Cherish the Dream

by Kathleen Harrington

“Oh, no?” she asked. “Aren’t you capable of participating in what happened to Private Pilcher? Weren’t you raised in such barbarity? Can you deny that you’re one of them?” Her fingers trailing along its edge, she moved around the table until it provided a barrier between them.

  As he watched her haunted features, Blade stood immobile, unable to deny her hysterical accusations. He was capable of torture and he knew it. “Yes, Theodora. I am Cheyenne. But don’t judge a people—a whole way of life—by one incident.

  “One incident! My God, when I think of how that poor man must have suffered!” Theodora covered her face with her hands and sank down on a camp chair, her sobs filled with an unbearable grief.

  In two strides he was beside her. He reached out, wanting to hold her, to comfort her, yet knowing that his very touch would bring a look of revulsion to her tear-filled eyes. Instead, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it into her moist hand. “Try not to think about it, Miss Gordon. It’s over. The pain is over for Pilcher. Let it be over for you, as well. Don’t dwell on it. Peter never should have told you so much about it.”

  Theodora shook her head and wiped her eyes. “It … it wasn’t Peter. He refused to say anything. Fletcher told me about it.”

  Blade clenched his fists. “Goddamn him. I should have known.” He swung around to face the map spread out on the table, carefully hiding the rage he felt toward the infuriating Southerner. With an enormous effort he managed to keep his voice cool and disinterested. “Do you think you can work some more tonight? Or do you want to stop for the evening?” Theodora blew her nose and squared her shoulders. “No, I won’t quit. The task will occupy my mind. If I go back to my tent, I’ll have only my thoughts to keep me company. And that’s the one thing I fear the most.”

  Blade returned to the far side of the table and looked across at the courageous young woman, offering her the security of its width between them. How ironic, he mused with bitterness, that since he was twelve years old, he’d thought all white women were alike, simpering about their salons in tightly laced corsets, feigning fatigue at the slightest exertion in the belief that it made them more alluring. The only exception he’d ever known was his spunky French grandmother. Until he’d met this exasperating New England bluestocking. She was as resilient as she was tenacious, bearing up under the bone-jarring pace of the march, helping to cook for forty men, raising her own tent, collecting her botanical specimens, even working on his maps. She was the only female he’d ever met who dared to challenge his male authority, or share his scientific interests, or match his vibrant love of life with her own totally feminine joy in the world. With one wide-eyed look from those astonishing green eyes she could fire his blood. She was intelligent and compassionate, with an innocent sensuality that brought an ache of desire each time he looked at her.

  He wanted her.

  And she despised him.

  Not for what he’d done, or for what he’d failed to do—but for what he was. The intense dislike for him she’d expressed at the beginning of their journey had now turned to cold, passionless contempt.

  He picked up a compass and twirled it on the table top studiously maintaining his outward calm. “Tom would have been very proud of you, Theodora. Don’t underestimate your own strength. Or your own importance. Your cartography work is excellent. These maps will assure the safe movement of wagons across the prairie. The help you’ve given me has been invaluable.”

  Jamming the balled-up handkerchief in the pocket of her dress, she peered suspiciously up at him. “Do you really want wagon loads of white people crossing the plains, Captain?”

  Blade quirked an eyebrow, trying to fathom her reasoning. “That’s the point of this whole expedition, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but is it what you want? Wouldn’t it be better for the Indians if the white man never comes?” The doubt in her eyes warned him that, though she was prepared to hear his denial, she wasn’t about to believe it.

  He laid down his pen, reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a cheroot, and lit it. Soon the tent was filled with the aromatic scent of its smoke, and he inhaled it with appreciation. “It would’ve been better for the Indians, Miss Gordon, if the white man had never arrived on these shores at Plymouth Rock. But that doesn’t change history. White men will cross the Great American Desert, and nothing on God’s green earth is going to keep that from happening. The best we can hope for will be a peaceful passage to the West. And the U.S. Army remains the best hope for that. If I can determine the safest, fastest overland route, I will prevent needless deaths on both sides.”

  Theodora stared up at him from her seat. She leaned forward, her hands clenching her knees. “Who are you, Captain Blade Roberts?” she asked in a hoarse whisper. “Are you a Cheyenne warrior or are you an army engineer? Or are you somehow magically both?”

  Blade grinned as he held the butt of the cigar in his teeth. “You forget my French antecedents, Miss Gordon. Those suave, romantic devils who charmed the ladies of New Orleans right out of their—”

  “I get your point, Captain,” Theodora interrupted. Jumping up from the chair, she grabbed a ruler and leaned over the map table. She kept her lids lowered, her gaze locked on the sheets of paper before her. Never would she let him see the effect upon her of the image he’d conveyed. If with mere words he could kindle that yearning need to seek the solace of his arms what fire could he light within her with his touch? Pushing aside the memory of his wet, bare skin beneath her cool fingers the day he’d taught her to swim, she took a deep breath. “Now, what was the height you’d determined for the bluff again?”

  He followed her lead and turned his attention once more to the parchment in front of him. “Two hundred feet from its base.”

  They worked together for more than an hour, making remarkable progress. Finally, Blade leaned both elbows on the table and gazed at the top of the head bent over his maps. “I’ll walk you to your tent, Miss Gordon, before I check on the pickets. We’re all going to need our rest tonight. We’ll reach Fort Laramie the day after tomorrow.”

  In the morning, the voyagers windlassed the wagon down the dangerous slopes to the Platte. Theodora stood on the top of the bluff, watching the men as they strained to ease the Yankee spring wagon over the precipitous ledges. She turned and looked back across the valley they had just crossed. Far to the east, she could see the outline of Chimney Rock, twenty three miles away. And farther still lay Tom’s grave.

  “I have to go now, Tom,” she told him, straining to see the eastern horizon. “But I’ll come back to take you home to Papa. I promise.”

  Go now, Teddy. Cherish our dream. Do everything we came out here to do. Don’t let my death be in vain.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks as she heard him speak to her. That was what she’d been waiting for. She had to hear him tell her it was all right to leave.

  “I’ll continue your work, Tom,” she vowed as she lifted her face to the heavens. “The maps will be published with your name on them. The world will know that you gave your life serving your country.”

  She turned and nearly bumped into Blade’s broad chest. “I thought I heard you talking with someone,” he said in a puzzled tone. His glance swept the empty bluff .

  Theodora raised her head, unashamed of the tears. “I was saying farewell to Tom.”

  Startled, Blade searched her grass-green eyes. His heart soared at the serenity he found in them. “And he said good bye to you, didn’t he?”

  When she lowered her head and nodded, he released a long, ragged sigh of relief. He knew at last that he’d won the battle. Theodora had accepted her brother’s death. She had chosen life.

  Discovering that the North Platte was too deep to ford, the men once again took the axles off the wagon and converted it into a bullboat. They used the nearby cedar to make long overdue repairs on the wheels, which had frequently been soaked overnight to prevent the dry wood from cracking. The jittery procession followed the river bottom all that day, and th
e next afternoon it reached the safety of Fort Laramie.

  The fortress stood twenty-five feet above the water on the north bank of the Laramie River. Tipis were pitched around its high walls, and as the caravan rode between the lodges, Theodora could hear the strange sounds of an Indian dialect.

  In near panic she looked at Blade, who’d accompanied her all that afternoon .

  “Indians!” she gasped. Her palms started to sweat in her leather gloves.

  “They’re Sioux,” Blade reassured her as they rode toward the fortress. “Don’t worry, Theodora. They’re friendly, or they wouldn’t be here. But if you’re really frightened, you can ride up here in front of me. I don’t think War Shield will founder under the extra weight. Stagger a little, maybe, but not collapse completely.”

  She met his teasing gaze in surprise. A devilish half-grin played on his mobile lips. He’d pestered her to eat three solid meals a day, and she’d already replaced the pounds she’d lost the first week after Tom’s death. “I don’t think we’d better risk it, Captain Roberts,” she told him primly, holding back a smile. “As large as you are, I might just be the straw that would break the stallion’s back.”

  Behind the fort and its surrounding lodges loomed a back drop of black hills, with the peak of Laramie Mountain standing out clearly against the western horizon. The air was so clear that the fort and its background seemed to take on an other worldly appearance as they cantered up to it.

  “It looks as though it were put here by some magic spell,” Theodora told Blade in awe. “It doesn’t seem to belong, yet it appears as though it’s always been here.”

  Blade chuckled. “No magic spell put that post there, vehoka. Its real name is Fort William for Old Bill Sublette, a trapper who built it with the help of his partner, Robert Campbell. The American Fur Company bought it, hoping to gain control of the Platte route to the mountains. Except for Bent’s Fort and Saint Vrain, it’s the major force in fur trading today.”

  As they wended their way through the scattered lodges, Theodora stared in apprehension at the Indians, who stopped and watched them. She cringed each time she heard one speak, fearing that the Sioux would turn on them and hack them to pieces in one swift, overwhelming rush of mayhem.

  Recognizing her nervousness, Blade sought to distract her. “I’ve been meaning to thank you for all the help you’ve given me with the maps, Miss Gordon. And to tell you how brave you were back there, when we crossed the quicksand at the South Platte fording. It takes real courage to walk into a sand laden current and to keep moving across a shifting river bottom. You should be proud of yourself.”

  Theodora blushed at his words, pleased to receive praise from a man who seldom gave it—and never when it was undeserved. “Thank you, Captain,” she said. So the hard headed captain had changed his mind about her at last. This was progress, indeed. She gave him a victorious smile. “Perhaps you’re not so certain now that I should never have come on this journey.”

  He regarded her thoughtfully. “I’ll answer that question when we reach California, vehona. Until then, I’m afraid my original opinion about a white woman crossing the wilderness still stands.” He shifted in his saddle, about to urge War Shield forward, then changed his mind. He glanced at her again, merriment sparkling in his eyes. Pulling his mount even closer to hers, be spoke so low that no one riding behind them could possibly hear. “But I wouldn’t have missed that swimming lesson for anything in the world.”

  Without giving her a chance to reply, he slapped Athena gently on the flank, and they galloped their horses up to the welcoming walls of Fort Laramie.

  Riding through the security of the arched main gate, Theodora spotted a scraggly garden of turnips, peas, and onions going to seed. She could have wept with joy at the homey scene. The fort was made of thick cottonwood logs, with block houses at two corners. To her relief the walls appeared at least fifteen feet high and were surrounded by a palisade of sharp wooden stakes. On one side of the square she noted storerooms, offices, and living quarters; on the other was the corral.

  Three men in the center of the square watched them ride in. Two were dressed in baggy, unpressed business suits. The third, attired in buckskins, came up to Blade as he dismounted and grasped his hand. The wide grin on his handsome face told Theodora that the two men were old friends.

  “Welcome to Fort Laramie, Blade. We’ve been expecting you for several days now. I hope you’ve brought some mail from New Orleans.”

  “I’ve got some letters for you, Lucien,” Blade replied. “Your family’s well, but misses you. And as you can see, we have a lady traveling with us.” Reaching up, he placed his strong hands on Theodora’s waist and swung her down from the saddle.

  As she sailed through midair, Theodora laid her hands on his shoulders. His muscles tensed and flexed beneath the light touch of her fingers. Against her will, she looked into his eyes for fleeting seconds, forcing herself to ignore the message she read in them. Then her boots touched solid ground and she regained her composure.

  “Miss Gordon,” Blade said in a polite, unruffled tone that belied the hunger she had seen in his gaze, “may I present the fort’s bourgeois, Lucien Fontenelle.”

  Theodora had learned that the mountain men, influenced by the years of French control over the unmapped prairies and plains of North America, called their leader bourgeois, or “boosh-way,” as Zeke pronounced it.

  “Mademoiselle, we are deeply honored,” the fort’s commander said. “Like the captain here, I have foregone the luxuries of a wealthy life in Louisiana for the adventures of the wilderness. But seeing you reminds me all too well what pleasures I have missed.” To her surprise, Fontenelle took her outstretched hand, bent over it, and kissed it. He straightened flashing a winsome smile. His eyes, like Blade’s, were dark. His long brown hair was pulled back and tied with a leather thong. “This has been a summer of surprises,” he continued. “Until this month we’ve never had the pleasure of a white woman’s company at the fort. Now, you are the third one to grace our humble lodgings within three weeks.”

  “Other white women?” Blade questioned his friend in surprise. “Here at Fort Laramie?”

  “Oui. Two missionaries and their wives, traveling with a party of trappers, stayed with us briefly only two weeks ago. One was a beautiful blonde.” Looking over at Theodora, he smiled once again, then placed his thumb and forefinger together, brought them to his lips, and kissed them with a smack. “Voita! Now we entertain another petite ange.”

  “These are my clerks,” Fontenelle said. He turned and waved forward the two businessmen, who shook hands with Blade.

  The square was filled with black-haired children, who watched Theodora with dark, almond-shaped eyes as they talked excitedly in their Indian language. A few bold ones approached her, followed at a distance by their more timid playmates.

  Fontenelle clapped his hands. “Off with you now!” he said in a mixture of Sioux and French. “Voyoux! Leave the lady in peace.” He turned and shrugged in apology. “Our children are merely curious, that’s all, mademoiselle. Most of the sixteen engages hired by the American Fur Company to work here are married to Indian women, and the children have almost never seen anyone like you before. But come, let’s get out of the sun. Sit here under the shade of the porch while Captain Roberts and I share our news.”

  The coolness of the porch was a welcome relief. Theodora took off her hat and smoothed back the strands of fallen hair. In clusters the children returned to their play in the busy square, climbing over stacks of buffalo robes, boxes, and cartons. Their happy cries reminded her of the sounds of children playing outside her window in Cambridge. “The youngsters don’t bother me at all, Monsieur Fontenelle. It’s only natural for them to be curious.”

  A jovial grin split his face at her open acceptance of the children’s mixed heritage. “Splendid. Then you will join us for a feast this evening, Mademoiselle Gordon?”

  Theodora looked at the captain before she replied.

&
nbsp; Blade stepped onto the wooden porch, his gaze roving about the noisy fort. “We’ll make camp along the river, Lucien. The men have lots to do, including the repair of broken equipment and the washing of clothes. We’ll need to stay several days. We’ll be happy to accept tonight’s invitation.”

  The afternoon was spent reprovisioning the wagon and packs. The boxes piled high in the square contained blankets, calicoes, guns, powder, lead, glass beads, small mirrors, rings, vermilion for painting, and tobacco. Blade scowled at the many cases of alcohol. He knew the liquor would be diluted with water and sold to the Indians, who’d trade a year’s worth of furs for a single keg. He also realized that Fontenelle was forced to barter it in order to compete with the itinerant traders who wandered the plains and sold the drink for a quick profit. Early that afternoon Blade and Theodora worked on the cartography, wanting to get it done before the merrymaking began. While they concentrated, three Sioux braves stepped uninvited into the tent. The Indians stood silently watching them. The captain glanced up only for a moment, then went back to work. Startled, Theodora straightened. Rigid with terror, she stared at the men. They were attired in breechclouts, their naked chests, arms, and thighs an affront to her New England modesty.

  “Wh— … what do they want?” she asked, swallowing the fear that choked in her throat. They met her gaze with implacable calm.

  Blade continued his calculations. His deep voice was tinged with amusement. “They’re just curious, Miss Gordon, that’s all. They don’t mean us any harm. Just go on with your work as though they weren’t even here.”

  She found it impossible to ignore them. Her hand shook as she tried to map Blade’s information. Peering at them from under her lids, she realized that one of them wore a scalp lock hanging from the handle of his war ax, and she recalled that the lost trooper had been scalped. She clutched the edge of the table and fought the wave of dizziness and nausea that came over her. Beads of perspiration broke out on her forehead and over her upper lip. Her tongue stuck to the top of her dry palate.