Embrace the Wild Land (34 page)

“Abbie! My Abbie!” he groaned, pulling her frail body into his arms. So small! Surely she was even
smaller than the fifteen-year-old girl he had fallen in love with so many years ago! “Don’t you die on me, Abbie-girl,” he whispered. He held her close, sitting on his knees and rocking her gently. He kissed her cheek, her eyes, cradling her in one arm while he smoothed back her hair with his other hand. She was hot and damp in spite of the cold shaft, and fear gripped him. Her body convulsed and she began coughing, a deep, dangerous cough that shook her whole body. He held her tightly until it was over, and the coughing seemed to rouse her.

She cried out and pushed at him then, a weak, futile effort, no strength in her movements, just fear and a lingering stubborn pride. Her blanket started falling away and he grasped her arms tightly, wrapping the blanket around her again and holding her tight against himself as she let out a pitiful wail of surrender.

“It’s all right, Abbie. It’s over. I’m here. Zeke’s here and we’re going home to the children.”

She heard the words somewhere in the distance. Surely she had finally died and now Zeke’s spirit called to her. Perhaps he was dead also. Yes, she must be dead and perhaps in heaven, for she was warm, and someone was holding her gently, not beating her or doing vile things to her. She began to relax, and her breath came in choking sobs. “Zeke,” she whimpered. “Where … are you? I … can’t … see you.”

“I’m right here, Abbie. It’s all right now. We’re going home.”

The words sounded closer now, and when she breathed the scent was familiar, the smell of the earth and leather, the light scent of sweet sage that he sometimes rubbed through his soft, clean hair or that got on his moccasins when he walked in it. Now it all began to become more clear to her. Zeke! Could she truly be alive, and could he truly be here, holding her in his
arms?

She forced her eyes to open. She was still in the hated cave, but she was warm, and someone was holding her. The long, soft hair was against her lips.

“Zeke! Zeke!” she whimpered then. “Oh God, it’s you! Sweet Jesus! Oh, thank God!” The words came out in gasps and she started coughing again. He held her tightly while the terrible coughing gripped her, his heart crying out for her, his throat aching with a need to weep.

“Hang on, Abbie. Don’t talk any more,” he told her, pulling her back into his arms. “I’m taking you home and making you well.”

The horror of it hit her as she became more alert, roused now from the hopeless stupor she had allowed herself to fall into, her body’s own way of protecting her from the reality of her condition and the rapes. But now he was here, and in spite of her joy at his presence, the awfulness of what had happened to her made her wish she was dead. How would her husband feel about her now? How could anything ever be right between them again? And she could smell her own soiled condition, realizing she had not been bathed since being brought to the mine shaft; lately she hadn’t even been untied to go to the bathroom. Yet Zeke was holding her, even kissing her face now, her hair, her eyes.

“Let me … go,” she whimpered. “Don’t look … at me. Leave me here … to die.”

“Don’t talk foolish, Abbie-girl,” he told her gently. “We’re going home. Don’t you want to see the children again? They’re all waiting for you, Abbie. All of them. They want their mother back.”

She choked in a sob and met his eyes for the first time. How beautiful he looked! How utterly savage and handsome. She did not have to ask how he had found her or managed to get to her. She knew her husband,
and she knew instinctively that Winston Garvey must be dead, as well as the two men who had kept her captive in the shaft. There would be time for explanations later. So much to talk about! So much! Where had he been? What had happened to him back East? That didn’t matter now. He was here! He had come just like she knew he would come. How wonderful he looked! Zeke! Her Zeke! And yet …

A terrible shame filled her eyes as she looked at him, mixed with a strange panic. “I’m not … just yours … anymore,” she whispered. His grip on her tightened.

“Don’t ever say that again,” he told her. “You’re too sick to even worry about that now. We’ll talk about it, Abbie. When it’s time.” He put a hand to the side of her face. “You remember one thing and one thing only while you are healing, Abigail Monroe! I was your first man, I am the only man to whom you have ever willingly surrendered. To them your body was just a thing. They never truly touched you at all.”

Tears spilled down the sides of her face and into her ears, and she broke into pitiful sobbing, a terrible, moaning wail that racked her body painfully, the kind of tears that came from the deepest fathoms of the soul; and if cutting out his own heart would change what had happened to her, he would do it.

He reached over and picked up the music box and his shirt, then lifted her in his arms. “Let’s go out into the sunshine, Abbie. That’s all you need. Just the warmth of the hot sun on your skin and fresh air.” He kissed her hair. “Stop your crying now, Abbie-girl. You need your strength, baby. Don’t let them win by making you cry this way. Come on. Wolf’s Blood is on his way back with the horses. It’s all right now. Everything is all right.”

“No! Don’t let … him see me this way!” she wept.

“Don’t you worry about that. We’ll get you away from this damned place and then I’ll clean you all up, Abbie-girl. I brought all the things I need. I brought soaps and creams and a nice clean flannel gown. We’ll fix up a travois and we’ll go find a nice, clean stream where I’ll get you all cleaned up. And I have liniment and some laudanum. We’ll doctor you ourselves, and once you get some sun and fresh air you’ll start feeling better. You’ll see. We’ll go home and we’ll all be together again.”

She was too weakened to argue any further. She tried to stop the crying, but the tears just kept coming. She nestled her head on his shoulder, breathing in the scent that was Zeke Monroe, allowing herself to glory in the strength of his arms. Zeke! He was truly here, holding her, talking to her. Surely she could never be a proper wife to him again. But for now she would just be glad that he was here and that the war in the East had not claimed him. Whether or not they could overcome the horror of the things that had torn into their great love while he was gone was yet to be discovered. For now she must cherish the moment, and she must cling to life for the sake of her children. Even if he never wanted her again, she must think about the children. The children!

Soon she felt the wonderful warmth on her face, smelled the sweet, clean air.

“Father!” she heard Wolf’s Blood calling. Wolf’s Blood! The last she had seen of him was when Handy had hit her son over the head before they rode off with her. How long ago was that? Two months at least. But she had lost all track of time, lying in the shaft with no idea whether or not the sun was out. She had often wondered if her eldest son had been killed that day. Now she could hear his voice. How she wanted to look at him! To hold him! Yet in her shame and her miserable condition, she could not bring herself to even turn
her head from Zeke’s shoulder to look at her son.

“Mother!” she heard him saying then, standing close. She felt his hand on her hair and she cringed, curling up more into Zeke’s arms.

Zeke met his son’s horrified look, seeing that the boy could hardly believe that the skeletal woman with the gnarled hair that he held could truly be his mother. The boy turned away and made a strange choking sound.

“Get rid of the body inside the mine shaft, Wolf’s Blood,” Abbie heard Zeke saying. “Let’s get the hell out of here and find a decent place where I can bathe your mother and get her settled onto a travois. I’ll ride with her in my arms until we find a place.”

Wolf’s Blood only nodded, then went into the shaft. Zeke sat down on a large, flat boulder, cradling Abbie in his arm and letting her head rest in the crook of his arm so that the sun shone down on it. Beneath the dirty, sunken face and tangled hair, he saw his Abbie was still there, that her beauty would return with her recovery and the pounds he would put back on her bones by making her eat. She opened her eyes and met his again, seeing the little boy she always saw when he thought something that had happened to her was his fault.

“My Zeke,” she said lovingly. “You’re alive.” Her eyes pained. “How I … must look! I’m so ashamed … that you should come home and … see me this way.” The tears started coming again, and he gently brushed them away with his fingers.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he told her. “You’ve never looked prettier, Abbie-girl.” He closed his eyes and pulled her close again, hugging her as tightly as he dared. “Abbie, God I love you, Abbie! I missed you so! When I came home and learned they had taken you …” He rubbed his cheek against her face and hair. “I’ve been half crazy ever since. I
never should have left. I never, never should have left! Why do I always leave you? God, forgive me, Abbie.”

“I told you to go,” she whispered. “Tell me … you saw him … your father,” she added, growing weaker again. “Tell me, Zeke. Please tell me you saw him.”

He broke into his own quiet tears. He would not tell her all of it yet. It would be too much. “I saw him. It’s all right, Abbie-girl. And I found Danny and took him home to the farm.”

“I’m … glad,” she whispered. “Now if only … you and I … can be husband and wife again. But I … can’t … and you won’t … want me … even if I could.”

He rubbed his cheek against her own, their tears mixing. “How wrong you are, Abbie! I’ve never stopped wanting you from the moment I first saw you. And I want you now, more than I have ever wanted you.”

Twenty-Seven

There followed days and weeks of fever and fear of death, and the initial worry over living at all helped buffer Abigail Monroe’s deeper, unseen injuries. For weeks she knew nothing but terrible nightmares in her sleeping hours and spells of dangerous coughing in her waking moments. But each time he was there—her Zeke—holding her, soothing her, ever patient, ever gentle.

A lamp was kept constantly lit so she would not awaken to darkness and think she was back in the cave. Once when it went out and Abbie woke up screaming, Zeke scolded Margaret so harshly that he made the girl cry and later had to apologize to her.

They were tense weeks, the joy of having both mother and father back dampened by fear of Abbie’s illness and the shadow of her mental state. Their immediate fears were accompanied by a deeper, unspoken fear—that somehow someone would trace the raid on the Garvey ranch to Zeke Monroe and his son. The newspaper in Denver spewed out bold headlines for days and weeks about the disappearance of Winston Garvey and two of his men. There seemed to be no valid link between their disappearance and the Indian
raid, and no particular Indian settlement could be blamed, with any tangible proof, for the raid on the ranch, except that the arrows found in Garvey men were Cheyenne. Yet no Cheyenne seemed to have any idea about the raid, nor were any Garvey horses found in any Cheyenne camp.

After several weeks the excitement and rumors dwindled, and Charles Garvey came home to take over his empire, not nearly as upset over his father’s disappearance as some thought he might be. It was generally accepted that Winston Garvey must be dead, but no bodies were found.

Soon thereafter, trouble began to explode with the Northern Cheyenne and the Sioux again in the North, and people began to forget about Winston Garvey. Some of the Indian raids were led by a Cheyenne warrior called Swift Arrow. The whites, and even the warriors who rode with Swift Arrow, would have been astonished to know that the warrior who led so many raids against white settlements was himself in love with a white woman, his raids in part a retaliation against whites who would harm one of their own for being a friend to the Indian. And when Zeke heard about the new raids to the north, he knew secretly that the ones led by Swift Arrow were his brother’s way of drawing attention to the north, away from Zeke, until the speculation over Winston Garvey’s disappearance settled to a less dangerous level. Zeke had found his white woman. Now she needed time to heal.

Through all the headlines and the raids, the Monroe family kept quietly to themselves, and no woman could have been more pampered and loved through a sickness than Abbie. Each child did his share of chores and took turns feeding his mother and doing everything he could for her. None of them showed one sign of shame or disrespect for what had happened to her, and the younger
ones did not understand. They only knew that their mother was sick and the men who had taken her had hurt her.

Often Tall Grass Woman came to help with Abbie’s care, fussing and clucking over the harm that had come to her good white woman friend. Her humorous attempts at speaking English and at trying to keep up a white woman’s house helped Abbie through the painful memories; the love of her children, and Zeke’s strong arms and gentle patience, gave her the strength she needed to hang on through the nightmares and the sickness. When the children or Tall Grass Woman brought her food, she ate more to please them and satisfy their worried hearts than because she had any appetite. But her motive for eating brought the same desired end. She began gaining back some weight as well as strength and color.

By mid-October Abbie was up and dressed, slowly taking over her motherly and wifely duties—save one. Zeke had not touched her sexually since bringing her home, but eventually his need to be a husband to her again and to reclaim her became so intense that he stopped coming to their bed when her nightmares finally began to leave her. To lie beside her just to hold her was impossible, and so he did not sleep with her at all, knowing that if he did so, he would want to make love to her, and she was not ready for such things. But his absence in the night and the business of just getting well and getting back to normal had kept them from talking about the one matter that most needed discussion, the one element of their marriage and their love that each needed from the other for strength.

Everything else had been discussed—the coming of the Confederate soldiers, Lance, and all the things that had happened to Zeke back East. Abbie’s heart ached for him when he told what had happened to his father,
but at least there had been a final reunion and the chance for Zeke Monroe to face his past and the reality of it. But when he had mentioned seeing Joshua, she had stiffened and paled.

“Don’t ever tell Bonnie … about … about … what happened,” she said quietly. “She must never know. She might feel badly about it.”

“I think she should know,” Zeke argued. “She should know the kind of woman you are—know that you allowed yourself to suffer to keep that boy’s identity hidden.”

Abbie shook her head, her breathing quickening. “No! If we … tell her … she might find out about … the other. I could never face her!”

“Face her!” Zeke exclaimed in astonishment. He reached out and touched her hand. “You can face anyone you want! You did nothing wrong, Abbie. Why should you have to worry about facing people?”

She shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. Zeke grasped her chin and forced her to look at him. “My woman doesn’t go around hanging her head. Not my Abbie!” he almost growled. “The woman I married is proud and strong and honorable. She is Abigail Trent Monroe, and the only thing that could make me or our children ashamed of you is if you allow what those men did to come between us, Abbie, and let it destroy us and destroy you. Then all I went through to come for you will have been in vain.”

He stood up then, taking her Bible from the mantle and shoving it into her lap. “You have not looked at that since I brought you home, Abigail. Before when you needed strength and help, you always turned to that book. It is not my religion, but it is yours, and I know you need it. I tell you now what I think of you. You are the most honorable woman I know or have ever known! You are that same, stubborn little girl I
married—that little girl who withstood the loss of her family and bravely asked me to end her little brother’s life because he was dying a slow, terrible death. You are still the same Abbie who rode with me against outlaws to find her sister and who shot a Crow Indian and saved my life, then turned around and dug a bullet out of me. You’re the same Abbie who came to live with a people she knew nothing about, and who bore all of her children alone on the plains with no doctor to help her, who nearly died in childbirth but fought to stay alive for her family.” He knelt down and took her hands. “Now you must fight again, Abbie. You must overcome this terrible thing that has happened to you and be our Abbie again—and be my wife again. We have both known horror and things worse than death, Abbie. We survived, and we shall continue to survive. I love you more than my own life. And if you truly love me, Abbie, you will understand my own need to reclaim you—to remind you that you still belong to me and have never belonged to another. And there is only one way to do that!”

He kissed her cheek and left her there, the Bible still in her lap. That had been in late October. Now it was nearly Christmas, and she had barely spoken to him in all that time. Zeke felt out of his mind with his need of her. It was over a year now since he first left to go search for Danny. In all that time he had been unable to make love to his woman, and his desires made him feel crazy, so that he began being absent more than he was home, in spite of the fact that he adored her and wanted so much to help her. She had become like a closed door, and he had not tried to turn the lock, for fear he would frighten her and she would hate him. It had to be her decision. There was no other way.

He worked harder than ever, spending most of the autumn cutting and hauling wood and adding another
room to the cabin so that the children would have a place to sit and study without being under their mother’s feet in the kitchen. Any free time he had was spent riding, sometimes with Wolf’s Blood, sometimes alone. The distance between mother and father had turned the initial household happiness at having their mother returned to a lingering pall over the entire family. Abbie’s health and color continued to improve, but her spirit did not return, and there was little laughter in the house. Wolf’s Blood continued to suffer a trace of guilt himself, and became more remote and difficult to talk to, often standing on the porch at night and listening to the wolves, pining for Smoke.

Christmas neared, and Abbie sat sewing a new pair of moccasins for her husband. He had always allowed her to celebrate her Christian holiday by baking and exchanging gifts, although they had never had a tree. But this Christmas of 1863 would be the most unhappy Christmas she had ever experienced. She looked up when Wolf’s Blood came barging through the door.

“You would not believe where I have been!” the boy spoke up, shaking his head.

Abbie put down the sewing. “And where is that?” she asked, her eyes showing the same dull spiritless gaze the boy had grown accustomed to seeing.

“Out in the east pasture. Father and I went there to check on some horses that strayed over there, and there was this big, painted wagon stuck there where the ground had thawed some and mixed with the snow. The wagon was bright red, and two men drove it. When we went to help them, three ladies opened the door and looked out. It was a strange wagon—all enclosed like a house. The ladies were all white women, those painted kind like Anna Gale. Those silly women were so scared, and they all talked at once and laughed too much. It was funny to watch them.” The boy snickered.
“You should have seen the way they looked at father when he put his shoulder to their wagon and helped push. I never saw women act so silly. They gave father some whiskey. He is still over there with them. He told me to come and get some potatoes for the ladies. They are out of food.”

Abbie looked away, her emotions awakened for the first time since her attack. Painted ladies! How long had it been since Zeke had had a woman? More than a year! Why had he sent Wolf’s Blood back to the house? It was a good twenty-minute ride or better one way. It would leave plenty of time. She looked back at Wolf’s Blood.

“Painted ladies?” she asked. “What were they doing out there?”

Wolf’s Blood shrugged. “They got lost. Father told them which way to go. They are headed for Independence and strayed off the Santa Fe Trail in the snowstorm we had last night. They are going to keep going today now that Father has shown them the right direction. They want to get to Bent’s Fort as soon as they can so they can rest up there and get supplies.”

“I see,” Abbie replied. She walked to a corner where she kept a crate of potatoes, taking out a dozen and putting them into her apron. She held the potatoes in the apron and told Wolf’s Blood to get a gunny sack from the wooden cupboard in the corner of the room where she kept her pots and pans. He brought her the sack and she dumped the potatoes inside. She looked at Wolf’s Blood. “Tell your father to …to please come back soon,” she told the boy.

Wolf’s Blood frowned. He had not even considered that his father would do anything wrong with the painted ladies, but he suddenly realized his mother thought that he might. “He is just helping them,” he said, feeling awkward then. He sensed there had been
nothing between his mother and father since Abbie had come home, and now his mother reddened slightly. Perhaps it was good she knew about the painted ladies. She had a new look in her eyes, a new life he had not seen there in a long time. “I will send him right home,” he told her. He felt compelled to lean down and kiss her cheek. “I think I should tell you, Mother, that … that Margaret and Jeremy and the others—and myself—we miss you. You are here with us, but you are not really here. We wish you could be the mother that lived here before those men came. Jason asked me this morning if you were ever going to smile again. It was then that I realized I don’t remember seeing you smile since you came home. I wish you would smile, Mother. Just that much would gladden Father’s heart.”

He turned and went out the door. Abbie stared after him, then walked to the door and looked out at the children playing, listening to their squeals and laughter as they threw one another down in the snow. It was the first time they all seemed to be enjoying themselves in many months. Wolf’s Blood mounted up and rode off toward the east pasture and Abbie watched after him. She fought the hot jealousy that the boy’s news had stirred in her heart. So afraid! She was so afraid to lie beneath a man again—even Zeke. What if he didn’t even truly want her any more? What if he secretly looked at her as a used woman, one that no longer belonged just to him?

Yet he had done nothing to make her think such a thing. On the contrary, he had been warm and gentle and constantly patient, his eyes showing love and need, two things she had pushed aside. They had been distant, but she knew it was her own fault. She had deliberately allowed the wall to build between them so that she would not have to face being a woman to him
again—would not have to make love again, even though somewhere in her own soul she wanted it just as much as Zeke did. Yet somehow her rape had left her feeling guilty, as though it was now wrong to enjoy sex with her own husband. How could the same act be so vile and ugly on the one hand, and so sweet and right on the other? Somehow she could no longer separate the two. It was all vile and ugly.

She looked out at the children again, and it suddenly hit her. The children! Her beautiful children! They had been conceived through making love to Zeke Monroe. He had planted his seed in her belly and the children had come forth—a product of their love, a beautiful result of their beautiful relationship. The children! What could be wrong and ugly about something that had produced her precious children? What could be wrong and ugly about giving the man she loved, the man who had so many times risked his life for her, pleasure in the arms of the woman that he in turn loved and needed? To deny him that right was to bring him continuous pain, for he needed emotional healing just as much as she did. What had happened to her had left scars on both of them. There was only one way to begin a healing of that wound, no matter how frightening and traumatic it might be. She had given up many things for her man and had braved many things to be with him. This was just one more.