by Anita Mills
Margaret wondered at her own bravery—or was it stupidity? She walked closer. “Please, let me help you. Tell me what happened.”
Wild Horse stared across the pond at some jays that flitted about, wishing he could be free again, like them. “White men take cattle through our lands…in places they do not belong.” He winced with pain. “They try to hang me. They track stray cattle…to where I was camped. They surrounded me, pointed weapons at me, and made me give up my own. They say I stole cattle. I did not. They strayed there.” He shivered and dipped the bandana into the water and again applied it to the burns. “It was just excuse for those men to hang an Indian and get away with it. They put a rope over limb of a tree and they forced me onto horse, put rope around my neck, take horse away.” He shivered with rage. “They laughed…while I hung there…slowly choking.”
“Dear God,” Margaret whispered, her heart filled with pity. Was he telling the truth? Or had he really stolen the cattle? Even if he had, was that any reason to string a man up then and there? How could any man do such a thing and watch and laugh? “How did you get away?” Why was she standing here talking to this man who was known to make trouble? Why was her fear fast leaving her?
“It was becoming dark. They stayed only a moment…then rode away. I felt my breath leaving me…felt myself dying, and my rage at those men gave me strength to wrestle my wrists free of ropes with which they tied me. I could not let myself die that way. Hanging means the spirit is cut off and cannot escape to follow Ekutsihimmiyo to land of freedom in afterlife. I reached up. I prayed to Maheo to give me strength to grasp rope above me and pull myself up to tree limb. I got one arm over it and with my other hand I loosened knot around my neck and got out of it. I fell to ground…do not know how long I was there. It was morning when I awoke.” He sat down in the grass and put his hands to his head as though it ached. “I was confused…could not think where to go. I let my horse go where he pleased, and he carried me back here where my people are.”
Evy ran off to chase a butterfly, her dress still flopping open in the back. Margaret felt lost in a torrent of confusion. “You need to tell the soldiers what happened,” she told him.
His dark eyes flashed when he looked up at her. “And you think they would believe me?” he asked with a sneer. “You have not been here long. You do not know how it is for my people. Those men have surely already told their side…that I stole cattle. In eyes of soldiers I am called bad…troublemaker.” He straightened with pride. “I leave this place because I hate it! This is not way for my people to live. We should be free to hunt where we like. This food they give us”—he spit—“it is bad. I go hunt for fresh meat, but I do not steal white man’s cattle!”
Margaret backed away again, realizing his anger was building. She called to Evy, and the girl came running. She knelt down to button her dress, but before she could finish, the child darted away and pointed her chubby little hand toward Wild Horse, touching his cheek with one finger. “I never touched an Indian before,” she said with a sweet grin.
To Margaret’s surprise, Wild Horse smiled, a handsome grin that erased all the hatred that had been in his eyes moments before. “I once had little girl like you. Her hair was not golden. It was dark like mine.” He took a piece of his long hair and held it out for her to see. “Still, she had pretty smile…like yours.”
Evy frowned. “Where is she? Can I play with her?”
A terrible sadness came into his eyes. “She and her mother are gone to place where there is always peace, where grass is always green and water is always cool and clear and there are many buffalo.”
“Will they come back?”
Margaret felt a deep ache in her heart at how he looked away, unable to answer right away. She came closer again, no longer afraid for Evy. “I think Wild Horse is telling you that his daughter and wife have gone to heaven, Evy.” Wild Horse looked up at her gratefully, and she saw tears in his eyes. Such tragedy in that look! She had not even considered these people might have deep feelings for their loved ones the same as whites.
“Oh!” Evy answered, her eyes growing brighter again. “They’re with Jesus then!”
Wild Horse smiled sadly. “We call Him Maheo.” He put a hand to his throat again and bent over, choking and gasping for breath.
Margaret moved to his side, alarmed. “You must be badly injured. You must tell someone about this, Wild Horse.”
He shook his head. “When white men who hanged me…discover I did not die they will tell even bigger lies. They will be afraid I will tell truth of what they did to me. They will…make sure soldiers believe I stole cattle. I must hide until they have…gone on north and I know they will cause no more trouble. My people will help me. They will hide me. I will stay here until tonight. Then I will…find my way into agency. That is last place soldiers will look for me. I have friends there…who will hide me in their homes until I am stronger and can get away again.”
“What about your horse? Won’t it be recognized?”
He took a moment to get his breath. “They will wash off paint…mix into herd of other horses.” He met her eyes. “You are only one who knows. I must trust you…but how can I? You are…white. You will feel it is your duty to tell your husband and soldiers I am here.”
Margaret thought of Edward again. Yes, he would most certainly consider it her duty to report what had happened. It seemed she might be able to help Wild Horse by telling his story for him, but instinct told her what soldiers would think of her talking to the man alone. They would probably laugh at her for believing him, and Edward would be furious that she had come alone to the pond and had subjected herself to what he would consider a terrible danger.
“I believe you’re telling the truth,” she told Wild Horse. “I won’t say anything.”
He drew in his breath, feeling his throat constricting. Was it swelling on the inside? Would he still die from this awful horror? Never would he forget the feeling of that rope tightening around his neck. It would haunt him forever. “How can I…trust you?”
Margaret stood up and folded her arms. “If you think you can’t, then you’ll just have to kill me, won’t you?”
He watched her blue eyes for several long, quiet seconds. He liked this white woman whose name he didn’t know. What was it about her that had compelled him to tell her his story in the first place? Why did he feel he could trust her?
She pressed Evy’s shoulders. “Evy, you must not tell your father or anyone about seeing Wild Horse here at the pond today. If the soldiers find out, they will hunt for him because they think he did something bad, but he did not, so we are going to keep his secret. Can you do that? Do you understand?”
The child nodded. “I won’t tell, Mommy. I can keep a secret.”
Margaret knelt beside her. “That’s a good girl. It’s the right thing to do, Evy. You aren’t doing anything bad, I promise. You’re just helping Wild Horse by not telling anyone he was here.” She looked at Wild Horse. “If I can find a way to help you, to prove those men had no right to try to hang you, I’ll do it.”
Wild Horse was astounded at her willingness to help. “It would not matter. I was not supposed to leave agency. I fear they will soon put me on iron horse that takes bad Indians to that faraway place where they say it is very hot with many insects…that place where many of my people die of homesickness and diseases from white men and from insects.”
Margaret frowned. She had read that some of the more notorious Apache leaders and now some of the Plains tribal leaders were being shipped off to prisons in Florida, where they could not be anywhere near their people and keep them stirred up. Was that what he meant? “Wild Horse, I’m not sure just what I can do, but I can at least find out what the soldiers are saying and let you know.”
His eyes showed his surprise. “I do not understand why you would do this.”
Because it is exactly the opposite of what my husband would say I should do, she thought. “I don’t know, except that I believe you and I a
m sorry for what you have suffered. No man should be put through such humiliation. I can’t help wonder what your life would be like right now if settlers and soldiers had never come here.”
He dabbed the bandana to the burns on his neck. “It would be very different…and my wife and child would be alive today.”
She wanted to know more about him, his beliefs, about the being he called Maheo, whom had compared to her own Christ. She realized that in order to bring their own religion to these people, they first needed to understand them, what they felt on the inside, what they believed. Edward did not feel that was necessary. What difference did it make what they believed? The important thing was that they learn the white man’s way.
She wished there were more time to talk to him. In only these few minutes she had come to feel comfortable around him, and she was full of questions. But if she stayed here any longer, someone might come looking for her, and Wild Horse would be discovered. “I have to get back or I’ll be missed. I’m not even supposed to come here, but whenever my husband leaves to go preach at the agency, I am free to do what I please. He won’t take us there.” She blushed in embarrassment at the meaning of the remark.
Wild Horse sighed deeply. “He does not wish for his woman and child to be near Cheyenne.” He shook his head. “Go now. Your people will say bad things about you if they find you helping me.”
She turned and picked up the blanket, soap, and towel she had brought with her. “I’m sorry, Wild Horse. I wish I could do more. I will pray for you.”
You are not like the others, he thought. He had met very few white women, none who showed no fear. And this one was so beautiful. He wanted to touch her, to smell her hair, but she was forbidden…and she already had a man. “Do not concern yourself with me. Soon I will be gone again.”
“But how can I get word to you of what the soldiers are saying?”
“My people will hear. They will tell me.”
Their eyes held in a strange attraction neither of them understood. She turned then to leave.
“Wait,” he called in a raspy voice.
Margaret looked back at him. “What is it?”
He studied her form beneath the plain cotton dress she wore. Her waist was slender; her breasts looked full and firm. He wondered how she might look with that golden hair undone, falling over her pale skin. “I do not know what you are called.”
What was the powerful force in his look? Margaret felt like a curious child who had found something new and wonderful, but it was unlikely she would ever see him again. What difference should it make to him what her name was? “Margaret,” she answered. “Most just call me Maggie.”
She hurried away then, and Wild Horse watched after her. “Maggie,” he repeated in a raspy voice. He closed his eyes and lay down in the grass, astounded at his thoughts. He hated whites, more now than ever; yet he was imagining what it might be like to have that pretty, forbidden white woman lying naked beside him.
Chapter Two
Reverend Edward Gibbons finished a very long prayer, after which he and his family sat down with Major Albert Doleman and his wife, Gloria, the daughter of an army general from Wisconsin. Margaret felt uncomfortable around the woman, who had an uppity air about her and who made it very obvious she hated it here at Fort Reno. She had come to visit her husband for a month or two and would go back to her mother in Wisconsin before winter. She hoped that her husband would be transferred to a “more bearable” location than Indian Territory, at which time she would gladly join him.
That is the difference between an army man and a preacher, she had once rudely remarked to Margaret. An army man does not expect his wife to always follow him, but a preacher’s wife…well, she must follow him wherever God calls him, mustn’t she? Kind of like Ruth in the Bible—‘whither thou goest,’ something like that. How sad for you, Maggie.
The woman had no regard for the Cheyenne at all. She refused to go near an Indian, seldom even came out of the fine, brick officers’ quarters where her husband lived. They had no children, and she had joked that if the major didn’t get himself stationed someplace respectable soon so that she could stay with him, there would never be any children.
“Your lovely little daughter looks sunburned,” the woman told Margaret aloud. She sat across the table from Margaret and Evy. She picked up a bowl of mashed potatoes and handed them to her husband as her lovely, green eyes fell on Margaret with a discerning gaze. “She is much too fair for this damnable climate, you know.”
“I quite agree,” Major Doleman added. The man put some of the potatoes on his plate and handed them on to Margaret, who wondered if Gloria Doleman had ever cooked a meal on her own. Every time the major invited them to join them for a meal, it was cooked by army cooks at the mess hall and carried to them in warming pans, then served by one of the privates as though the major and his wife were a king and queen.
Margaret felt a flush come to her cheeks, realizing the real reason Evy was sunburned. Edward would be furious if he knew she had been swimming naked at the pond. “I’m afraid Evy played outside too long today,” she answered the major and his wife.
Evy giggled, and Margaret prayed the child would remember to keep their secret. That was not an easy thing for a four-year-old, who did not fully understand why it mattered.
Margaret scooped some potatoes onto the child’s plate. “Eat up, Evy. You know your daddy doesn’t like any food left on your plate.” She gave her only a little so the child would not have to force down the food just to please Edward. She passed the potatoes to her husband, who was watching them both closely, a stern look in his dark eyes. She thought how handsome he was when he smiled, but that was an unusual sight. Edward was eleven years older than she, a man who took life much too seriously, as far as Margaret was concerned. When she was seventeen, she had been attracted not only to his looks but also to his determined quest to bring Christ to those who still did not know Him, his zeal to “save the world.”
Margaret had wanted to be the woman who supported him in that glorious vision, had felt a fire tear through her the first time he touched her. But soon after their marriage he had quickly doused the flames by chastising her for making noises of pleasure when he made love to her, which had embarrassed her to such devastation that it was several weeks before she could even bring herself to make love again. However, a child had already been conceived from that first humiliating experience, and Evelyn was born nine months later, a very difficult birth that had apparently done some kind of damage, as she had lost two babies since then.
“What is the mission of the troops we saw riding out of here earlier?” Edward asked the major, who sat at the other end of the table. He set down the potatoes and took a bowl of gravy from Margaret.
“They’re out scouting for that troublemaker, Wild Horse, again. He broke loose from Darlington, and settlers farther north have had some problems with raiding. We think Wild Horse might have something to do with it. There have even been reports of a couple of young girls being—” He hesitated, realizing there were women present. “Of course, there are a lot of other renegades out there,” he continued. “It’s so hard to pin down just which ones do what, so we end up having to punish all of them for what a few of them do. All I know is, things are usually more peaceful when Wild Horse is on the reservation where he belongs.”
Margaret could hardly eat. Rape? Somehow she knew Wild Horse had not done such a thing. Besides, he couldn’t have been that far away if he had already made it back to the agency today. “No one can actually say who did the terrible deeds then?” she asked cautiously.
“Only that it was Indians,” the major answered. “The girls who were violated are too distraught to identify them, so I’m told through telegrams.”
“There was more than one?”
Edward cast his wife a scowl. “Margaret, why are you asking so many questions about something that is not of your concern?”
She held his gaze, embarrassed he had chastised her in fron
t of the major and his wife. “I am concerned with justice,” she answered. “It doesn’t seem fair to blame a man for something just on hearsay.” She looked at the major. “I thought I heard something about Wild Horse usually escaping on his own, not with a war party. If there are several men involved in these raids, then maybe he had nothing to do with them. Maybe he just needs to get off the reservation once in a while and feel free.”
“Margaret!” Edward’s face reddened, and he looked at the major. “I am sorry for my wife’s forwardness,” he told the man. “It is not like her at all.”
Margaret held her own anger in check. She knew Edward was furious by the fact that he called her Margaret instead of Maggie.
“Oh, what is the harm in asking questions?” Gloria put in. “After all, women were violated. It’s natural to worry and wonder who might have been responsible, seeing as how she has to live so close to the reservation. That is why I stay inside most of the time. I don’t trust those savages one bit, but I do agree that there should be some way to be more fair about who gets accused of these things. I am sure that punishing a whole group of innocent Indians for what a few of them do can only keep the hard feelings stirred and cause the Indians to continue looking for revenge. It seems to be a never-ending circle.”
“If they were all dead or in real prisons instead of on reservations where they can get loose, maybe we could get on with settling the West,” the major put in.
Margaret was appalled at the man’s attitude, but she knew she had already said too much.
“Well, I hope I can get through to some of them,” Edward told the man. “I still believe they simply need to be Christianized. If I work with them long enough, they’ll come around. Each time I go to the reservation to preach, one or two more come to listen.”
Margaret quietly finished her meal while the men spoke, and she smiled inwardly when the major prattled about how his men would find “that renegade Wild Horse,” if they had to travel a hundred miles to track him down. He’s right here under your nose, you fool! she felt like shouting.
