Embrace the Wild Land (26 page)

“You’re about the prettiest thing I ever touched,” he told her. Wolf’s Blood’s fists clenched, and Abbie jerked away.

“What horse shall I ride?” she asked calmly.

“Why, you’ll ride right up front here with me, white
squaw woman. It’ll make my ride back real pleasant.”

She glared at him. “I have seen you before.” She glanced at a second man, who rode up beside the first. His face was oddly deformed, as though one side had been caved in and had never healed right. She glanced at Wolf’s Blood. “Last year—Kansas,” she told her son. “These two men were with those who tried to stop us from going to the Sun Dance. I remember them. You tell your father.”

The one with the scars laughed. “Sure, boy, you tell your pa. My orders is to take your ma, and that when your pa gets home and figures out where she is, he’s welcome to come after her, understand? You tell your pa that when he comes, he ought to be ready to talk. That’s all I can tell you, boy. Your pa will figure it out.” The man grinned. “By the way, that wolf of yours is the one that put these here scars on me.” He glanced out at the north pasture. “You’ll find the son of a bitch out there—layin’ beside your hired hand.”

He broke into harder laughter, reaching down and jerking on Abbie’s hair, pulling her up painfully. Abbie clung to the shirt and music box with one hand, while she grasped the mane of the man’s horse with the other and helped hoist herself up. The man grabbed her between the legs and gave her a boost, still laughing, and Wolf’s Blood could not control his agony. In a flash his bowie knife was out and slammed into the thigh of the man who had grabbed his mother. The man screamed out and his horse reared and moved away.

“No, Wolf’s Blood! No!” Abbie screamed.

In the next instant the man with the smashed face slammed a rifle butt across the side of Wolf’s Blood’s head, and the boy went down.

“Wolf’s Blood!” Abbie screamed, struggling then to get back off the horse. But the man who had been stabbed managed to keep hold of her.

“Let’s go!” he shouted to the others, who were all mounted then. They moved out at a gallop, hooting and yelling, thundering away just as quickly as they had arrived.

In the north pasture, Dooley and Smoke lay dead. Wolf’s Blood lay unconscious in front of the cabin, his knife still in his hand. The doorway stood open, and little Jason, who had run away from Margaret’s grasp, hurried out onto the porch just in time to see the men riding away with Abbie.

“Mama!” the boy sniffled. “Mama, sleep with me tonight?”

Bonnie watched as Zeke’s body suddenly jerked in his sleep. He had been up all night helping Bonnie and her father with more wounded men and had fallen asleep late in the morning on a blanket in front of the kitchen fireplace. Bonnie watched him lovingly, taking pleasure in his strange Indian habits, wondering how on earth he could sleep on the hard floor. But he had slept there faithfully night after night in the two weeks they had been waiting for Danny to heal enough to travel.

Bonnie sat at the table peeling potatoes. She put the knife down when Zeke jerked again, then rolled onto his back, his breathing heavy and sweat pouring from his face. She rose in alarm, worried he had somehow contracted a fever. “Zeke?” she spoke up softly.

“No,” she thought she heard him say, his hand grasping the blanket that he lay on. She jumped back when he suddenly turned on his stomach again and reached out toward the fireplace, groaning. Then he yelled out Abbie’s name and suddenly sat up. He glanced around the room, as though confused, then caught sight of Bonnie and quickly got to his feet, standing there before her in all his manly glory, wearing
nothing but a loincloth, his hair long and loose and free of ornaments. She quelled the desires he had teased since he had first arrived, for they could be nothing more than friends. She cautiously stepped closer. “Zeke? What is it?”

He glanced around the room and blinked, wiping sweat from his forehead. He began trembling and looked back at Bonnie, staring at her strangely. “Abbie!” he groaned.

She reached out to him. He grasped her hand and startled her when he jerked her close.

“Hang on to me, Abbie!” he moaned.

She rested her head gladly against the bare chest, allowing herself the pleasure of breathing in the scent of him, the ecstasy of his powerful arms wrapped around her. But she was also alarmed. She put her arms around him and pressed tight against him.

“It’s all right, Zeke. You’ve been dreaming.”

She felt him tremble and he pulled back slightly and looked down at her. “Bonnie?”

“You had a bad dream,” she told him. “You reached out and grabbed me. You spoke Abbie’s name.”

He suddenly grabbed her close again, hugging her so tightly her breathing was difficult. “Something is wrong!” he groaned. “My God, Bonnie, something is wrong! I have to go home!”

“Calm down, Zeke. Get your thoughts together.”

He rested his cheek on the top of her head. “Forgive me,” he whispered. “Let me … hold you just for a minute. It’s like I’m … holding her.”

“I am the one to be forgiven,” she whispered. “For I would let you hold me forever if it could be so.” She turned her face up to his, and somehow he thought if he could pretend for just a moment that this woman was his Abbie, it would somehow help the horrible feeling
he had inside. How he missed her! How he needed her! He put a hand to the side of Bonnie’s face and bent down to kiss her, lightly at first, then more savagely, wanting so much to open his eyes and see that it was Abbie. Bonnie gave no resistance, relishing in his moment of need, knowing it would be only that, a brief moment he was experiencing between being fully asleep and fully awake.

He suddenly released the kiss and pulled back, then turned away from her. “I’m sorry,” he groaned. “I …” He ran a hand through his hair. “I had a dream. She was … calling for me … reaching for me. And I … reached back. But something kept … pulling her farther away. I tried and tried, but she kept … slipping farther away!” He shuddered and grasped the mantle of the fireplace, bending down his head. “Abbie! My God, something is wrong! I know it! I’ve had … these feelings before, Bonnie!”

“But it was just a dream.”

He shook his head. “No. You don’t understand.” He turned to look at her, his eyes watery. “I knew … way back when it happened. I knew something had happened to Danny, even though I wasn’t even aware at the time that he had joined the Confederate Army. And there have been other times, mostly involving Abbie. Our love is so strong, it’s like … like we’re the same person sometimes. When she called out for me in the dream …” He sighed and turned away again.

Bonnie seized the moment to drink in the vision of all that was Zeke Monroe. Like the Indian that he was, to stand before her half naked was nothing to him. Why should a man wear a lot of clothes when it was so wretchedly hot? She wished she could be so free with practical thinking. But she was Bonnie Lewis, the preacher’s daughter and a preacher’s wife, the missionary who had lived by specific rules all her life. She suddenly
felt flushed and ashamed at the thought of letting him kiss her only a moment before.

“You must go to her right away then,” she spoke up. “Go and build a travois. I think Danny is well enough to travel. You have no choice now but to take him to Tennessee, Zeke. That way you can ride directly west through Indian territory into southeast Colorado. Danny will be in good hands and you can send word to his wife in St. Louis. It wouldn’t be safe to take Danny to St. Louis right now. There are too many Northern sympathizers. He’d be safer and rest easier at the farm.”

He turned back to face her, his eyes moving over her lovingly. “I’m sorry … about kissing you that way. I had no right. I thought for a moment I could …” He sighed and bent down to pick up his blanket.

“Pretend I was Abbie?” she finished for him.

He folded the blanket and laid it on a chair, turning to face her again. “I suppose.” He saw the pain and embarrassment in her eyes. “You’re a good woman, Bonnie Lewis.”

Her eyes teared. “No, I’m not. I’m bad. When it comes to my … feelings … for you, I’m a bad woman, Zeke.”

He reached out and touched her cheek gently. “There is nothing bad about you. The trouble with you white women is that you can’t tell the difference between bad and just plain normal feelings.”

She blinked back tears. “Sometimes our normal feelings can never be shown,” she replied.

He brushed at a tear with his thumb. “Thank you for all you’ve done with Joshua,” he told her. “You’re a fine woman, Bonnie. We’ll continue the secret. Remember how important it is that no one know, not even Joshua for a few years yet, where he really came from. You have to understand the kind of man Winston Garvey
is. He’ll kill Joshua if he can ever find him.”

She nodded. “No one but Rodney and Father know.”

“Danny knows. But he’s never said a word to anyone, not even his wife.”

She sniffed and suddenly grasped his wrist, kissing his palm. “When.… will you leave?” she whimpered.

“Today yet, if I can get a travois put together quick enough. I feel an urgency, Bonnie. I must get back. Much as I don’t want to see my white father, I’ll take Danny there. Then I’ll head for Colorado as fast as my mount can go without falling on his face.”

She began crying harder, kissing his palm over and over. “Today!” she whispered. “I don’t want you to go, Zeke.”

“And even if I didn’t feel this urgency to go, what good would it do to stay?” he replied. “It is something that can never be, Bonnie. You’ve always known that.”

“I’ll never see you again,” she wept.

“It’s possible. But then our paths may cross again, just as they did here. I hope you will continue to write us about Joshua.”

She nodded, raising her blue eyes to gaze into his own. “What must you think of me? A married woman, her husband fifteen hundred miles away, weeping over another man?”

He smiled softly for her. “I think you are a woman who has always done what is right, at the sacrifice of her own desires. You are a good woman. This I have always thought.”

She turned away, making a choking sound. “I could have refused to marry Rodney,” she groaned. “Not because of my love for you, Zeke. But simply because I knew I didn’t love him anymore. But I had made a
commitment. I was so …so bent on doing what was … proper! I might have met another man who …” She put a hand to her eyes. “Oh God, Zeke, he didn’t even make love to me on our wedding night! He’d never…never… he was … more frightened of it than I was!”

“Bonnie, stop it! You don’t need to tell me—”

“I do! Somehow I do need to tell you. I … I need you to understand why … after all these years … I sometimes think of you … why I let you hold me a moment ago. Oh, how I envy Abbie, who has a man who is truly a man to her! A man who understands a woman’s needs.… who shows concern and compassion. And the worst part is he …he’s good to me in all other ways. He’s not a bad husband, Zeke.”

Zeke sighed, hesitantly putting his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sure he isn’t. Maybe things will be better when you get back. You’ve been apart for a long time. And maybe you need to tell him more about how you feel, Bonnie. Maybe he thinks that because you had such a sheltered life and are so … so reserved … perhaps he thinks you aren’t capable of passion.”

She stiffened slightly and turned to face him, her cheeks crimson. “But … that’s how I have always felt about him. That he was the one incapable of such feelings.”

He gave her a supportive smile. “You might as well tell him how you feel, Bonnie. What harm can it do? You aren’t happy this way, so things can’t be any worse if you tell him. Maybe they would get better.”

She sighed and hung her head. “What kind of woman am I—discussing such intimate things with a half-breed Indian I haven’t seen for nine years! What is it about you that always makes me bare my soul and make a fool of myself?”

He took her chin and raised her face to greet his eyes.
“You haven’t made a fool of yourself.” He bent close and kissed her cheek lightly. “I’m glad as hell I saw you again, and especially to be able to see Joshua and know how well he’s doing. Surely the spirits sent me to this place.” He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I must go now and build the travois. I must get home to Abbie. I am sorry to leave you so quickly, but I can’t wait any longer for Danny. Do you truly think he is ready to travel?”

She sniffed and nodded. “You have no choice, and there is nothing more we can do for him here.” She took both his hands. “Good luck, Zeke. God be with you. My father and I will pray for Abbie’s safety. And if there is any problem at all—if … if any kind of tragedy should befall you or your family … never hesitate to come to us. You know you can depend on us.”

He squeezed her hands. “Thank you, Bonnie.” Finally he turned and went through the door. Bonnie looked at his huge knife, which lay on the kitchen table with his other weapons and some clothing. She touched the handle of the knife, remembering the skill with which he had used the weapon when rescuing her so many years ago. And she knew that even if Rodney understood her needs, he would never be able to bring out from her soul the heated passions Zeke Monroe stirred there. But Zeke was Zeke, and only the very best of women, the most understanding, the strongest, could live with such a man. That woman was Abbie.

Twenty-One

Zeke’s heart tightened with every forward step of his mount. This June day in Tennessee was unbearably hot, and he slapped at bugs that pestered him as he approached the old farm. He had always hated the humidity of the South, but he knew that if his life had been happy here the weather would not have bothered him nearly as much. The closeness of the day was only enhanced by his own feeling of anxiety, a strong desire to turn and run. Not only did he not want to see this place and his white father again, but being here also brought back memories of Ellen, who had lived on the next farm, just over the hill. Ellen and Tennessee! Visions of his first wife lying in a bloody pool kept flashing into his mind, as well as his little boy lying headless. A terrible pain shot through his chest so that he actually stopped his horse a moment and groaned. He breathed deeply for several minutes, wishing the air were cooler.

He urged his horse forward again, past a sorry-looking cornfield and toward the house. Its weathered wood seemed to be sagging every place, and he wondered for a moment how it was even still standing. His jaw flexed in his own determination to be strong and hard and bear what he must bear. He would simply deliver
Danny and leave, hoping he would not suffocate from his own hatred before he could get out of there again.

He wore only a loincloth and apron because of the heat, and in his determination to show his father just how Indian he was and deny any white blood, he had worn nothing that would make one think he was not even a half-breed. He wore his hair brushed out long, with tiny braids at one side that had beads wound into them. Two eagle feathers were tied into the other side of his hair, held there by a round, beaded leather hair ornament that Abbie had made for him. At his neck he wore a bone and copper necklace, and a copper band encircled the bicep of each arm. His big knife was strapped to his waist and moccasins covered his feet. He painted his war colors onto his face, for he truly was at war—at war with his own emotions.

Now he was within easy sight of the house. He could feel his own heart pounding as someone came out the door, carrying a rifle. Zeke halted. The man approaching was a younger man, with dark hair. As he came closer, Zeke saw a resemblance to Danny. He was tall and handsome, and for a moment Zeke felt intense hate, for the man looked very much like the father he had left so many years ago. The young man pointed the rifle at Zeke.

“Who the hell are you, mister?” he demanded, glancing at the travois on the back of Zeke’s horse.

Zeke looked him over cautiously. “You must be Lance. You were just a little boy when I left home. Is this any way to greet a brother?”

Their eyes met, and the man slowly lowered his rifle, his face beginning to glow with happiness, “Zeke?”

Zeke nodded. Lance just stared at him for several long seconds, absolute awe and admiration showing in his eyes. The stories he had heard about this mysterious
half-brother were enough to give a person nightmares. “I’ll be goddamned!” he finally spoke up, walking closer and putting out his hand. “Yes, sir, I’m Lance. Goddamn, Pa will have a heart attack when he sees you! Jesus, this is great. Just great. I’ve only been home a month myself.”

Zeke smiled slightly, and Lance started to tell the man about meeting Abbie, but he didn’t have the chance before Zeke suddenly pulled his hand away and went rigid, his smile fading and turning to a frightening glare as he stared past Lance toward the house.

Lance turned to see his father coming down the steps of the porch hesitantly. Lance looked from the old man to Zeke, unsure just what might happen. There would be time for talking later. The younger man hurried over to his father. “Pa, it’s Zeke,” he told the man. “Zeke’s come!”

Hugh Monroe’s eyes were glued to this son he never thought he would see again. His eyes teared as he walked hesitantly toward Zeke, who still sat astride his horse, his eyes so terribly hard and cold, his posture proud and defensive. Zeke noticed his father seemed to be mere skin and bones, still tall and broad, but most of the meat gone. The man’s white wife, the mother of Zeke’s white brothers, had been dead for several years. Now Lenny was dead also, the only brother who had stayed close and helped with the farm. The loss of both was reflected in the sad state of the farm and of the old man who owned it. But Zeke would not allow any pity to enter his feelings. Why should he pity this man who had made his early life so miserable for him?

The elder Monroe came close then, staring at Zeke with eyes full of love. He blinked back tears as he took in the fine Appaloosa Zeke rode, and the magnificent specimen of man who was his eldest son. He was so overwhelmed at Zeke’s presence that he reached over
and clung to Lance for support, feeling faint.

“Zeke!” he finally spoke up. “I … never thought the prayers of an old man like me … could be answered. God has truly blessed me this day!”

Zeke just glared back at him, unable to find his own voice at first, contemplating taking his fist and sending the old man flying as far as a good punch would carry him. But the old man seemed undaunted by the fiery hatred in Zeke’s dark eyes.

“Danny… has told us so much about you, Zeke,” the old man spoke up. “He was right.” He looked Zeke over again. “You did grow into a fine, handsome man. I … I guess it would seem strange now … to call you … to call you … son. You’re a full-grown, middle-aged man now.”

A sneer passed over Zeke’s lips as he slid from his horse, standing taller than either Lance or his father. “Why worry about calling me son?” he asked, his voice cold and flat. “I never called you Father.”

The old man flinched, and Zeke turned to begin untying the travois, disturbed by his own remark and the pain he had seen in the old man’s eyes when he made it. But he let himself take pleasure in the pain. The man deserved some pain. “I’m only here because Danny wanted to come here,” he spoke up.” “He’s on the travois here. He’s been wounded.”

“Danny!” Hugh Monroe gasped. “You … have Danny with you?” He and Lance walked around to the travois, where Danny was just awakening from a groggy sleep brought on by the muggy weather and his own weakness. “Danny! Danny-boy!” the elder Monroe exclaimed, stooping down and touching Danny’s face.

Danny smiled. “Pa!”

Hugh Monroe bent down and put his arms around the man, pulling him up slightly and weeping. “If only …
Lenny could be here!” the man wept. “My sons! All here! Surely someone … has been praying for this!”

Zeke watched as he finished untying the travois, thinking for a moment about Abbie. He was almost angry with her, for it was probably her own prayers that had created this moment.

“I’ll carry him inside for you,” he told his father. “He was wounded pretty bad at Shiloh and again in Virginia. It’s a long story. Emily asked me to see if I could find him. I’ve been away from my own wife and children far too long. I’ve brought him here to mend and I’ll be on my way in the morning.”

All was spoken matter-of-factly as he bent over and scooped Danny into his arms as though the man were a child. Lance hurried into the house to prepare a bed and Zeke started to follow Hugh Monroe, but the elder man stopped and turned.

“You go on. I walk kind of slow now. You hurry in with Danny,” he told Zeke.

Zeke stood there a moment glaring at him. “Did Danny tell you that my mother is dead now?” he asked.

The old man nodded.

“And did you shed any tears?” Zeke sneered.

The old man looked away and sighed. “Get Danny inside,” he said quietly.

Zeke headed for the house. Neither man noticed that another man watched them from the bushes, a neighbor who had come to see Hugh Monroe but had held back when he saw the Indian man there. There was no doubt about it. The Indian man was Zeke! Zeke Monroe!

“I’ll blow your guts out, you goddamned half-breed!” the man muttered to himself. “If you hadn’t married my sister, she’d still be alive today!”

The man headed back to his own farm, his mind reeling with hatred. Zeke Monroe had come back to
Tennessee! He had come back to the old farm. “And he’ll be buried here!” the man growled.

Abbie tugged at her bindings, but such efforts over the past three weeks had been useless, only reopening the scabs at her wrists where the leather ties had rubbed her skin raw. She had given up screaming for help. There was no one to hear her in this Godforsaken place—a damp, dripping, smelly mine shaft, at a gold mine long deserted, one of those discoveries that had proved to be only a fluke. Now the shaft held a woman who had been beaten and starved and kept from her children in an effort to make her tell Winston Garvey something that she stubbornly refused to tell. The crueler Winston Garvey was to her, the more determined she was not to tell him who had taken Joshua. The thought of the poor boy in the hands of the sadistic ex-senator gave her the strength she needed to hang on; and that strength was only enhanced by the determined belief that Zeke would come for her. Somehow he would find her and help her.

Every two days Garvey came to see her. She dreaded his visits—for the man seemed to take delight in hurting her. He never did enough to kill her, for he wanted her alive. She knew his idea was to wear her down, through pain and starvation and her own longing for her children. Each day she grew weaker. Each day she missed her children more. Each day a little more hope faded from her soul. She prayed that she would not lose so much strength and hope that she would give up and tell Winston Garvey what he wanted to know. But she was not certain how much longer she could hold out.

In between Garvey’s visits to the mine shaft, she lay with her arms tied over her head to a stake in the floor of the shaft, her ankles tied to two more stakes. She was freed only two or three times a day so that she could go
to the bathroom. The two men who had been with those who had attacked them in Kansas were her guards, taking turns sitting with her. She hated and feared both of them. They had not touched her wrongfully, but she knew it was only on the order of Winston Garvey. Both of them watched her with hideous leers, Buel’s scarred face and neck and Handy’s smashed face both revolting to look at.

She had had a lot of time to think, and one thing she knew was that Winston Garvey wanted no one, not even these two men, to know about his half-breed son. After she had been captured from the ranch, all the men but Buel and Handy had split up, and only Buel and Handy had brought her to this place. Apparently Winston Garvey did not want the rest of the men to know anything about where she had been taken. And when Garvey came to question her, even Buel and Handy were ordered to leave. Garvey always questioned her alone.

She closed her eyes and prayed again, her stomach growling from hunger, her lips dry from thirst. In the distance she heard the carriage again. He was coming. “God give me strength!” she prayed.

The minutes it took for the man to come inside to where she lay passed too quickly, and then he was there, looking down on her where she lay on a damp mattress. “Pretty day out there, Mrs. Monroe,” he spoke up with a smile. “Wouldn’t you like to see some sunshine? Wouldn’t you like to hear the birds, see the blue sky, see your lovely children?”

She glared at him. “Go to hell,” she said weakly.

Garvey chuckled, putting his thumbs into the pockets of his vest. He wore a white suit, obviously expensive, and several rings on his fingers. “Now, now, sweet lady, is that any way for a nice woman like you to talk?” He knelt down. “It would be so easy, Mrs.
Monroe,” he continued, grasping her jaw tightly. “So easy. You simply tell me where that boy is, and you can go home.”

“It’s too late for that,” she answered. “Whether I tell or not, my husband will still come after you, Winston Garvey. You are a dead man.”

He put on an air of unconcern. “I am too well protected,” he announced. “Your husband tries to harm me, and he’ll hang from the highest tree in Denver, with all of its fine citizens coming out to watch. We’ll make a holiday out of it.”

She watched him smugly, her hatred of him giving her renewed strength. “You don’t know my husband!” she sneered. “What a fool you are, Winston Garvey! You could have left us alone, and no one would ever have known about your half-breed son. Why couldn’t you have left things as they were? Now there will not be anyplace in this country … where you can go and be safe from Zeke Monroe! You don’t know him.… the way I know him. You think … power and money … can keep you safe. But there are other powers, Garvey—stronger powers … stronger than all the money you might have … all the people you might own.”

The man leaned closer. “Must I remind you again that we can go back at any time and begin killing off your children—one by one?”

She stared back at him, undaunted. “My children are with the Cheyenne by now. If you want to send your men to the village and try to take them from the Cheyenne warriors, go ahead and try!”

The man chuckled. “All I have to do is send in soldiers.”

“Oh? And what excuse will you give?” she answered. “How would you explain it?” She glared at him in stubborn defiance. “You were too much of a
coward to face my husband man to man, or even to raid our ranch when Zeke was there! Are you that afraid of him that you had to wait until he was gone? And how do you know if he will even come back? He could be dead.”

“That, dear lady, is your problem, not mine. If you choose to lie here this way for another month, perhaps six months, maybe forever—you will just lie here. Unless you tell me what I want to know. It’s your decision whether or not you will ever see your children again. You can demand your own fate, my dear. Just say the words.”

“Why should I? As long as I say nothing, and until my husband comes, you have to keep me alive!”

The man’s face darkened with anger. This woman was smarter than he had figured. He had thought, since she was a white woman married to a half-breed, that she must be ignorant and slutty. But she was beautiful and intelligent, amazingly perceptive, and worst of all, she had incredible strength and courage. He had not expected the kind of woman that was brought to him, and her own character had foiled some of his plans. He had expected her to fold and weep and tell him where he could find his half-breed son within a matter of days. But she had held out for three weeks, and every threat he had used had been to no avail.