Ride the Free Wind

by Rosanne Bittner

  “I would have been frightened to death if someone had predicted this in my future,” she replied. Their eyes held and he rubbed a big hand over her stomach, bringing the warm desire that his familiar touch always created in her soul. She put her head on his shoulder and he kissed her hair.

  “I’ll be needing your love and the strength it gives me over these next few years, Abbie girl,” he told her softly.

  “I know,” she replied, moving an arm around his waist.

  He continued to rub a hand over her stomach, while his horse plodded along slowly, so well trained it needed no guidance.

  “I’ll build you that house next spring, Abbie. I promise.”

  “It doesn’t matter, as long as I have this strong shoulder to lean on and these arms around me. I’m never afraid of anything when I’m with you.”

  She expected his usual laughter and teasing when she made such remarks, but he only hugged her tightly against him as though to protect her from something. “I love you, Abbie,” he said in a strained voice. “Why don’t you ask Tall Grass Woman to keep the children for a while? I want to go back to the tipi and be alone with you.”

  She breathed in the sweet scent of him and felt the hard muscles of his arms tense from his sudden need. Yes, she would have Tall Grass Woman keep the children. For Cheyenne Zeke wanted her and she wanted him. She moved her lips close to his ear.

  “Ne-mehotatse,” she said softly. The Cheyenne word for “I love you” came easily to her now.

  Night fires burned brightly, and Danny sat with Zeke, Abbie, and Swift Arrow, enjoying a royal feast put on in his honor and watching the wild chanting and dancing of the warrior societies, while drums filled the night air with a sound that would have sent chills through the blood of any white person who did not understand what was taking place.

  Swift Arrow was determined to impress Cheyenne Zeke’s white brother. Wrestling matches, war games, and horsemanship had been presented for the bluecoat’s entertainment all that day. Swift Arrow himself performed superbly in the shooting arrows contest, getting six arrows into the air before the first fell to the ground, astounding everyone with his speed.

  Danny was impressed with the precision of the Cheyenne horsemanship. The warriors pranced their mounts in near regimental order, making quick turns, galloping and halting with amazing quickness, even doing acrobatic stunts on their animals, and making mock charges, during which they knocked one another off their mounts using only their arms or blunt sticks so that no one would actually be injured.

  The ability of the Cheyenne with weapons and in riding, combined with tales of what the warriors endured at the Sun Dance ritual, made Danny wonder just how well soldiers would fare against these Plainsmen, who were such expert fighters and who knew no fear of pain or death. Zeke himself bore the scars of the Sun Dance, and it was becoming more and more apparent to Danny that even though they shared the same white father, Cheyenne Zeke recognized little of his own white blood.

  It was that same night that Danny was allowed to see, for the first time, his brother’s skill with the big blade that he carried. But it was not in a contest that Zeke used the knife. The situation was much graver than that, for when a delegation of Shoshoni and a few Crow came to their camp to request an apology for the murder of the two Shoshoni scouts, the Cheyenne only sneered at them. After some argument, one of the Crow noticed Abbie and began to laugh, saying the Cheyenne must be soft to allow a white woman to live among them, and wanting to know who was the man who wore skirts who would marry a silly white woman.

  Danny was not certain what was going on, for they all spoke in their own tongues and through sign language, understanding each other but confusing Danny, except that Danny saw how the Crow Indian warrior sneered at Abbie. The warrior’s manner indicated he was insulting her, and Danny knew he was right when Swift Arrow and Zeke both got to their feet, their bodies tense and their eyes blazing, while several Cheyenne warriors began to congregate restlessly around the intruders.

  “I am the white woman’s husband!” Zeke told the Crow flatly, hatred for his old enemy in his eyes. He was taller and broader than the Crow, and his dark eyes were menacing as he stepped closer to him. “Do I look like I wear skirts?”

  The Crow grinned haughtily, looking Zeke up and down and summing up the odds against him.

  “That is my brother!” Red Eagle spoke up to the Crow. “He is a half-blood Cheyenne, and a good warrior!” He laughed then, too drunk to realize that to call Zeke a half-breed in front of the Crow was to invite trouble, for the Crow would think a half-breed was not a real man.

  “Voxpas!” the Crow sneered, using the Cheyenne word for “white belly,” an insulting term for half-breeds. “Your woman no good! Only bad white women sleep with Cheyenne dogs!”

  Zeke’s knife was out more quickly than the eye could discern. It almost instantaneously ripped upward through the Crow’s vest, slitting all its ties, while Zeke grabbed the Crow’s hair with his free hand and jerked hard. The hair had been tied to one side and hung in front of the Crow man’s shoulder, and as Zeke’s knife came up through the vest, Zeke finished his amazingly rapid and unexpected slash with a swift sweep through the Crow’s mane, cutting it off in one chunk.

  Danny gasped at the speed of Zeke’s movement. He had jumped to his feet when Zeke first whipped out the knife. Now, he took Abbie’s arm and pulled her back out of the way of danger, picking up Little Rock in his free arm while Abbie hung on to Blue Sky and watched her husband steadily. Danny was surprised to notice that Abbie did not appear extremely upset over the incident; he did not realize Abigail Monroe had seen her husband use his knife before, and if the fight was to be with the blade, she was not afraid for him.

  The Crow stood staring wide-eyed at Zeke, who stepped back, grinning and holding a good share of the Crow’s hair in his left hand. Swift Arrow chuckled with delight and folded his arms, stepping haughtily in a circle around the visiting Crow and Shoshoni, enjoying the look of horror and shame on the face of the one who had insulted Zeke and Abbie.

  “Do you see the scar on my brother’s face?” he asked, stepping closer to one of the other Crow. He put a finger to his own left cheek and traced it downward, and Danny knew he must be talking about Zeke’s scar and his encounter with the Crow who had put it there. “A Crow warrior gave my half-blood brother that scar!” Swift Arrow continued. “And that Crow man’s heart and guts saw the sunshine that day!” He chuckled again, and Red Eagle let out a war cry at the remark, lifting his flask of whiskey and taking another drink. They were playing a good joke on the shocked and shamed Crow man.

  Black Elk grinned proudly, while Zeke stuffed the Crow’s hair into his belt and the man from whom he had taken it trembled with rage and shame. He reached hesitantly for his own knife, but stopped when Red Eagle called out to him.

  “Hey, stupid Crow! That is Cheyenne Zeke! Lone Eagle!”

  The Crow gripped the handle of his knife, but did not remove it from its sheath when he heard the name. Danny watched cautiously, noticing with some pride how hesitant the Crow became at the mention of Zeke’s name.

  “You should apologize to my half-blood brother!” Swift Arrow told the Crow. “Or your own heart will see the sunrise! My brother is a mighty Cheyenne warrior, and beneath his wife’s white skin there lies a Cheyenne heart also. You will apologize to them both, or none of you will leave our camp alive!”

  The Crow whipped out his knife then, and Swift Arrow stepped back, looking excitedly at Zeke, who crouched for battle.

  “I will apologize, Cheyenne Zeke.” The Crow sneered. “The Crow will not again call you white belly, or insult your woman. But you have shamed me, and I must avenge my shame!”

  “Fool!” one of his Crow friends growled. He gestured toward Zeke, and Danny understood the gist of the conversation. “That is Cheyenne Zeke. No man goes against that one with a knife!”

  The Crow gripped his blade nervously, sweat breaking out on his body, making his skin glisten in t
he firelight.

  “It does not matter!” he glowered. He lunged at Zeke, and everyone stepped back farther, as Zeke arched backward, avoiding the Crow’s blade. Zeke slashed back at him in a swift succession of swipes that kept the Crow man backing up until he tripped over a log and fell onto his back. Zeke immediately kicked at the Crow’s knife hand, knocking the blade away and coming down on the Crow with his knee in the man’s stomach and his blade at the Crow’s throat.

  “Zeke, don’t!” Danny yelled out.

  Zeke hesitated. If he killed the Crow, there would be a ruckus that could destroy the entire treaty gathering, and this treaty was all-important to the Cheyenne. Already hard feelings ran high over the two dead Shoshoni scouts and the handling of the Sioux warrior who had ridden out earlier in the day to count coup on the Shoshoni.

  The Crow man stared wide-eyed at Zeke, waiting for the blade to slit his throat. Instead, Zeke moved it slowly across his opponent’s throat, without cutting him, and deftly nicked the Crow’s ear so that it bled. Then he rose, and everyone gasped with surprise when, in a flash, he tossed the knife so that it stuck fast in the ground, so close to the Crow man’s head that it pierced his headband and pinned the man to the earth.

  “I accept your apology!” Zeke glowered. “You are lucky that a soldier is present, and that there is a treaty to be settled! I do not take insults lightly, especially when they are made about my woman!”

  The sudden talk was a mixture of clipped Cheyenne and Crow, but Danny could guess at the content. He glanced at Abbie again; she watched calmly. Zeke bent down and jerked the knife from the ground, ramming it into its sheath and stepping back.

  “The Shoshoni also deserve an apology!” one of the Shoshoni warriors present said. “Let the Cheyenne come to our camp and apologize to the families of the scouts they killed!”

  Zeke looked at Swift Arrow, who nodded with a proud grin. “Let it not be said that the Crow and Shoshoni are trying harder than the Cheyenne to bring peace,” he replied, obviously considering it all a joke. “The Cheyenne will come,” he agreed. “Soon we will show you how good the Cheyenne can be at apologizing. But I will tell you that the scouts were killed because the Cheyenne were angry that the Shoshoni have so many rifles.”

  The Shoshoni man grinned. “There are ways, my Cheyenne friend, to get the rifles. Make the Great White Father give you rifles as part of the peace pact. The Shoshoni make peace with the white men … get rifles in return.”

  Their eyes held, and Swift Arrow realized to his chagrin that perhaps there were things the Shoshoni could teach the Cheyenne about ways to get rifles, and perhaps other things the Shoshoni could tell them about how to deal with the Great White Father. The Shoshoni man nodded, and both knew that the time was soon coming when enemy tribes must stop their fighting and join together in saving the land and the buffalo from being stolen from them.

  “Take your Crow friend and leave us,” Swift Arrow told the Shoshoni warrior. “We will wait and see what the Great White Father wants of us, and then the Cheyenne and the Sioux and the Shoshoni will talk. We will bring a peace offering to your camp.”

  The Shoshoni man nodded. And the Crow man, who had slowly gotten to his feet, glowered at all of them; then he turned and left, secretly glad to still be alive. He had heard of this Cheyenne Zeke, and guessed he was one of the few men who had faced the half-breed with a knife and lived to tell about it.

  The next day brought the arrival of Agent Fitzpatrick, Superintendent D. D. Mitchell, and a detachment of dragoons, as well as a Col. Samuel Cooper, Office of Adjustment; A. B. Chambers, Editor; and B. Gatz Brown, a reporter for the St. Louis Missouri Republican. The new arrivals were greeted by representative groups from the tribes, and Abbie’s heart was proud when Danny told them the editor and reporter had both remarked that of all the tribes present, the Cheyenne appeared the cleanest and most proud. They had used the words “stout, bold, and athletic” in their conversations, he said. The governmental representatives, as well as the newly arrived soldiers, were also more impressed with the Cheyenne than with the other tribes; knowing this made the Cheyenne more sure of themselves and more certain that the government would give them special consideration.

  The Council was to be held the next day, but because the swelling numbers of Indians created a need for more grazing land and for water, the treaty site was shifted thirty-five miles south of the fort to Horse Creek. Three days were spent in a grand march to the creek, thousands of horses, travois, warriors, women, and little children moving together—friends and enemies, walking into destiny.

  During the march, Jim Bridger made it a point to seek out Zeke and Abbie. He was amazed that the young girl, who had stayed at his fort on the Green River six winters earlier to recover from a Crow arrow wound, was still alive and well and happy, living among the Cheyenne Indians. He had not truly believed such an arrangement could work and had had many doubts in that spring of 1846 when Cheyenne Zeke had come back to take her to his people down on the Arkansas.

  Zeke and Abbie both were glad to see the famous trapper-trader again, for he brought back the memory of their first spring together as man and wife. And as they rode with Bridger, Abbie was more certain than ever that this life had been her destiny—God’s plan for her. She was a part of something few whites would be able to tell their grandchildren about, and she could no longer imagine living the calm, quiet life of a Tennessee farmer’s wife.

  The original date for the great council—the first of September—was moved to the eighth, to allow time for the final arrival of all those who were coming to get their camps settled again. On the sixth, one thousand Sioux warriors rode to the Commissioner’s tent in a column, four abreast, carrying an old American flag they claimed had been given them by William Clark on his first exploration of the West. Later that same day, hundreds of Cheyenne warriors also rode to the tent to officially present themselves as participants in the treaty and to receive gifts of tobacco and vermilion.

  It was a time of grand excitement and for new friendships among the tribes. On the seventh of September the Oglala Sioux hosted the Cheyenne and Arapaho to a dog feast and a dance that lasted all night long.

  Finally, on the eighth, the firing of cannon announced that formal talks were to begin. All chiefs assembled at the commissioner’s tent and smoked the peace pipe, and the commissioner stood and made his speech to them through an interpreter.

  Swift Arrow listened haughtily, certain that since the commissioner and the soldiers had seen the skill and strength of the Cheyenne, they would keep whatever promises they made and would honor this treaty they offered. The commissioner explained that the Great White Father wanted only safety for his people—safety from raiding and looting, especially along the trade routes and the Great Medicine Road. His government wanted the right to build forts in Indian territory, places where soldiers could stay while they protected the Great White Father’s people. And most of all, the Great White Father wanted to define Indian territory and to give the Plainsmen definite boundaries within which they could ride freely and hunt buffalo without fear of being shot at and harassed.

  In return for the loss of buffalo due to the loss of hunting territory, the Great White Father would pay the Cheyenne and Sioux fifty thousand dollars a year for the next fifty years. This, the Cheyenne considered, was an overwhelming sum of money, but Zeke knew that even if it was paid, which he strongly doubted would ever come about, it would not be much once it was divided up among all the Cheyenne. The underlying threat of what the commissioner was saying worried his heart, for the government was now setting boundaries for the redmen—something that had not been done before—giving the Cheyenne a territory to roam that was much smaller than the borderless hunting grounds they had always been accustomed to and was likely to be reduced as more settlers filled the Western lands. But the Cheyenne, in particular, were pleased, certain that the Great White Father would keep his word and oblivious to the numbers of whites there were in the East and of how
many more might still come into their lands.

  Tribal representatives were appointed to be the official signers of the treaty once it was decided it would be accepted, and the Cheyenne spokesman was Wan-ne-sah-ta, Who-Walks-With-His-Toes-Turned-Out, now the Keeper of the Medicine Arrows.

  The new boundaries for the Cheyenne were explained: from Red Buttes (Kansas Territory) north to the North Platte River, then west to the main range of the Rockies, south to the headwaters of the Arkansas, east along the Arkansas River to the Santa Fe Trail, then in a northwest curve back up toward the fork of the North and South Platte Rivers and west along the North Platte to Red Buttes, a basically square piece of land with a kind of tail at the southeast corner.

  It was a big piece of land—good buffalo land, with access to both the Platte Rivers and to the Arkansas River—all prime Cheyenne territory. It sounded like a reasonable offer, and Agent Fitzpatrick urged the bands to counsel among themselves and to seriously consider the offer they had been made. The Plainsmen broke up the meeting, telling the commissioner they had much to think about and that they would discuss the offer in council. It did not occur to them that no mention was made of what would happen to them if they happened to stray outside the treaty boundaries to hunt or fish.

  For the next nine days they counciled, arguing the pros and cons of the offer. There was more feasting and entertaining among the tribes, and on one occasion the Cheyenne warriors, stripped and painted for battle and armed with guns, lances, bows, and arrows, gave another impressive exhibition of horsemanship and war maneuvers, carrying out their militarylike quick turns and charges and again leaving the white onlookers thoroughly impressed and entertained. They concluded the show with songs and coup counting, and never before and never again would there be such a gathering and such feasting and entertaining among the red men of the high plains.