Embrace the Wild Land (19 page)

“Zeke, you’re scaring her,” Abbie spoke up quietly. “You can’t expect her to understand all of that, and you have no right talking to her that way. This is Emily—Danny’s wife. And she apparently needs our help.”

Zeke sighed and reached out. She jumped when he touched her cheek lightly, but his touch was gentle. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “Please sit down, Emily. Tell us what it is you want.”

She sniffed and sat down, wiping her eyes again and keeping Jennifer on her lap. The girl curled up, looking at Zeke out of the corner of her eyes. Zeke remained standing, while Abbie began pouring some coffee. Emily stared at him as she swallowed and breathed
deeply, trying to regain her composure. He was exceedingly handsome, just like Danny, but his coloring so very dark, and the many scars on his hard body revealed a man who had fought many battles. If he was anything like Danny had described him, Zeke Monroe was just the man she needed. She glanced at Abbie, so lovely and soft. She could not imagine how Abbie could lie beneath this man, in spite of his dark handsomeness. He was like a savage. Was it possible such a man could be gentle in bed? To Emily sex had been a frightening thing in the beginning, something that was merely necessary and painful. She wondered what it must have been like for Abigail. And yet there was the beautiful letter, written by a woman who was apparently totally happy and satisfied, totally in love. This brother of Danny’s was a most unusual man.

“Did you really … kill all those men … back in Tennessee?” she asked Zeke. “The ones who killed your wife and son?”

His eyes hardened again. “I did.”

She swallowed. She had nearly vomited when Danny told her how the men had been killed. She glanced at the big knife, then back up at Zeke, while Abbie brought the coffee to her.

“I …I think you should know … that my father was the one who … arranged … to get you removed from the wanted list in Tennessee,” Emily told Zeke. “He did it as a favor to Danny, after Danny saved his life. I don’t think Danny ever told you my father was the one responsible.”

Abbie sat down to the table. “We’re very grateful, Emily. I always worried about someone shooting my husband in the back just for bounty. What happened to his wife and son was a horrible thing. He’s part Indian—a vengeful man. What he did to those men was natural for him. Besides that, they were murderers.
They deserved to die.”

Zeke turned away, always hating talking about what had happened to Ellen. He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “What is it you want, Emily?” he asked, somehow already knowing.

Emily looked nervously from Abbie to Zeke. She did not want to hurt them—did not want to separate them. And yet she felt this savage brother of Danny’s could help her husband. She couldn’t let her husband die slowly of his wounds in some filthy prison camp.

“I …I know that you and Danny … cared very much for one another,” she told Zeke. “You weren’t close … to anyone else in your family. But you were close to Danny. And after you came west, to seek out your Cheyenne family, Danny came west also, searching for you. That’s how he got involved with the army in the first place—a way of earning food and shelter out here while he searched for you.”

“So?” Zeke turned, folding powerful arms in front of him.

Emily swallowed and clung to Jennifer. “Danny … got you cleared in Tennessee,” she went on. “And during the years he was up at Fort Laramie, he learned to care about your people. There were many times when he helped them, Zeke, in various ways. When other officers were ordering Indians chased and shot, Danny was working for peace and fair treatment. And I don’t doubt that if …if you were … hurt … and needed him … he would come to help you … even risk his life for you.”

Abbie’s heart pounded with apprehension. She looked up at Zeke, but he was watching Emily with a frown.

“What has happened to him?” he asked her cautiously.

The girl swallowed and blinked back more tears. “I’ve learned … he was at Shiloh,” she replied. “It’s
a place in Tennessee where one of the worst battles took place. You probably don’t know very much … about what has been happening in the war. It’s been … a horrible, bloody war, Zeke.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “They say … they say that at Shiloh, hundreds and hundreds were killed and wounded. They say it was so bad that … that the streams and ponds ran red with blood … that the wounded lay out all night in a cold sleet, while … while hogs … feasted on the dead ones!”

Abbie closed her eyes while Emily cried quietly.

“Damn,” Zeke muttered. “Danny?”

“A man … who was there and who knew Danny came to tell me,” she whimpered. “Danny begged him … to come to St. Louis if he ever got away from there … and to tell me Danny loved me and to let me know what had happened. Danny was … badly wounded … and thought he was dying. Then the Federals came … and Danny was still alive when they took him away with other prisoners. The other man escaped, and he came to tell me.” She sniffed. “And now … all I know is that Danny was very gravely wounded, and they … took him away to some terrible prison camp! I have never heard another word since it happened.”

Zeke thought about the night he had the bad dream. “Was it … last spring?” he asked, his chest aching at the thought of it.

She looked up at him. “Yes. How … how did you know?”

He looked at Abbie and sighed. “I was right,” he told her. “It was Danny.” He turned to Emily. “I had a dream. Someone I loved needed me.” He looked back at Abbie. “It’s happened before.”

Abbie closed her eyes and he walked over and put his hands on her shoulders. Emily was beginning to see the
deep love, and that this man could be gentle after all. She also saw the weight of the pain she was bringing to Abbie by coming here to literally take Zeke away to help Danny.

“What do you think I can do?” he asked Emily.

Emily dabbed at her eyes again. “I … I need someone to try to find Danny and get him away from wherever they have taken him. All of Daddy’s soldier friends are Federals. I don’t dare ask them to help my Confederate husband. When I married Danny, I never expected anything like the Civil War to happen. I never expected brother to fight brother, or that my daddy’s soldier friends would turn on me, just because my husband became a Confederate. When I married Danny, I knew he was from Tennessee, but he was a lieutenant in the Western Army. There was … no thought of a war between North and South … or of Danny ever returning to Tennessee. He was just … an army man. And after … after things got better … in our marriage … I just loved Danny for Danny. It made no difference to me when he decided to join the Confederates. I understood … and I didn’t stop him.” She looked at Abbie. “I have tried … to be a good wife … to be more like you explained in your letter. I’m so very grateful for your letter, Abigail. I still have it.”

Abbie forced a smile, her heart shattering at the thought of what Emily was asking of them. She wanted to hate the girl for it, yet she could not blame her. If the tables were turned, and Danny might be able to help Zeke, she would ask him to do so.

“At any rate,” Emily went on. “Danny had told me so much about you, Zeke.” She looked back at him pleadingly. “You are so …so skilled in fighting. I’ve heard stories … about how you saved your sister-in-law and a missionary woman from terrible outlaws … about how brave and skilled you are … and the many
fights and dangerous situations you have been in in your lifetime. He always told me you were the best at tracking, and that you were very clever at spying and such things. He said there is no man like you with the knife … and that you can fight many men at once and win.” She studied the scars on him again, and Danny’s stories about Zeke Monroe made the man seem ten feet tall in her eyes. “I thought … perhaps—” she swallowed—“I thought that since you once lived in Tennessee, you would know how to mix in back there. And you obviously know the land there. With your skills and your knowledge of the land, as well as the love you have for Danny.… I just was hoping … you would consider trying to find him and perhaps freeing him. At the least, you could find out for me if he is even alive.”

Zeke stood rigid for a moment, moving his eyes from Emily to Abbie. He suddenly felt ill, and he began to tremble. “I can’t,” he told her. “I love Danny. But you … don’t understand, Emily. I can’t go back there. I can’t go back to Tennessee. It’s impossible for me.”

Her frail body jerked in a sob. “But … he’s probably sick … maybe dying slowly in some … some filthy camp with rats licking at his blood!” she whimpered. “He’s your brother … and he got you freed from a charge of eight murders. You’re the best man to do it, Zeke. You can find him, I know you can! I … I don’t know what else to do. I sit in St. Louis day in and day out going crazy not knowing where he is or how he is. Please. Please help him!”

His eyes glittered with determination. “No. I’ll not go back there! I vowed I would never go back.” He whirled and stormed out the door, and Emily broke down into resigned sobbing.

Abbie sat there, pity for Emily and sorrow over what had happened to Danny mixed with the terrible temptation to scream at Emily and tell her she had no right
coming here and asking Zeke to go away on a dangerous mission. Her heart pounded with dread at the thought of being apart again, for every time he left her, there was always the possibility he would never come back. How could she live without Zeke?

But then the old courage and strength ran through her veins. There was right and wrong. Zeke owed it to Danny to try to help him. And there was more than one reason why he should return to Tennessee. It would not be easy convincing him, but if he did not do this thing, she knew that in the long run Zeke Monroe would suffer a terrible guilt that would haunt him and drain him and keep him from ever again being the strong, vital man that he was.

Abbie rose from her chair and put a hand on Emily’s head. “I’ll go and talk to him, Emily. Give him a little time to think it over.”

The woman sniffed and looked up at her. Then she suddenly grasped Abbie’s hand and kissed it and held it to her cheek. “I have never known a woman like you,” she sobbed. “All I ever had was that letter … and now I’ve met you for the first time. But I can tell you’re a strong and wonderful woman, Abbie. I … envy you. I wish I had.… your courage.”

Abbie pulled her hand away gently. “I’m not as strong as you think, Emily. Sometimes we pretend, because our love for someone else is more important than our own fears and weaknesses.” Her throat ached with a need to scream. “I’ll go and talk to Zeke. Drink your coffee. I’ll send the children in so you can meet them.”

She turned and walked outside, walking past her children and saying nothing, forcing all of her strength to come forward and help her do what she must do. She headed for the creek, that little place where she and Zeke often went to be alone when they wanted to talk. She knew that he would go there.

Fourteen

Water splashed musically over gray and white rocks that were scattered throughout the little stream that fed the nearby Arkansas River. This was their secret place, a little alcove that dropped down from the rest of the land and was surrounded by yucca bushes and several young cottonwoods. The grass here was soft and thick, and purple iris bloomed along the creek bank and in scattered spots among the trees and bushes.

Abbie walked quietly toward Zeke, who sat beside the creek, his back to her. Her heart ached at the turmoil she knew he was experiencing. How many times had they come to this place to get away from the children and talk, often to make love? Here was the place she had come to weep when she thought he was dead after he had gone to search for Yellow Moon. But he had returned, just like other times when he had been forced to leave her. Always he managed to rise above the forces against him and return to her.

He had been home for many years now, other than short hunting excursions. She had grown accustomed to having her man around, and he in turn had no desire to leave her. She had hoped that perhaps it could always
be that way. But life in this land was seldom kind for long.

“Zeke, we have to talk about this,” she said softly, cautiously coming closer.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he muttered, picking at some grass.

“Yes, there is. Emily needs your help, and you owe something to both her and Danny. I have Wolf’s Blood now and Dooley and we can get more men from Black Elk’s village to camp out here if you should have to go away. I would be fine.”

He sighed and got to his feet, his back still to her. “I’m not going anywhere. It’s Danny’s home. Not mine. And Hugh Monroe is Danny’s father. It’s natural for him to care about the old man, and I don’t hold that against him at all. But I don’t care for him, and I can’t even stand the thought of looking at him again.”

“Then just go back and find Danny. You don’t necessarily have to see your fa—I mean, Danny’s father again.” She suddenly frowned disgustedly and put her hands on her hips. “What am I saying? Zeke Monroe, you have to go back east and try to find Danny. And when you do, you’d be making a terrible mistake not to go and see your father again!”

He whirled and glared at her.

“Yes. Your father.” she repeated. “It’s the simple truth, and one you have to face.”

His eyes were fiery with anger. “I’ve told you before I have no father! Deer Slayer was my father, and since he died I have none.”

“Deer Slayer was your Cheyenne stepfather, and he loved you as his own son. But you have a white father by blood, whether you like to admit it or not. It’s a fact, Zeke.”

The look returned to his dark eyes—that of a small
boy forced from the arms of his true mother. The terror of being torn from his Cheyenne mother at a young age could still sometimes be seen there, and the torment and humiliation of growing up a half-breed among whites in Tennessee still haunted him, though it had been better than twenty years since he had left that place and come west to find his Cheyenne mother.

“I hate him!” he growled. “He used my mother and then tossed her to the dogs—selling her to that stinking Crow brute and taking me from her. How can I care about a man like that, father or not?”

“I didn’t say you had to care about him. But you left something unsettled when you ran away, Zeke.” He turned away again, his breathing heavy with hatred and turmoil. Abbie watched him with pity. “What did he look like, Zeke?” she prompted, daring to provoke his anger by making him talk about the man he thought he hated. “Was he handsome? Surely your looks didn’t come totally from your mother. You’ve never even described him to me, Zeke.”

“Shut up!” he growled, his fists clenched. She flinched. Never in all their years together had he said such a thing to her. There was a different tone to his voice, different than when he had ordered her out of Wolf’s Blood’s
tipi
when the boy was ill. His anger then was not directed at her personally as it was now. She swallowed to control the tears, her mouth tight, her cheeks crimson from the hurt.

“Life … is strange,” she finally spoke up, her voice wavering. “You hate your father, who is alive. My father … is dead … and I would give the world to have him standing before me now … to see him again … tell him again that I love him.” A tear slipped down her cheek. Zeke threw back his head and sighed deeply. Again she was the little girl he had befriended
on the wagon train. The woman-child who had lost her family and had no one. “There is … a place back east called Tennessee,” she went on bravely. “I grew up there myself. Your brother … loved it enough to join the Confederate Army to defend it. You have a father and two brothers there; and a part of you is there, Zeke Monroe, whether you like to admit it or not. You have more reason to go back than just to help Danny. You have to face a part of your past that you have denied for too long, and there will never be total peace in your heart until you do. You had … best think about how you will feel when you find out your real father is dead, and you never made your peace with the man.” Her voice broke, and she turned away. She started back toward the cabin.

“Abbie,” he groaned. She stopped and turned around, and he still stood with his back to her, his fists clenched at his sides. “I’m.… sorry … about the way I spoke—”

“I know you are,” she interrupted. She saw his shoulders moving in his deep breaths as he struggled desperately to stay in control.

“It isn’t … just hating my father,” he tried to explain. “It’s.… all of it. All of it. I’d feel … suffocated. I’d … remember her. Ellen.”

An odd jealousy stirred in her soul. His first wife had long been dead, but the horror of the way she died still burned at his insides. The pain was still there.

“Then perhaps that is just another reason to go back. Perhaps you will settle that part of your life once and for all, and there will no longer be those moments when you look at me and see Ellen.”

He turned, a shocked look on his face.

“Do you think I don’t sometimes feel it?” She sniffed and swallowed, wiping at her eyes. “I know you
love me, Zeke. God knows we’ve both been through enough to never doubt such things. If someone told you to sink your knife into your own heart in order to save me, you’d do it without hesitating. But there have been times when she was there between us. Perhaps if you go back there, you can finally bury her.”

He stepped closer, looking as though he realized something for the first time. He studied her eyes, his own full of terrible apology. “I … never knew you felt this way … never knew I had made you think …” He shook his head, reaching out and touching her face. “Abbie-girl, surely you know how much I love you. My strength lies in you. I love you for you … just for Abbie. But … my mind is so haunted. And sometimes she just … appears out of nowhere. But you’ve never been a replacement, Abbie. Never. I’ve loved you for you. I never dreamed I could find this much happiness again in my life.”

She took his hand and kissed the palm. “I know that. But the fact remains that there is a part of your life back there that’s been left hanging for years. You should go to Tennessee, Zeke. Find Danny. See your father. And you should visit the graves of Ellen and your son.” She felt as though someone were pushing a sword through her at the way he trembled. “You never even told me your son’s name, Zeke. Never in all these years. Perhaps you need to talk about it. Perhaps you keep it too deeply buried.”

He looked at her with the little boy eyes again. “His name was Tim. Timothy,” he choked out. “I … didn’t like it. But Ellen, she liked it. So … we …” He closed his eyes and his body jerked in an unwanted sob. “Oh God, Abbie!” He pulled her close, embracing her smotheringly in his sorrow.

He would go. She knew he would go, that he should go. It would be a terrible time for both of them, but it
must be done. Fate had come to steal him away from her again, for how long she could not know.

Charles Garvey settled back into the plush leather chair, glaring at the six men who sat opposite him, all of them bandaged in various places, two with arms in slings, two on crutches, one whose face was covered with rips and stitches, and one with a face badly swollen and purple, his jaw wired shut by a Denver dentist so that he could not talk at all. It was obvious his broken face would never be the same.

Garvey turned his eyes to his own son, who sat close by at the end of the man’s desk in the large study where they had gathered. His son’s ribs were still sore, and his right thumb was still purple and slightly swollen.

“Now that everyone is settled down and you, my boy, can talk slowly and sensibly, how about running through with me again just what the hell happened out there?” Garvey asked his son.

The younger Garvey’s eyes glittered with hatred and with the excitement he had found in trying to hurt someone. “We fought with Indians!” he replied eagerly. “I was wounded in the thumb by a stray bullet, and I fought hand to hand with one of them, a young one about my age!” His eyes gleamed. “I gave that scummy bastard a good thrashing, too! It was exciting, Father—my first real fight with Indians!”

Garvey frowned, not the least bit happy that his son had been subjected to danger and had been wounded. He scanned the others again, who all shifted nervously in their chairs, looking guilty. Garvey looked back at Charles again, studying a bruise that lingered on the boy’s cheekbone and his tall but spindly build. He suspected that his son was exaggerating his own prowess, for Charles Garvey had no fighting experience, and pitted against an Indian, even a young one, he could not
possibly come out victorious. He turned back to the men, directing his eyes to one with an arm in a sling.

“Where and when did all this take place, Ben?” he asked.

The man swallowed. “In Kansas, sir, near the Smoky Hill River. It was about a month ago. We was teachin’ the boy here how to track—followed some Cheyenne out of Colorado Territory into Kansas and caught up with them in Kansas. Stopped to question them about bein’ off Indian land.”

“And where in hell have you been all this time if it happened a month ago?” Garvey growled.

“We had to hole up at Fort Wallace, sir, on account of our wounds. We couldn’t ride back to Denver right away. It was just too far.”

“Did the soldiers there go after these Indians?”

“No, sir. They didn’t have enough men, on account of the Civil War.”

Garvey sighed disgustedly. “What started the fight? I told you I didn’t want my son involved in any confrontations.”

The one called Ben glanced at the other men, then back to Garvey. “Well, sir, we asked them what they was doin’ in Kansas—told them we was gonna take them to Fort Wallace under arrest. There was seven of us and only four Indian men, counting the young one. The rest was just women and kids, and they was all hidin’ back in the trees. We figured we had it easy. Then, uh, then the young one, he went for your son there, with no reason—called him white trash and such, had no respect, you know? He shot right at Charles with no reason at all.”

Garvey gripped the arms of his chair. “Damned, stinking red bastards!” he fumed. “What then? How did all of you get yourselves busted up so bad?”

Ben sighed. “Well, sir, I don’t rightly know for sure
how to explain it. Everything kind of happened at once, you know?” He shook his head. “The young one, he shot at Charles there and the biggest one, who I think was the young one’s father, he dived into Handy. Pulled him right off his horse and ripped Handy’s rifle right out of his hands. He smashed the rifle across Handy’s face—broke the damned rifle. I went to shoot the man, and next thing I know the young one turns and lands a knife right in my shoulder. In the meantime Joe there jumped on the big Indian man and ended up with a knife in his hip. John was wounded in the foot by another one of the Indian men, after his own gun jammed on him, and Buel, he was attacked by a goddamned big wolf before he could get off a shot. Marty, he got a shot off at one of the Indians, and I know he at least wounded the man, maybe killed him. We ain’t sure. But then the big man, he sunk a blade into Marty’s side, right under his arm when he raised his rifle again. Marty ripped the blade out and rode off and John rode off after him. Your boy there, him and the young Indian boy went at it for a while. They was already in a tussle while all the rest was happening.” The man swallowed, seeing the way Charles glared at him warningly. He knew the powerful hand the boy could wield if someone crossed him. “Well, Charles, he did real good for himself,” the man lied. Charles grinned proudly. “But then the big Indian, the father and I guess the leader, he pulled the boys apart and forced Charles to get on his horse. By then they had guns on all of us, and we was all too wounded to object. Even one of the women held a gun on us. Strangest part is, sir, I could swear the woman was white.”

Garvey frowned, and there was a moment of silence while he studied Ben’s eyes. “You sure about that?”

Ben scratched his head. “Almost. She wore a tunic like any squaw, but—” he thought a moment—“damn,
she had to be white, sir. I’m just sure of it. And some of the kids looked white, too.”

Silence hung in the air again for a moment as Garvey pondered the strange story. White. What would a white woman be doing riding around the plains with a bunch of Indians? Was she a captive? Surely not. She fought on their side.

“Father,” the younger Garvey spoke up. “The young one I fought with. I have seen him before. I am sure of it. I …1 never told you, but once when you were in Washington, about, I’m not sure, about three years ago. I … I got in a fight with an Indian boy. He was smaller, but he beat me, so I didn’t tell you about it because I thought you would be angry with me. I wanted to wait until I beat a boy in a fight before I told you. But I am sure it was the same boy. I could swear it.”

Garvey frowned. This was indeed getting more interesting all the time. “You mean the boy was in Denver?”

“Yes, sir. And so was his father. When we were fighting in Denver, a white man grabbed the Indian boy off of me and hit him, and the boy’s father began beating on the white man. The father was arrested and taken to jail. But somehow he was freed again. I don’t know how it happened. I do remember seeing that prostitute, Anna Gale, help the man’s wife. I don’t know why she would help a woman who sleeps with Indians. But that doesn’t matter. The point is the white woman she helped was the same white woman we saw with the Indians in Kansas. She is the big man’s wife. So all of them were in Denver about three years ago. When I told the boy I had seen him before, he looked at me real funny, and he denied ever having been to Denver.”