His gaze swept over her. His pulse raced hot and swift through his veins at the very nearness . . . of the very sight of her. Today she had on riding clothes that were less constricting and formal. She wore a fully gathered, dark riding skirt made of yards of material, and a white, long-sleeved blouse. Its buttons were undone at the neck, revealing a teasing sight of her deep cleavage. Her hair was free of a hat and worn loose and flowing across her shoulders and down her back. Her cheeks were flushed pink from her brisk ride.
“Father, who is this lady?” Michael said, bringing White Fire out of his momentary trance. “How does she know your name? I heard you say the name Flame when you first saw her. Is that her name?”
“Yes, son, her name is Flame,” White Fire said, his eyes now locked with Flame’s. “How does she know my name? Michael, we are friends . . . very good friends.”
“And so this is Michael,” Flame said, riding around to be next to Michael. She reached a hand out toward him. “I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Michael. I hope that you and I can be good friends.”
Her gaze raked over him. She was aghast at the boy’s attire, and how his adopted mother chose to make him wear his hair. She could not believe that any mother would want to make a boy appear as such a sissy.
Otherwise, up close, yes, she saw again his resemblance to White Fire. If his skin was copper . . .
Michael placed his tiny hand in Flame’s, enjoying the feel of her buttery soft gloves against his flesh. He also loved her hair and eyes. Her eyes were so green. Her hair was so red. And if he were an older man like his father, he would fall quickly and madly in love with this woman.
“I would like to be your friend,” Michael quickly said, his white teeth shining as he gave Flame one of his biggest smiles.
“Then friends we are,” Flame said, laughing softly when she started to remove her hand and he still clung to it.
Seeing how quickly Flame and Michael were smitten with one another, White Fire smiled to himself. Perhaps he could expect things to work out for him and his son after all. He now thought that it would be easy to draw Michael into accepting Flame for a mother.
It did not even seem wrong that there were just twelve years between Michael and Flame. That surely would not be a deterrent in how they would get along as mother and son, for it was obvious that they already were drawn to one another.
Then White Fire thought of something else: of last evening, and Flame’s hasty flight from the fort. He must know why.
He felt compelled to scold her again about riding alone so often. She tempted fate too often with her foolhardiness.
He rode around and sidled his horse up next to Flame’s. “I saw you at dusk last evening,” he said, quickly drawing her eyes to him. “I saw you leave the fort in haste. That concerned me. I tried to follow you. By the time I got my horse, you were already out of sight. I searched, but never found you again. I waited on a knoll until I saw you go back through the gate into the fort.”
Flame slid her hand free of Michael’s. “Yes, I left home in haste last evening,” she said softly. “Because of my father. He badgered and badgered me about where I had been yesterday. I was not about to tell him, for you know how enraged he would have been knowing you and I were together.”
“But you do know the dangers of leaving the fort and riding off in such a way, especially at that time of evening,” White Fire said, realizing how scolding his tone was the minute the words had escaped across his lips.
He saw an instant anger leap into Flame’s eyes and knew that she did not appreciate him preaching to her after having just told him how upset she had gotten after her father had scolded her.
“You too?” she said, her eyes wavering. “White Fire, please don’t start on me, also, about what I do and don’t do. I am my own person. Why can’t anyone see that?”
Near tears, she wheeled her horse around and rode away.
White Fire glanced down at Michael, whose eyes were wide from having listened to perhaps his first lovers’ quarrel.
“Stay here, Michael,” White Fire softly encouraged. “I will be only a moment.”
Michael nodded.
White Fire rode after Flame.
When he caught up with her, he reached over and took her reins from her. Her eyes flashing angrily at him, he drew her reins tightly and stopped her horse as he brought his own to a quick stop.
“Give me back my reins,” Flame cried, yanking hard and unsuccessfully on them.
“Not until you listen to what I have to say,” White Fire said, glad to see her shoulders finally relaxing. “Darling Flame, I was wrong to scold you. It will not happen again.”
“Thank you,” Flame murmured, her lips quivering into a slow smile when he gave her reins back.
Then she looked past him at Michael. “Can I ride for a while with you and Michael?” she asked softly, the argument forgotten. “I love children. And he seems so special.”
“Yes, very,” he said, looking over his shoulder at his son.
Then he smiled at her. “You captivated him,” he said, laughing softly. “I do believe you now have two men in love with you.”
Flame’s face flushed hot. “You do believe so, do you?” she murmured. She smiled into White Fire’s eyes. “Nothing would make me happier than to be loved by both you and your son.”
There was a moment of silence between them, when White Fire wanted so badly to reach over and grab Flame from her horse and onto his lap to kiss her. With innocent eyes of a watching child on them, he instead wheeled his horse around and rode away from Flame.
“Come on,” he shouted over his shoulder, “let’s go for that ride.”
Flame laughed into the wind, then rode off after White Fire.
When they reached Michael, they rode on each side of him, and laughed, chatted, and had a wonderful time.
White Fire’s chest swelled with pride to be with the woman he loved and his son at the same time, and seeing that they seemed naturally drawn together. He rode and listened to them having small talk, smiling at his son’s true interest in Flame.
“How do you, a lady, know how to ride a horse so well?” Michael asked.
“How?” Flame said, looking past Michael at White Fire, then gazing at Michael again. “I was taught to ride by the master horsemen of St. Louis—the owners of great Clydesdale horses.”
“What is a Clydesdale horse?” Michael asked.
“It is a horse much larger than the one me and your father are riding today,” Flame said, remembering the thrill of her first time on one of the magnificent steeds. “The Clydesdale horses originated in Lanarkshire, Scotland, near the River Clyde. Not too many people know about them. A dear friend of my father brought four of them from Scotland. I was one of the first to ride them.”
“Are they pretty?” Michael asked.
“Very,” Flame said. “Their color is usually bay, dark brown, or black. You can recognize them by their white markings and the long hair around their hooves, which people call their feathers. It’s quite a thrill to ride on one, up so high above the ground!”
“I would like to see a Clydesdale horse some day,” Michael said.
“Perhaps you shall,” Flame said, again looking over at his father. “Perhaps sometime in the future you will own one, yourself.”
“I would like that,” Michael said, beaming.
The more White Fire listened to Flame and Michael talking, the more he could see all of them having a future together. Would she truly not mind becoming an instant mother to a child Michael’s age? With her love of freedom, could becoming a mother so quickly be stifling to her?
He would not think of that possibility, for never had White Fire wanted anything as much as he wanted to have both Michael and Flame with him forever.
Flame’s eyes wavered as she gazed down at Michael. “I must leave you now,” she murmured. “It’s time for me to return home. My father has a tendency to worry too much about me.”
White Fire rode
over and took one of Flame’s hands. “I want to see you again real soon,” he said thickly. “When can we arrange it?”
“I’ll come to your cabin when I get the chance,” she murmured. “I just don’t want to cause Father to get so angry at my antics that he sends me back to St. Louis. You know that he could do that, White Fire, and there would be nothing much I could do about it.” She paused and laughed softly, then said, “Except perhaps dive overboard and swim my way back to you.”
“Do you know how to swim as well as you ride a horse?” Michael asked, not understanding that she was just joking.
She looked at Michael. “I’ll have you know I can swim as good as any fish in the Mississippi River,” she said, laughing again.
“I don’t know how to swim,” Michael said solemnly, lowering his eyes. Then he looked quickly up at his father. “I am so glad that you taught me how to ride when I was small, so that I could ride with you today.” He looked up at Flame. “Can you teach me how to swim someday?” he asked, his eyes innocently wide.
“Why, Michael, I’d love to teach you how to swim and anything else you have failed to be taught by your adoptive family,” Flame said. She slid from the saddle and went to him. She reached up and embraced him, melting inside when he wrapped his tiny arms around her neck and returned the hug.
Then she pulled away from him and placed a gentle hand on his cheek. Then she went back and swung herself into her saddle. “I’ll see you soon,” she said, smiling at White Fire. She then gazed at Michael. “Hopefully you, too, Michael.”
Touched deeply by her feelings for his son, almost speechless because of it, White Fire watched Flame ride away at a brisk clip.
“Father, are you going to marry her?”
The question, the seriousness of Michael’s voice while asking it, drew White Fire’s eyes back around. He smiled at Michael. “Yes, I do believe I am,” he said. “How do you feel about that?”
“Am I going to live with you again, Father?” Michael asked.
“As soon as I feel it is in your best interest, yes, you will be living with me again,” White Fire said thickly.
“Then I am very happy over your plans to marry Flame,” Michael said, his eyes dancing. “That means that I will also be living with her.”
“Yes, I do believe that we will all be living together as a family,” White Fire said, laughing. “Son, it pleases me clean to my bones that you like Flame so much.”
“I do,” Michael said. “Very, very much.
“Can I go home now and pack my bags?” Michael then asked, his voice eager.
White Fire was drawn aback by the suddenness of the question. He was at a loss for words.
Then he reached over and grabbed Michael from his horse and placed him on his lap facing him. He placed a hand beneath Michael’s chin and lifted it so that their eyes met and held.
“Michael, I so badly wish to have you with me again,” he said. “And you will be. Soon. But things must be right, first, before I can take you from one household to another. My life must be set in order so that yours will be in order when you come to live with me again.”
“Like what, Father?” Michael asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“It would not be fair to you to bring you to my house just yet,” White Fire said. “After I marry Flame, I will then come for you.”
“But why must I wait?”
“Because you need a woman to be a mother, to do mother things that a father does not know how to do,” White Fire said in a rush of words. “I plan to marry Flame, but it just can’t happen overnight. There are obstacles in the way. Hopefully, we can rid ourselves of such obstacles real soon so that Flame and I can get married.”
“I will be patient,” Michael said, flinging his arms around his father’s neck, hugging him. “Father, I am so glad that you aren’t dead.... That you came back to me.”
“If only I could have returned sooner,” White Fire said, returning Michael’s hug.
Then he picked Michael up by the waist and put him back on his pony. “We’d better get you back home or I do believe Maureen and George might send out a search party for us,” he said, laughing softly.
They rode beneath the sunshine and through the warm autumn air, the air perfumed with the fragrances of the wild flowers that dotted the ground like a colorful patchwork quilt.
When they reached the Greer mansion, White Fire regretted with all of his heart having to give his son back to the care of the Greers. But one thing for sure, Maureen Greer truly loved Michael. It was in the way she grabbed him and hugged him when he dismounted his pony. Her look of desperation showed her intense caring for him.
White Fire could not help but feel something for the woman, especially a gratefulness for her having taken such good care of Michael in his absence, and for her loving him so much.
He knew now that when he did take Michael away from the Greers, he would still share Michael with them. He would permit them to come for him and have outings with Michael. It would otherwise be heartless of him if he forced them to altogether forget this child they had grown to love these past three years.
Maureen picked Michael up in her arms. As she held him, she turned to White Fire. “Thank you for bringing him home to me,” she murmured.
“I shall return soon to be with him again,” White Fire said, reaching a hand out to touch Michael on the cheek. “Michael, I will see you again real soon.”
“Can I keep the pony with me here?” Michael said, his eyes pleading.
White Fire gazed into Maureen’s eyes. Seeing her set, stubborn jaw, he sighed with disappointment. She was still against Michael having the pony.
“Yes, the pony stays here, Michael,” White Fire said, feeling just as stubborn as Maureen. He ignored her quick gasp. He leaned over and gave Michael a soft kiss on the cheek, stared at Maureen again, then swung himself into his saddle and rode away.
“Good-bye, Father!” Michael cried. “See you again soon, Father!”
White Fire gave his son a wide smile over his shoulder. “Soon, son!” he shouted back. “Soon!”
He felt as though a piece of his heart was being left behind as he rode away. He didn’t dare take another look at his son, for fear that he would turn back and get him.
He rode in a hard gallop out of Pig’s Eye, and when his cabin came into sight through a break in the trees, he saw a horse tethered at his hitching rail. White Fire tightened his reins and brought his steed to a quick halt. “Chief Gray Feather?” he whispered.
Thinking it was the chief, he rode on and dismounted and went inside his cabin, stopping short with surprise when he saw who was there, sitting in a chair, waiting for him.
“Colonel Russell?” White Fire said, his eyebrows rising in a question. He feared hearing the reason why the colonel himself was there, instead of a lieutenant sent to summon him to the fort. Surely it was about Flame.
The colonel had come to forbid White Fire to ever see her again.
Perhaps he had spied on Flame and had seen them together even today.
“White Fire, I need your help,” Colonel Russell said, rising from the chair. He held a pair of gloves in one hand and nervously slapped them against the palm of his other hand as he gazed with unsteady eyes at him.
“What sort of help?” White Fire asked warily, expecting the colonel to speak Flame’s name at any moment.
“As you know, I am aware of your closeness with Colonel Josiah Snelling when he was alive and in command of Fort Snelling,” Colonel Russell said, his voice tight and drawn.
“Yes, we became close, very close,” White Fire said guardedly.
Colonel Russell sighed heavily. His eyes lowered. Then they shot up again and gave White Fire a steady gaze. “Do you believe in the supernatural?” he blurted out. “In ghosts?”
“What?” White Fire asked, his eyebrows rising with surprise. “What do you mean? Why would you ask me such questions as that?”
“White Fire, I am a witness to strange occurrence
s these past few nights in the Snelling mansion, especially in Josiah’s upstairs study,” Colonel Russell blurted out. “I . . . it . . . it is as though I feel Josiah’s presence there. Also . . . also . . . things aren’t always where I have last left them. I can’t help but believe that Colonel Snelling’s ghost is there. Go back to the fort with me. Go into Josiah’s study. Tell me if you notice anything strange.”
White Fire scarcely breathed as he thought back to how he himself had recently felt while alone in Josiah Snelling’s study. He had felt a presence there. He had felt as though Josiah had been there, as though if White Fire had called his name, Josiah would have somehow answered him!
The thought of Colonel Russell now having experienced the same sort of feeling made White Fire’s heart race with the wonder of it.
“Yes, I will go with you,” he was quick to say.
“Now, White Fire,” Colonel Russell said, taking him by the elbow, and whisking him back outside to the horses. “Come with me now.”
White Fire rode with Colonel Russell to the Snelling mansion. His eyes were on the upstairs study window as he tethered his horse to the hitching rail.
His heart thudded as he went inside the house and up the stairs that led to the study. He did not even think about Flame and wonder where she might be as he entered the room.
He was filled with all sorts of anxieties, none of which at this moment included a woman.
His eyes wide, his breathing shallow, White Fire and Colonel Russell moved slowly around the study. The colonel’s eyes never left White Fire.
‘Well?” Colonel Russell softly questioned. “Do you feel anything? Please tell me it is my imagination working overtime.”
The scent of pipe tobacco being smoked suddenly wafted up inside White Fire’s nose. He quickly recognized the smell. It was quite familiar to him. It was Josiah’s own personal brand, which had been brought from France.
He sent the colonel a quick glance. “Have you recently smoked a pipe in this study?” he asked warily. “Like just before you came for me? For I smell the distinct smell of a freshly smoked pipe. I recognize the tobacco. It is Josiah Snelling’s own personal brand of tobacco.”
White Fire Page 12
