Ride the Free Wind

by Rosanne Bittner

  Zeke smiled a little for the first time since Abbie’s attack. “Thank you, my brother.” He eased back up onto his horse in one smooth motion.

  “I will be gone about three weeks, Swift Arrow.”

  Swift Arrow nodded. “You will have to search for us. We will head north to the great flat river to join the Sioux for the Sun Dance.”

  “I’ll know where to find you.” Zeke looked across the village at his tipi, the one Abbie had worked so hard to help sew, the one that was painted with a white woman and a red man. He wanted to run to her, to sweep her up in his arms and run away with her, somewhere. Anywhere! But was there a place for them?

  “She does not want to say good-bye,” his mother had told him that morning. “Good-byes are too difficult. She said to tell you it would be too hard if she saw you again. But … she said she will hold the crying stones, and that her heart rides with you, and that in the night she will feel you beside her.”

  Zeke tore his eyes from the tipi and put his fingers to his brow as a sign of respect and honor to his brother. Swift Arrow put a hand to his brow in return. “Maheo ride with you and keep the wolves from your back,” Swift Arrow told Zeke.

  Zeke nodded to him and rode forward, whistling and swerving his mount to get the horses into motion again. He headed for Independence.

  Dancing Moon crawled to a creek and plunged in, letting the cool water soothe her back. The horrible sting from the whipping the Arapaho women had given her still penetrated the muscles of her back, seemingly to the bone, and she wondered if there would be ugly scars from it.

  “Damned white bitch!” she spat out. “This is her fault!”

  She was amazed that word of her attack on Abbie five days earlier had traveled so fast. But then the Indians had ways of spreading talk. With runners and smoke signals, they had done a fine job of making certain that Dancing Moon’s evil deed was known to all, and Dancing Moon had discovered she had no home. When she had arrived at what was once a friendly Arapaho camp where many men were normally eager to bed her, she had been met with knives and hatchets and told to leave, and before she could get away, the women had attacked her, stripping off her tunic and whipping her with quirts and branches until she could barely walk. Then they carried her far from the village and dumped her, throwing her dress at her and warning her never to return, either to their village or to any other Arapaho, Cheyenne, or Sioux village.

  But being in the wilderness alone was not easy, even for an Indian woman; for she had no weapon save the small knife she carried and nothing to eat except wild plants and berries. There were no friends now to help her and provide for her.

  She let the water rush over her wounds for several minutes before she heard the rumbling sound of horses’ hooves, the clanking of stirrups, and the squeak of saddles. She sat straight up and, grabbing up her tunic, ducked behind a large rock to watch several white men approach on horseback.

  Most of them were unkempt and slovenly. Some were dressed in buckskins that had been worn too long without being changed. Their faces were sprouting ugly beards and their postures on their mounts were slouching. The man in front wore a soldier’s blue coat, but it was not buttoned and was worn over a dirty cotton shirt. They all carried weapons, and Dancing Moon was afraid. But quickly her harlot’s mind began to race. She had heard tales about white men—that they hungered for Indian women. She was without food and without a warm blanket for the night. These men might be able to provide for her. Ducking down she slipped her tunic over her head, ignoring the pain when it touched her back. She breathed deeply for courage. She knew nothing about white men other than rumors. But men were men, and now she would learn about the white ones.

  She moved out from behind the rock just when the man in front wearing the blue coat rode by. He put up his hand. Rifles were immediately pulled from their resting places and hammers clicked as the men looked around, apparently expecting an attack.

  “There is only me!” Dancing Moon spoke up, surprising them with her English. She had learned it from the few other Indians who spoke it, and from Zeke. “I am alone.”

  The leader continued to scan the horizon. “Keep a sharp eye, men!” he ordered. He rode up closer to Dancing Moon. “Who are you, squaw? What is it you want?”

  “I need … food … blankets!” she replied. “And a horse!”

  The man laughed. “A horse!” He looked back at his men and they all laughed. Turning to her, he eyed her up and down, thinking to himself that in spite of her disheveled appearance, she had an animal beauty that stirred a man’s groin. He rode up closer and took a piece of her hair in his fingers. “Might be we could fix you up with some food and blankets, for the right payment, squaw woman. But a horse, ain’t no woman good enough to get a horse in return, especially not a squaw!”

  She opened her tunic and exposed her breasts. “Is this good enough for the food and blankets?”

  The man’s eyes grew watery with hunger and he dismounted, stepping close to her and touching a nipple with the back of his hand. “Could be.” He looked around again. “If you’re alone.”

  “I am alone. My people do not want me. See?” She turned and let her tunic fall more, exposing her back. The man grimaced.

  “Why’d they do that to you?”

  She laughed wickedly. “Because I am bad!” she replied, turning back to face him with hungry eyes.

  The man smiled and rubbed his groin. “That so?” His eyes dropped to her breasts again, and the other men rode up for a closer look, their rifles dropping lazily as they took in the sight of her. The leader yanked her dress down farther so that it fell to her feet, and his breathing quickened. “Well, now, squaw lady. Just how do you intend to … uh … pay for that food and them blankets, with your back the way it is? Won’t it hurt you to lay on it?” His hand lightly brushed her between the legs, and she felt the excitement she always felt when a man touched her. And this was a white man. There were many of them. She would find out what white men were like.

  “I will get on my hands and knees,” she said with a seductive smile. “You have never seen how the dogs do it? And the big horses?”

  The man grinned and actually blushed. The others began to dismount, shoving each other around to be next in line.

  “Come behind the rock,” she told the leader. “I will find out if you are like a dog … or like a horse!” She walked toward the rock, swaying her naked bottom provocatively. The leader turned to the others.

  “Keep a lookout and remember we’re volunteer soldiers and supposed to be guardin’ this territory against Mexicans.”

  “But we never got no official orders yet, sir. We ain’t even been to see Colonel Kearny yet.”

  “We’re soldiers, Malcolm!”

  “Well, sir, what I mean is, we could all take a turn at her, couldn’t we? Ain’t nobody gonna know.”

  “Of course we can all take a turn. We’d have done it even if she wasn’t willin’. Everybody knows that’s all a squaw is good for! This one is gonna earn her keep. We’ll have us a good time before we get on with the … uh … war.”

  The others laughed. “Maybe we’ll find us some more women on them big rancheros,” one of them spoke up. “Some dark-eyed rich bitch who’s been savin’ herself for some lover.”

  “Maybe so,” the leader replied. “Right now we got us a loose squaw who needs food and blankets. We’ll supply her with her … needs.”

  He walked behind the rock, where Dancing Moon waited on hands and knees. She tossed her thick, black mane of hair to look back at him, and she smiled. The sergeant grinned, his blood racing with excitement at this pleasant diversion from his journey toward Fort Leavenworth to volunteer for the Mexican war.

  The men sat around the campfire, exchanging stories about their experiences with the wild, hot-blooded squaw who had “purchased” her supplies. Dancing Moon was bathing. She was sore but deliciously satisfied, and now she sauntered toward them to reap her reward, walking brazenly into the circle of white men
and bending seductively over the fire to tear off a piece of roast rabbit.

  “I have earned my food and blankets?” she asked, turning to the leader. The men all laughed.

  “You’ve earned it,” the leader answered. “By the way, my name is Baker. Claude Baker. What’s yours?”

  “I am called Dancing Moon. I am Arapaho.” She bit into the meat.

  Baker eyed her up and down. “Well, now, Dancin’ Moon, got any more hot-blooded squaws where you come from?”

  She looked around at them. “Maybe.”

  “Some say all squaw women is eager to get raped by white men,” another put in. “That so, Dancing Moon?”

  She laughed wickedly. “That is for you to find out!” she replied, hating all her Indian women friends now for turning her out. “But I can tell you something that is true, something your bluecoat leaders might want to know, something that could make you big men with your leaders!”

  Baker threw away a bone and wiped his hands on his pants. “What’s that, Dancin’ Moon?”

  She wiped her own lips with the back of her hand and moved closer to him, gently rubbing his inner thighs with one hand while still holding the rabbit leg in the other. “It will cost you a horse,” she told him. “I must have a horse so that I can ride south to the Apache.”

  The man shook his head. “I don’t know, Dancin’ Moon. A horse is pretty valuable.”

  She drew back. “Then I will not tell you what I know!” She stood up and walked away.

  “Wait!” Baker yelled. She whirled to face him. “Tell us and then we’ll decide if it’s worth a horse.”

  She took another bite of rabbit. “Bring me the horse first so I can see it.”

  Claude motioned and one of his men jumped up, walked into the darkness, and returned with a mount. Dancing Moon looked the animal over, checked its legs and its teeth. She looked at Baker. “And the blankets and food?”

  “You’ll get those no matter what.”

  She nodded and stepped closer to him. “There is a white woman living among the Cheyenne,” she told him. “A captive slave.”

  Baker frowned, and the other men looked at each other in disbelief.

  “I ain’t heard of no white woman bein’ captured by the Cheyenne,” Baker told her.

  “No one would have known. This one was found alone at her wagon by the Cheyenne. Her family had all died. They took her and raped her and made her a slave. One of them married her. Now she has been with them a while and she has become accustomed to them and is ashamed to come back to the white world for fear the whites would look down on her. Someone should go there and take her away. She does not belong there.” She looked around at their astonished faces and smiled. “This is good enough to get me a horse?”

  Baker scratched his head. “What tribe is she with? Where is she now?”

  “It is hard to say with the Cheyenne. It is a big country. The last I knew, she was with them where the Smoky Hill and the Republican Rivers come together. It is possible they go north now for the Sun Dance with the Sioux. It would be hard to find them, but it would be worth it. Find them and see for yourself. Then tell your leaders to take soldiers there to take her away!”

  Baker looked at his men, then back to Dancing Moon. “I think you just earned yourself a horse, squaw woman. But you’ll not leave us until mornin’, and anybody who feels a need to have another go at you can do it, understand?”

  She grinned, thinking of the trouble Abbie and the Cheyenne would have if soldiers came for her.

  “I understand,” she replied. “Do what you wish. I just want the horse and the blankets. I will find my own way to the Apache!”

  Baker nodded. “Then get down on your hands and knees, squaw,” he told her.

  “I want to eat more first.”

  He knocked the rabbit leg from her hand. “You’ll eat when I say you can eat if you want that horse! Get down like I told you!”

  She glared at him, but knew she had to obey. It was her only way out. She knelt down on her hands and knees and he moved behind her, pushing her tunic up to her waist. The others watched. There would be little sleep for Dancing Moon this night, but she did not mind so much. She would have a horse.

  Nine

  When Zeke reached Independence, he found it hard to believe it had been only a year since he was there last. The city had swelled with emigrants, and this year there appeared to be hundreds more preparing to head west than there had been the year before. Now he knew the Indians’ tales of more white-topped wagons were true, and he also knew what the consequences could be.

  From the stockyards where he sold his Appaloosas to the heart of the city, emigrants and townspeople alike talked of nothing but the war with Mexico. The town swarmed with travelers, merchants, soldiers, and scouts; and the air was static with excitement. There was constant movement everywhere. The commotion was irritating to Zeke, who already missed the peace of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains … and Abbie.

  Abbie! He ached to hold her, and dreaded what she might tell him when he returned. Perhaps when the child turned into a woman, she would feel she had made a mistake in marrying him. His thoughts were full of her, and his nights were miserable. If not for Dancing Moon, Abbie would be with him now. He would be taking her into the shops and buying her things. He had planned to rent a nice room for her … if he could find an inn that allowed Indians. He had wanted to give her a break from the difficult life he had forced upon her when he took her to his people. But she was not with him, and she had come close to dying and might even change her mind about staying with him—all because of Dancing Moon! Somehow Dancing Moon must pay! He would see to it!

  A battalion of bluecoat soldiers entered one end of town just as Zeke approached the bank where he intended to take out his savings. People were beginning to cheer, and Zeke stopped to watch curiously. He took his corncob pipe from the parfleche that he carried over his shoulder. Slowly, he stuffed it with tobacco as the battalion came closer and more people gathered around him to see the soldiers.

  “We’re with you, Kearny!” someone behind him shouted. “Go get the Mexican devils and clean them out of Santa Fe!”

  “Take California while you’re at it!” a woman shouted.

  “Might as well get rid of a few redskins along the way!” another man yelled. Several people nearby laughed, and bristling with anger, Zeke turned to glance at the man who had made the remark. The man paled at the dark, threatening look in Zeke’s eyes and quickly darted away, melting into the crowd. Zeke’s eyes quickly scanned the faces of the others who had been laughing, and their smiles faded as they feigned casual talk and averted Zeke’s glare.

  Zeke turned his eyes back to the street as the crowd pushed and shoved around him. There were cries of “Manifest Destiny,” “Kill the Mexicans,” and remarks supportive of the soldiers as the huge battalion passed directly in front of them.

  Dust rose up in great clouds, swords clattered, hooves rumbled, and horses snorted. There were the sounds of squeaking leather and shouted orders; and the apparent leader, who appeared to Zeke to have an honest face for a white man, sat straight and tall in his saddle, a handsome man, with true eyes and a prominent, straight nose.

  Catching a whiff of cheap perfume, Zeke turned to see a painted woman standing beside him. She wore a purple satin dress, and her eyelids were just as purple. Her hair was bright red and huge earrings dangled from her lobes, reaching almost to her shoulders. She smiled fetchingly at Zeke when he looked down at her; then she ran her green eyes up and down his body for a quick inventory. The red on her lips exaggerated their width, and the powder on her face only accented the lines that framed her eyes and lips, making her look older than Zeke guessed she really was, for her eyes and body looked younger.

  “That’s Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny,” she told Zeke, nodding to the leader of the soldiers. Zeke looked back at the bluecoats. “Him and his men are headed for Santa Fe, to win the war for the United States and take over Mexican Territ
ory. All them men with him are mostly volunteers, men hungry for any kind of action.” She laughed lightly. “I could give them some action right here!”

  Zeke turned his eyes to the woman again, taking in her full and generously exposed bosom. “That so?” he asked. Their eyes held for a moment and he puffed at his pipe, turning back to watch the soldiers. “So, there’s really a war going on.”

  She reached over and ran a hand across his hips. “Hell, yes! Where have you been, Indian?”

  “Out on the plains,” he said in a distant voice. “With people who don’t know and don’t care about what’s going on in the white man’s world.”

  She frowned. “You sure don’t talk like no Indian.”

  He looked down at her again. “Neither did my pa,” he replied.

  She threw back her head and laughed, rubbing at his hips again. “I like you, mister! You … uh … you got a squaw here with you?”

  His eyes darkened, and he looked back at the soldiers. “No,” he answered. She stood quietly beside him, still rubbing his hips, but he hardly noticed, for his mind was full of the ominous warning the battalion of soldiers presented. Most of the mounted men did not even wear uniforms. They were general riffraff—the worst kind of men to charge with handling Indians, which is what he was certain these men would end up doing once they were through with the Mexicans. An army of greedy white men who hated Indians would be a grave threat indeed.

  The procession seemed endless, as eight companies of mounted volunteers passed through. One blond-headed young man who rode by looked vaguely familiar to Zeke, but the dust was too thick to tell for certain. The young man had also noticed Zeke, and their eyes had held for a brief moment. But the soldier could not get out of formation, and he rode on. Two artillery companies followed the mounted soldiers, and a group of rangers from St. Louis brought up the rear of the huge army led by Colonel Kearny.