But she was afraid of their brute force and feared that once they got stirred up sexually, they might go ahead and force her to do what she had not planned to carry through with to the end.
No, she thought sullenly to herself. She wouldn’t take that approach. There was too much danger in that.
She gazed at the land passing by on either side of the boat. She mentally measured how far the boat was from both shorelines. It was no farther than the length of water she had swum many times in St. Louis. Although her father had always warned her of the undercurrent in the Mississippi River, she and her friends had gone swimming frequently downriver from the family mansion. She had never felt threatened by any undercurrents.
She stared down at the river as the soldiers led her toward her private cabin. She was not familiar with this stretch and how the undercurrents might be, yet she knew that she had no choice but to take her chances in it. She would risk her very life if it meant saving White Fire!
She looked at Lieutenant Green, and then at Lieutenant Hudson. Both of them were now holding her by an arm. Then she again stared at the water.
She gave two hard yanks and managed to get free from the soldiers.
Lifting the hem of her dress into her arms, she broke into a mad run toward the railing of the boat.
Just as she reached it and tried to scramble over the side, her breath was taken away when Lieutenant Green grabbed her around the waist and stopped her.
For a moment things went black inside her head.
Then her vision cleared and she realized that Lieutenant Green had grabbed her in his arms and was now carrying her hurriedly toward her cabin.
When the other soldier opened the door and stepped aside, her heart sank, for she knew now that they would lock her inside.
She felt trapped. Trapped! Surely White Fire would soon die!
Chapter 27
All I imagined musing lonely,
When dreaming ’neath the greenwood tree,
Seeming to fancy visions only.
—John Clare
Chief Gray Feather sat before his lodge fire, eating wild-rice cakes covered with thick, rich syrup. His granddaughter, Dancing Star, had stayed the night with him. She sat at his side, her fingers dripping with syrup, her eyes content as she shoved another piece of cake and syrup into her mouth with her fingertips.
“You eat well this morning,” Gray Feather said, smiling down at Dancing Star. “You will grow up and be healthy and strong like your grandfather.”
“Where is Mother?” Dancing Star said, glancing toward the door. “Why did she leave me here with you to spend the night instead of having me sleep with her in our own lodge?”
Gray Feather licked his fingers clean of the syrup. He gave a worried glance toward the entrance flap, then stared quietly into the lodge fire.
“Gee-bah-bah-nahn, Grandfather, where is Mother?” Dancing Star persisted. She wriggled onto his lap and faced him as she twined her tiny arms around his neck. She gave him a steady gaze as he looked into her eyes. “Do you not think Mother would also enjoy eating breakfast with us? Should I go and awaken her?
“Gah-ween, no,” Gray Feather said, his voice hollow. “Let her nee-ban, sleep.”
“But why sleep without me?” Dancing Star asked, sighing. “And why is she so quiet and strange lately?”
Gray Feather gazed at Dancing Star a moment longer. Then he lifted her from his lap and rose to his feet. He went and drew back the entrance flap and gazed at Song Sparrow’s wigwam, which sat not that far from his own.
“Why is she so quiet and different in personality lately?” he said softly. “It is because of an ee-nee-nee, man.”
“You are speaking of White Fire?” Dancing Star said, going to Gray Feather, looking up at him again with her innocently wide, dark eyes.
Gray Feather nodded. “Ay-uh, it is because of White Fire that your mother is so quiet and withdrawn these past few days,” he said thickly. “But in time, she will be her usual, cheerful self again.”
He dropped the flap and went to bend low over a washbasin of water. He sank his hands into the water and sloshed them around until they were clean of the syrup.
He then went and picked up Dancing Star and brought her to the water. “Wash your hands and then we will go and awaken your mother,” he said. “We will take her a platter of wild-rice cakes.”
“With lots of syrup on them?” Dancing Star said, putting her hands into the water, enjoying splashing them around in it.
“Ay-uh, yes, with lots of syrup on them,” Gray Feather said, laughing throatily. “She loves sweet things, especially geen, you.”
“Am I sweet?” Dancing Star asked, smiling softly up at Gray Feather.
“Better than all of the syrup in the world,” Gray Feather said, placing her to the floor as she lifted her hands from the water and shook them free of drops.
He grabbed the platter of wild-rice cakes.
Dancing Star picked up the wooden bowl of syrup.
They left the wigwam and walked out into the bright sunshine. When they reached Song Sparrow’s lodge, Gray Feather stopped and looked up at the smoke hole. There was no smoke spiraling into the sky. That had to mean that his daughter was still fast asleep.
He hesitated waking her, then shrugged his shoulders. It was a beautiful morning. It would do her good to wake up to the songs of the birds and the laughter of her daughter and to the warmth of the sun.
“Hold the flap aside for me,” Gray Feather said, nodding at his granddaughter toward the buckskin flap.
Dancing Star held the bowl of syrup with one hand and slid the flap aside with the other. She waited as her grandfather entered the lodge.
She then went inside, herself, and stood, wide-eyed, staring down at where her mother’s blankets had not been rolled out for her to sleep upon.
Then she smiled. “Mother is already awake,” she said. “She is down at the river bathing.”
Dancing Star set the syrup down on a bulrush mat and ran from the wigwam. “Grandfather, I will go and bathe with Mother,” she shouted over her shoulder.
Gray Feather set down the platter of wild-rice cakes on the bulrush mats beside the syrup. He kneaded his chin thoughtfully as he gazed at the cold ashes in the fire pit. It was not usual for his daughter to leave her lodge without first starting her fire, which would last the entire day for the preparation of her meals for herself and her daughter.
He again gazed at the blankets and pelts that were so neatly rolled up at the sides of the lodge. “I do not think she slept in them at all last night,” he suddenly said aloud, a sudden fear leaping into his heart.
He thought back to the previous evening and at how moody his daughter had been; how quiet and withdrawn. Even when she had asked if Dancing Star would spend the night with Gray Feather, he had felt that something was amiss.
“Chief Gray Feather! Chief Gray Feather!”
A voice filled with panic and alarm outside the lodge drew Gray Feather quickly outside. When he saw his nephew, Red Buffalo, standing there holding Song Sparrow in his arms, her body lifeless and limp, her eyes locked in a death stare, everything within Gray Feather went cold with despair.
His daughter was dead! The mother to his grandchild was dead!
“I found her hanging by her long hair . . . from . . . a limb of a tree,” Red Buffalo stammered out. “She wrapped a long coil of her hair around her neck and hung herself with it!”
Chief Gray Feather felt too numb to move. He could do nothing but stare at his daughter.
She was gone! This quickly she was gone from this earth. He would not hear her laughter again. And he would not see her sadness.
“Gee-mah-mah, Mother!” Dancing Star screamed as she came running toward them. “Gee-mah-mah!”
The child’s voice brought Gray Feather out of his trance. He looked at Dancing Star as she stopped and became quiet as she stared at the lifeless body of her mother.
“Ah-bee-no-gee, child, come to me,” Chi
ef Gray Feather said sadly. He bent to a knee, his arms outstretched for Dancing Star.
When she went to him, her body suddenly racked with tears, he held her tightly to him.
As he stared across her shoulder at Song Sparrow, anger filled his very soul at why his daughter had become so distraught that she lost her will to live.
“White Fire . . .” he whispered, the name a low hiss as it crossed his pursed lips.
But Gray Feather had done everything within his power to make the man his daughter loved her husband. And because Gray Feather loved his daughter so much, he had gone beyond what he would normally do to bring the man she loved into her life.
Only now did Gray Feather truly know just how much his daughter had loved White Fire!
Oh, but if only White Fire could have returned the love with the same sort of strength, with the same sort of passion, Gray Feather would have not lost his daughter in such a way—in total disgrace.
Chapter 28
To her is only known his faith that from the world
is hidden.
—Nicholas Breton
His granddaughter on his lap, Chief Gray Feather reined in his horse in front of White Fire’s cabin.
Somber, and feeling the stark weight of the emptiness in his heart that the death of his daughter had left, Gray Feather held Dancing Star snugly against his chest as he slid from the horse, then placed her tiny moccasined feet on solid ground.
His upper lip stiff, Gray Feather gazed at White Fire’s cabin. He saw no smoke rising from the chimney. Then he looked around for his horse. He saw no horse.
“He is not here,” he whispered to himself.
But Gray Feather would wait for White Fire’s return, that was for certain. He was there with a mission and he would not leave until White Fire understood how it must be now that Song Sparrow was dead. White Fire was free of his daughter, but not Gray Feather’s daughter’s child!
“Mah-szhon, go to the door and open it,” Gray Feather said, nodding at his granddaughter as she turned her soft, questioning eyes to him.
He slung his reins around the horse’s hitching rail, then went to stand over his granddaughter. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Open the door, grandchild, for this is now your home,” he said sullenly. “You have a right to go and come as you please. As do I, your grandfather.”
Gray Feather folded his arms across his bare chest and set his jaw firmly as Dancing Star placed her tiny hand on the door latch and slowly opened the door.
When she turned questioning eyes up at him again, Gray Feather frowned down at her. “Go inside,” he said flatly. “I will follow.”
Dancing Star nodded and looked as though she was going to enter. But instead she turned and flung herself against Gray Feather’s legs and desperately hugged them.
He understood her fear, her sadness, her feeling of loss. Her mother’s burial was not so far behind her and the mourning in the village was continuing. Gray Feather placed a gentle hand on Dancing Star’s head.
“You are so small, so dear to me,” he said emotionally. “But because of how your mother died, I must sever my ties with you.”
He bent down and swept his arms around the child, lifted her up and held her close as she snuggled against his chest, sobbing.
“My child,” he whispered, caressing her long, thick, black hair, “I do love you still. I shall evermore love you. But I cannot keep you with me. Seeing you every day would be a reminder of what your mother did . . . how your mother died.”
Dancing Star leaned away from him and gazed intently into his eyes. “Tell me again how she died,” she said, her child’s voice so soft, the words intelligently said for a child of such few years.
“It is not a pleasant thing to talk about,” Gray Feather said, his spine stiffening. “You had to be told the truth once, but never will I repeat it to you. In time, I hope that it will fade from your heart so that you can remember your mother with respect and love.”
“I love her now,” Dancing Star said, her lower lip quivering. “Just because she . . . she killed herself, how could that make you love her less? Do you not see how sad she must have been? Do you not hurt for her, Grandfather, as I hurt for her?”
“Gray Feather hurts so badly for your mother that it is hard to think of anything or anyone else,” Gray Feather said sadly. “So you see, I, also, have much to get through before I can face life again as I faced it before your mother chose to die such useless a death.”
Dancing Star laid her cheek against his chest. “I will never die such a death,” she said, her voice innocently sweet. “I will never hurt you in such a way.”
Knowing that these might be his last private moments with his granddaughter, because he saw no other way than to give her to someone else, Gray Feather stood there for a moment longer in the morning sunshine. He held her close, oh, so near and dear to his heart. And at this moment, he almost turned and took her home with him again.
But having been taught all of his life that suicide was not only a cowardly way to end one’s life, but also a mortal sin, he had no choice but to leave his granddaughter to be raised by someone besides himself. In his heart he saw the child, his precious grandchild, taking part of her mother’s sin.
And thinking White Fire responsible for Song Sparrow’s death, since she had killed herself over him, Gray Feather knew that her child was now White Fire’s responsibility.
“Will I call White Fire ‘Father’?” Dancing Star suddenly blurted out, as she gazed at Gray Feather with questioning eyes. “Will he call me ‘Daughter?’”
“It will be chosen between you and White Fire what you will call one another,” Gray Feather said, taking slow steps toward the open door. “In time, ay-uh, I do hope that you will become his daughter in all respects and that you will be a sister to his son.”
“He has a son?” Dancing Star said, her eyes wide as Gray Feather stepped inside the lodge.
“Ay-uh, he has a son and that is partly why he would not take your mother to a marriage bed with him,” Gray Feather said somberly.
He did not speak of the woman who was the cause of White Fire’s rejection of Song Sparrow, yet he knew that Dancing Star surely remembered the flame-haired woman who had been a captive for a short while at their village.
But he also knew that Dancing Star was too young to understand why White Fire had come and spoken on the white woman’s behalf and took her from the village, no longer a captive. The child was too young to understand that this flaming-haired woman had won White Fire’s heart over her mother.
His jaw tightened as he thought further of Flame. Would she, when she became White Fire’s wife, treat Dancing Star as a mother would treat a daughter? Or would she resent Dancing Star for being part of White Fire’s life? Would Flame be able to accept a son and a daughter as soon as she spoke her marriage vows? Would the beautiful, young white woman be able to accept an instant family?
Gray Feather’s eyes narrowed, thinking that in a sense, Flame was to blame for Song Sparrow’s death as much as White Fire, and it was only right that she, also, would have to care for Song Sparrow’s child.
Knowing White Fire so well, Gray Feather did not doubt that he would see that Flame and everyone else would treat Dancing Star with respect.
And who could not love his Dancing Star?
Ay-uh, Gray Feather saw the flaming-haired woman as soon taking Dancing Star into her arms and loving her as she would her very own flesh-and-blood daughter.
It was evident that Flame did not look at the Chippewa as people beneath her, that she did respect them even though she had been taken captive for a short time, and that their skin color differed. She had fallen in love with someone of such skin color. She would surely love this child as much!
They entered the cabin and Gray Feather instantly saw that everything was quiet and damp, without a fire burning on the grate.
Dancing Star trembled with a chill and twined an arm around her grandfather’s neck and clung t
o him.
“It will be all right,” Gray Feather said, his voice breaking. He studied the cold ashes beneath the grate, knowing now that White Fire had not been there for some time. He could not help but wonder where he had gone when he had left the village, if not here, his own home?
Then his eyes narrowed as he thought about the surly, evil colonel who had become a threat to both Flame and White Fire. Perhaps they had hesitated to return to the cabin, thinking to avoid the colonel’s wrath.
Yet he could not see White Fire as being the sort who would run from such a fight. And Gray Feather knew how much White Fire loved his son. That, also, would be why he would not leave the area.
“Where is White Fire?” Dancing Star asked, now walking slowly around the room, looking closely at everything.
“I do not know,” Gray Feather said somberly as he knelt before the fireplace. He placed small twigs on the grate, and then larger logs. “But this is now your home. We will stay until White Fire returns.”
Dancing Star moved slowly into the bedroom.
When she saw the child’s crib against the far wall, she went to it and stared at it. Her gaze settled on a small horse that had been carved from wood. She inched her hand toward it, then stopped when Gray Feather came and stood beside her.
“‘That crib belonged to White Fire’s son when he was a smaller child than he is now,” Gray Feather said. He saw his granddaughter’s interest in the tiny wooden horse. “The horse also belongs to his son, but I am sure the child would share it with you if he were here and he saw your interest in it.”
He picked up the toy and handed it to his granddaughter; then he led her back into the living room.
“How long will we have to wait before White Fire comes home?” Dancing Star asked as Gray Feather sat down on the blankets before the fire, then gathered her onto his lap and held her.
“As long as it takes for him to return,” Gray Feather said sullenly as he took a quick look toward the door.
When he heard the cry of an eagle outside, not that far from the open door, a chill rode up and down his spine.
White Fire Page 19
