White Wind (3 page)

Willy flung his hands out and shook his head in mock sympathy. “Why, with all tha’ raidin’ ’n’ killin’ and bad feeling’s startin’ to build, I just don’t see how yer gonna be able to survive out here unless it’s as someone’s whore.”

“But… How did you find out?” Sarah stammered. Only Ben and Mary knew of her heritage, and surely they of all people wouldn’t have said anything to him.

Willy sneered triumphantly. “Dear John couldn’t keep secrets from me, ya know. He and I were such ‘buddies’ as we was growing up.” Shaking his head slowly back and forth, an evil glint deep in his eyes, he continued. “Some of them secrets came in mighty handy in those days.”

He shifted his wild-eyed gaze back to Sarah. “Though I’ll hafta hand it to him, he sure kept this secret for a long time.”

Willy smiled a fiendishly toothy smile. “And like so many of his secrets, this one will be very useful to me, won’t it, my sweet?” he said hatefully, running a calloused finger down her soft pale cheek.

“Why are you doing this to me? Why do you hate me so much?” Sarah cried out, flinching from his touch.

Sarah lay on the hard cold floor, her bruised and aching body huddled in a tight ball. The fire had died to glowing embers long ago, but she’d been unable to summon the energy to move, except to reach for the quilt Willy had tossed to the floor earlier.

Her eyes closed, seeking the comfort of sleep, but it was no good. The reasons for Willy’s hatred played over and over in her numbed mind. Though he was no longer in the room to torment her, his voice continued to echo in her mind.

“Emily should’ve been mine! She belonged to me!” Willy had shouted, grabbing handfuls of Sarah’s flaxen hair.

His wild gaze had fallen on the pale strands clenched in his fist. His voice had softened, bloodshot eyes glazed as he reminisced. “She was an angel. My angel. Beautiful and pure. She belonged to me,” he’d whispered.

Sarah shivered as she remembered how quickly his eyes had cleared and filled with fury and then how she’d found herself stumbling across the room as Willy paced before her.

“Emily loved a filthy redskin. Spent the summer livin’ as his squaw. All this time, I’d thought John had gotten Emily in the family way.”

Eyes bulging in a face turned purple with rage, he’d lurched toward the door. “I’ll get my revenge on you, you good-fer-nothin’ squaw. I’m leavin’. Gonna find me a preacher man. When I gets back ya marry me or…”

Sarah moaned and slid into the welcome arms of darkness.

The setting sun sent its flame-hued rays darting across the darkening sky, giving the rolling land below one last burst of color in glorious displays of pink, blue and yellow. The lone rider slowly brought his mount to a halt. Pride swelled within his chest as he surveyed the beauty of his people’s land.

What could be more soothing to a weary soul than the beauty presented when the sun sank below the horizon to allow darkness its turn to rule?

Golden Eagle offered a prayer of thanks for the earth below him, the air he breathed and the food that nourished him. He filled his lungs with fresh air, and then horse and man moved as one, appreciating the quiet ending to a successful hunt.

Entering a sheltering belt of tall cottonwoods, Golden Eagle wound his way through thick furrowed trunks as cottony seeds drifted from greenish flowers hanging overhead.

Stopping along the edge of the winter camp, Golden Eagle paused and silently observed the activities of family and friends in his
tiyospaye
or clan. They were the largest of all the Miniconjou tribes, with over twenty conjugal families.

Dismounting by the stream where a small herd of ponies grazed peacefully, he turned his prized stallion over to the care of a young brave guarding the herd and heaved the results of his hunting trip over broad shoulders.

“Golden Eagle has returned,” he announced formally, presenting the results of his hunt to his mother.

“It is good that the son of Chief Hawk Eyes returned. The spirits have kept watch on you this day, my son,” Seeing Eyes replied formally as she accepted the rabbits and prairie chickens. She bent down to examine the fur and feathers that would be made into clothing, decorations and other necessities.

“You have provided well, my son. The tipi of Hawk Eyes will have fresh meat tonight. Golden Eagle is a great hunter,” she declared, running her fingers through the soft rabbit fur.

Nodding his head in acknowledgment, Golden Eagle accepted her praise as his due. Kneeling, he selected a fine thick-furred rabbit and a fat prairie chicken and looked to the woman who had borne him. No words were necessary between them as he met his mother’s nod of approval.

With valuable meat and fur dangling from each hand, he strode to the tipi of an old widowed woman whose husband had been his great-uncle.

Chief Hawk Eyes watched the exchange between mother and son, and then came to stand behind his wife. His strong fingers closed over her hunched shoulders, massaging joints he knew would be tired and aching. Her moans of pleasure told him that, as always, she’d worked hard this day.

Together they watched their son present the gift of food to Morning Grass. He smiled when he noticed tears of pride garnering in his wife’s earth-brown eyes.

Seeing Eyes leaned against her husband’s warm solid chest, her eyes moving upward to the loving face of her husband. “Our son is kind, caring and sensitive to the needs of others around him.”

Hawk Eyes returned his wife’s loving gaze. “Golden Eagle has grown into a fine warrior, wife. He will make a good leader when his time comes. He will provide well for his family and tribe,” Hawk Eyes stated as he too observed his son taking time at the end of a tiring day to talk to a lonely old woman.

“Wild-Flower will be well provided for with our son as her mate,” he added, nodding his head in satisfaction.

Hawk Eyes felt his wife stiffen at the mention of their son’s future wife. He stepped around her, his fingers cupping her face, lifting her gaze to his.

“Our son will be happy, wife. The joining of the two tribes is meant to be. I know this to be true. I could choose no better woman to become our daughter than Wild-Flower. He will grow to love her in time.”

His eyes narrowed when his wife looked away, unable to face him with her doubts. For the first time since his pledge to merge the two tribes. Hawk Eyes allowed himself to consider that perhaps he was doing an injustice to his son. Golden Eagle was not happy and his restlessness was becoming more apparent each day.

Closing amber eyes, Hawk Eyes silently contemplated this indecision he felt. Surely the past five years of peace and the peace of the future were important matters to consider. As future chief, Golden Eagle would have a strong ally in Chief White Cloud. Also, White Cloud’s allies would become theirs as well. Wasn’t all this to help his son when the time came for him to guide their people and keep them safe?

The two tribes had been at war for many years. Long ago a marriage pledge between Hawk Eyes’s mother and White Cloud’s father had been agreed upon to strengthen and give new blood to the tribes. But before the ceremony could take place, White Cloud’s father had fled with a white missionary woman he’d captured, one with yellow hair and blue eyes.

His mother’s relatives had finally wreaked their revenge by slaying the warrior and his white wife when they returned several years later, but had not known about their
young son, who’d shown no signs of the white blood is his veins. Since then there had been countless raids and warring between the two tribes.

The tribes recognized the need to right the wrongs of the past. The two families must be united by marriage as they should have been in the past. Therefore, it had been decided that the eldest son of Hawk Eyes would take as wife the eldest daughter of White Cloud.

Surely his son would find happiness with Wild-Flower. After all, he reasoned to himself, she was strong and healthy and would bear him many strong sons and daughters. She was well mannered and intelligent

Yes, she would be good for his son’s tipi and tribe. Love would come as it had to him and Seeing Eyes. Golden Eagle should be proud to mate with her, he finally decided. All would work out. It had to. To back out now would most certainly mean war again.

“It will be so,” he insisted with depth and authority.

Looking into the glowing amber eyes that gave her husband his well-known name, taking in the fiercely proud angle of his head and stern lips, Seeing Eyes closed her eyes, as though to hide her thoughts.

Hawk Eyes embraced his wife, his arms slipping around her plump middle. Fingering long braids that still held the color of night, Hawk Eyes leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Perhaps my wife would care for a walk along the river tonight?” He planted a gentle kiss on the side of her neck and moved his hips against her in a manner that left no doubt as to his needs.

Seeing Eyes turned in Hawk Eyes’s embrace, looped her arms around his neck and looked over her shoulder at her son one last time before turning to her husband’s gaze.

Her eyes darkened with desire as she looked into smoldering hooded eyes. She cupped her husband’s strong chin in her small work-roughened hands, and her fingers gently traced his firm lips as she replied slyly, “Must one wait for a walk after dark, my most desirable husband?”

Hawk Eyes groaned as the tip of her small pink tongue flicked out to moisten her full lower lip. Mesmerized, he bent down to catch it between his teeth, and felt her move into the welcoming cradle of his hips. “Ah, how I love you, my most desirable wife. I think I cannot wait a moment longer.”

Golden Eagle shook his head, his lips twitching with amused tolerance as he watched his parents disappear into their tipi, the flap lowering behind them.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small figure running toward the tipi, long braids flying behind. Turning, he ran to intercept his young sister. The evening meal would once again be late.

The sky had darkened and stars glittered overhead by the time Golden Eagle sat in his parents’ tipi eating a meal of hot rabbit stew and dried berry bread. He found his mind wandering as his father talked of the events of the day and the council’s decision to begin preparations for the move to the protective and cool hills.

Once again he was assailed by a growing restlessness from within. Something was missing from his life and, try as he might to ignore it, it wouldn’t go away. He found himself wandering farther and farther from the camp in search of answers that eluded him.

Alert to the sudden silence, he froze, his hand midway to his mouth. He glanced up to find his father frowning.

Hawk Eyes chose to ignore his son’s rude behavior and delivered his last piece of news.

“We’ve had word from the village of Chief White Cloud. They have left their winter camp. Wild-Flower is fourteen winters and is now ready for marriage. The ceremony will take place after the
Ca pa-sapa-wi,
the-moon-when-cherries-are-ripe.”

Golden Eagle forced the food in his mouth down his constricted throat. His lungs contracted painfully as he tried to breathe. He was cornered. Trapped. Time had run out. There was no place to run or hide. Duty to his people weighed heavily on his shoulders as he rose to his feet to give his father the expected reply.

“As my father and chief wishes. Golden Eagle will fulfill the agreement of Chief Hawk Eyes and Chief White Cloud. Golden Eagle will bring honor to the tribe of Hawk Eyes and take Wild-Flower to his tipi and bring peace to the tribes,” he announced before fleeing into the night.

The moon had risen high into the star-studded sky as Golden Eagle silently entered the tipi that was a gift from his mother. He’d known this day was coming. He’d just wished it hadn’t been so soon.

He lay down, hands beneath his head, eyes staring at the twinkling of stars through the smoke hole. Shifting on his mat of thick warm furs, he tried in vain to banish the anger and resentment in his heart.

It ate at him, always there just below the surface, rising occasionally like tonight. And again, he’d had to calm it, bury it, for the sake of his people.

He reminded himself that as future chief, he was expected to fulfill many duties. Some would require personal sacrifice.

He recalled the words his father had spoken after the councils from both tribes had agreed that the joining of the two families was the only way to bring peace.

“I fear for the future of our people, my son. The numbers of whites coming to this land rise each year. There are many who say they will take our land and force us out or destroy us. Already the white man is pushing us farther into the hills.

“They take from the land. They kill the buffalo, take the furs and leave life-sustaining flesh to rot. The whites do not give to
Maka,
the earth, in return. Our people must stay strong. We must band together if we are to survive. We must unite as one to keep what is ours to pass to our children and to their children, as it was passed down by our fathers, given into their care by
Wakan Tanka,
the Great Spirit.”

Golden Eagle once again acknowledged his father’s great wisdom. There was no other way for the much-needed peace between his tribe and the Hunkpapa tribe, both belonging to the Teton branch of the great Sioux Nation.

Time was against his people. Wild-Flower had been nine winters and he sixteen when the marriage arrangements had been finalized. Five long winters had passed.

Golden Eagle closed his eyes. What had to be done would be done. Time and hope had run out.

Eyes of the bluest sky, hair as pale as the moon overhead came unbidden to his mind. Sitting, he reached for his medicine pouch. With deft ringers he untied the leather thong and held a lock of pale hair. Fingering the silky softness, he wondered what had
become of the young white girl he’d saved from the bite of death while wandering the land.

The summer he’d been sent away to search his soul had taken him to a meadow where warm gentle breezes had sowed.

Council members from both tribes had agreed on the joining. All but him. According to their ways, all members had to be in agreement. Peace between their tribes had fallen on his rebellious shoulders.

The beauty and serenity had drawn his troubled soul, and it was there that he’d found peace and come to terms with what must be done for the survival of his people.

He’d just turned his horse into the concealing shadows of the woods, ready to return to his people, when he’d heard laughter.

With a flurry of movement and wild laughter, a horse and rider had burst into the meadow as one. Alert, bow and arrow at ready, he had dismounted and watched the white girl.

Fascinated, he’d watched as she yanked off her hat and tossed it in the air with a wild whoop of joy. Released from confinement, an abundance of long, silky strands of hair had fallen to swing below small narrow shoulders.

Golden Eagle still remembered his fascination with the pale sun-yellow hair. Hair that shimmered and sparkled with a life of its own in the sunlight as the young girl twirled in circles on the grassy ground. She’d laughed with such carefree abandon that he hadn’t been able to stop the indulgent smile at her uninhibited display of joy.