In the Shadow of the Hills

by Madeline Baker

  “It does for a fact,” the lawman drawled. “You planning to stay in these parts long?”

  “Maybe. Are you askin’ me to leave?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. But this here’s a peaceable town. We don’t draw many gunmen, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Suits me.”

  “I’m glad we understand each other,” the marshal said cheerfully. “Give Ida my regards.”

  He was whistling when he left.

  “Nothing like a friendly welcome from the local law,” I muttered under my breath, and went inside.

  Laurie was waiting for me in the hallway, her brow furrowed. “Are you in trouble, John?” she asked anxiously. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No, everything’s fine. The marshal just wanted to make sure I knew this was a peaceable town.”

  “How strange. Why would he come all the way over here to tell you that?”

  “Hard to say. Lawmen are a funny breed.”

  “That’s what my father used to say,” Laurie remarked wistfully. “I wish he was here.”

  “To give the bride away?” I asked, tickling her cheek.

  “Yes. John, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you...”

  “Ask away. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  She blushed prettily. “Well, we are getting married soon, and I was wondering what we were going to do for money. I mean, you don’t have a job, and you don’t seem to be looking for work, and well, Aunt Ida doesn’t...can’t...”

  “Go on.”

  Flustered, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “It’s all right, honey,” I assured her. “You have every right to wonder if your future husband can support you, and you can stop worrying. Didn’t I tell you? You’re marrying a rich man.”

  “I am?”

  “Sure enough. In fact, I just wired New York for ten grand this morning.”

  “Ten thousand dollars,” she breathed. “Oh, my!”

  “That’s right. It’s in the Beaver City Bank by now, in your name.”

  “My name?” she repeated, flabbergasted. “Why?”

  “Consider it a wedding present.”

  “Oh, John, you’re so good to me,” she murmured, and flew into my arms.

  * * *

  Despite the cold and the snow, Beaver City was a busy little community, and Laurie was soon involved in the musicale being presented by the Beaver City Women’s League. She was also singing in the church choir, and directing the annual Christmas pageant being produced by the Methodist Church.

  When she wasn’t out practicing with the choir, or rehearsing her lines for the play, she could usually be found in Ida’s room, sewing on her wedding dress. I had urged her to order a gown from New York or Paris, but Laurie was adamant about sewing her own.

  I spent my days at the Ale house, sometimes playing solitaire, sometimes nursing a drink. Evenings, I played escort for Laurie and Ida. Like I said, Beaver City was a bustling town, and there seemed to be no end to the dances and socials and box suppers we attended.

  In early November, a touring Shakespearean troupe was stranded in town, and they put on a different play every night for a month, starting with “Hamlet”.

  By Thanksgiving, we’d seen “As You Like It”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and “Othello”. Personally, I had never acquired much of a taste for the Bard of Avon, but Laurie and her aunt sat spellbound through each performance.

  Christmas Eve came amid dark skies and swirling snow. Aunt Mapes outdid herself at dinner that night, serving a huge turkey, stuffing, potatoes, corn, peas, biscuits, gravy, and pumpkin pie.

  After dinner, she surprised us all with a bottle of French champagne. The house was bright and snug, fragrant with the scent of pine and the lingering aroma of a fine meal. A cheery fire blazed in the hearth as Ida’s boarders sat around reminiscing about holidays long past.

  At midnight, we all flocked to church. Laurie sang in the choir, and her beautiful soprano voice swelled with joy and adoration as she sang of peace on earth, good will to man. Later, the Reverend Holmby told the story of Mary and Joseph and the Christ Child, and then the choir sang “Silent Night”.

  It was snowing lightly as we walked home. Laurie and I walked behind the others, holding hands. I kissed her goodnight at her bedroom door, then went to my own room, only to lie awake smoking one cigarette after another.

  Christmas morning arrived with bells ringing from all the church steeples.

  After breakfast, Laurie and I exchanged gifts: a ring for her; a gold watch for me.

  Ida Mapes loved to cook, and she prepared another sumptuous meal that afternoon: ham and sweet potato pie, carrots and freshly baked bread, and a platter of chicken and dumplings.

  It was a lazy day. Ida’s boarders sat around the dining room table, recalling their favorite Christmas memories.

  Laurie stared into the flames, a wistful expression on her face, and I guessed she was remembering the holidays she had spent with her father and brothers back in Pennsylvania. She was quiet most of the evening and went to bed early.

  Long after everyone else had turned in for the night, I was still awake. Wandering outside, I sat on the porch rail. Overhead, the skies were clear, the moon high and bright. I sat there for a long time, pondering my future as I gazed at the snow-covered street. It was a future as bleak and barren as the white-washed earth.

  In the back of my mind, I kept hearing Edna Cooper’s voice. Are you happy? she had asked. And the answer was no.

  I’d been kidding myself all along, I thought glumly. I didn’t want to marry Laurie and settle down in Beaver City. I knew that now. I didn’t want to work at a meaningless job, earning money I didn’t need to buy things I didn’t want. If I married Laurie, I’d have to get a job of some kind. I couldn’t just sit around the house all day.

  As long as I was being honest with myself, I had to admit that I didn’t love Laurie, not the way I had loved Clarissa. I cared for Laurie, but she deserved more than affection from the man she married. And I knew I’d never love her with the kind of deep, passionate love a man should have for his wife, nor could I bring myself to go back to a way of life I hated.

  We did not want the same things out of life, Laurie and I. She wanted security and stability, pleasant surroundings, and all the trappings of respectability. I wanted none of those things. I did not want to live summer and winter in the same place, walled up in a square house, fenced in by the strict rules of white society. I needed the excitement of the hunt, the challenge of the unknown, the thrill of riding to war.

  Perhaps that was why being a gunfighter had been so satisfying, I mused. Perhaps it was the constant danger, the ever-present threat of death, that made life so sweet.

  I had never told Laurie of the years I spent drifting from cow town to cow town, selling my gun to the highest bidder. As I sat there staring into the darkness, I knew she would not approve of the life I had led, or be able to accept the fact that I had killed more than a dozen men. Oh, she would try to understand, she would be sympathetic. But she would never approve, and, deep down, I knew she would be ashamed.

  And so I was going back to the Indians, back to Wahcawin. I had tasted the Indian way of life in the Lakota village and I knew I would never again be happy to live as a white man. Unlike Laurie, Wahcawin would never expect me to be anything but what I was, a fighting man, a warrior, and a damn good one, at that.

  The soft creak of the screen door shattered the stillness as Laurie’s aunt stepped onto the porch.

  “Are you in the mood for some company, John?” she asked.

  “Sure, Ida.”

  “I love Christmas,” she said with a sigh. “The presents, the baking, the carols. Even the snow.”

  “Yeah, it’s a nice time of year.”

  “Yes. Have you told Laurie you’re leaving?”

  I couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d slapped me. “What makes you think I’m l
eaving?”

  “I know a restless man when I see one,” she said briskly. “After all, I’ve been married three times.”

  “Shows that much, huh?”

  “Not to Laurie. Don’t you think you’d better tell her soon?”

  “I reckon.”

  “The longer you wait, the harder it will be. For everyone.”

  “I know, Ida. I’m obliged for your concern.”

  “Try not to hurt her too bad. She’s terribly in love with you, you know?”

  “I know,” I said, feeling like the worst kind of heel. “But, dammit, I...”

  “Go on, get it off your chest.”

  “I’ve gotta get out of here! Dammit, Ida, I care for Laurie, I really do. But I just can’t go back to living in a city again. I’ve had a taste of my old life, and I can’t abide the thought of living inside four walls again, making polite conversation with a bunch of people who think I’m dirt. Dammit, I miss my own people!”

  “Good luck to you, John,” Ida said sincerely. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” She touched my shoulder, then went into the house, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  I sat up all that night, rehearsing what I would say to Laurie, trying to figure out a way to make her understand how I felt without hurting her.

  In the end, I took the coward’s way out. I wrote her a long letter, and left without saying goodbye.

  Chapter 22

  It was damn hard, traveling through all that snow. In some places, the drifts were as high as my horse’s rump. The air was cold, so cold my breath came out in clouds of white. Sometimes it hurt to breathe. Game was scarce, and there were days when I went hungry. But the memory of what awaited me drove me steadily onward.

  Days later, a thin wisp of blue-gray smoke told me the Lakota camp was near, and I clucked to my weary mount, promising the mare a long rest if she’d just hurry.

  I had told Ida Mapes that it was the Indian way of life I missed, and that was true enough. But, more than that, I had longed for Wahcawin. We had spent only a short time together, but I knew deep in my heart that she would be waiting for me. Knew that she understood me as no white woman ever could. For all that I had spent years living with the vehoe, I had never really been one of them. Always, my spirit had yearned to be with my red brothers.

  It was a few hours short of midnight when I rode into the Lakota camp. I sat my mount, looking around the sleeping village, feeling as if I had come home after years of wandering through a land of uncertainty. A few dogs barked at me, then curled up in the snow and went back to sleep.

  Wahcawin was waiting for me outside her lodge. Wrapped in a furry brown buffalo robe, her long black hair loose about her shoulders, she was the loveliest creature I had ever seen.

  We gazed at each other for a timeless moment, then I slid from the back of my horse. As if she were already my wife, Wahcawin took my horse’s reins and followed me to her lodge where she stripped the rigging from my mount and tethered it beside the door.

  Inside, a fire burned brightly. Food was waiting to be prepared. A buffalo robe had been spread beside the fire. Her own robe was spread in the rear of the lodge.

  “I knew you would come tonight,” Wahcawin murmured, moving into m y waiting arms. “All day, my heart has been beating like a wild thing.”

  “What else do you know?” I asked, stroking her fine black hair.

  “I know you have come to stay.”

  “And do you also know that I love you more than my own life?”

  “Yes,” she whispered tremulously. “I knew it from the moment you first looked on me. I was only afraid you would never know it for yourself.”

  I held her for a long time, feeling at peace within myself, and with the rest of the world, for the first time in years.

  Wahcawin did not stay with me that night. She fixed me something to eat, gave me a set of buckskins she had made for me in my absence, and then went to her father’s lodge, where she would stay until we were married.

  And so I returned to my people. I threw away my white man’s clothes and boots and hat, and donned clout, leggings, buckskin shirt, and moccasins.

  Once again I sang the old songs and danced the old dances. Once again I listened to the old, familiar stories and legends of my people.

  Once again, I was Black Wolf, the warrior.

  The winter passed without incident. I spent my days fashioning weapons for the spring hunt, honing my skill with bow and lance, swapping stories with the other warriors.

  In March, I went to Wahcawin’s parents and asked for permission to marry their daughter, promising to bring them twenty fleet ponies as soon as I could steal them from the Crow.

  Wahcawin smiled a secret smile as I topped Crazy Horse’s offer by five horses.

  Solemnly, Wahcawin’s father gave us his blessing, assuring me that I could return Wahcawin to his lodge and reclaim my horses if she did make me a good wife. As was her right, Wahcawin’s mother set the date for the wedding, selecting a day in mid-May.

  And so we were married. No church, no black-frocked minister, no champagne toasts to the bride and groom, no honeymoon in Europe. Just a simple ceremony the vehoe would have viewed with scorn.

  There were no words, no vows of eternal love and fidelity, no promises of undying devotion. And yet, by accepting Wahcawin as my wife, I was promising all those things and more. And the fact that she came to me gladly, of her own free will, was in itself a pledge of life-long devotion.

  We moved into Wahcawin’s lodge. It was unusual for a maiden to live alone, but Wahcawin was a medicine woman and entitled to a lodge of her own.

  We had not been intimate since that first time by the river and I burned with a quick fire as I took her into my arms. She came to me eagerly, her mouth ready for my kisses, her slim body molding itself to mine so that we stood pressed intimately together, two halves now whole.

  The passion between us seemed to drain the strength from our legs so that we sank down on the buffalo robes spread beside the fire pit. Slowly, I undressed her, marveling anew at the flawless golden body bared to my gaze.

  Wahcawin’s dark eyes glowed with shameless desire as I shucked my own clothes and then we were in each other’s arms again. Her breasts filled my hands even as my manhood sought the soft sweet warmth of her womanhood. And there, within her arms, I knew I had truly found what I had been searching for all my life.

  We spent that day discovering each other, loving and sleeping and loving again, and each time was better than the last.

  In those moments when our passion was spent, we talked quietly, sharing our hopes and dreams. Wahcawin was concerned for her people. Sitting Bull had offered one hundred pieces of his flesh to Wakan Tanka at the last Sun Dance, and in return, the Great Spirit had shown Sitting Bull la vision wherein Sitting Bull had seen hundreds of white men falling at his feet. Surely it was a prophecy, a promise of war, and victory for the Lakota.

  But I did not want to be concerned with war, not now. I wanted only to play, and the next few weeks were pure joy. I had everything I had ever wanted, everything I needed, and I was content. Indeed, I prayed that the rest of my life would continue to pass in the same idyllic manner, filled with joy and peace and the wondrous love of the beautiful woman who was my wife.

  But such was not to be. In late May, rumors of war became reality. Runners came to our camp bearing exciting news. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse had met General “Three Stars’ Crook on the banks of the Rosebud. A battle had been quickly enjoined, and Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse had carried the day, sending Crook away in bitter defeat. It had been a great victory, but it did not fulfill the Old Bull’s vision.

  Sitting Bull, great warrior of the Lakota Nation, mighty medicine man and orator, was headed for the Greasy Grass, and the runners called for all warriors worthy of the name to join him there.

  This news generated a good deal of excitement in our village. The warriors, especially the young ones, were eager to follow Sitting Bull to Mon
tana, eager to follow Crazy Horse into battle.

  Ah, Crazy Horse! If Sitting Bull was the voice of the Indian people, Crazy Horse was its heart. He was a magnificent warrior, a superb leader. With such as these to lead us, how could we lose?

  It was early June when Lone Bull and his band broke camp and headed for Sitting Bull’s rendezvous on the Little Big Horn.

  Though I had yearned for peace, those days on the trail and the ones that followed as we prepared for war were days never to be forgotten. The valley of the Little Big Horn swelled with Indians - Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, all gathered around Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, certain of victory. When had the Old Bull’s medicine ever failed?

  It was like one big party. The women laughed and gossiped as they worked, the warriors boasted of past victories while they honed their weapons, while the children ran everywhere, making new friends and renewing old acquaintances. Nights, the people sang and danced and feasted on rich red buffalo meat, laughing as they sucked the flavorful juice from the bones and the liver.

  During it all, Wahcawin was strangely quiet, and I knew she was haunted by the dream she had seen wherein the Lakota had won a mighty victory, followed by total defeat.

  I, too, was aware of a nameless anxiety, but it had nothing to do with the Lakota Nation. It was a feeling of foreboding, a premonition that Wahcawin’s prediction concerning my future was about to become reality.

  It was late June when word came that Custer was riding against us, together with ‘Bear Coat’ Miles, ‘Red Nose’ Gibbon, and ‘Star’ Terry. All the renowned Indian fighters together at last, I mused, determined to wipe the Indians off the grassland, or subdue them like cattle.

  The night before the fight, Wahcawin and I made love as never before. Many warriors abstained from sexual intercourse before a battle, believing that lying with a woman prior to battle drained a man of his strength and vitality, but I needed Wahcawin that night. I needed to feel her loving arms around me as much as I needed to feel the strength of her spirit and the sustaining influence of her love.

  Wahcawin sensed my needs, my fears. We didn’t speak of the coming battle, or mention the fact that I might be killed. But the knowledge was there, in the lingering touch of her hand as she undressed me, in the catch in her voice when she spoke my name.