way, like father and me. I want him to learn the new way, but I want him to always remember his Cheyenne blood and to be proud of it. Now that I know you are as proud and strong as any of us, and now that I can already see what a fine woman your wife is, I am thinking of sending Hawk to school in Denver, where he could perhaps live with you. He would be with family and not thrown into the cold white man’s world with no one close by who loves him. What do you think of this?”

“I’m a little surprised. I didn’t know you had any such thoughts or plans. But I would be thrilled to have him, and so would Mary.”

Wolf’s Blood nodded. “Hawk wants to go to college. I trust him, in that I know education will not change him. I thank you, my brother, for any way you can help him. Iris, too, although she has a beautiful, educated stepmother who will love and guide her.”