He put an arm around her and let her cry. “It was the only way we could be. You should not weep for me, Mother. This is what I want and if it ends badly, know that I am with my father. Nothing could make me happier.”
“I know,” she answered.
He gave her a squeeze. “I must tell you, there is no woman on earth who can compare to you in strength and courage. Father must have seen those things when he married you.”
She sniffed as she let go of him and wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief she held wadded in her hand. “I never want to forget your face,” she told him lovingly.
He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “A mother never forgets.”
“I’ll go crazy wondering what is happening.”
“Jeremy and Joshua can keep you informed by telephoning Ellen in Pueblo. She can send messages to you.”
Abbie closed her eyes and kissed his hand. “Somehow I knew from the day you were born the course your life would take. From the first day you learned to walk, I could never catch you.” She studied every line of his face, his dark eyes, his long, black hair, now streaked with gray. He was dressed all Indian for this journey, in buckskins, a hairpiece and feathers in his hair. He even wore stripes of war paint on his cheeks. He wanted to be fully Cheyenne when he entered Denver, that city where thirty-five years ago a Colonel Chivington and the Colorado Volunteers had paraded through the streets showing off their “bounty” after raiding a peaceful Cheyenne camp and slaughtering hundreds of women and children. One of those women was the young Indian girl Wolf’s Blood had loved. It was Sand Creek that had made a warrior out of him, for his heart had been filled with hatred and bitterness ever since. That awful slaughter had been the beginning of many years of warring by the Cheyenne.
“I’m glad I at least managed to get you out of that prison in Florida,” Abbie told him. “You had a few good years. I’m sorry you didn’t have longer with Jennifer.”
“Everything happens as the Great Spirit wills it. And now I must go, before the look in your eyes breaks my heart and makes me stay. I am doing the right thing, Mother.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, and she drew in her breath in the pain of sorrow when he quickly rose and moved away from her. “Last night I said my good-byes to Sweet Bird and the children,” he said. “It was very hard for her, but as I held her in my arms, so young and healthy and beautiful, I was even more certain she belongs with someone younger. Hawk has promised to care for her.”
The others came out to pack things into wagons, Zeke and Georgeanne and their children, Iris and her family.
“God go with you, mi amigo,” Raphael told Wolf’s Blood.
“Gracias,” Wolf’s Blood answered. “Take good care of your esposa, or the ghosts of her Apache relatives will come for you.”
Raphael grinned. He was rather awed by this father of his wife, a man who right now looked like a fierce warrior. “I will care for your daughter, as I have always done.”
A crying Iris hugged her father tightly. “We will be in Denver, should you need us, Father.”
He kissed her cheek and pulled away. “I want you to stay home with the children. Be there for them, Iris. Only Hawk and Jeremy should be with me. It is best.”
There came a flurry of good-byes then, as Wolf’s Blood walked off the porch to say farewell to the others, afraid to take too long saying good-bye to his closest loved ones, his sisters Ellen and Margaret. Ellen would stay here at the ranch a while longer with Abbie. Most of the others he would say good-bye to once they reached Denver.
“Look at him” Georgeanne commented to Zeke. “I can almost hear war drums and chanting when he looks like that.”
“He was always the most Indian of all the children,” Zeke answered, feeling sorry for his mother as she hugged her brother tightly and cried. Zeke put an arm around Georgeanne’s waist. “You might as well round up the children and get them into our carriage. We’ll make quite a caravan going back into Denver. It must be killing Grandma Abbie to stay here.”
“I’m sure it’s best she does.” Georgeanne loved the closeness in the Monroe family, something she’d never had. It still hurt to think of her father buried without ever acknowledging his grandchildren, but Margaret and Morgan were wonderful grandparents. They had all shown her more love than she’d ever known since her mother had died.
Brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles, great-grandchildren—all climbed into various wagons, until those who had come from Denver were ready to leave. Wolf’s Blood rode his own horse, as did Hawk. They would ride into Denver together, arriving later than the others, as they did not intend to take the train from Pueblo. Father and son would take their time, camp along the way.
All knew it was very difficult for Wolf’s Blood to mount and ride now, but from here on he intended to be a warrior, and warriors did not travel in wagons or on trains. Morgan had given him his finest Appaloosa gelding for the journey, and the horse’s rump was painted, an eagle on one side, a wolf on the other.
Wolf’s Blood turned his horse to look at an upstairs window of the house, where Sweet Bird stood, holding Laughing Turtle. Little Eagle was visible beside her, waving to his father, his little face sober with fear. Wolf’s Blood felt as though his heart was being torn from his chest at the sight of his young family. His only solace came when Hawk also looked up at them, and Little Eagle finally grinned when he waved at Hawk. Wolf’s Blood ached to hold his wife just once more, but he had insisted she stay in the house when he left. What was the use of one last hug and kiss? The pain in their hearts was bad enough as it was.
He turned his horse and rode out ahead of the others, followed by Hawk. Margaret and Abbie clutched each other and wept, and from a window above Sweet Bird watched until her husband disappeared over a rise. It was then she noticed an eagle, silently winging its way in the same direction.
Even in the East there were newspaper stories about the half-blood Cheyenne called Wolf’s Blood who had murdered three white men in Cheyenne, Wyoming, scalping two of them right in front of a crowd of people; about how he had managed to escape and had been in hiding in Canada until he’d turned himself in to his son in Denver, Colorado. The stories varied in accuracy, as did most tales about Indians in those times, white men interpreting the truth as they saw it.
Nowhere were the headlines bigger than in the Denver papers. After all, the “wild Indian” called Wolf’s Blood was the father of the noted attorney Hawk Monroe, who had won the famous case of Mrs. Edward Ralston v. the City of Denver. And Wolf’s Blood’s own brother was none other than Jeremy Monroe, one of Denver’s wealthiest businessmen. His sister was LeeAnn Lewis, the wife of Joshua Lewis, a top man at the Rocky Mountain News and the author of numerous magazine articles about Indians and the West. It was said he was also working on a book about one of Colorado’s pioneers, Abigail Monroe, LeeAnn’s mother and the woman responsible for the establishment of one of Denver’s first orphanages. Rumor had it that Abigail Monroe was living in seclusion now in an old cabin on her original homestead in southeast Colorado. Some wondered if she was even still alive.
Zeke Brown, one of Colorado’s wealthiest men and biggest landowners was Wolf’s Blood’s nephew. Iris Hidalgo, wife of a successful Denver contractor, was Wolf’s Blood’s daughter. It seemed amazing to Denverites that such a notorious Indian, who had once ridden in war against whites, and whose own uncle, it was said, had fought at the Little Big Horn and at Wounded Knee, could have a son and brother and other relatives so successful in the white world. Most were convinced it had to be the white blood in these people that gave them the intelligence and the ability to get an education and to do so well. They believed no full-blood Indian could possibly accomplish so much. Indians just didn’t have it “in them.”
Wolf’s Blood became quite an attraction. Crowds turned out to watch him be escorted from jail to the courthouse, all wanting to get a “last look” at a real warrior. Wolf’s Blood had expected as much, and he had
deliberately brought along full Indian garb to wear, white deerskin leggings and shirt, beads tied into some of the fringes at the sides of the leggings and sleeves, a sunburst pattern of beads on the front of the shirt. He wore a bone hairpipe necklace at his throat, a beaded belt around his waist, beaded moccasins. He had painted his face in his prayer color of white stripes leading vertically down the left side of his face, over forehead, eye and cheek. The same three lines were painted horizontally across his right cheek. He wore his hair long and loose, beaded rawhide wrapped into one narrow braid at one side, an eagle feather was tied into his hair at the crown of his head.
On the way to the courthouse, Hawk and Jeremy walked on either side of Wolf’s Blood. Young Zeke followed behind, Georgeanne at his side. LeeAnn walked with them, Jason accompanying her. Joshua was already in the courthouse taking notes for the newspaper. The courtroom was quickly filled to standing room only. Not only were people interested in gawking at Wolf’s Blood, but after Hawk Monroe’s famous case against Denver, they were anxious to see what he was up to now with his father. All rose when the Circuit judge entered the room and called the court to order with a pound of his gavel. As those present quieted, Judge Gerald Hanson studied Wolf’s Blood for a moment, then looked at Hawk, asking him to rise and declare the reason for this hearing.
“I am a busy man, Mr. Monroe, and I see no reason why I should have anything to do with exonerating Mr. Wolf’s Blood here of a crime he committed in Wyoming.”
Hawk rose, disappointed that he was not before the judge he’d had in the case against Denver. He was well aware that Hanson had been against that decision, which could prejudice the man against him in this case. “I am not asking that you exonerate him of any crimes, Judge Hanson,” he answered. “We are only asking for sanctuary here. Wyoming authorities are demanding my father be extradited to Cheyenne to stand trial, and the public opinion there will be so against him he could not possibly have a fair trial. He is not saying he is not guilty, but his crime was a crime of passion, sir. One of the men he killed had threatened him and his family with a gun, then carelessly had shot his wife, my stepmother, killing her before my father’s eyes. She was white, not Indian, for the benefit of anyone who thinks it’s no great loss to kill an Indian woman. She was also educated, the mother of a young daughter by her first husband, a schoolteacher. She had taught right here in Denver before going to the reservation to teach after her husband died. The point is, her shooting was a horrible act, and my father, having just seen the woman he loved senselessly murdered, reacted in the way a lot of men would, Indian or white!”
The judge rubbed at his chin a moment, studying Wolf’s Blood again. He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Mr. Monroe, I agree that a man might react by attacking and killing the man who had just killed his wife. However, I think I can safely say that such a man would not go on from there and kill the shooter’s friends, let alone scalp them. That is what I am told Mr. Wolf’s Blood did. The Indian people have to learn that they cannot commit such horrid mutilations. If your father had simply killed the man who shot his wife, this would be a much simpler decision.”
“I understand that, Judge Hanson, but the white man has never understood that Indian culture can’t be changed overnight. My father had been living on a reservation in Montana and was a law-abiding citizen. He owned a horse ranch there and was doing quite well. He had been in Colorado for a family reunion and was on his way home when the shooting happened. He reacted in the only way he knew how to respond to such a thing, with an inbred need to avenge his wife’s death. The other two men had taken part in the confrontation that led to my stepmother’s shooting, so in my father’s eyes, they, too, had to die. Scalping the enemy is a custom that just naturally came to surface again when my father killed those men. I might add that scalping is something that was encouraged for a time by white men, mostly French and English. During their war they paid money for enemy scalps—white or Indian.”
A wave of whispers moved through the crowded room, and the judge pounded his gavel again. “I don’t need or want a lesson on Indian history and culture today, Mr. Monroe. Such things have no bearing in a court of law. I am only interested in deciding this case, and in the severity of the crime committed. Culture or not, natural or not, it happened; and by today’s laws, no man has the right to deliberately murder another because of a crime committed against him or his family. I am sorry for what happened to your stepmother, but your father should have allowed the law to do something about those men, not taken it upon himself to kill them. Be that as it may, it matters little here in Colorado. The legal aspect of this case needs to be decided in Wyoming. All I want from you is your reasoning as to why we should give Mr. Wolf’s Blood sanctuary here in Colorado.”
Hawk glanced back at his father, seeing the proud look in the man’s dark eyes. He thought what a contrast they were, his father sitting in full Indian dress, having lived in the wilds the past several years while his son had attended Harvard Law School and had lived in luxury in Denver. Hawk stood before the judge today in a fine silk suit and black bow tie. Suddenly he wished he were dressed like his father. He wanted to be and feel Indian, to ride like the wind and go into the hills to feel close to the earth and the spirit world, away from this so-called civilization.
He clasped his hands behind his back and faced the judge, trying not to think about what the consequences could be if he had to take Wolf’s Blood to Cheyenne. “Judge Hanson, my father is a legal citizen of Colorado. He was born here, raised here. I ask for sanctuary for that reason. He has a new wife and two young children who need him. He wishes only to be able to be with them a while longer; he would live peacefully at the ranch where he originally grew up, east of Pueblo. It is a quiet place, far removed from cities and crowds of people. His mother is getting old and would like to have her son with her until she dies. Out of respect for my grandmother, Abigail Monroe, who has done much for the City of Denver, I would ask that her son be returned to the ranch with a promise he will never be extradited to Wyoming, so he may live peacefully with his family until his death, which, I might add, will be in not so many years. My father is suffering from crippling arthritis. He is no threat to society. He is a devoted son, a devoted brother and a devoted husband and father. The wrongs he has done in this life he did out of Indian pride and because of terrible losses of his own. The first woman he loved, a Cheyenne girl, was murdered at Sand Creek.”
A few gasps and murmurs rippled through the crowd.
“Everyone here now knows the hideous crimes that were committed there by the Colorado Volunteers under John Chivington, white men. My father’s first wife, my Apache mother, was murdered by white soldiers. My father’s second wife, a white woman, was, as we already know, also killed by white men. It is understandable that he reacted as he did. A man can only take so much. But he is getting old now, and he is in pain most of the time.” He turned and looked at Wolf’s Blood. “I ask this Court to respect Wolf’s Blood’s Colorado citizenship and to give him sanctuary in this state and to let him go to his boyhood home and live out his life in peace.”
Wolf’s Blood gave his son a proud but rather sad smile, as though to tell him he’d done his best but not to expect much. Hawk turned back to the judge. “I beg the court’s mercy, Your Honor.”
The crowded room was nearly silent while the judge leaned forward, studying Wolf’s Blood again, then looking down and studying some papers, his lips pursed in thought. Hawk sat down beside his father, who reached over and squeezed his arm. “You may not win this, my son, but I can see you speak well for the Indian. You will help them a great deal when the day comes that you stand for their cause.”
People began whispering, then mumbling, then talking in full voice, and after several minutes the judge finally pounded his gavel again. He asked Wolf’s Blood to rise, and was obeyed, Hawk rising as well.
“Tell me, Mr. Wolf’s Blood, why are you wearing war paint in this courtroom?” the judge asked him.
&
nbsp; Wolf’s Blood raised his chin proudly, still standing tall in spite of his arthritis. “This is not war paint. These are my prayer colors. My war colors are red and black, red for blood, and black for death.”
The judge rubbed at his lips pensively. “And why did you choose to wear Indian garb instead of dressing in a civilized manner in a court of law?”
Wolf’s Blood did not like this judge. “I am dressed in a civilized manner, for an Indian. And that is what I am.”
“You are actually only about one-quarter Indian, if I figure it right.”
Wolf’s Blood felt like laughing. “I suppose that is how a white man would look at it. Indian blood is Indian blood, sir, and I chose to be Indian. With my looks, what white man would have treated me as just another white man? My own father raised me to be proud to be Indian, as I raised my son. My father was Lone Eagle, called Cheyenne Zeke by some. His white name was Zeke Monroe, and he did much to help settle this land. We all did our part in making Colorado what it is today, in spite of the fact that for many years I chose the Indian side. Sometimes white men were also ruthless. They murdered Indians for no good cause. We are all to blame for both the good and the bad, Judge Hanson. It was a time of change, and all of us learned many lessons.”
The judge slowly nodded, his gaze moving to Hawk. “Now I understand why you are so good at arguing a case, Mr. Monroe. Your father is also very clever with words.”
A few people laughed, but they quickly quieted.
“If you could go back to the moment your wife was killed,” the judge continued, watching Wolf’s Blood carefully, “knowing what you know now, if you could change your actions in order to have your freedom and live out your life on your ranch with your mother and family—if you could go back and do it over, would you still kill and scalp those men?”
Eagle’s Song Page 35
