Cherished Moments

by Anita Mills

  “I think I do.”

  It was in that moment that Wild Horse realized he had allowed his love and concern for Evy get in the way of his usual alertness. He had not heard the horses in the distance, and because they were downwind of him, he had not smelled them. Now, suddenly, they appeared from out of the trees—soldiers, still searching. They spotted him carrying Evy. He dared not turn and run. Evy could get hurt. He stopped still, clinging to the girl in his left arm, holding his rifle in his right hand.

  “Soldiers! It’s soldiers, Wild Horse!” In all innocence, Evy had told the men farther ahead in the clearing who he was. “Run, Wild Horse! Run!” An excited Evy began twisting and wiggling to get away from him so that he could run away.

  “Hey! What the hell are you doing with that poor little girl!” one of the soldiers shouted.

  Evy, confused and afraid for Wild Horse, began crying. Wild Horse’s eyes, which only a moment before had been filled with love and joy, were now dark slits of hatred. He set Evy down. “Get out of the way, Evy.”

  She let the blanket fall away from her, and she clung to his leg. “No! They’ll hurt you, Wild Horse.”

  “Go!” he shouted, startling her with the anger and firmness of his voice. “Go to the soldiers!” he ordered her. She began crying harder, and she turned away, walking toward the soldiers, her little shoulders jerking with her sobs. Wild Horse held up his rifle. I am not going to that place far away, he promised himself. He knew instinctively these men were not going to listen to anything he had to say. They already thought the worst. It was either turn and run and be shot or go to prison in Florida or perhaps stand and fight. All three choices meant death, and he could not think of a better way to die than to face these men and die in battle.

  “I bring the little girl back to you!” he shouted. “Now I go away!”

  The soldiers, four of them, had already ridden closer, all of them aiming pistols at him. “You’re not going anywhere, you heathen bastard!” one of them answered. “We were looking for you long before you abducted that poor little girl! What did you do to her, you filthy Indian? Did you figure to sneak off with your little white captive and then wait for her to grow up so you could make a woman of her?”

  Wild Horse slowly lowered his rifle. “I found her lost and alone. I was bringing her back.”

  “Sure you were,” another put in. “Just doin’ your good deed for the day, were you? You know we’ve been lookin’ for you, so why would you risk bein’ caught just to help a little white girl? You had plans of sneaking off with her, didn’t you? You figured that would be a good revenge. You just didn’t figure on getting caught.”

  “If I was going to steal her, why would I still be so close to fort? And why do I not have my horse and supplies with me?”

  They all kept their pistols leveled. “He’s got a point there, Johnny,” another spoke up.

  “He’s full of bullshit!” the one called Johnny answered. “Put that rifle down, Wild Horse. You’re comin’ with us. You’ve got some explainin’ to do, and a little trip to make. Some of your buddies are waitin’ for you down in Florida.”

  Wild Horse kept a tight grip on his rifle. “I am not going to that place.”

  One of the soldiers chuckled. “Looks like you don’t have much choice, Indian.”

  Wild Horse eyed them all with a steely glare. He watched a couple of them swallow—knew they were afraid. He was not afraid at all. For this one moment he could be a warrior again. It was a good day to die, for he knew Evy was safe. “I do have a choice,” he answered. He glanced toward Evy to make sure she was out of the way. “Good-bye, sweet child. Be good to your mother.”

  Evy nodded, staring in wonder, not sure what to expect. Suddenly Wild Horse raised his rifle and fired. One soldier screamed out and fell from his horse. A volley of shots poured forth then from the pistols of the other three soldiers. Evy gasped in fear when bloody holes appeared all over Wild Horse. His body lurched backward, but still he stayed on his feet. He raised his rifle again. More shots rang out, and finally he stumbled backward and fell to the ground.

  “Wild Horse!” Evy whimpered. She started to run to him, but quickly one of the soldiers was off his horse and had hold of her.

  “You stay away from there, little girl. It ain’t nothin’ for you to see.”

  “Let me go! Let me go!” Evy struggled against him. “He’s my friend!”

  He kept hold of her in one arm and managed to get onto his horse. “Yeah, well, maybe that’s what he told you, but he was lyin’, kid. Believe me, we’re all better off with him dead.”

  Evy continued to scream and cry and fight the man. She had to go to Wild Horse and tell him she loved him before he went to heaven, but the soldier would not let her go back. She vowed in that moment to always keep her promise to never forget Wild Horse, or the stories he told her, or the way it felt to be held in his arms and know that while there, nothing could hurt her.

  “Mrs. Gibbons, Private Johnny Kinzale here. We’ve got your girl.”

  Margaret and Edward were already on the porch of their cabin, having heard the sound of several horses riding up in the early morning. Kinzale had barely finished his statement before Margaret was at his side, grasping Evy out of his arms and hugging her close, weeping with relief. She had been too absorbed in the sight of her little girl to notice that another soldier dragged a travois behind his horse. On it lay a body.

  “Evy, thank God!” Margaret wept. “Oh, Evy, where did you go? Why did you go off alone? What happened to you?”

  Evy hugged her around the neck, and Edward embraced them both.

  “I went to find Wild Horse,” the child answered. “I was scared the soldiers would find him. I wanted to tell him to get away, but I got lost!”

  “Wild Horse! Why on earth would you want to find him?” Edward asked. He stroked her hair.

  “Because he’s my friend,” she answered.

  “Evy, you’ve got to stop these fantasies about that man.”

  “They are not fantasies,” Margaret told her husband. She kissed Evy’s cheek. “Wild Horse is her friend.”

  “What!”

  “You sure about that, ma’am?” Johnny Kinzale asked her. “We found Wild Horse carrying her. Looked to us like she was trying to get away from him. We figured—”

  “Wild Horse found me, Mommy!” Evy interrupted. “He saved me from the dark. He put a blanket on me and kept the monsters away till it was daytime again.”

  Margaret felt a torrent of emotions rush through her. What had the soldier been saying? They found her with Wild Horse? Where was he now? It was then Evy started crying again.

  “They killed him, Mommy! The bad soldiers killed Wild Horse!”

  A horrible coldness gripped Margaret’s heart. “What?”

  “I wasn’t trying to get away because I was scared of Wild Horse, Mommy. I was scared of the soldiers! I tried to get away so Wild Horse could run!”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and Margaret looked up at Kinzale. “What happened?”

  “We had to shoot him, ma’am. I don’t know what the hell is goin’ on here with you and your daughter, or if maybe Wild Horse really was just bringin’ her back. All I know is he leveled his rifle at us and started shootin’. He injured one of my men. It was obvious he aimed to kill us all, so we had to shoot back. The damned Indian is full of bulletholes, but he’s still alive.” He looked behind him. “Back there on the travois.”

  “My God!” Margaret groaned. She handed Evy to Edward and ran to the last soldier’s horse, kneeling beside a bleeding, shivering Wild Horse. “No! Wild Horse!” She hardly knew where to touch him. In spite of his dark skin, he was obviously terribly pale, and his eyes were glazed. blood covered the blanket that had been put over him. Margaret carefully took hold of his hand and bent his arm up so that she could rest the back of his hand against her cheek. “Oh, Wild Horse, what have you done?”

  He swallowed, giving her hand a weak squeeze. “It is…best…this wa
y.” His whole body trembled, and he gasped in pain. “Maggie,” he groaned.

  Edward had followed his wife to Wild Horse’s side. He was astonished at the gentle way in which the man spoke her name.

  “I’m so sorry, Wild Horse,” Margaret sobbed. “If not for me and Evy, you might be gone now. Free!”

  “But I am…free now. I go to…be with my Little Eagle…Singing…Bird…and with Rain Woman. I am truly happy now. I go to hunt…ride free…in land where…there are many buffalo. It is…a good place.”

  “Wild Horse—”

  His dark eyes gazed upon her face for one last time. “So…beautiful. My…Maggie.”

  Margaret felt his hand weaken as he took one last, shuddering breath. She moaned his name once more, resting her face against his shoulder then, realizing that for the rest of her life her regret would not be that she had loved this man while belonging to another. It would be that she had refused him the one thing he had wanted most, the one thing she had wanted most. Now he would never hold her again, never touch her lips, never whisper her name.

  A confused Edward touched her shoulders. “Come away from here, Maggie. You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”

  “I don’t care!” she shouted. She shook him off, then gently closed Wild Horse’s eyes. She touched his face lovingly, then rose, watching him a moment longer before looking up at Johnny Kinzale. “You made a terrible mistake! Wild Horse was a good man. My daughter and I knew him well. He never would have hurt Evy. Never! He risked his life to help find her. How can your dirty little minds make something bad out of what he did. You’re the ones who should be shot.”

  Johnny looked at Edward. “You’d better calm your wife down, mister, and maybe leave the Fort Reno area. This ain’t gonna look too good to the rest of the men.”

  Edward stood there red-faced. “I don’t understand this any more than you do.”

  One of the other soldiers grinned. “I think I understand it. Your woman preferred a wild Indian to her husband.” He chuckled, and to Margaret’s complete surprise, Edward walked past her and lit into the man, trying to grab him from his horse.

  “How dare you malign my wife that way!” he growled.

  The soldier kicked at him, sending him sprawling. Edward got back up, and already Evy was crying harder. “Edward, don’t!” Margaret pleaded. “Let them go!”

  Edward backed away, panting and brushing off his clothes. “Get out of my sight!” he growled.

  “Wait!” Margaret asked. “What will you do with Wild Horse?”

  “We’ll take him to the agency and let his people bury him,” Johnny answered. “This will be a good lesson to them to show what happens when you disobey the rules and try to flee the reservation.”

  “You make sure you take him there!” she demanded, tears streaming down her face. “He should be buried properly—the Cheyenne way!”

  Johnny snickered and shook his head. “We’ll make sure he gets there.”

  A couple of the others chuckled, and Margaret did not trust them. “Leave him with us,” she said as they turned to go. “ We’ll take him to the agency.”

  Johnny turned his horse, frowning. “That could be dangerous, lady.”

  “She ain’t no lady,” one of the others spoke up.

  “You take that back!” Edward seethed.

  Margaret touched his arm. “It’s all right, Edward.” She was astounded at his anger. She looked back at Private Kinzale. “We will be in no danger. I’m not afraid to take Wild Horse to them myself. It’s you and your men who had better be on the lookout when the Cheyenne find out what happened to him.”

  She held her chin in a commanding presence, and a nervous look came into Kinzale’s eyes. “Cut him loose, Jim,” he ordered the soldier who dragged the travois. The man dismounted and untied the rawhide straps that held the makeshift stretcher. Johnny tipped his hat to Margaret. “I’m glad we found your daughter, ma’am. She seems to be unharmed.”

  “Of course she’s unharmed, you fool!”

  The last soldier remounted his horse, and all four men rode off. Edward ran a hand through his hair and turned to face his wife. “You have some explaining to do, Maggie.”

  She picked up Evy and hugged her close. “Not yet, Edward. The only thing I will tell you for now is that I loved him.” She watched the color drain from his face. “It was different from the way that I love you. I do love you, Edward. I was never untrue to you, but Wild Horse taught me something about love and joy and life that I never knew before. Evy knows. She loved him, too.”

  Edward shivered. “Maggie…” He uttered her name with such emotion that it touched her. She held Evy in one arm and touched his face.

  “It’s all right, Edward. Hitch our horse and wagon. Come with me to take Wild Horse to the agency. Stay with me while he is sent to the afterlife the Cheyenne way. Will you do that?”

  He swallowed, a tear slipping down his cheek. “If it means not losing you.”

  Thunder rumbled nearby, and a light rain began to wet her face, but Margaret hardly noticed. Love welled in her heart, both for her husband, for his unexpected display of emotions, and for Wild Horse for being the cause of it. She closed her eyes. Wild Horse was worth more than all the soldiers inside the fort. Her only consolation was that he had died exactly the way he would have wanted to die—fighting to the last.

  The evening brought little relief from the long, emotion-packed day. Margaret lingered near the scaffold upon which Wild Horse’s body had been placed, with all his personal possessions. It was now late afternoon. For hours old Wise Owl Woman and other women from the agency had carried on their eerie wailing over the death of one of their most loved, most honored warriors. Nearly every Cheyenne from the agency had come to the sacred grounds they had blessed through their own special ritual, to be used to bury their dead. Because they knew Margaret and Evy had been special to Wild Horse, they had allowed them to watch the burial, but because they were white they could not step onto the sacred ground. They watched from a hillside, and Margaret still sat there, her heart aching for Wild Horse. If only she could hold him once more, touch him once more, tell him she loved him.

  Edward had also stayed. He sighed deeply. “It’s because of him that you understand them so well, isn’t it? He’s the one who taught you all those things you knew about the Cheyenne.”

  Margaret wiped at her eyes, and Evy wandered off to pick wildflowers that she wanted to give to Wise Owl Woman. The child was not fully aware of the gravity of death, and she looked upon it with innocence. She was no longer sad. She only knew that Wild Horse had gone to a wonderful place where he could be a hunter and warrior again, and where he could find his wife and little children. He was happy now.

  “He wanted what was best for them,” Margaret answered her husband. “He knew their lives had to change, and he thought that it would be easier for them if they could see that what we came to tell them is not so different from what they already believe. He just wanted to help me find a way to reach them, and I in turn tried to show you.”

  Edward rubbed at his eyes. “Now we’ll have to leave.”

  “No. We have all the more reason to stay now. Wild Horse died saving Evy. He loved her. He was caught only because he stayed here too long, and he stayed here too long because of me, because he wanted to help me understand his people. We owe it to him to stay on and do what we can for them. I’m not afraid to face the soldiers, Edward. In time the talk will die down. We could come and live on the agency, start a school here, maybe encourage more to come—doctors, teachers. God brought Wild Horse to us, Edward. I know you think I’m crazy, but I believe it.” She faced him. “And it wasn’t just to help us know how to reach the Cheyenne. It was to help us know how to reach each other.” She touched his hand. “I have so much to tell you, Edward.”

  He frowned, and his eyes teared. “I was raised to believe it’s sinful to feel anything.” He looked away. “Deep inside I understood a little of what you’ve been trying to tell me
the past few weeks. I just thought it was wrong to think about those things.”

  “Anything to do with love and joy can’t be wrong, Edward. I don’t believe God is a terrible being waiting somewhere up there to strike us down for the first wrong deed. I believe He loves us much more than we can ever imagine.”

  He put a hand to the back of his neck. “It’s hard for me, Maggie.”

  “I know that.” She took a tighter hold of his hand. “Edward, will you do something for me?”

  He sighed. “What is it?”

  “Let’s go to the pond tonight. We’ll take a lantern and eat our supper there. After Evy falls asleep, you and I—” She hesitated. “Edward, I want us to undress and go into the pond.”

  He looked at her in shock. “What!”

  She touched his face. “I want to know that freedom, Edward. We’re man and wife. Nothing we do together can be wrong, because we love each other, and God means for us to enjoy each other’s body. I want to go into the water together, Edward, to feel the water’s coolness against my skin…to feel you against my skin. I want to feel free to enjoy my husband. I want you to hold me, to make love to me simply because you love me and want me and it’s natural for us to want to be together that way.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “You’re a handsome man, Edward. I want to look upon you. I promise that when you let go of your desires and emotions and learn the joys of life, you will begin to understand the Cheyenne. They are closer to God than you know.”

  His eyes moved over her in a way they never had before. “I don’t know if I can do that, Maggie.”

  She smiled through her tears. Perhaps once she stood naked before him, it would be much easier for him. “I will help you.” For now she would have to make the first moves. She would do the teaching, and she would enjoy it. “Let’s go home, Edward. I’ll make some sandwiches and we’ll go to the pond.”

  They got to their feet and Margaret called for Evy. The girl came running with a handful of flowers. “Look, Mommy! Aren’t they pretty?”