Embrace the Wild Land (21 page)

The boy shrugged. “I cannot be a bookworm like Jeremy.” He sighed and turned. “I tried, Mother. But when I would sit and read, I could feel the wind blowing on me through the window. I could hear the eagle cry and the horses whinny. And I … I sometimes felt like I would go crazy if I could not run outside and greet the sun, feel the power of a good horse beneath me.”

She put a hand on his arm. “I understand, Wolf’s Blood. You are like your father, and I can’t say I’m not proud of that, because I am.”

He studied the love in his mother’s eyes. He swallowed. “Will I know?” he asked. “Will I know … like you knew when you touched my father’s hand?”

She smiled lovingly. “I think perhaps you already know, even though you are still too young to take a wife.”

He grinned sheepishly, a rare smile that warmed her heart. “How do you know this?”

She pulled on a piece of his hair. “Because I am a woman, and I have seen how a certain little Cheyenne girl watched you at the Sun Dance. It reminded me of the way I used to look at your father.”

The boy smiled sheepishly. “I like talking to you, Mother. We have not talked this way many times. I am glad you came out here tonight.”

Their eyes held. “So am I,” she answered.

Little Jason was suddenly standing at the doorway. “Mommy?” he spoke up through puckered lips, rubbing at his eyes. “Sleep with me?”

Abbie turned to him in surprise. “What are you doing out of your bed, little one?” she chided. Then she smiled. “Yes, I will sleep with you. Run and climb into Mommy’s bed.” The boy ran off and Abbie patted Wolf’s Blood’s arm. “Get some sleep, son. There is a chill of autumn in the air, and you have wood to cut tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mother.” He watched her go inside. Zeke had told him once that he had made Abigail Trent his woman earlier on that fateful wagon journey, before they were married the white man’s way at Fort Bridger. The boy did not want to embarrass his mother by telling her Zeke had confided such a thing to him, but he had to smile at the thought of his mother’s dancing eyes when she was talking about Zeke. It made her look like a teen-ager again. He could see that nothing had changed over the years, and it warmed his heart.

He turned and closed his eyes, concentrating on
Maheo
, the Great Spirit, praying for his father’s safety. He was not certain he would want to live without his father.
But more than that, how would Abigail Monroe go on living without her husband?

Autumn turned to winter, and it would be a cold and hungry one for the Southern Cheyenne, who huddled in
tipis
against the cruel winds of the Colorado plains. The promised supplies had not been sent, nor was game easy to find on the sparse land they were to call their home. Only those who dared to risk being shot by venturing out to the distant mountains and better hunting grounds found enough food to bring home that autumn, and what there was had to be divided among the whole tribe, so that there was never a plentiful supply for any one family.

Abbie gave what she could, creating all kinds of dishes out of leftovers and odd foods such as roots and meat fat that they would not ordinarily eat. With only Wolf’s Blood to hunt while Dooley watched the ranch, their own table was not always abundant with food, but she made do, and she kept a happy spirit for the sake of the children.

Zeke had left enough money to tide them through the winter by buying supplies at Bent’s Fort, but Abbie chose to use the money as sparingly as possible, always afraid that he might not return at all and she would have to stretch the money farther than originally planned. Dooley, faithful friend that he was, and as he had done many other years, accepted a wage far below that which was due him, always saying just a roof over his head and Abbie’s home-cooked meals were all he needed. He was a quiet, loyal man, with few needs other than to find himself a loose Indian woman or to venture to the closest town a few times a year to visit the whores. He was a loner, a man who had once hunted and trapped with Zeke in the old fur-trading days, and one who had never been inclined to settle down to a
wife and children. He had come to the ranch before Wolf’s Blood was even born, and he had never left; and he was one of the very few white men Wolf’s Blood respected and cared about.

It was mid-February of 1863 when the soldiers came. Outside the snow was almost knee-deep from a recent blizzard, and even now the winds howled mercilessly, the air filled with blowing snow but no real precipitation coming from the skies. The little cabin creaked against the icy winds, but inside it was warm, thanks to a potbelly heating stove Zeke had purchased at Bent’s Fort the previous spring, swearing to Abbie and the rest of the family that they would not spend another winter shivering in front of the big fire place that seemed to eat up more heat through its chimney than it gave off.

Wolf’s Blood added another piece of wood to the stove, and Abbie smiled as a kettle of water on top of the contraption hissed with steam. Here was another gift of Zeke’s love. The warmth of the stove was to her representative of the warmth of his arms, and she knew he was with them this night.

“I hope we have enough wood to get us through the rest of the winter,” Wolf’s Blood lamented. “It looked like so much when I stacked it in the fall.”

“It always looks like a lot when it is warm outside,” she replied, rocking near the stove as she mended an elkskin jacket for the boy.

It was then they heard Dooley’s boots tramping onto the porch outside, and in the next moment he banged on the door. “Let me in quick,” he called out.

Abbie set down her sewing and rose, while Wolf’s Blood unbolted the door. Dooley came inside, his hair encrusted with snow, and snow blew in through the door before Wolf’s Blood could get it closed again.

“There’s a lot of men comin’, Abbie,” Dooley told
her quickly. He had his rifle in his hand, and Wolf’s Blood immediately went for his own rifle.

“What men? Where?” Abbie asked.

“Down the north ridge. I was out at the shed checkin’ the horses when some of them got skittish, and I thought I heard a shout far off. The wind’s blowin’ down from the north. Carries a man’s voice quite a ways. I closed up the shed and rode out a ways—seen several men between gusts of snow. There must be ten or twelve. I could hear the voices and I seen quite a few lanterns. I heard orders shouted, like maybe they was soldiers.”

“Soldiers!” Wolf’s Blood stiffened. He had bad memories of soldiers. He cocked his rifle.

“Wait, Wolf’s Blood!” Abbie ordered. “We don’t know if they’re Union soldiers or Confederates. Perhaps they’re even Colorado volunteers.”

“That would be the worst!”

“If there are ten or twelve then there are too many!” Abbie told him. “We have your brothers and sisters to think about. It’s possible they mean no harm at all. Perhaps your father is with them.”

The boy paced. “If he was with them he would be here already, riding in fast. You know that.”

She sighed, glancing around the room as though something there would tell her what to do. She looked at Dooley. “What do you think?”

“I think we have to wait and see what they want. Wolf’s Blood and I will each take a window. You’d best get your own rifle ready. They’ll be here too damned fast for us to make any real plans. We’ve got no choice but to hope they mean no harm.”

She breathed deeply for composure, glancing up at the loft where the rest of the children slept snugly, oblivious to the possible approaching danger. Already she could hear the voices herself as the men came close to
the cabin. She walked to the corner and retrieved her faithful Spencer. She had used it before. She would use it again if necessary.

Sixteen

The inevitable knock came to the door, and Abbie breathed a sigh of relief. At least they had not tried to storm inside uninvited. Abbie glanced at Wolf’s Blood.

“Let Dooley and I handle this, Wolf’s Blood. These men are white. We understand how to handle them better than you. Don’t act rashly.”

The boy’s breathing was rapid. “There are many of them, and you are the only woman! I promised Father—”

“Not all of them are like the soldier at Fort Lyon,” she interrupted. There was another knock at the door and she gave Wolf’s Blood a warning look. “Keep your gun ready, but don’t point it,” she told him. She glanced at Dooley. “The same goes for you. With that many men we can’t afford guns going off in every direction. The children might get hurt.”

Dooley nodded, but she knew by the way he looked at her that if one man made an advance, Dooley’s shotgun would blow the man in half. She went to the door.

“Who is there?” she demanded.

“I am Major Tilford Mayes, ma’am,” came a shouted voice. “We have a man here who’s been wounded—several days back in a skirmish on the Santa
Fe Trail. We beg of you to give him a warm place to rest for a few days. My men are freezing. If we could take turns warming by your hearth, we would be deeply grateful.”

The man had a strong Southern accent. Abbie looked at Dooley. “From the sound of his drawl they must be Confederates.” She looked back at the doorway, stepping closer so he could hear her better. “How do I know you aren’t lying about a wounded man?” she shouted.

The children began to stir then, and Margaret came wandering out to sit down on the edge of the loft where it met the ladder to climb down. She rubbed her eyes. “Get back!” Wolf’s Blood ordered her. “Keep the rest of the children up there. Do not let them come down.”

“What is it?” she asked sleepily.

“Soldiers! Get back.”

The girl’s eyes widened, and she scooted back out of sight.

“I beg of you, ma’am, I’m telling the truth!” came the shouted reply. “I will leave the wounded man by your door and the rest of us will go farther away and build a campfire. May we use some of your wood that is stacked outside?”

Abbie closed her eyes in apprehension, struggling with her decision. “All right,” she finally spoke up. “Leave the wounded man here and we will see what we can do for him. The rest of you may use some of our wood to build a fire and pitch your tents outside. There is not enough room inside the cabin. You may send in two men at a time, taking turns an hour each by the stove. Go lightly on the wood, and I hope you have food. I haven’t near enough to share. How many are with you?”

“Eleven, ma’am. Plus me. Thank you, ma’am. Thank you. We’ll bring the wounded man right up.”

“Wait!” Abbie called out. “You haven’t told me what kind of soldiers you are—Federals or Confederates.”

The wind blew wild again and for a moment he did not answer. “Does it make a difference?” he finally asked, wanting to make certain an unknown enemy was not waiting inside.

“No difference,” she shouted through the crack in the door. “We take no part in the war in the East. But I am originally from Tennessee.”

“Tennessee!” the man exclaimed. “Damn, we came to the right place. We’re Confederates—good ole Southern boys! Thank you, ma’am. Thank you!” She heard him leaving the porch, and began to relax a little more. They were Confederates. She looked at Dooley.

“I’ve never gone back to Tennessee in all these years,” she told the man, “and I swear no allegiance to it now. But at the moment I think I am glad I was born and raised there, and it might be wise to let them think we sympathize with the Confederates. It would be safer for me. Perhaps if we are kind to them they’ll leave without robbing us of everything we own, and perhaps my being from Tennessee will create enough respect to keep their minds off things they should not be thinking about.” She reddened at the words, but they had to be said so that there was an understanding.

Dooley nodded. “Good idea. I’m partial to Georgia myself, so we got no problem there.” He looked over at Wolf’s Blood. “Take it nice and easy, son, and we’ll get through this just fine.”

The boy’s dark eyes glittered with apprehension. He trusted no strange white men, whether they be Federals or Confederates. There was a thumping on the porch again and a rustling against the door.

“Got the wounded man here,” came the major’s voice again. “Name’s Monroe. Lance Monroe.”

Abbie’s eyes widened in shock, and her body tingled from the thought of how fate acted to strangely twist peoples’ lives. Her mind raced and her ears did not hear the major as he told her he was leaving to set up a camp. All she could think of was that Zeke had been gone for nearly five months, and now a wounded man lay on her doorstep that might be his long lost white brother from Tennessee, the youngest one that no one had heard from since first he went off to war. She started to open the door in her excitement, but Dooley grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

“Let me do it,” he told her. “Step back out of the way.”

She nodded, her breathing rapid. Could it be Zeke’s brother? She looked at Wolf’s Blood, whose eyes showed the same surprise. “Monroe,” he spoke up. “My father has a brother called Lance. He told me.”

Abbie nodded. “He does. But it could be a coincidence,” she told the boy, praying it was not. Nothing would soothe her longing for Zeke as much as being able to help one of his brothers.

Dooley cautiously opened the door and peeked out. A man lay on the porch, and others were several yards away. He could hear orders being shouted. Dooley opened the door farther and reached down to drag the wounded man inside, bringing him over to lay him on a buffalo skin in front of the wood stove. The buffalo skin still had shaggy fur on it and made a decent temporary bed.

Wolf’s Blood quickly bolted the door again, and Abbie was already bending over the wounded man, helping Dooley unwrap woolen scarves from around the man’s head and face and unbutton his tattered coat.

“My God!” Abbie exclaimed, looking at what could be Danny Monroe’s twin, only with dark hair. His eyes were closed, but somehow she knew they would be
brown, not blue like Danny’s. Zeke had told her Danny was the only one of the three white brothers who had inherited his white mother’s blond hair and blue eyes. His father had been dark, and this man was dark, with the same tall, broad physique of Zeke and Danny. “Surely this is Zeke’s half-brother,” Abbie whispered. “God has blessed me this night, Dooley. He has brought me Zeke in the form of his brother.” She looked at Dooley. “I only hope that if Zeke is wounded, someone will be there to help him also.”

“Well, if this don’t beat all,” Dooley muttered. “Zeke out there searchin’ for one brother, and another one shows up at the door.”

Wolf’s Blood stepped closer to peek curiously at the wounded man who was an uncle. Dooley removed the man’s coat and shirt, and Abbie gasped at the crude bandages around his ribs. Blood spotted the bandages on the man’s lower right side.

“Wolf’s Blood, pour some of that hot water that is on top of the stove into a pan,” Abbie ordered right away. “Get me some clean cloths.” The boy moved quickly. “Dooley, go outside and find out if this man still has a bullet in him,” Abbie continued. “If he does, we have to get it out quickly. This is Zeke’s brother. We must not let him die.”

Dooley nodded and rose, pulling his sheepskin coat closer around his neck before venturing back out into the howling January winds. The man on the floor moaned, and Abbie put a gentle hand to his forehead.

“You’ll be all right,” she told the man softly. “We’re going to help you.”

He reached up and took her hand, his eyes still closed. “Pa?” he groaned. “I promise … I’ll stay home this time, Pa. I’ll help … get the corn in.”

Abbie looked at Wolf’s Blood, who had knelt down beside her with the pan of hot water.

“Life is so strange, Wolf’s Blood,” she told him, dipping a clean cloth into the water and wringing it out. She bent over the man and gently washed his face. “The very man your father hates, this man loves. Surely he was not that bad of a father.” She looked back at Wolf’s Blood. The boy looked down at the pan of water.

“I do not understand hating a father. It is something my own father never talked about. It is the only thing he would never discuss with me, except that often he told me how cruel life was back in that place called Tennessee.”

She sighed and returned to washing Lance Monroe. “Yes. It was cruel, Wolf’s Blood. But a man’s father is his father and it cannot be denied. It will be very hard for Zeke to go back there. I hope he has the courage to go and see his white father. It isn’t good to hate the man who gave you life, Wolf’s Blood. It’s wrong, no matter how badly the man might have treated you.”

Wolf’s Blood watched her gently wash this white man who was the product of the white grandfather he had never known and would probably never meet. It chilled his blood to realize how much white blood was in him, for he did not want any at all. He would always hate it. Yet he would never hate the mother or the father who had given him that blood.

Dooley returned, bolting the door and coming to stand over them. “He’s still got a bullet in him,” he declared.

Abbie sighed deeply. Removing a bullet was never easy, nor was it a pretty sight. “Get your bowie knife, Wolf’s Blood,” she told her son. “It’s the sharpest object in the house. I don’t want to do this, but I’ve done it before.” She bent over and began removing the dirty bandages, remembering a day, many, many years ago, when Zeke Monroe lay wounded in a cave after saving
her from outlaws. She had removed a bullet from his side, while he lay biting on a piece of leather. It was a traumatic experience for the young girl she had been then. But she had done it. She would muster the courage and stamina to do it again. How strange that the patient should be his own brother, one she had never met in all these years.

Zeke yanked on his horse’s reins and pulled back out of the way as an old man and two young women darted past in front of him. One woman slipped and fell in the muddy street, spilling an armload of meat she had just stolen from a nearby store. The windows of the store were broken and the door beaten in. The woman scrambled up again, hurriedly picking up her stolen goods and running off.

Zeke stared in pity and disbelief as ragged, skeletal people hurried here and there, picking their way through the muddied streets of Nashville, the mud made worse by the thousands of wagons that had churned their way through it on their way out of the city, fleeing the oncoming Union soldiers. The South Zeke had returned to was not the South he had left. The South he had left had been quiet and soft, a wealthy land populated by farmers and plantation owners, its people slow and casual, with little care about what the next day would bring.

Now that South was ravaged and burned, a place where danger lay not just in the cities, but on the plantations and in the remote woods and swamps. Every place he turned, hatred swelled and brother fought brother. People who were once proud and gentle were killing and destroying, grasping at whatever remnants they could find to keep them alive. With the fall of Forts Donelson and Henry, and now with the desertion of Nashville by Confederate troops, Tennessee was falling
into the hands of the Federals. To the citizens of Tennessee, such a fate was worse than death, a wound to their pride that might never heal.

Zeke had at first thought himself lucky in his search for Danny. After leaving Emily at St. Louis, he had ridden into Illinois and paid a prison official at Rock Island to allow him to visit Confederate prisoners to search for Danny. What he saw there was revolting—tattered, wounded men dying of infections and disease, eating food most animals would not eat. He did not understand this war. He could not believe it was just to free slaves. It had to be more political than that. He had vivid memories of the Trail of Tears and what the government had done to the Indians of the South when they chased them west. Now, mysteriously, the slaves would be freed, which was fine with him. But what would be done for them once they were released from bondage? Would the white men who freed them suddenly find a great love in their hearts for the black man, any more than they cared about the Indian? And why was the white man suddenly so concerned about the Negroes, while at the same time they were considering ways to imprison and destroy the red man?

None of it made sense to him. A man was a man, as far as Zeke was concerned. It was not his color that made him so, or his name. It was merely his human traits, his skill, his courage, his honor. There was no honor in this war, or in what was happening to the Indians. But that was not his problem or concern for the moment. His problem was to find Danny. On that first visit to Rock Island, to his relief, Danny was not there amid the filth and humiliation of that prison. He had come upon one prisoner there who had known Danny at Shiloh. He claimed that Danny had escaped and was probably back with the Confederates again.

But after hearing descriptions of what had happened
at Shiloh, and seeing now what was happening to all of Tennessee, Zeke wondered how Danny could have survived, especially if he was wounded as Emily had been told. His only choice was to cover as much country as possible, searching out Confederates and asking questions. But it was a dangerous chore, for without a uniform he was always suspect, trusted by neither Union men nor Confederates. He had already dodged more bullets than he cared to think about, fired by men who didn’t bother to ask questions first.

“Gimme that horse!” a man growled then, grabbing the reins of Zeke’s mount and pushing at Zeke. He was a big, bearded man of considerable strength, a man who obviously was accustomed to getting what he wanted by simply taking it. Zeke kicked out at him, sending the man sprawling into the mud. He moved his Appaloosa a few feet back and the man glared at him. “Stinkin’ redskin!” he shouted. “What are you doin’ here? Get the hell out of Nashville, unless you plan to stay here and join the niggers!”

The man got up and grabbed an old woman who was crossing the street and carrying blankets and a bag of flour. He shoved her down and yanked the articles from her hands and made off with them. Zeke kicked his horse into motion and rode down upon the man, pulling out his rifle and whacking the man between the shoulders with the butt of the rifle. The man sprawled forward, the belongings in his arms flying out in front of him. Zeke quickly dismounted and placed his foot on the back of the man’s head, holding his face in the mud.