The Bride Wore Feathers (13 page)

"That is good to hear, my son." Gall sucked at the wooden pipe as he mulled over his worries, and finally said, "What have you learned of the troops who were searching the area while you were confined to the prisoners' tipi with the Long Knife? Did so many seek one missing soldier, or was there another purpose?"

Dominique. But what was he to say, what could he do?

Jacob looked into the kind onyx eyes of the Lakota chief and slowly shook his head. Then, for the first time in his life, he lied to his father. "I do not know."

Sensing Redfoot was troubled, Gall's wide slashing mouth softened and the corners turned up in an understanding smile. "We have stirred your brain like a pot of stew in our hurry to gain knowledge of the white eyes. Rest, my son. Tell us what you have learned as it comes to you."

But the words didn't comfort Jacob; they added to his burden of guilt, his sense of betrayal. "I do not need rest. I have come to inform. Inform I shall." He took a deep breath and condensed the story of his first few days as a soldier in the United States Cavalry. "The soldiers have very strange ways. Everything they do must be done by a timepiece like this."

He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out gold watch and chain. He passed it to Gall, who examined it and then sent it on to the other warriors. Jacob explained as each man studied the shiny object. "Each morning before the sun has awakened, a soldier blows air into a long metal horn to rouse the others. Then we are obliged to stand and have our names called before we are sent to a long room. In this room," Jacob said with a grimace, "we are forced to eat what is called breakfast."

"Is this breakfast an animal the Long Knives have tamed?"

Jacob laughed. "It is the name of a meal, like
tankapa.
The food they force us to eat at all meals is not fit for our dogs. They make stew and hash with beans and molasses. Each meal seems to be made with these things, and each has a different name. All of it angers my belly."

Sitting Bull spoke up. "I will prepare a potion for you to ease your pain."

"Do not bother. Your medicine will only make my belly think all is well, when I know I must return and feed it more of this poor food. It will be better for me to continue this way." Noticing the men were through looking at the watch, he took it from the blanket and checked the time. Soon he must return to the fort or be discovered.

"I must finish my story and return." The others quieted and urged him to continue. "The soldiers spend much of the day doing women's work when they are not filling their bellies. For one hour they practice what is called a drill. This is their only preparation for war, and all they do is march around the fort on foot and sometimes ride the horses. They do not fire their guns. When I asked for instruction in this, I was told it was not necessary and a waste of bullets."

Gall's thick eyebrows leapt to his forehead. "They do not want you to know how to shoot a gun?"

"They seem not to care if any of their men can shoot or hit what they aim at. They think all they have to do is ride into our camps and frighten us away like scared women and children."

At this, the entire council broke into boisterous laughter.

When ordered was restored, Jacob jackknifed to his feet and motioned for the rest to remain seated. "I must leave and return to the fort now before the soldiers discover my trick and accuse me of taking what they call a French leave."

All nodded farewell and murmured good luck prayers, but none except the chief rose to join Jacob at the entry flap. Gall drew his ceremonial buffalo robe around his shoulders and stepped into the chill night air. "Then all goes well with you, my son? There is nothing more you wish to discuss?"

Walking beside him, his head bowed, Jacob said, "Perhaps next time I will have more news. Their chief, Custer, is due to return to the fort in less than one moon. I will know more about their plans then."

"And nothing else troubles you?"

Again he lied. "Nothing."

Too perceptive to ignore his instincts, Gall persisted as they approached the tethered horses. "What of the Long Knives' women, my son? Do they offer relief, or are the rumors we hear true? Do white women favor their men only for the purpose of breeding?"

Squatting, Jacob removed the buckskin thongs from Sampi's hooves. Then he rose and shrugged. "I do not know. The soldiers have not spoken to me about this part of their lives. What I have learned is that some of them go to a small building across the river and trade their coins to women in return for relief. This is where I will say I have been should I be discovered upon my return."

"Perhaps you should stop and take your relief here. Spotted Feather longs for you."

"No." Jacob shook his head, curiously uninterested in that which he thought might cool his desire for the crazy one. "I have no time for such things." Then he pulled himself onto the stallion's back and stated his candid opinion of the soldiers: "You should be happy to know that the Long Knives I have met, officers and common warriors alike, do not seem to be burdened with a great many brains."

With a nod of approval, Gall said, "Let us hope they all prove to be so simpleminded."

Jacob's thoughts immediately went to the Long Hair. Custer was anything but simpleminded. He possessed an intelligence and drive even Chief Gall would admire. But that information did not require discussion, at least not on this night. The Lakota had faced Custer and his men before. His cunning and abilities were well known to them. Also known and understood was the fact that one man, no matter how clever, could not bring down an entire nation determined to survive.

Jacob glanced at his father and waved. "Until the new moon."

"May the spirits guide and protect you." Gall pressed his palm against Jacob's thigh and squeezed. "Soon I am sure a rider will bring news of Crazy Horse and where he has fled. When you seek us next, we will both have much information. Ride to the tree-that-lives-in-death. Call the signal there and you will be directed to our camp." Then he backed away, adding an unnecessary warning to the son he'd trained himself. "Take care that none of the soldiers follow you."

"Hah." Laughing at the improbability of that happening, Jacob felt confident and at peace for the first time since he'd left the fort.

"Do not trouble yourself with such thoughts, Father." He wheeled Sampi toward the southeast, assuring the chief as he rode off, "When nature's call must be answered, those nincompups are lucky if they can find their own man parts."

Chapter 6

"I want the answer to question seventy-one. Ought I oppose the projects of my husband?" Libbie Custer squeezed her eyes shut and twirled her index finger before pushing it forward and spearing a spot on the page. "What have I chosen?"

"A single black triangle." Dominique snatched her book,
The Ladies' Oracle,
off the coverlet and furiously flipped through the pages. When she found the corresponding answer to her aunt's question, she howled with laughter and fell over on the bed.

"Nikki, stop it. What does it say? I have to know." Libbie reached for the book, but Dominique clutched it to her bosom. Libbie sat back on her heels and waited for the hysterics to subside.

"Oh," Dominique said, her eyes filling with tears. "It says, yes, you may oppose your husband's projects—if you wish to ruin him, that is."

"Oh, pooh." Libbie stuck out her tongue. "That book is filled with nothing but nonsense. I can't believe you were issued such a thing in a proper girls' school."

Dominique's expression sobered and she sat up. "I never said it was school issue
.
I merely mentioned that I got it at Miss Annie Porter's School for Girls."

"Nikki." Scandalized but nonetheless intrigued, Libbie scooted closer. Whispering, even though she and her niece were alone in her bedroom, she asked, "Who gave it to you?"

"I bought it from one of the other inmates in boarding school. Her mother felt her education wasn't complete without this book and a couple of others whose titles I can't mention."

"Oh, Nikki. What would your father say if he knew we were having this conversation?"

"Mon Dieu! J'ai eleve une trainee!"

Libbie's brows collided. "What did you say? I can't speak French."

"I know." She laughed, but at the older woman's stern expression, she made the translation. "All right, he'd probably say, my God, I've raised a harlot."

"Oh, my Lord." Libbie fell back on her pillow and fanned her brow with her hand. "No wonder your father sent you out west to finish you." She took a deep breath and went on, "I've spent the last ten of my twelve years of marriage lamenting the fact that the good Lord has denied Autie and me the joy of parenthood. Now and not for the first time, I feel I can see the wisdom in his judgment."

Dominique rolled over on her tummy and propped herself up with her elbows. "Aunt Libbie," she began, her tone serious. "Please don't think me rude or indelicate, but I have no mother to teach me these things, and asking father is simply out of the question."

Libbie turned her head and looked into Dominique's wide sable eyes. "I know, dear, and I've a confession to make. I'm not quite the laced-up old biddie you might think I am. But I'm also not given to talking about my personal life. These things are deeply private matters as far as I'm concerned."

"Oh," Dominique said in a tiny disappointed whisper.

Feeling empathy for her niece, remembering how bereft she felt when her own mother was snatched away while she was but a young girl, Libbie sighed. "All right. I will answer any questions I can, dear, but do not press me if I feel they are too personal."

"Oh, thank you, Aunt Libbie." Dominique's mind raced, but it was suddenly a blank. The best she could do was "Why can't you and Uncle Armstrong have children?"

"That's easy enough. I have no idea. It just never happened. Not, of course, that we haven't"—Libbie softened her voice and lowered her lashes before she said the final word—"tried."

"Tell me about that," Dominique said, her mind suddenly full of questions. "Tell me all about it."

"Not for all the silk in Paris. That subject is definitely too personal. In fact, I am growing weary of this entire conversation. Where's that cute book of yours? This time you ask it a question."

Dominique collapsed her arms and allowed her head to drop to the pillow. It was no use pressing her aunt any further. The subject had been closed just when her heart was beginning to open. She wanted so to ask Libbie about the incident in the stable with Jacob, tell her how close she'd come to kissing him right out there in the open with no thought to her morals. What did it mean?
Was
she a harlot? Or worse?

Dominique pressed her lips together. She didn't even know if there was anything worse than a harlot—and if there was, what shameful name a woman like that might be called. How would a sporting woman have reacted to the near kiss with Jacob? Would it have affected a more experienced woman as strongly as it had affected her? She remembered her very first open-mouthed kiss—with the gardener's son—as if it were yesterday, even though it had happened several months ago. He had kissed her, all right, and quite thoroughly as far as she could tell. Why did merely the
thought
of kissing Jacob excite her ten times more than the experience back home? And
why,
she wondered, frustrated, wouldn't Libbie talk to her about these things?

"Nikki? Have you fallen asleep?"

Lifting her head from the pillow, she propped it up with her hand. "No, I'm sorry. I was daydreaming."

"Get your little book," Libbie urged, sensing that Dominique was upset about something. "I'm dying to hear what it has to say about your future love life."

With less enthusiasm than she usually had for the oracle, Dominique lifted it off the coverlet and studied the list of one hundred questions. When she got to number thirty-three, her spirits lifted considerably. "Here's the one I want an answer to. Shall I cease to be a virgin before I marry?"

"Dominique Custer DuBois."

"But, Aunt Libbie, it
is
a question—see?"

Libbie looked at the page. "So it is, but it is not a proper question."

"Oh, please? What harm can there be? Just let me choose my sign from the table and you read the answer. If you think it is much too vulgar for my delicate ears, simply keep it to yourself."