Embrace the Wild Land (31 page)

Drums beat rhythmically, and Cheyenne men danced the war dance. They had obeyed the treaties and caused no trouble. Yet harassment, disease and starvation had been their only reward. The men, even those who had become drunk and lazy because of their disillusionment and despair, joined in the dancing, most agreeing to riding with Lone Eagle to the mountains near Denver, where they would await instructions before raiding the ranch of the man called Winston Garvey. They were friends to Lone Eagle. They would help
him get his woman back. It would be like the old days, when they raided Ute or Pawnee camps to recapture their own women who had been stolen from them.

Zeke and Wolf’s Blood sat side by side. And as Zeke had commanded, there was not a white person alive who would have thought there was any white blood in the veins of either father or son. Both had pierced their chests and let blood in sacrifice to the spirits for the loss of Abbie, in accordance with the custom of suffering physical pain to relieve the emotional pain. They wore only loincloths and bone necklaces, their bodies and faces painted in their war colors. Zeke wore his eagle feathers, the sign of an accomplished warrior, his body much more fierce looking than his son’s because of the man’s many battle scars. The years had not softened the hard muscle or the swift movements and keen alertness of the man.

Father and son shared the pipe with a priest and with Black Elk. Black Elk’s acceptance of the pipe from Zeke signified his agreement to take his Dog Soldiers to Denver. It would feel good to ride and raid and be a man again, to fight back at least once against the forces that were against them. Winston Garvey represented the worst of the white man.

“Wait in the hills,” Zeke told his brother. “We must be silent and cautious. Soldiers must not see us. I will go first to the woman called Anna Gale. I know that she will know about this thing. And I know that she will help me. When I know all that I need to know, I will come to you and tell you what to do. It is important that you stage a good raid. Steal horses—kill as many men as you can. Make it look as though it is an Indian raid and nothing more. Ride off with the horses. Then they will think all the Indians have gone, and they will send out more men to come after you and get the horses back. Lead them on for many miles, then let the horses
go. The men will quit the chase then and bring the horses back. And you will have none of the horses with you, so the soldiers cannot come to your camp later and accuse you of being the ones who raided the ranch. I want no blame to come to you. But your raid will give me time to get into the house and get Winston Garvey out. From then on it is my risk. Your job is to get as many men away from there as you can.”

Black Elk nodded, and Wolf’s Blood’s heart pounded with great anticipation. This would be his first true Indian raid, his first real mission of vengeance. He was ready.

“There is the chance that the soldiers will ride down on the village, Black Elk, or on another village, hitting out aimlessly in retaliation,” Zeke told his brother. “I will be very sorry if this happens.”

Black Elk waved him off. “It does not matter. They ride through our villages even when we are peaceful, threaten us, bother our women. These volunteers, they are the worst, just citizens who want an excuse to ride around and shoot at us.” He frowned and took out a tomahawk, fingering the blade. “The runners came to us not long ago—told us that the leader of this Colorado, called Evans, wanted all of us to gather and meet with him and put signatures on that worthless treaty. But we did not go. The whites are settling on our land, claiming it for themselves. But talk at Bent’s Fort is that the men who award the land in Denver will not file the claims because there are not enough names on the new treaty that takes all that land from us and gives it to them. So some say the land is still ours. At the fort they say the whites have written to their father in Washington. Now we wait to see what will happen next. We try to wait peacefully, but every time we go out on a hunt, we are shot down. White men steal and rape our women. Whiskey traders come into the camp and ruin
good men with their bad spirits. Our own men are giving up, Zeke, some selling their wives and daughters for whiskey and food. Especially for food. We cannot go out and hunt, and there is no game on this little piece of land they have given us. Other land is fenced off and is dangerous because we are shot at. We starve, we die of disease, and we sit here going crazy, trying to decide how we are to survive.”

“It will get worse, Black Elk. I am afraid for all my people. But as long as there is a way to fight, you should fight. I ride the terrible road in the middle. You cannot understand the pain of walking that road. But I am happiest when I am Cheyenne. Never have I felt stronger than at this moment! I have great faith that we will accomplish our mission.” He reached out and touched his brother’s shoulder. “But I don’t want to bring you pain and death. It would go hard on me.”

Black Elk grinned. “The spirits are with us this time. I feel it.” He sat straighter. “Now it is not like the days of freedom, when we followed the seasons and the buffalo, when we rode as far as the sun sets, or far to the north or the east or the south, and we knew that all that we saw belonged to us. In the north the Sioux fight, and the soldiers ride down on them and bring them harm. Here we try to keep the peace, and still the soldiers ride down on us. It does not seem to matter which we do. We are blamed for anything that happens, whether it is Comanches or Apaches or the Northern Cheyenne. Sometimes even the white men dress like Indians and fool the stupid settlers and raid them, so that the settlers say that Indians are raiding again and shout about how bad we are.” He tossed his head. “I spit on them! If they are going to blame us for things we do not do, then let them blame us for a good reason! We will go with you and raid this man’s place. We will get your woman out of there. She is one of us. She is my sister. She is
Swift Arrow’s sister. She saved Tall Grass Woman’s little girl from the deep waters. She has killed three Crow and been wounded by a Crow arrow. We wish to help your Abigail. She has been our friend, nursed our sick ones, helped with the skinning and meat curing and the sewing of
tipi
skins. She has been a good friend.”

Zeke nodded. He turned to the priest with questioning eyes. The priest nodded. “The men of Black Elk’s warrior society have voted to help you,” he told Zeke in the Cheyenne tongue. “The sacrifices are good. The signs are good. You are a man pure in thought, true to the Cheyenne in your heart, a warrior of respect in spite of your white blood. The council has voted. When the sun rises, you will go to Denver.”

Zeke’s heart raced with fiery vengeance and an eagerness to get his hands on Winston Garvey. He could almost taste the man’s blood. He rose and pulled out his knife, feeling as though he was exploding, as the beating drums and jingling bells and frenzied whooping and chanting of the dancing men penetrated to his soul and made him feel wild and strong and fearless. He left the council to join in the dancing, shouting the chants in the Cheyenne tongue, his long, black hair hanging straight and loose, framing his painted face and burning eyes. His handsomeness was marred this night by his almost hideous wild look. The gentle side of the man was nowhere to be seen. It was as though Zeke Monroe had totally disappeared and had been replaced by the fierce warrior called Lone Eagle. And soon, behind him, his son also began to dance, and other than Zeke’s more mature, filled-out manliness and the lines of hard living on his scarred face, there seemed to be little difference between the two.

The rest of the Monroe children sat with the women of the camp in the shadows of the huge campfire around
which the men danced, watching the frenzied preparation for battle. Jeremy watched Wolf’s Blood, knowing in his young heart he could never be like his brother. He liked the Cheyenne, yet deep inside he wanted to be white. He liked books and learning, and he wanted to go to a white school when he was older. But he kept the thoughts to himself for now. He was not ashamed of his Indian blood, but he was fast learning that to be Indian was to face starvation and insults. To be white meant being respected and educated. To be white meant not being shot at and called names. Little Jeremy was not so sure he wanted to be Indian at all. He did not look Indian. Why should he say that he was? It was something to think about.

LeeAnn watched with the same doubts. She of all the Monroe children looked the least Indian. She was white in every way, always feeling out of place in the village with her blond hair and blue eyes. She turned to her beautiful sister Margaret, whose dark features were such a contrast to her own, both of them beautiful in opposite ways. Margaret was like Wolf’s Blood, looking all Indian, but bearing the exquisite beauty that comes to women of mixed blood.

“What will we do if Mother can’t be found?” she asked her sister. “Will we live here in the village, Margaret?”

Margaret looked at her in surprise. She had not even considered such a thought. “I don’t know. When I look at Father tonight, I see only an Indian. I think he would like to always live with the people.”

LeeAnn blinked back tears. “But … I don’t want to live with the people,” she answered. “I mean I … I love them. But I want to live in the cabin, Margaret. I’m white. I don’t belong here.”

Margaret turned back to watch the dancing. “You are lucky that if you want to be white, you can be, because
you look white. I have no choice.” She looked at her sister again. “I am Indian. I do not want to be white. But I am afraid, LeeAnn. I am afraid because of what that white soldier told me when he … touched me. I was proud to be Indian … until he told me what white men think of Indian squaws.” She blinked back tears. “I am not like that. But they think it. It will be hard being Indian.”

“But … what will we do, Margaret?”

Margaret took her hand. “We will be ourselves. And until our mother comes, we will help our father. He loves us. I think he would understand, LeeAnn, if you told him how you feel. He would not make you live the Indian way if it is not what you want. You see how Mother lives. She has her cabin and her oven and her potbelly stove. Father understands the white ways, and his white woman’s needs. He will understand yours also. We will all be different, because of our two bloods. Don’t be afraid, LeeAnn.”

LeeAnn looked back at the wild dancing, wishing she were at home in front of the fireplace knitting or reading. “But look at Father! He looks so …so mean!” she said in near awe. “Tonight he has no white blood at all. I’ve never been afraid of him before. But tonight it’s like … like he’s not my father, but someone else—a fierce warrior come to kill me and take my scalp!”

Margaret just smiled. “Don’t be silly.” She watched her father. “Look at him! He is our father. He is Cheyenne and he loves being Cheyenne. And he looks mean because he is pulling all his meanness from his soul so he can go after that man who took Mother from us. I like the way he looks! It means he will win his battle, LeeAnn. He will find Mother and bring her home. I know it! You should be glad he looks that way. Mother will come home and we’ll all be together at the cabin
again. We’ll be happy and safe, LeeAnn.”

Margaret turned to the rest of the children, feeling suddenly mature and motherly. “All of you pray for Mother.” Little Jason crawled onto Margaret’s lap. “Mother is coming home. Father and Wolf’s Blood will bring her,” Margaret announced.

“Mama sleep with me?” Jason asked his sister.

“Yes,” Margaret replied with confidence. “Mama will sleep with you. And she’ll bake and sew and read to us. You’ll see. Our father will bring her.”

The campfire raged, its flames lapping upward into the dark sky. But its flaming roar could not compare to the rage that burned in the soul of Lone Eagle.

Twenty-Four

Anna brushed out her lustrous, dark hair, studying her still firm, silky body in the mirror and adjusting a ruffled nightgown around her breasts, pulling it down so that they were enticingly exposed. In a half hour a very prominent banker would be paying her a call. He paid well, and he was kind to her. She leaned closer to the mirror to put a touch more color on her eyelids. It was then she heard the soft tapping at her door.

She frowned. Apparently her customer had come early. She sighed disgustedly. She was not ready. She walked to the door and flung it open, and immediately she paled to a ghostly white, feeling weak and suddenly sweaty with shock. “Zeke!” she exclaimed, her livid blue eyes wide with surprise and sudden fear. He looked wild and ready to kill.

He just glared at her, faint scratches on his cheeks that she suspected were the remnants of self-inflicted wounds out of sorrow. She had lived in the West long enough to know something about Indian ways. Her fear was suddenly mixed with the old, burning love and desire for this man of men, and she stepped back to let him in, not even caring if he meant her harm. Just to see him again, to be close to this man whose masculinity
permeated the very air, was a thrill.

But the fear came back to overwhelm all other feelings when he grasped her hair painfully tight in his hands as soon as she closed the door. “Traitor!” he growled. He backhanded her hard, knocking her to the floor. She lay there a moment, half expecting to feel his knife slice into her, but he only came and stood over her. Her gown had fallen away from her legs, exposing slender, milky thighs. He took his foot and stepped on one of her legs, pinning her down. “How much did Garvey pay you to find out we were the ones who knew about his half-breed son?” he demanded, no sign of remorse in his eyes for the huge red welt that was forming on her cheek.

She blinked back tears and put a hand to the hot skin. “Nothing,” she replied calmly. “I never told him a thing. He figured it out for himself, Zeke.”

He smiled in a sneer. “Slut! You told him!” He reached down and jerked her up by the arm and she winced as he slammed her close to him, holding her in a viselike grip with one arm while he grasped her chin with his other hand. “Say it again, Anna Gale. Look me in the eyes and tell me you had nothing to do with this. You helped us once. I owe you. I do not want to hurt you, but I know when someone is telling the truth. If I see you are lying, I will slice up your beautiful body so that no one recognizes it.”

She gazed into his dark, hypnotic eyes. God, how she loved this man! How she wanted him! But that could never be.

“I didn’t tell him,” she said with confidence. “He came and told me. Somehow he …he figured it out, Zeke.” Tears began to form in the blue eyes. “I love you,” she whispered. “Why would I betray you?”

She watched the hardness in his eyes battle with a softness that lay behind them somewhere. “If you are
not a traitor, Anna Gale, then tell me what you know. Help me find her!”

He released her, and for a moment she could not talk as she struggled against the tears that wanted to come. She walked to a dresser and dipped her hand in a bowl of water, pressing its coolness to her cheek.

“He … found out somehow,” she told Zeke. “I swear to God I don’t know how. But he discovered you had been to Denver four years ago. He put it all together. And he hit me with it unexpectedly. Then he … he gloated about it. There was nothing I could do, Zeke. And later … I found out he’d taken your wife. He gloated over that, too.” She turned tear-filled eyes to him. “If I even knew where he had her, I’d have tried to help her, Zeke. But he says she’s not at his place, and he won’t tell me where she is! God, I’m sorry, Zeke! I’m very fond of your wife. I swear to God I’d never bring her harm if I could help it. I know how you feel about her. I’d never do that to you!”

He watched her, walking closer then. “Where is Garvey’s spread?” he asked.

“West of here. There’s a valley called Tumble Rocks. He owns the whole valley. His house is a big, gaudy thing, made of granite—two stories. His bedroom—” she looked away—“his bedroom is on the second floor,” she continued quietly, “on the right end as you face the house.” She turned back to look at him. “His son is off to college and his wife has gone east for a visit. He’s there alone. If you could find a way to get to him, you could make him tell you where Abbie is. The man’s a stinking coward. He’ll tell you in an instant.”

His eyes glittered with the taste of vengeance. “I have no doubt that he will tell me,” he hissed. “I can make a man sell his own mother!”

Her body surged with passion at the sight of him, tall and broad and dark, wearing the sweet-scented buckskins
and the array of weapons. Never had she forgotten the one night she had spent with him. Her eyes moved over him longingly. She wanted to remember every feature, every weapon, every scar. “How did you get up here, looking like that?” she asked.

“I am quiet. And I can climb.”

She nodded, smiling sadly. “I don’t know why I even asked.” Pain suddenly filled her eyes, and she turned away then, her heart heavy for his sorrow and what she must tell him next. She swallowed for courage. How she hated to hurt him! But he should know. He should be prepared. “Zeke, he … he … raped her. And I don’t think he was the only one. He has two men helping watch her. The way he talked, I think they also …”

She waited, but there was only silence. When she cautiously turned, he just stared at her, his jaw flexing, his eyes blazing. “I expected no less of such a man,” he answered. “But Abigail Monroe belongs to me. For another man to touch her is to touch a stone. They have not touched her at all!”

Her eyes teared more and she stepped closer, reaching out hesitantly to put a hand to his side. “I’m so sorry, Zeke!” she whispered. “I can at least tell you the two men watching her are called Buel and Handy. I know them. Buel has scars on his face and neck, and Handy is a big dark man with a deformed face. They’re the only ones who know Garvey has Abigail. And even they don’t know why. If you can kill the three of them, there will be no one but myself who can link you to Garvey’s death. You would never be traced.”

He studied the blue eyes. “And can I trust you, Anna Gale?”

She held his eyes steadily. “You know that you can. There is nothing I want more than to be rid of Winston Garvey. I hate him! And with Garvey gone, I don’t
need to do business anymore with that vile son of his.”

Her eyes teared, and she turned away. “The boy is sadistic,” she added. “He makes my skin crawl.”

Zeke watched her. For a woman like Anna Gale to be brought to tears of shame by a customer could only mean the Garvey boy was truly cruel and demented.

“He sends his son to you?” he asked quietly.

She nodded, and he put a hand on her shoulder in a sudden urge to console her. He squeezed the shoulder, thinking to himself again what a wasted woman she was. But there were some things in life that could not be changed. She turned and looked up at him for one brief moment of remembrance before his eyes changed again to ice.

“I know the two scarred men,” he told her. “They were part of a party of men who attacked us last year in Kansas. Garvey’s son was with them and recognized us from Denver. We are the ones who put the scars on those men. And right now I regret not killing the Garvey boy. I am not a man to kill one so young, but that one is different. He is dangerous.”

She shivered and rubbed her arms. “When he told his father he had seen you in Denver—that must be how Garvey figured it all out. Someone must have mentioned your name, and Garvey remembered you from Santa Fe.”

Zeke nodded, struggling to ignore the screaming inside his soul at the thought of his woman being touched by other men. Abbie! His sweet Abbie! The woman whose virginity belonged only to him, whose body and soul and heart and all her private places belonged to Zeke Monroe! Anna felt his rigidness building, and she knew he was battling to stay hard and strong, not allowing his emotions to overwhelm him and make him weaker. She stepped back.

“Garvey will be expecting you, Zeke. He had a man
waiting at Bent’s Fort—”

“I killed him,” he answered flatly. “Garvey does not know I am back.”

Her eyes lit up and the smile returned to her lips. “Wonderful!” she exclaimed, looking delighted. “God, how I’d love to see the look on his face when he sees you and feels that big blade at his throat!”

“How many men does he have?” he asked.

“An army. I don’t know how you’ll ever get in there. He must have forty men working for him.”

“That isn’t so many. I have a plan.”

She breathed deeply, catching the earthy scent of him, feeling the excitement of his power. “I hope it works, Zeke.”

“Don’t worry about me. When I am thirsty for vengeance, I do not die easily. And I have help—Cheyenne. We will raid the ranch. Once I get my hands on Winston Garvey, I will discover what he has done with my Abbie.”

She stepped closer again, touching his arm. “On Tuesdays and Saturdays the maid is there. With his family gone, they don’t need a maid every day. Go when she isn’t there, then you will have only Garvey to worry about inside the house and you won’t risk witnesses.” Her eyes saddened. “I’ll worry about you, Zeke.”

Her eyes were glassy with love. It would be easy to take her now. She was soft for him—wanted him badly. And he had not had a woman for many months. But all of his manly desires were gone, replaced by nothing but the awful hatred and vengeance. And even if he could find those desires, they could not be awakened by any woman but Abigail Trent Monroe, the little girl he had claimed in the foothills of the Rockies so many years ago.

“Be careful, Zeke,” she told him softly. “God be
with you.”

He reached out and touched the welt on her cheek gently, then bent down and lightly kissed the cheek. “I love her so,” he whispered. He pulled back and she saw tears in his eyes. They suddenly embraced. He held her for a moment, then quickly pulled away. “Thank you, Anna. You will be free of Winston Garvey. This is a promise.”

For a brief moment he saw what she could have been. “Your secret is good with with me, Zeke. Surely you see that. Surely you know that I love you too much to ever bring you harm. Tell me you believe me. Tell me you trust me. Give me that much.”

He studied the blue pools in which so many men had been drowned. All but Zeke Monroe. “I believe you,” he finally answered. “I believe there is a goodness beneath your harlot eyes, Anna Gale. Before I came, I thought—” he bent down to kiss the puffy cheek again—“I’m half crazy with grief and worry, Anna. I should not have hit you.”

She looked up at him, the fires of desire almost bringing her pain. “It’s all right.” She stepped back, surprising herself with this new-found strength he seemed to give her, for she wanted nothing more than to throw herself at him and beg him to sleep with her once more. Perhaps she could have tried using his body again as a price for giving him the information he needed. But looking at him now she knew it wouldn’t have worked. His condition now was not one to toy with. He would have killed her. This was no time for playing games with Zeke Monroe.

But she did not want to play games. That first time was before she had slept with him—before she had fallen in love with him. She no longer wanted to tease him and hurt him. She took his hand and kissed the severed little finger that he had cut off years earlier in personal
sacrifice for having betrayed his wife in order to get information out of the harlot Anna Gale. That kind of love was far above the likes of herself.

“Good luck, Zeke,” she said softly, squeezing his hand. “I hope you find her. But … if you don’t … and you need a woman to hold you—”

He shook his head. “Without Abbie, I’ll have no desires left.” He turned to leave.

“Zeke,” she called out. He hesitated at the door and looked at her. “Try to get word to me, will you? Try to let me know when Garvey is dead and if you find Abbie and she’s all right.”

He nodded, running his eyes over her sensuous body. “I will try.”

He ducked out the door, and she hurried over to get a last look, but he had already disappeared. She ran to the open window at the end of the hall, leaning out. But she saw nothing. He had vanished as quickly and silently as he had arrived.

She slowly returned to her room, closing the door and walking to the bed, where she sat down and wept. She no longer had any desire to see the banker who was to come and do business with her. She suddenly wanted no men at all, save one. And that man she could not have. But at least she had seen him once more.

Two days passed, and on the night of the second day, there was a restlessness in the air. The animals felt it, and even the wind felt it, for it stirred fitfully in impatient gusts. There was a chill to the darkness. And like all wild things that sense impending changes, Swift Arrow sat awake that night, praying alone near a campfire deep in the Black Hills of the Dakotas. The news that the runners had brought from Zeke, that Abbie had been stolen away by white men, burned in his Indian heart. He ached for his half-brother’s agony, but most
of all he ached for Abbie herself—the white woman he loved but could not have. His deep hatred for most white men was now engraved deeper into his soul, for it was white men who had killed his half-brother’s first wife and son; and now whites had taken Abbie.

Abbie! He threw back his head and prayed to the spirits for the beloved white woman and for Zeke. His arms bled where he had let blood in sacrifice to bring strength to his prayers. It would be easier now to continue leading Northern Cheyenne warriors in riding with the Sioux against the white settlers. Wherever a white man walked, trouble seemed to follow. It was not enough for another white to have the same color skin. Just to associate with an Indian meant insults and condemnation. Now those terrible things had come to Abbie, and if the white men had touched her wrongly, they must suffer.

Swift Arrow looked into the flames, his eyes wild with vengeance. How he would love to be along with those who would ride against those who had wronged the white woman. But by the time the runners came, Zeke would already be at that place called Denver, and would be ready to act. There was nothing to do now but wait until another message came—one that would tell him Abigail Monroe had been found alive and was all right. He breathed deeply, satisfied that if anyone could save Abigail, it was Zeke—Lone Eagle. Of this Swift Arrow was certain—just as certain as he was that no man was as skilled with a knife. And the boy, Wolf’s Blood, would have his turn also. Yes! He was a fine warrior. Swift Arrow himself had helped train him when he was very small. Now he would get his chance at warrior ways by helping his father avenge his mother’s abduction.