Her expression of dismay, as she jerked her gaze to meet his, didn’t surprise him. Everyone was weary of the frequent moves and long rides to the next camp. Tempers were fraying, squabbles amongst the braves—and even between some of the squaws—were happening more often. Talk was increasing of making a stand and having it out with the soldiers.
“Not another move,” she said. “What’s the point? The army can follow us all over the state if that’s what’s needed. And with a whole lot less effort than it takes us to break camp and move all this baggage so often.”
“The point is—and you should be glad for this,” Jesse said, “the People want to avoid any more fights with the soldiers. In the meanwhile, the chiefs are trying to use Ouray as a go-between to see what can be worked out.”
“How about returning me and the other women for starters?” Shiloh began dishing their meal into bowls. “I can’t think of a more obvious solution.”
“And give away the one bargaining tool we have left?” Jesse shook his head. “You and the other women are more than captives now. You’re hostages.”
She paused in her filling of the bowls and stared up at him. “Hostages, are we? And what if the soldiers don’t ‘deal’ with the Utes? Will we then be killed in retaliation?”
“No one’s going to kill you or the other women.” How have I managed, with the first real conversation we’ve had since my return, to turn it into an argument? Jesse wondered. “For one thing, you’re mine now and no one would dare hurt you. And, for another, Ouray has forbidden any harm should come to any of you women.”
“So, what bargaining power do the Utes really have then?”
“We won’t return you, that’s all. I mean, you’re mine and Persune has taken Josie as his wife. So there’s really only two women left to bargain for.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Persune has taken Josie as his wife? Did she agree to it?”
Here we go again, Jesse thought. “It wasn’t her place to agree or disagree. She’s a captive, just like you.”
“So, has he forced himself on her?”
He shrugged. “I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Shiloh asked, her gaze narrowing in suspicion.
“Both.” He threw up his hands in exasperation. “Look, I really don’t know. It’s their business, as what’s between us is ours.”
“You know,” she said after what looked to be some thought, “you can’t really and truly make me your wife unless I agree to it. No matter what Ute customs are.”
A heavy weariness weighed down on him. Though he knew they needed to talk this issue through, or there’d be no hope for them, Jesse didn’t think he could do so very effectively tonight.
“Yes, I suppose I do,” he replied. “And I know we need to talk about this, but not tonight, Shiloh. I’m hungry and tired, and we’ve got another move tomorrow. Can’t it wait just a little longer?”
“Time’s running out for us, Jesse. The army’s going to force some decision on us pretty soon.”
She picked up one of the carved wooden bowls filled with some sort of savory meat stew. After placing a horn spoon and generous hunk of flat bread on top, she handed the bowl to him.
“But it doesn’t have to be tonight, I suppose,” she said, reaching for her own bowl of stew. “As you said, we’re both so tired we’d likely not get much of anything accomplished anyway. I just wonder, if and when the time is right, if we will then either.”
With that, Shiloh turned away from him and began to eat her supper.
The next day’s journey was long and arduous. It rained all day, hard and heavy, and everyone was soon wet, cold, and miserable. They traveled twenty-eight miles that day, and periodically scouts would ride in warning that the soldiers were drawing nearer and nearer.
Once camp was made, Chief Colorow, one of the other White River chiefs, rode in. A meeting was soon held with the other chiefs and some of their most trusted men. Jesse was asked to attend and eventually returned to inform Shiloh there was good news of a sort. They’d not be moving camp again. Chief Ouray didn’t want them to come any closer to the two other Indian Agencies, Los Pinos and Uncompahgre.
The other good news, he informed her, was that the soldiers, who’d heretofore been advancing steadily after them, had halted any further forward movement. The time had come to negotiate, it seemed. Negotiate for the captives.
Shiloh, who had already snuggled down in her buffalo robe bed and fallen asleep, opened her eyes briefly as Jesse talked. Then, with a sigh, she pulled up the robe higher on her shoulders, closed her eyes, and went back to sleep.
Jesse watched her for a long while, too keyed up to take to his own bed. Instead, he wrapped a buffalo robe over his shoulders and sat there, trying to discern Shiloh’s cryptic lack of response to the news. Was she happy that her captivity was nearing an end? Would she be glad to be rid of him?
She had said she loved him, that she wanted to marry him in a white man’s church. That meant she’d been serious about a life with him. But those words had come before he’d ridden off to fight at Milk Creek. And, even though the battle was over before he even reached Milk Creek, Jesse knew his decision to fight was still a sore spot with Shiloh. A very sore spot.
When the time came, if she chose to leave with the other women, Jesse couldn’t stop her. To do so would jeopardize the negotiations and all the People’s welfare. He couldn’t—and wouldn’t—be that selfish.
His lips lifted in an ironic grimace. If he’d sided with Shiloh and not gone to fight the soldiers, he’d have lost the respect of the People. But, in ensuring his continued good relations with the People, he feared he might have hurt Shiloh past repairing. And now, when the time came, if he didn’t let her go if she decided to do so, he threatened the safety of the Utes. And he also stood to lose Shiloh’s love if he forced her into doing something she didn’t wish to do.
It was beginning to appear as if having both Shiloh and the family and companionship he’d found with the Utes were mutually incompatible. Try as he might, he seemed caught in an impossible situation, a situation he’d feared from the start. Problem was, now that he’d admitted his love for Shiloh, and she her love for him, he wanted for them to be together no matter what.
The question had always been, how much of himself and the person he’d chosen to become was he willing to sacrifice in order to be with Shiloh? And how much was she willing to surrender to be with him?
It would be hypocritical of him to agree to a wedding in a Christian church. He had long ago turned his back on the white man’s Jesus and all he represented. The Christian god had never been a friend of the Indian, no matter how some whites had tried to paint him so. Any marriage vows spoken in that god’s church would be meaningless to Jesse. And Shiloh deserved a wholehearted commitment, one she’d never get from him in such a place or manner.
Still, Shiloh held great store in such a marriage ceremony. Jesse suspected she’d not feel sufficiently wed and blessed any other way. Frustration filled him. The difference in their spiritual beliefs was yet another stumbling block between them.
If only he didn’t love her so much. In many ways, he loved her as a white man did his woman. That was yet another conflict raging within him. He knew too much of the white man’s ways ever to imagine he could force himself on Shiloh in the hopes of making her his wife and think she’d ever forgive him for it.
Though he’d told Shiloh he truly didn’t know what had happened between Josie and Persune, he did know Persune’s outlook on such things was totally Ute. Persune now considered Josie his. And Jesse suspected that Persune had indeed bedded Shiloh’s friend, whether she wished it so or not.
It was a hard admission, Jesse thought, to face that he was just as much white in so many ways as he was Ute. Until Shiloh had come back into his life, he’d managed to convince himself otherwise. There was no hope of doing so ever again. Leastwise, not if he wished to keep Shiloh.
His eyes burned with exhaustion, and he rub
bed them with both hands in an attempt to ease the pain. It did little good.
There were some hard decisions ahead of him, Jesse well knew. Most of them, however, couldn’t be made until he talked them over with Shiloh. And tomorrow had to be that time.
For he knew he didn’t have much time left.
Later the next day, word came that a party of six white men headed by General Adams and thirteen Utes, including Sapovanero, Ouray’s brother-in-law and spokesman, had departed Chief Ouray’s home on the Uncompahgre River and were headed their way. With that news, the White River Ute encampments were again thrown into turmoil.
Shiloh heard the news from some of the other women even before Jesse, who had ridden out with a few other braves early this morning to hunt rabbits and other small game. Filled with mixed emotions, she busied herself with various chores of her own before going to help Kwana.
Over the past weeks, the old woman had become a friend and confidante. And, sooner or later, talk had turned, as it always seemed to, to her and Jesse.
“I’m trying the best I can to work it out with him,” Shiloh said that day as they made bread. “But he insists I obey him in all things, and I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Nuaru is afraid of giving up control over the things he deems important.” Kwana paused to pour a bit more water into the dough that was forming beneath Shiloh’s hands. “He has fought so long and hard to find a life that fulfills him that he’s fearful of losing himself if he now surrenders any part of it.”
“But he also wants me to be a part of that life,” Shiloh cried, so frustrated that she could barely hold back tears. “He says he loves me, but I’m beginning to wonder if he even knows what loving someone entails.”
“And that would be?” her friend asked with an arch of a brow.
“It entails putting the happiness of the other person ahead of your own. Of being willing to give and take. And, right now, Jesse refuses to give and is only taking.”
“He has much to learn then. Things were so much simpler when he wed Onawa. She wasn’t a firebrand like you.”
“She was also a Ute,” Shiloh muttered. “And I’ll never be able to compete with that.”
“Oh, little one!” Kwana reached over to pat her hand. “You wouldn’t be who you are if you weren’t just as you are. And, somehow, I doubt Nuaru would love you as he does if you changed. He just doesn’t realize that yet.”
“Well, he doesn’t have much time left.” Shiloh sighed. “Oh, if only he would compromise just a tiny bit!”
Kwana nodded sagely. “Compromise is indeed a vital component of a lasting relationship. Unfortunately, the compromises that are usually the most important are also the most painful.”
“More painful than losing the one you love?”
“Sometimes, little one.” The old woman smiled sadly. “Most unfortunately, sometimes.”
An hour before sunset, Jesse and the other men returned. Their hunt had been successful, and Jesse’s share of the game included three fat rabbits. Shiloh took them from him and proceeded to gut and skin them before sending Jesse off with one rabbit for Kwana’s supper. By the time he returned, she had the cook fire down to hot coals, the rabbits spitted and roasting, and she was patting out flat bread dough to bake.
He took the news of General Adams and his party’s impending visit far more calmly than she would’ve guessed. But then, Shiloh also knew Jesse had expected this visit sooner or later. Still, it rankled that he didn’t seem too upset that she could be freed and leaving him in the next few days.
They ate their supper in silence, save for Jesse’s compliments on how good she was getting at making flat bread and meals over an open fire. She acknowledged his praise as graciously as she could, considering the longer she sat there, the angrier she was becoming.
As they finished their meal, however, and Shiloh began to clean up, Jesse touched her arm. Startled by the first physical contact he’d made in days, she jerked her gaze to him.
“Leave those things for later,” he said, his glance solemn and shuttered. “I’d like for us to take a walk down to the creek. It’s time we talked.”
Her heart skipped a beat, and Shiloh was suddenly terrified that the moment they’d both been yearning for and dreading was finally upon them. Still, their differences had to be faced or there was no hope for them.
She stood and straightened her skirt and the oversized shirt of his that she’d belted over it. “Yes, it’s time we talked.”
Though he held out his hand, Shiloh wouldn’t take it. Instead, she just walked beside him as they made their way from camp and down the well-trodden path to the creek. If the truth were told, she was afraid to hold his hand or even get too close to him right now. Despite all their troubles of late, Shiloh still loved Jesse and feared the ever-present temptation he presented. The temptation to shed all her personal beliefs, to ignore her misgivings, and agree to whatever he proposed. Even, if necessary, to turn her back on her faith just so she could stay with him.
Yet just as that realization found expression in her mind, Shiloh squelched it with a fierce vehemence. No, she told herself, never would she turn from the Lord. How could she? He was her Savior, her Beloved, even before she had met Jesse and fallen in love with him. To betray her God was to betray herself and all she stood for.
Please, dear Lord, she prayed as they walked along, don’t let Jesse ask that of me. Most anything else I’d gladly give up for him, but not You. Never You . . .
Then they were there, standing beside the creek’s rushing waters, and Shiloh knew the time was finally upon them. She turned to look up at Jesse, her gaze hungry, her glance memorizing his handsome, bronzed face, his dark, piercing eyes, his beautiful mouth and jet-black hair.
I might not have much longer to look at him, she thought achingly. To be with him. To talk with him. To be loved by him . . .
“What will happen to us?” Shiloh asked, forcing the hardest words she’d ever spoken past her bone-dry throat. “When General Adams comes, I mean?”
His expression hardened. “It’s simple, really. You can either choose to leave with him or stay with me.”
A pained irritation filled her. So, it is that simple, is it? Well, maybe for you, but not for me.
“And that’s how it’s to be then?” Shiloh asked tautly. “Either I accept what you want, with no discussion or compromise, or I can leave?”
“You already know how I feel about staying with the People.” Jesse impaled her with his dark gaze. “I can’t—I won’t—return to the white man’s way of life.”
“But where does that leave you and me, Jesse?” She choked back the rising frustration, determined to find a compromise in this that both could live with. “I love you and would live with you wherever that might be, but if you choose the Indian way, then it can pit you against my people, even my family, at some point.”
“And living with the white man could eventually pit me against the Utes.”
“That’s not as likely, though. You could choose to stay out of that sort of conflict. Besides, the day is coming when the Utes will either remain on the reservation or be forced to move to the Indian Territory. You know that as well as I.”
“So I should desert them because of possible hard times ahead?”
Shiloh expelled an exasperated breath. “No, and I’d never ask you to do that. All I was saying was that soon living as a white man won’t require you to fight any of the People.”
He smiled grimly. “Nor, if things go as you predict, will living with the Utes soon require me to fight the white man.”
“Fine. I’ll give you that. As far as our two peoples fighting each other, it’s soon not going to matter much whether we live as Utes or whites. All I want is for you to be a man of peace and compassion. Is that too much to ask?”
“No, it’s not. It’s what I’ve always wanted. But some people won’t let you live like that, Shiloh. And a man protects what is his.”
“Yes, a man does,” she
agreed with a nod. “And so does a woman. But to have peace, you have to strive always to create it. And to have mercy, you have to be merciful even when it hurts to do so. Even when others around you aren’t being very peaceful or merciful.”
“And when has that attitude ever gotten me anything, except beatings, rejection, and ridicule?”
“And I say you’re letting the past decide your future!” She moved toward him and gripped his arm. “We are all touched by what has happened to us, Jesse. The bad, as well as the good, influences us. But it’s our choice what we do with those experiences. The cruelties of others can teach you compassion toward others, because you’ve lived that hurt firsthand.”
“Do you know how naïve you sound, talking about turning the other cheek? About being thankful for the blessings of pain?” He gave a bitter laugh. “No one can do that, not unless he’s some sort of fool.”
A soft, poignant smile lifted her lips. “Jesus Christ did that, and He was no fool. Instead, He was wise beyond our meager comprehension. The only fool is the one who doesn’t follow Him, doesn’t try his best to live as He did.”
“I gave up that crazy belief a long time ago,” Jesse muttered. “And I’m not walking that path again.”
“But why, Jesse?” she asked, her heart aching at the deep pain beneath his words. “What has the Lord ever done to you to turn you so against Him?”
He shook her hand away. “It’s not what He has done,” he softly replied, “but what I have done.”
Confusion flooded her. “And what have you ever done, Jesse, to turn God against you? If it’s your hatred of the white man, then confess it to Him and ask His forgiveness. He’ll give it and welcome you back with open arms.”
“It’s not that simple. It’s more than hatred. It’s death. It’s killing someone.”
For a moment, Shiloh found she couldn’t take in a breath. Then her constricted chest relaxed, and air rushed in to fill her lungs.
“Who, Jesse? Who did you kill?”
Heart of the Rockies Collection Page 55
