“You look as wonderful to me as you think I look, Zeke Brown, dirt and sweat and all!” She stepped back, admiring his appearance. “Look at you! They said you worked for several years as a logger. That’s certainly easy to tell. How are you, Zeke? Are you … ?” Her smile faded. “Have you … married?”
He glanced at the three men again, not caring for the way they looked around his property. “Hell, no. I haven’t had time to think about things like that.” He met her gaze again. “How about you?”
Their eyes held in mutual understanding.
“No,” she answered. “I went back to school, up in Michigan. All your talk back when we knew each other before, about Indians and ancient customs and all, how they consider the land sacred—I decided to study geology. And with all the gold mines here in Colorado, I thought there would be some use for my services. I work for Taylor Mines now. We explore new areas, trying to determine the potential for more gold finds. I was on my way with these men to Masonville. Someone actually found fish skeletons up in the mountains there. Can you believe it? They believe the Rocky Mountains were once entirely under water millions of years ago, when glaciers moved through this land and formed canyons and lakes. Oh, it’s a long story, but that’s the kind of thing I enjoy studying. Taylor Mines isn’t interested just in gold. Mr. Taylor himself is also interested in building a museum that teaches people how this area was formed, tells them of the ancient history of Colorado. I thought perhaps you or your mother or grandmother could help me with Cheyenne history and customs. We could include that in the museum. Mr. Taylor is using his own money—”
“Wait! Slow down!” Zeke threw up his hands. “What has all this got to do with me? And why are those men looking around my property?”
Georgeanne laughed. “They’re geologists, too!” She turned and called the others over to meet Zeke. “A geologist is always interested in the land, wherever he is. Don’t worry. We aren’t here to start digging on your land. We were studying a map of the entire area because of the fish skeleton find, and I saw your name as the owner of this section. I thought as long as we would pass by this way, I’d stop and see if this Zeke Brown was the same one I knew back at the ranch.” Her smile faded again as she remembered the thing her father had done to him, the reason he’d left. Her eyes suddenly teared. “Zeke, I’m so sorry about what happened. I wanted desperately to talk to you …” She said nothing more for the moment as the other three came closer. Each man shook Zeke’s hand as she introduced him.
“This is Robert Higgins. He works with me for Taylor Mines.”
Zeke guessed Higgins to be no more than thirty, and he could see the man had an eye for Georgeanne. There was an extra firm grip to his handshake, as though to warn Zeke about something. Zeke gripped back, thinking how easily he could break this slender, fancy man in half. Higgins was good looking, and his pale complexion was ruddy from the Colorado sun. His blue eyes showed a slight cockiness. “Georgeanne says she knew you when she was younger and lived on a ranch in southeast Colorado,” he said. “Her father’s ranch neighbored yours.”
“Yes,” Zeke answered, glancing at Georgeanne again. What memories! He still remembered the taste of her kiss, the softness of her breast. She blushed, and he knew she was remembering the same things. He looked back at Higgins. “We were childhood friends,” he added, trying to allay any thoughts that there had been something more between them. He had no idea how these men might feel about such a thing, or if Georgeanne wanted them to know the whole truth.
She then introduced him to the other two, James Dillingham and Albert Moser, both older men who were apparently married, as they wore wedding bands. Dillingham was a professor at the University of Michigan, and Moser worked as a consultant for various mining companies.
“You have a fine piece of property here, Mr. Brown,” Dillingham told Zeke. “I can see it’s been a lot of work for you, getting rid of all the stumps.”
“That was the only way I could afford it. The government figures a lot of people don’t want land after all the trees have been logged out of it, considering the work that leaves for someone else. In some areas I’ve left the regrowth alone. I want the pines to come back on the hillsides to prevent erosion. Personally, I disagree with cutting down every tree in one big area like this. I think it’s a sin against nature to completely strip a forest.” He told himself to be careful. He was tempted to call it a “white man’s folly,” but it might be best if these men didn’t know he was part Indian. Haydon Seger had warned him to be careful about that if he wanted to own land. He’d made sure he talked to the right land agent, but that man had been replaced, so Zeke now kept a low profile with his neighbors and the new land agent.
“I think it’s a shame, too,” Dillingham answered.
Zeke liked the concern in the man’s blue eyes. He was very distinguished, with gray hair and mustache, his suit a fine cut.
“We’re working with Washington, trying to get laws passed to prevent forest stripping,” Dillingham continued, “but you know how it is. When there’s a dollar to be made, nothing else seems to matter. I swear we could all learn some lessons from the Indians if we’d stop to listen to them, but people think I’m crazy when I talk like that. The Indians believed in preserving the trees and the animals and such. I don’t understand it all, but I figured out enough to know that savage as they were, they certainly did love Mother Earth.”
Zeke glanced at Georgeanne, and Robert Higgins did not miss the odd look he gave her. “Yes, they did,” he answered, turning to Dillingham again. “I’m glad to know someone agrees with me.”
“Well, good luck with developing your ranch here,” Dillingham answered, shaking his hand once more. “Miss Temple insisted we stop by so she could see if you were the same person she knew a while back. How long ago was that?”
Zeke looked at Georgeanne. “About ten years, I think,” he lied. It had been only six. If they knew that, these men would realize they were not “childhood” friends, and they might make something more of their acquaintance. “Isn’t that right?”
He saw the quick confusion in Georgeanne’s eyes before she understood what he was doing. “More like twelve,” she answered. “I wasn’t sure I’d recognize you, Zeke.”
He smiled. God, she was beautiful! If they were alone, he was sure she’d allow his embrace. There was so much to tell her, so much to apologize for, so much to explain. He wanted to know everything she’d done these past six years, where she’d been … if there was a man in her life. He could hardly believe that on seeing her again, those six years were instantly wiped away. He felt he could just take up where they’d left off. He wanted to tell her he still loved her, that no one had been able to fill that void in his life.
“We’d best get going,” Higgins said. “We’re expected in Masonville.”
Zeke experienced a sudden panic. She couldn’t leave like this. “Where do you live now, Georgeanne?”
“In Colorado Springs, at a rooming house there. I came up here for a seminar in Fort Collins. We’ll be at Masonville for a while, and it isn’t far. Perhaps you could come there if you can find the time. I don’t work on Sundays.” She waved her arm. “Look at us! Zeke, we don’t dress this way when we work. We wear very different clothes for that, and we get very dirty! I love the work. Do come and see what we do! Just check at the Masonville Inn first. Not many women are allowed to have any kind of career in this country, you know, but out here women have much more freedom than they do back East. At first the university’s dean didn’t want to let me study geology, but I was not about to take no for an answer. So, here I am! Will you come to Masonville?”
He nodded. “I’ll try.” He could tell she felt the same as he—so much to talk about—and she needed to feel his arms around her again.
“We’ll be there for about six weeks,” she said, climbing back into the carriage. “I’m so glad I found you, Zeke, and so glad you have a piece of land for yourself.”
“Let’s be off,”
Higgins told the driver, obviously anxious to get her away from Zeke, who watched them leave, feeling stunned and slightly bewildered. Georgeanne had blown back into his life like a sudden spring wind. It was incredible, wonderful. Still, although she didn’t really seem any different, she had surely changed after having attended a university and getting a degree, meeting important people, having a career. Somehow it did not surprise him to see her stubbornly going against what society normally expected of a properly bred young woman.
He grinned. Always a little rebellious and extraordinary. That was Georgeanne Temple. She waved as the carriage rolled away, and he waved back, watching until the equipage was out of sight. He sat down on a rock, shaking his head.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “A geologist.” Would he be crazy to go to Masonville and see her again? Risk a return of all those old feelings? Hell, they’d already come back. He told himself to be careful. He had to see her again, simply out of friendship, and because so much had been left unsaid. It sure wasn’t likely, after what she’d accomplished these last six years, that she would still be interested in him, not in a struggling rancher with little to offer. He would have to put aside the old longings and just see her as a friend. The trouble was, she was more beautiful even than he’d remembered.
* * *
Jeremy stood up in front of the gathering of Denver’s high society, men and women who had paid fifty dollars a plate to attend the fund-raiser for another orphanage Abbie wanted built for the growing number of children who lived on the streets of Denver. The dinner was held in the banquet room of the Queen City Hotel, owned by Jeremy himself.
Jeremy had never felt so fulfilled. The frustration and guilt over the years he’d abandoned his family and denied his Indian heritage had finally left him. Iris was happy with her husband and family, and in spite of looking Indian and being married to a Mexican, she had been accepted by many of those in the sea of faces before him. She was here tonight, sitting at the head table.
Denver’s elite were determined to prove their city was as advanced and civilized and modern as any city back East, with theaters and parks and a gold-domed capitol building. Most did not like to admit Denver had problems with the poor, the bulk of whom were now immigrants out of work. They did not care to own up to the fact that their city was not perfect, and it was easier to ignore those in need than face reality and help them.
Abigail Monroe was also determined, determined to change the policy of “looking the other way.” She had begun an effort to open people’s eyes. Leave it to her, a woman who knew no fear, to not be intimidated by Denver’s most prestigious. Abigail Monroe was a woman who had faced Crow Indians with a rifle, who had suffered an arrow wound, watched her whole family die on the trail West. She was a true founder of Colorado, made of much more courage and grit than any of the other women present. He was proud of her efforts, in spite of some of the whispers about his mother being married to a half-breed man, then to a full-blood Cheyenne. He no longer cared that others knew he had Indian blood, or that he and Mary had lost a few friends because of it. Nor did he doubt that some of those who remained friends did so only because of his own wealth and his status with the railroad.
He’d come too far to let such things bother him. What was important was that he’d been able to help Wolf’s Blood by raising his son and daughter. Hawk would graduate from Harvard next year, and he planned to return to Denver to practice law. Joshua had started his novel about Abbie’s life. The excerpts in the Rocky Mountain News had brought a few more of Denver’s “finest” around to Abbie’s side, mostly out of curiosity over this fiercely determined and bold pioneer woman. He could not help smiling at what Zeke Monroe would think of his Abbie-girl right now, dressed elegantly tonight, looking as though she truly belonged with this circle of rich folk … a woman who had lived among the Indians for years, then in a simple log cabin on the Colorado plains. She had raised a great deal of money for the orphanage, opened a lot of eyes to Denver’s worst problems. He supposed if his mother could conquer a man like Cheyenne Zeke at fifteen years of age, she could certainly have her way with these soft-handed people at sixty-three; twice widowed but still fighting for what she believed was right.
“I am now proud to introduce to you a true Colorado pioneer,” he said aloud. “This woman came West from Tennessee close to fifty years ago and lost her entire family on the way. She ended up marrying the scout for the wagon train, a man who was half Cheyenne. His name was Lone Eagle, his white name, Zeke Monroe … and he was—” He stopped and swallowed, suddenly overwhelmed with how much he missed his father, how dearly he would like to be able to embrace him once more. “He was my father. And so I introduce to you my mother, Abigail Monroe, who is the reason for this benefit. She has worked diligently to have another orphanage built for Denver’s homeless children, and I hope all of you realize we have to work together to create programs to help our poor.” He turned to Abbie. “Mother, please say a few words to these people.”
He put out his hand, and Abbie took it, looking at him proudly. She rose, and everyone in the room applauded her, some of them rising in her honor. It was an amazing moment for Abbie; so many memories flashed through her mind. If Zeke could see her now, wouldn’t he have a big grin on his face? She could almost see him standing at the back of the room, in buckskins, his big knife in its sheath at his waist, ready to set straight anyone who might think to insult her.
She set her notes in front of her, as another man came to mind. He was buried in a mass grave at Wounded Knee, never to hold her again. Such a shameful way for such a man to be buried. He should be high on a scaffold in the mountains … with his half brother, Zeke. Pushing aside the memories, she began her speech about some of the sorry conditions she had personally witnessed in the poorer districts of Denver, and she warned that those in power must do something about problems that would not go away by ignoring them, or, as some had tried to do, by giving the poor a change of clothes and a ticket out of town.
“It took great courage to settle this land,” she told them, “and now it will take courage to face the problems we have created with that settlement. This is a land that has grown too fast for its own good, a settlement that has destroyed one class of people, our Native Americans, and yet created another class of people that still cannot cope with this sudden growth. Settlers ignored the Indians, killed them, pushed them off the land into little corners of the country to be forgotten—and still there is a great problem with the Indian situation.” She thought about Wolf’s Blood, her precious son, gone so long now. “Just as that problem has not gone away, neither will this new one with the poor of our city, men—and their women—who came here to help build the railroads and to work in the mines, enterprises which made many of you wealthy. Now they are jobless, and we try to sweep them under a rug and pretend they are not here. But they are and we must do what we can, as Christians and as those who run this city, to help others not as fortunate as we are.”
Jeremy watched her lovingly. Her thick, auburn hair had turned mostly gray since Swift Arrow was killed, but she was still a tiny woman, and the hint of the beauty she’d been for so many years was still there. Sometimes, when her eyes twinkled just so, he could imagine how she’d looked at fifteen when she’d chased after Zeke Monroe. How one woman could survive what she had was beyond imagination, and he realized now that in spite of how strong and wild and skilled Zeke Monroe had been, his real strength had come from this small woman who still carried the family on her shoulders.
He could see people were enraptured by her talk. When she finished she received a standing ovation … his pioneer mother who had lived such a simple, rugged life, standing before Denver’s elite, fully accepted in a society totally foreign to her. But then Abigail Monroe had a way of adapting to any situation, if it meant helping her family or helping someone she considered less fortunate than she.
She deserved this acclamation. He glanced down the table at Joshua, who well knew what it was lik
e to be the recipient of this woman’s love. She had suffered and nearly died at the hands of a man who wanted to find and kill Joshua when he was a boy. He was not even her own son, yet she had refused to tell where he was. Joshua, too, stood and applauded, tears in his eyes. Denver’s society had a long way to go to match the courage of those who had come before them. He wished the whole family could be here, but all of them were carrying on their lives with just as much bravery as the mother and grandmother who had helped them get this far.
Sixteen
Zeke headed Indian up the slope toward the spot where an old prospector had told him “them fancy-nosed geologists” were exploring the side of a mountain. He dismounted, worried that Indian, getting old for a horse, would become too winded from such a steep climb. It had taken three hours to get this far, along a winding switchback trail that snaked its way nearly to the treeline of the mountain, where the prospector had also said there was, “a good fishin’ lake.”
He had to grin at the memory of the conversation, the prospector a stark contrast to today’s miners with their modern methods. He’d thought about doing some prospecting himself, but he’d been too busy with more practical things, and he didn’t have the money to properly mine a find even if he did discover gold. He knew most prospectors, like the one he’d met in Masonville, were long broke, having sold their claims for far less than their worth to mining companies who then came in and made millions.
Zeke reached the lake, where the water was a deep blue and the entire perimeter was surrounded by boulders and pine trees. It was a peaceful, pristine scene that invigorated him. Everything up here was clean and clear and seemingly untouched. An old man sat on a rock with a cane pole, quietly fishing, and Zeke asked him where the geologists were digging. The man pointed to the side of a mountain that rose straight up, just to the west of the lake. “Through those trees there and past that first big hill of rocks. They’re on the other side.”
Eagle’s Song Page 20
