“The man who I thought was my father wasn’t my father after all,” she blurted out. “White Fire, he abducted me for reasons you will never believe!”
“What do you mean he wasn’t your father?” he asked, aware of how he also had only a short while ago discovered that his father wasn’t his true kin!
“He married my mother when she was pregnant by my true father,” Flame blurted out. She looked past him, where Colonel Russell now lay dead. “My life was a lie.” She gave White Fire a look of desperation. “My mother never told me the truth!”
He had much to tell her, too, about his own discoveries. But he decided the time was not now, not while she was still trying to sort through her own truths and make some sense about them.
“My father—I mean, Colonel Russell, planned to take me to Canada,” she said, her voice breaking. “Once there, he planned to marry me. Can you believe that, White Fire? The man who raised me as his daughter had sexual feelings for me? He actually thought I could be persuaded to return such feelings and marry him?”
She swallowed hard. “He’s dead,” she murmured. “One of the trappers killed him.”
Stunned by the knowledge that the colonel was not her father, White Fire gasped. Then he again drew her into his arms to comfort her.
“It is all over,” he said softly. “Try to push this all from your mind. We have the rest of our lives ahead of us.”
He gently framed her face between his hands. “The children are waiting for us,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “Let us go now and show them that you are all right.”
Flame swallowed back the urge to give in to tears all over again, but this time it was from happiness, not from the trauma she had just gone through.
“Yes, let’s go to the children,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of a hand.
“They are at Chief Gray Feather’s village,” White Fire said. “I felt they would be safer there.”
“Then you were able to get Michael from the Greers?” Flame asked, stepping away from him.
“Actually, Michael was waiting for me,” White Fire said, proudly squaring his shoulders. “Maureen even had his clothes packed, for she saw that Michael could never be happy with them. Not when he knew that his father was alive and well, and wanted him.”
They locked hands. Their fingers intertwined, they walked toward the waiting Chippewa warriors.
“And Dancing Star?” Flame asked, gazing up at White Fire. “Will she and Michael get along?”
“They are already fast friends,” he said, stepping up to his horse, and grabbing the reins. He turned and smiled at Flame. “The last time I saw them, they were sitting beside Chief Gray Feather’s fire and giggling and talking. Gray Feather had promised to tell them stories.”
He looked over his shoulder at the warriors as they mounted their steeds, touched deeply to know that he was, in truth, a part of them by heritage. His gaze moved to one warrior in particular, a warrior he now realized was his cousin.
He then looked at Flame. “I have much to tell you,” he said, his voice low and measured. He placed a gentle hand to her cheek. “You see, I have also discovered something quite unique about my own father.”
“About your own father?” Flame said, lifting an eyebrow. “You mean you have discovered something about Samuel Dowling that you never knew before?”
“Yes, something that shook my innermost faith in my mother,” White Fire said sullenly.
“What on earth could do that?” Flame asked, searching his eyes.
“Let me tell you about it on our way back to the Chippewa village,” he answered. He placed his hands at her waist and lifted her onto his horse.
He then went and got his rifle, sliding it inside the gunboot at his horse’s flank. Then he swung himself into the saddle behind Flame.
As they rode off, with the Chippewa warriors following them, White Fire told Flame about receiving the wire from his mother, and about the news of who his true father was.
“Gray Feather is your father?” Flame gasped out after listening intently. She was awestruck to hear how both she and White Fire had at almost the same time discovered the lies they had been living.
“I am Chippewa!” White Fire proudly declared. He lifted his chin and shouted it for the warriors to hear. “I am Chippewa!” he proudly cried.
He could feel a commotion behind him and as he looked over his shoulder, he saw the wonder in the warrior’s stares.
He smiled at them. “I am part Chippewa,” he said. “Your chief is my father!”
Gasps reverberated through the warriors.
Red Buffalo then rode up next to him. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice filled with shock. “Has Chief Gray Feather, my uncle, said that you are his blood kin, his son? That you are my cousin? He has just said that in his dreams you sit by his side in the capacity of a son. Dreams are not real.”
“This dream seems to be,” White Fire said. “But I know it’s hard for you to understand. You and Gray Feather, as well as all of your people, will soon know how this can be.”
He smiled broadly at Red Buffalo. “All those times that you and I hunted, practiced shooting bows and arrows, or just sat around and talked of life, we were acquainted, Red Buffalo. Ah, but if only I had known then what I know now.”
Red Buffalo was rendered speechless, but knowing that White Fire was not one who spoke a false tongue, he quickly reached over and clasped a hand of love on White Fire’s shoulder. His eyes locked with his for a moment, then Red Buffalo swung his horse away and fell back again to ride with the warriors.
“I am touched deeply by Red Buffalo’s reaction to knowing the truth,” White Fire said, tapping his horse’s flanks with his heels to urge him into a faster lope. “You see, since my father has no sons, it would have been Red Buffalo who would have been next in line to be chief for his people. His father, who has been dead for many years now, was my father’s brother. He is my father’s nephew, my cousin.”
“Would he have cause to resent you?” Flame asked softly. “Are you going to be chief, not Red Buffalo?” She was not sure what she wanted to hear from White Fire. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to live in an Indian village and be a part of their way of living.
To live outdoors? To cook over a fire in the floor? Perhaps to almost freeze to death in the winter in a wigwam?
No, she wasn’t sure if she was ready for that sort of radical change in her life.
“I have not thought that far ahead as to how my life will be changed by knowing that I am a full-blooded Indian,” White Fire said softly.
His eyes met and held with hers. “Does knowing all of this about me make things different for you?” he asked guardedly. “Can you still love me knowing that I am a full blood?”
“White Fire, darling, you are you,” Flame murmured, turning to embrace him. “How could you ever doubt my love for you?”
He held her close and sighed.
Chapter 42
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills or fields,
Woods or steepy mountains, yield.
—Christopher Marlowe
Flame strolled along the river hand in hand with Michael and Dancing Star as White Fire opened up his heart to his true father. Flame looked around her, at the wigwams, and at the people coming and going from them, and at the work the women were busy at.
Yes, after much thought, she could see herself there, as one of them.
And before White Fire had gone to meet with his father, he and Flame had talked at length about their future. White Fire had promised to build her a cabin, one which would hold many children instead of their trying to live in a wigwam.
Yes, they were going to move to the Chippewa village, so that Gray Feather and White Fire could become totally acquainted as father and son, which had been denied them since his mother had chosen to keep White Fire’s true birthright a secret.
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Flame gazed at the larger wigwam in which her beloved sat with his father, revealing truths to him. She smiled and wished that she could be there to see Gray Feather’s expression once he realized that he had a son, and that son was White Fire!
But she had wanted to give them the privacy they deserved.
“Let’s find pretty shells,” Dancing Star said, yanking on Flame’s hand to get her attention. “Can we, Flame? Can we find pretty shells and make a necklace of them?”
“Yes, that would be fun,” Flame said, laughing softly. “Let’s see who can find the prettiest shells.”
She watched Michael and Dancing Star scamper on ahead of her along the rocky shore, occasionally dropping to their knees to search through the various shells.
Again Flame turned and gazed at the larger wigwam. “God bless, my darling,” she whispered, blowing a kiss toward the dwelling.
Chapter 43
I love thee freely, as man strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise,
I love thee with the passion put to use,
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
White Fire sat on plush pelts beside his father before the lodge fire. He gave Gray Feather a steady gaze.
“This wire arrived today from my mother,” he said, handing it to Gray Feather.
“You know that I cannot read white man’s scribblings,” Gray Feather said, yet slowly unfolded the paper anyway, gazing down at it.
“I know, and I will explain what the words on the page say,” White Fire said, folding his legs before him.
His knuckles became white from his tight grip on his knees as he began explaining, bringing everything into the open that had been kept secret since his mother had discovered that she had a tiny seed growing inside her womb that had not been planted there by her Miami Indian husband.
“Gray Feather, do you recall a time many years ago when you went to a huge council of various Indian tribes in Kentucky?” White Fire asked. “Do you remember attending that council that was held at a Miami Indian village?”
Gray Feather squinted. His breathing became shallow as he was momentarily lost in thought.
Then he gave White Fire a steady stare. “Ay-uh, I remember being in that council in Kentucky,” he said in a low voice. “I was only in Kentucky once at that Miami village. The stay became a lengthy one. Many councils were held, not only one. Much was achieved in those councils.”
“Do you remember something that happened while you were there, besides sitting in council?” White Fire asked guardedly. He leaned somewhat forward and his heart began to race when he saw a melancholy look suddenly appear in Gray Feather’s fading brown eyes.
“Ay-uh, more was achieved while in Kentucky than mere talks in councils,” Gray Feather said, nodding. His lips quivered into a slow smile as he looked over at White Fire. “There was an ee-quay, woman.”
“I know,” White Fire quickly interjected.
Gray Feather’s shoulders tightened. He stared with questioning at him. “How could you know?” he asked softly.
“Because this woman was my mother,” White Fire said, his words coming slowly across his lips as his gaze tried to capture all of his father’s expression as the knowing was slowly being revealed to him.
“Your . . . gee-mah-mah, mother?” Gray Feather gasped out. “How could you know that I knew your mother? That I fell in love with her? That she—”
His words stopped short of revealing his hidden affair to someone after having held it inside his heart, a secret, all of these years. Gray Feather had never forgotten the woman.
At night he still dreamed about holding her, about loving her, about begging her to leave her betrothed and return with him to his Chippewa village!
He had so badly wanted her as his own woman, a woman he would have cherished forever.
He had ached for years over her rejection of him.
“That she rejected you after you had trysts with her behind her husband’s back?” White Fire blurted out. “You wanted her, but she only used you. She made love with you because she was that sort of woman—one who would be unfaithful to her husband for the excitement of doing it.”
When White Fire saw how what he had just said made his father go so pale, he regretted revealing to his father that his mother was a loose, uncaring woman.
“Husband?” Gray Feather gulped out. “She was married? She was not betrothed, but instead married?”
“I should not have told you,” White Fire said, reaching over to place a gentle hand on his father’s shoulder. “But, you see, I know all about my mother’s affair with you, and that she is capable of deceits that I hate to even think about.”
“Your . . . gee-mah-mah, mother?” Gray Feather gasped out, his chin trembling as his emotion rose within him.
“Ay-uh, yes, my gee-mah-mah, mother,” White Fire said, slowly easing his hand away from his father, “Pretty Cloud. Did not my mother tell you that she could not go with you to this land of sky-blue waters because she was betrothed to a powerful Miami chief and feared a war might erupt between the Chippewa and Miami if she turned her back and heart on her betrothed?”
“Ay-uh, that is what she told me,” Gray Feather said softly. “And she lied? She was married? I joined the woman in her sin against her husband?” Gray Feather held his head in his hands. “The shame of it,” he said, his voice breaking. “I am a man of honor. Never would I have laid down with a married woman.”
“Do not despair so over having done it,” White Fire said. He stood up, then knelt down directly at his father’s left side. “For had you not, I would not have been born.”
Gray Feather raised his face up in jerks. He stared in disbelief at White Fire. “What did you say?” he gasped. out.
“While you were with Pretty Cloud, she slept with no one but you, for she no longer loved her husband and would not share his blankets with him,” White Fire slowly explained. “When you slept with her, you made a child with her. That child is this man who has grown to love you as a father. You are my father, not the white man my mother married just after she left her Miami husband.”
For a moment all that Gray Feather could do was stare at White Fire, his lips parted, his eyes brimming with sudden tears.
Then he reached out and placed a gentle hand on his face. “My son?” he said, his voice breaking. “My dreams were real? They tried to tell me what was truly real, that you are my son?”
“Ay-uh, your son,” White Fire said. Then he felt warm and wonderful inside as Gray Feather enwrapped him with his powerful arms and held him close.
“My son,” Gray Feather said, over and over again.
They embraced for a long while. Then Gray Feather eased away from White Fire. “This is a day I shall cherish forever,” he said thickly. “I have for so long wanted a son. When you suddenly appeared in my life, I felt drawn to you. I puzzled over it for so long, then accepted it. I knew that you were meant to be a part of my life. I knew it. But I just did not know why.” He smiled. “Ah, what a wonder it is to have you here with me like this, to know that through my years of pining for your mother that something good came out of our short time together.”
White Fire sat down beside his father. Gray Feather turned and sat directly before him so that their eyes could meet.
“Tell me about your mother,” Gray Feather said thickly. “Who her husband is now? And what sort of life does she lead. For you see, after I left Kentucky and knew that I could not have her, I found another woman, yet none as fine and beautiful as my Pretty Cloud. Pretty Cloud has stayed in my heart forever. She has been a part of my dreams, oh, so often in my arms in my dreams, telling me how much she loved me.”
“It is good that you have held such good memories about her, as though she is a woman worthy of such memories, for in truth, she is an unlikable, deceitful woman,” White Fire said sullenly. “She has turned her back entirely on her Miami
people. She lives the life of a white woman. She is married again. She scarcely waited for my father’s body, or should I say the man I thought was my father, to get cold in the grave before she married another wealthy, affluent St. Louis man.”
“In your voice I hear much disrespect when you speak of your mother,” Gray Feather said, searching his eyes. “Tell me why.”
“My disrespect for her began even before I was born, it seems,” White Fire said, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. He could not get over how his mother had lied so often to him about how she had happened to be alone when she was found wandering in the forest by Samuel Dowling. She told White Fire that she was there because there had been an attack on her village. The lies! She knew so well the art of lying.
“After you left,” White Fire continued, “and it was discovered that my mother was with child, and that it could not have possibly been her husband’s since she no longer shared her blankets with him at night, her husband banished her from the tribe. It was then, only then, that everyone knew that she had wronged her husband, and how.”
“How did she meet the man she married after she left her village?” Gray Feather asked softly. “The white man who raised you as his son.”
“The man, who until today I thought was my father, was a trapper,” White Fire said. “He found Mother wandering alone in the forest. And as you know, she was beautiful and intriguing. She came up with some sort of lie that convinced him about why she was alone in the forest, without telling him the truth of her shameful banishment. He took her in and married her. When he discovered that she was pregnant, he thought the child was his.”
“And from that time on she turned her back totally on her heritage?” Gray Feather asked solemnly. “She lived the life of a white woman?”
“Ay-uh, as a white woman.” White Fire nodded. “From that time on she went by the white name Jania May and cast aside her Indian name as her Indian people had cast her aside. When I was born, with all my features Indian, she convinced her white husband that that happens, and he never doubted that he was the father to her son.”
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