Climb the Highest Mountain

by Rosanne Bittner

  “Oh, there will most certainly be railroads out here in the next few years,” he told her. “That shouldn’t upset you.” He looked back at Zeke. “You’ll probably get rich!” he exclaimed with a smile. “Your property lies right in the heart of a possible railroad line.”

  “I have no interest in getting rich off the railroad,” Zeke answered. “And trains are among the Indians’ worst enemies. They frighten away all the game, and they bring in more settlers.”

  Sir Tynes shook his head. “There’s no fighting that, Mister Monroe. Surely you realize that. Colorado is growing, and we can help it grow.”

  Abbie’s temper flared then. “I highly doubt that it is in the interest of helping Colorado grow that men like you come here, Sir Tynes!” she snapped. “It is more likely your pocketbook you wish to grow and prosper, is it not?”

  Tynes repressed his anger. Eying her with even deeper admiration, he replied, “I can see you are a woman who speaks freely.”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “Forgive me, Sir Tynes, but I have been through things that would shock you, and most of the hardships have been brought on by white men, not Indians. I consider the Cheyenne my friends and family, just as Zeke does, and I have personally seen atrocities committed against them that I never believed civilized men could carry out—all in the name of power and progress.”

  The man frowned, removing his hat and studying her closely. For some strange reason he suddenly wanted her, wanted to tame her pride and defiance. She was a challenge, and Sir Tynes liked challenges. “I take my hat off to you, Mrs. Monroe.” He looked up at Zeke. “And I apologize if I have offended you. It was not my intention. I assure you, you have the wrong impression of me. I am only here for the excitement and adventure. I want to be a part of the things that are sure to take place in this great land of yours and to do my share to aid in its growth. It so happens I find America a wonderful place, and this Colorado Territory is some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen.”

  “It is,” Zeke replied. “I love it too, Sir Tynes. But I love the Cheyenne more, and I hate seeing what white man’s progress is doing to them. It was their land first. Do men like you understand that? I don’t think so.”

  Tynes nodded. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps we can visit more and you can explain it to me.” He flashed a smile then, glancing at Abbie again. “You both must come to see me. I am lonely and want to make friends, and I can see that both of you are people worth knowing. Come and see the mansion I am building. It will be fun for you. A castle in the desert, I call it. All stone. That’s the coolest building material, you know, for the summer heat of the Plains. When it is finished I shall have a grand party. I will be sure to invite both of you.” He looked up at Zeke again. “You have a most beautiful and remarkable wife, Mister Monroe. I must talk to you more, learn about how the two of you got together. I find this entire situation utterly fascinating. I shall have to write home about it. Actually, I am quite pleased to find out that you two are my neighbors. Such a wonderful specimen of man you are, Mister Monroe! You shall have to show me some tricks with a knife! And I’d like to meet all those children of yours. Oh, and I’d like to take a look at the horses you raise. I might buy a few. What do you have available right now?”

  “I sold most of what I had available at Fort Lyon this summer. I’ve got a few geldings and some mares left. Each one has its own worth, according to age, sex, and castration. But they’re all quality horses. I have some of the best brood mares and stallions in these parts.”

  Tynes studied the man, thinking that Zeke Monroe was himself a grand stallion, and his wife a gentle brood mare. “Fine,” he told Zeke. “I shall come and see them.” He turned to Abbie. “I am honored to have met you, Mrs. Monroe. No doubt it is women like you who create legends in this great West.”

  Abbie only blushed, and Zeke kept an arm about her waist. “Thank you for your help earlier,” he told Tynes, “and for the job offer. I didn’t mean to be rude about that, but this hasn’t exactly been a good day for me. I’d like to wish you luck with your own place, Sir Tynes, but in my position that’s difficult to do. Just don’t do anything underhanded to the Cheyenne. Right now, it looks like the government is going to ship them off for you.” There was bitterness in his voice.

  Sir Tynes nodded. “I’m sorry, Mister Monroe. As I say, we shall have to get together again some time and talk.” He turned to Hank. “Shall we go?”

  Hank shrugged and glanced at Zeke. “See you around, Zeke. Take care of that family now.”

  Zeke gave him a cautious look. “I always have,” he said defensively.

  Hank nodded to Abbie, and then he and Tynes walked toward the grand coach. Zeke turned and took Abbie’s arm, saying nothing all the way back to their room. There, he pulled off his jacket and shirt and walked to the washbowl to cleanse his lip. Abbie sat down on the bed where not long before they had made passionate love. There were so many contrasts to Zeke Monroe. One moment he had been gently bedding her, the next he’d been wielding his wicked blade in the street.

  “Zeke, are you all right? What about that old bullet wound?”

  He wiped his face and shrugged. “Today was nothing. I’ve been through a hell of a lot worse, and you know it.” He put on a clean shirt. “The whole thing makes me mad enough to want to go down there and kill every man on the street! Taxes! Land claims! Railroads! Insults and injustice! And foreigners, like that Sir Fancy Man, coming over here and forcing themselves on us, pushing out the Indians! It all makes me sick!”

  She sighed. “I’ll be glad to get home. You’re always in a better mood at home.”

  “That’s because I feel free there.” He buttoned his shirt and studied her closely. “I think what made me madder than anything else was the way Sir Edwin Tynes looked at you,” he grumbled.

  She looked up in surprise. “At me?” She laughed. “Don’t be silly!” But her smile faded at the possessiveness in his eyes.

  “He’s infatuated with you. It was obvious.”

  “Oh, Zeke, I’m sure a man like that has better things to do than to pursue a middle-aged rancher’s wife, one who has seven children and wears tunics!”

  She rose and walked to the window, and he tucked in his shirt and came to stand beside her, touching her cheek with the back of his hand. “He saw the beauty in you, without the fancy clothes and hairdo, just like I see the beauty in you. Any red-blooded man can see it, Abbie girl. You underestimate yourself.”

  She laughed lightly. “I couldn’t care less what other men think of me. You matter. I simply don’t think about anyone else.” She turned to meet his eyes, seeing the little boy that sometimes made an appearance in them when Zeke Monroe feared the white world would take his woman from him. She wanted to chide him, but she knew his worry stemmed from her suffering during the years she’d been married to him, despite their deep, abiding love. She had silently endured all hardship, for no man could love her more than Zeke Monroe. Together they had shared the joys and tragedies that create an unbreakable bond between two people.

  “Zeke, I am sure Sir Edwin Tynes has all the ruffled, painted women he wants,” she said quietly. “He’s just trying to make some friends, that’s all. I’m not at all sure that I even like him, and I feel uncomfortable that he owns so much land right next to us. But he seems to want to understand, to do things right. And he might be a good resource for selling more horses. We shouldn’t judge him too quickly.” She smiled. “He’s actually quite amusing. He doesn’t fit this land at all.” She rested her head against his chest. “Not like you fit it.”

  He grasped her shoulders, pushing her back slightly and looking down into her soft brown eyes. “I love you, Abbie. I’m so goddamned sorry for what happened down there in the street.”

  “Stop saying you’re sorry. They’re the ones who should be sorry, not you. What do you have to be sorry for? For all the times you risked your life for me? For all the times you’ve given me joy in the night? For all the beautiful
children your seed created? For our lovely ranch? For giving up your Indian life to settle in one place because you married a white woman? You’ve made as many sacrifices for me as I have made for you, Zeke Monroe. It’s been compromise all along. And we’ve made them because we love each other. We both knew it that first night we saw each other, when you came to scout for our wagon train. It can’t be any other way, Zeke, so we both put up with what comes.”

  She could feel him trembling. “But … someone else … could have offered you such a better life, Abbie girl.”

  “What good would that have been? What good is life without my Zeke? You’re so much a part of me that I would not be able to breathe without you. Now let’s go eat so we can get to bed early. I want to leave at first light and get home to my children.”

  He bent down to kiss her, a hungry, possessive kiss; and she knew why. She returned it just as possessively, as his strong arms wrapped around her and pressed her tight against his chest. He parted her lips, searching, branding. Then his lips moved to her cheek, her throat. “I need you, Abbie girl,” he whispered.

  “And I need you.” She hugged him tightly. “Oh Zeke, I was so afraid they’d take you away like they did that time in Denver.”

  He kissed her hair and finally released her. “Well, it’s obvious that cities and I do not mix, not that I try to get in trouble.”

  She sighed and turned to the mirror to repin her hair. “Maybe it will get better, Zeke. There’s just so much tension now, so much happening. Colorado is simply growing too fast. And this talk of railroads … It’s just so overwhelming. Everybody is on edge, and Black Elk and the others are so confused.”

  He dug for a flannel shirt, unable now to wear his muddied jacket. “Yeah. Well, they’re laying low up at Sand Creek for the winter. They figure the less trouble they make, the better off they’ll be. My brother is with Black Kettle’s band. He should be pretty safe. Black Kettle has that medal President Lincoln gave him, and he flies that big flag over his tipi. But I don’t trust Colonel Chivington and his Colorado Volunteers. I’ve heard Chivington is half crazy. The Cheyenne call him Zetapetazhetan, Big Man, Squaw Killer.” He met her eyes. “You know what that means.”

  Her heart tightened and their eyes held. “I know. And with Wolf’s Blood living with them half the time, I worry even more—especially after what happened to Lean Bear.”

  He came to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s try not to think about it for now. Let’s just hurry up and get home.”

  They left the room, just as Sir Tynes’s coach rattled out of town. Unbeknownst to any of them, Colonel John Chivington was that very day marching his Colorado Volunteers through southeast Colorado, with orders to kill any Indians they found. All redmen outside the confines of their reservation were to be considered hostiles.

  Chapter Three

  The wind howled, ruthlessly stinging their faces with a mixture of sand and a light sleet. Abbie pulled her buffalo robe closer around her face just as Zeke tried to tell her something, but his voice was carried away in the wind. He urged his horse closer to hers then, grasping the throatlatch of her bridle.

  “Get on behind me!” he hollered. “My body will shelter you more from the wind!”

  “But what about you!” she yelled back.

  “You almost died on me last year, Abbie, and I’m not going to risk your getting sick again. Now get on, damn it!”

  It was too cold to argue. The short respite from winter that the Plains had enjoyed was over, and their journey was hampered by the cold wind that swept down across the Plains, the barren Colorado Plains that offered no shelter. Abbie dismounted and climbed up behind her husband on the big Appaloosa; then she took the reins of her own horse and they were off again.

  She hunkered down behind his broad shoulders, one arm about his waist, grateful for the shelter from the wind but sorry that Zeke had to face it. Still, nothing ever seemed to bother him. She could not remember his being sick, except when he’d been wounded. The elements never seemed to phase him. It was as though he were a rock or a tree. She was glad he had made her bring along her knee-high winter moccasins; the warmth of the buffalo hair was welcome now. She reflected on how ingenious the Indians were at using every last part of the buffalo for survival. However, the buffalo were disappearing. When they were gone, what would the Cheyenne do for warmth and food and shelter?

  They rode for several miles, saying little, and she’d almost fallen asleep against his back when he suddenly pulled his horse to a halt. She straightened to look around, thinking they might be near home yet knowing enough time had not passed. Zeke was studying the ground, and she noticed several places had been torn up as though a herd of buffalo had been through. Piles of horse dung were scattered as far as she could see.

  “What is it, Zeke?” she asked.

  “Stay put,” he answered, dismounting.

  Her face and chest were suddenly cold when he left her, and she shivered as he walked around for several minutes, stooping down occasionally to look at the tracks. Finally he gazed at the barren horizon, a worried look on his face. Then he mounted up again.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, leaning up near his shoulder.

  “The way I read it, Army troops have been through here, maybe five or six hundred men, maybe even more.”

  Abbie’s heart pounded with apprehension, and there seemed to be a mournful wailing in the wind. “Are you sure it couldn’t be something else?” she asked, knowing this was a foolish question.

  “All the horses are shod, and there are wagon tracks besides, some deep and close together, like the kind made by the contraptions that pull mountain howitzers. I don’t like it, Abbie. Soon as we get home I’m riding to Fort Lyon to talk to Major Anthony—see what’s going on.”

  “But Black Kettle and his band are at peace. They’ve been waiting at Sand Creek for Major Anthony to bring them final word on the peace treaty.”

  “Something’s in the wind, Abbie. I can smell it just as sure as I can smell a skunk. After what happened to Lean Bear, how can the soldiers be trusted, especially the Volunteers? They’re all Indian haters, mostly rabble—undisciplined men with nothing better to do than kill Indians.”

  She hugged him tighter, feeling an unexplainable urgency. “Zeke, let’s get home. I’m worried about the children.”

  He nodded. “So am I, especially Wolf’s Blood. I hope he has sense enough to stay at the ranch until we get back. He’s so infatuated with Morning Bird it would be just like him to go to Black Kettle’s camp to see her, even in this weather. It isn’t safe for him to be with the Cheyenne right now.”

  He urged his horse into a moderate gallop. Abbie hung on tightly, not to stay on the horse, but from fear … for her children, for her very Indian husband, and for her eldest son.

  Finally they crested the low hill that looked down on the ranch. Fear had filled their hearts all day, for the tracks of the large troop of military men had followed the same route Zeke and Abbie were taking. Zeke could see that most of his prized horses were corralled as usual, and in the dim dusk of evening they made out a curl of smoke coming from the chimney. All looked peaceful, but the fact remained that a huge body of troops had gone right through the ranch. They headed down to the cabin, and before they reached it, the door opened and Zeke’s half brother Lance stepped out, brandishing a rifle. He lowered it when he realized who was coming.

  “Zeke! Thank God you’re back,” the man called out.

  Zeke came closer, dismounting and reaching up to help Abbie down. Her legs were stiff, her knees cold. “Let’s get inside,” he told her. “Damn it, you’re shivering.” He looked at Lance. “We followed the tracks of one hell of a big army battallion all the way here,” he said, quickly tying the two horses.

  “That’s why I’m glad you’re back, Zeke. They came right through here. Must have been seven hundred of them. They were led by that John Chivington.”

  Zeke halted his movements at the mention of the name
. “Chivington!” he exclaimed.

  “Oh, no,” Abbie whispered.

  Zeke kept an arm around her. “Let’s go in,” he muttered, helping her up the steps and through the door. The house was warm and welcome, and they were greeted by a barrage of excitement as six children inside surrounded them, helping their mother remove her robe and coat, bringing her over by the fire to warm herself, and all the while talking nonstop about the hundreds of men who had ridden through.

  Lance added wood to the fire. Zeke’s brother was a welcome addition to the ranch, since Zeke’s former hand had been murdered by Winston Garvey’s men over a year ago when they had raided the ranch and kidnapped Abbie. Disillusioned by the Civil War, Lance, at thirty-one, had come west six months ago to help Zeke with the ranch. He was dark haired and dark eyed, with a sturdy build, but shorter than Zeke. The white father they both shared was dead now, as was their brother, Lenny, and the old farm in Tennessee had been sold, though it had been run-down by then and worth little.

  Zeke fingered the buffalo jawbone handle of his big blade as he paced about, telling the children to quiet down and talk one at a time.

  “Father, Wolf’s Blood is out there somewhere!” Margaret spoke up first. The second child and eldest daughter, she had always been close to her older brother, often riding with him to visit their Cheyenne relatives. However, she had always been shy and easily frightened, and fear shone in her eyes now as she talked. “Those men were terrible! I know they’ll shoot every Indian they see! What if they see Wolf’s Blood!”

  Zeke still gripped his knife, and Abbie could see his own apprehension building, as well as his determination to protect his son at all costs, for if ever a father had a favorite child, Wolf’s Blood was Zeke’s. They shared the same spirit of freedom and adventure. Zeke looked at his brother, who rose from the fireplace and stood with his hands on his hips.