by J. R. WRIGHT
Chaska showed no expression as the punishment was handed out. Then, with a heavy heart, he left the tepee. He was not sad for himself, but for the old chief, whom he had disobeyed and brought shame to. As far as saving the maiden, however, he had no regrets.
The following morning Chaska readied Taloma’s horse and travois one last time. It was her wish that the Ojibwa girl be tied to walk beside so she could be sure no harm would come to her. He did as Taloma asked, feeling the maiden’s sparkling blue eyes on him all the while. He thought to embrace her for mutual comfort, but dared not with so many about, preparing to leave.
“Will she be gone when I return?” Chaska asked.
“Not likely,” Taloma smiled. “I know of no friendly tribes where we are going.”
Chaska smiled back at her. “How will I live without you, my Mother?”
“We will all suffer your absence,” Taloma said as tears formed. “Your father most of all. He will weep once you are gone.”
Chaska’s eyes drifted to the old chief on his travois not far away, glaring blankly back at him.
Once they were underway, Chaska fell to his knees and waited many hours before rising to follow in the tracks of the tribe. As he moved along, he began to gather rocks. They would be his only weapons for protection and acquiring food.
On the third day he had not yet eaten and was growing weak. All he had seen thus far that resembled food was a grass snake, and it managed to get into a hole before he could reach it.
He felt now that if he were to survive, he must move to one side of the broad trail for a better chance at seeing something not already killed or frightened away by those ahead. Fortunately for him, however, he hadn’t yet done so, because plainly on the trail was a large bag of pemmican and an antelope stomach full of water, which someone had carefully dug into the snow to prevent it from spilling.
Who had done this, he wondered? Could it have been Taloma? She had always been there for him. Or was it the old chief? Doubtful, since it was he who had determined the punishment. The maiden, perhaps, in appreciation for him saving her life?
On the fourth day his presents were more water and a generous amount of dried buffalo. The fifth day brought more food and water, plus the greatest gifts of all: a bow, some arrows and a sharp knife. After this, the gifts stopped. There were none the following day. Whoever had been leaving them must have felt it was high time he made it on his own. That’s when Chaska knew that it was Brave Fox who had ordered the things left on the trail.
It was then Chaska walked wide of, and eventually surpassed, the line of slow moving groups. Once there, he went to work gathering much game. The occasional rabbit he ate himself. But the larger animals, the deer and antelope, he properly dressed and left for the main group to come across as they traveled upon them.
Hearing of the plentiful gifts, the old chief smiled and never grieved for Chaska again.
CHAPTER FOUR
When the earth was white, and the hare and the owl had changed to their winter color of snow, Chaska returned to the village of his people.
Many times over the past months, he had watched the village from a rocky pine-covered hilltop high above. From there he had noticed that the Ojibwa girl was often busy around the tepee of Taloma, and that his father, Brave Fox, was still able to get around the camp to visit from time to time. He seemed contented and happy here. The game and fish were so plentiful that no one was without all they cared to eat. The men of the combined villages were so relaxed, it appeared they were becoming lazy. On several occasions he had noticed that they rose late and lounged most of the day.
He was anxious this day in wonderment as to how he would be accepted upon his return after such a long absence.
“Pale Fox lives,” one Dakotah brave pointed him out as he came from the woods and entered the village. Others gathered and followed as he headed directly for the center of the camp, where his father’s and Taloma’s tepees stood. The commotion had brought them both out into the sunlight.
Taloma allowed the old chief to speak first, while the old woman proudly smiled up at Chaska, showing her many missing teeth.
“My son has completed his punishment. I feared for your safety when you did not come sooner. The hare and the owl have been as white as they will get for some time; the earth cannot get any whiter.”
“I know, Father. I did not want to appear weak by returning too soon.”
“You have grown. Soon you will be as tall as the trees that surround us in this heavenly place,” Taloma said of his near six foot stature.
“Have you been well?” Chaska asked of Taloma as he focused on the Ojibwa girl shyly peeking from behind her. How beautiful she is, he thought.
“I have been as well as I can be. The girl helps me with the chores I can no longer do alone,” she said, looking pitifully to Brave Fox, who pretended not to hear.
“What do you call her?” Chaska asked.
“Her people called her Snoqualme, which I gather means Bright Moon in her tongue. She can speak much of our language now. I have been teaching her,” Taloma said proudly.
“You must have made her some new garments, also,” he said.
“She made them. I showed her how to make leggings, so winter winds will not chill her from the bottom. Also, good for keeping man out,” Taloma’s smile broadened.
“I have brought some pretty rocks.” Chaska pulled a pouch from his waist band and from it removed a shiny yellow nugget the size of a kernel of corn. “Could you make her something for her neck, to show others she is taken?”
“Where did you find them?” Taloma asked, marveling at the beauty of the heavy stones.
“In a stream far back in the hills, where water from above falls into it.”
“Can you gather more?”
“There are many. When I go again to the cave where I have resided for the past five moons, I will gather all there is of them,” he said.
“Good,” Taloma said, still marveling at the nugget.
“Buffalo have gone south for the winter,” Brave Fox said sadly. “They will not return till spring.”
“You must have plenty to last,” Chaska said. “I saw our hunters take many just a moon ago.”
“I miss them. They may not come again.”
“They will come forever. For as long as our people are on this earth,” Chaska said. “I saw thousands move past from my cave in the mountains. More than our people will ever need. And they will multiply as our numbers grow.”
“Others will come for them, as we have. And what of those to the south, who are hunting them as we speak? I fear someday they will be gone,” the old chief predicted.
“Then there are the deer, the antelope, the elk, the moose, and the bear. More game than we will ever need,” Chaska countered.
“Young son not wise enough to become chief yet,” Brave Fox said. “Old chief must live on to teach.”
“Yes, Father, you must live on, for I have a lot more to learn.”
CHAPTER FIVE
In early March of 1855, Sarah Martin was in the living quarters of her dress shop in Independence, Missouri. She had not remarried since the violent death of her husband at the hands of Indians in the North Country fifteen years previous. But it wasn’t the love for him that had kept her single all this time. It was the undying love for another man that lived in her heart and dreams. This man, too, was dead, and for nearly as long.
Her work had kept her busy over the years. Time had passed even more rapidly than she realized. It seemed only yesterday that she had purchased the little shop. How scared she had been at the start, skeptical that she would succeed. But with the help of her spinster school teacher aunt, she had succeeded. In fact, she had been so successful that she now owned the building her little dress shop was housed in, as well as half interest in the twenty room hotel across the street. She had also managed to put away a few thousand dollars in the bank.
When the brass bell above the shop door jingled, Sarah was finishing
up the breakfast dishes.
“Good morning! I’ll be right with you!” she shouted out to the front and continued with the cleanup. There was no urgency. Delay, she knew, gave the prospective customer time to leisurely browse through her ample display of already made up dresses and examine the many bolts of beautiful fabrics at will.
“I’ll just be another minute!” Sarah shouted again, after hearing no response to the original greeting.
Moments later, still with no response or noise of any kind from the front, Sarah decided to leave the dishes to investigate. To her surprise, a tall, bearded, buckskin clad man stood just inside the door.
“I’m sorry, the mercantile is next door,” she informed the stranger, pausing just outside the curtain that divided the shop from the living quarters, fifteen feet from the wild looking man.
“It’s not the mercantile I’m after,” a distantly familiar voice responded.
“Well, I hardly doubt there’d be anything here that may be of interest to you.”
“I believe there is,” he said, glaring at her from under the broad brim of a dusty brown hat. “Do you know a Sarah Martin? I can see from here you’re much too pretty to be her. The last I saw of her, she was dressed in buckskins and wore her hair in long braids.”
“I’m Sarah Martin. What is it you want?” she spoke with shrillness to her voice now.
“Is that any tone to use on an old friend?” he said.
Again, the deep, almost guttural voice sounded vaguely familiar to her, but this mature man before her was no one she remembered ever seeing before today. This man was obviously in his mid-thirties. She couldn’t remember ever knowing anyone of that age. Well, except for Frank, her husband, and he’d been dead for fifteen years. “I’d ask you to leave, but now you have me curious.”
“We spent some time together up near the Red River of the north,” he teased.
With that, Sarah felt her knees weakening and reached out for a chair back nearby. Getting a firm grip on it, she said softly, “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“I guess I still am.” He removed the hat and stepped toward her. “The name is Tom Hill now.”
“Luke…” Sarah rushed into his arms and glared up into the unmistakable blue eyes. “Oh, my God! It is you.” Her heart raced with excitement. She laid her head on his chest, felt the heartbeat. “Oh, Luke, where have you been?”
“Everywhere, I guess. I spent some time in California, then eventually worked my way back this direction. I’m at Fort Kearny now.”
“Doing what?” She pulled her head away and looked up to him again.
“Scout, when they need me.”
“Why haven’t you come sooner, Luke?” She thought of all the lonely years, gone by needlessly.
“I couldn’t, Sarah. After I left you, fifteen years ago, I went to St. Louis. I got into a little trouble there. Well, to make a long story short, I’ve been on the run ever since. That’s why I go by Tom Hill now. There’s a reward posted for me under the name Luke McKinney.”
“A little trouble?” Sarah pushed away. “The story going around at the time was you killed the sheriff and…”
“They had it coming! Dunlap and his deputies killed some good friends of mine.”
“I also heard you were killed by Comanche Indians out on the Santa Fe Trail.” Sarah’s eyes watered as she relived the devastating moment all over again.
“Well, that story was cooked up by a friend of mine, Captain Cooper. I’m glad to hear it worked.”
“Damn you!” Sarah pounded his chest. “You could have told me! Here I’ve been grieving your loss all these years. You made a promise to me that you would come back!” she screamed out.
“And I kept it,” he smiled broadly. “I’m back.”
“Damn you!” She pounded again. “Son of a bitch…”
To put a stop to this, Luke pulled her in for a long, hungry kiss. Her lips felt every bit as good as they had when last he saw her. And she looked a lot the same – lean and shapely. She smelled of soap and a delicate perfume that made him aware that he could use a bath, something he hardly gave thought to out on the trail. He then released her and stepped away, leaving a wanting look on her face. “I ought to go get a bath,” he said. “Oh, I never thought to ask. Do you have a man…?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Sarah said smartly. “His name is Luke McKinney. Have you heard of him?”
“Not for a good while.”
“Well, then I’ll introduce you then, when I find him under all this hair.” She fingered his bushy beard. “And if it’s of any concern to you, he’s the only man I sleep with every night.”
“Well then, I’d better go get that bath.”
Sarah got a grip on his arm. “I’m not letting you out of my sight to go anywhere just yet, Luke McKinney.” Having said that, she went to the shop door, flipped over the closed sign, pulled the blind down, and turned the lock. She then took him by the hand and led him through the curtain. “How did you find me?”
“Your sign,” he said. “I was riding through town on my way to your aunt’s house when I saw it: ‘Sarah’s Fine Things, Sarah Martin Proprietor.’”
“The tub is on the back porch, if you’ll bring it in,” she pointed to the door off the kitchen. She then filled a large kettle from a hand pump next to the sink and placed it on the range, still hot from breakfast. “We can do this if we hurry.”
“What?” Luke paused at the door.
“My aunt retired from her teaching job. She works full time here now. But that’s okay, I can send her away,” Sarah said nervously. “She comes at nine every day.”
Luke looked at the clock on the wall. It was seven thirty. “I think I’d best go across to that hotel and get a bath there.”
“It’s not the bath I was concerned about,” she came to him with a yearning look and a kiss. “I’ve waited fifteen years for this, and I don’t want to have to rush.”
“Then we’d best get started. I take it you don’t want it clean.”
“Dirty will just have to do this time.” She took him by the hand again and led him through a door to the bedroom. Breanne entered her mind briefly, but was instantly crowded out by more urgent matters.
After a time of gentle love making, Sarah laid her head on Luke’s chest and asked, “How long will you stay?”
“I can spare a few days.”
With that, her heart sank. After all this time, now that she had him back, she wasn’t prepared for him to go away so soon. “Then when will I see you again?”
“I’ll come as often as I can,” he said. “I have a cabin on the Little Blue River where I spend the months of winter. I can come here for part of that time if you want.”
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but why not all of it?” she said. “Why not spend the entire winter each year here with me?”
“I’m not a city person any longer, Sarah. I’ve had all of that I can stomach, with the time I spent in St. Louis as a kid. Over the years, I’ve grown to appreciate the solitude of wide open spaces to keep me happy.”
When Sarah’s aunt came, she feigned illness and sent her packing with an unfinished dress to work on at home. She then came back to the kitchen, where Luke was in the tub, and proceed to cut his hair and trim his shaggy beard.
“Not too much,” Luke cautioned. “There may be some around yet that’ll recognize me.”
“Can I still call you Luke? Honestly, I don’t see you as a Tom,” she laughed.
“If you want. I wouldn’t go telling anyone I’m alive, though.”
“Never!” she said, snipping off handfuls of hair.
Luke stayed on with Sarah for another four days before deciding it was time he got back to his duties at Fort Kearny on the Platte. This was the second army post named for Stephen Watts Kearny. The first was back on the Missouri. The new fort built in 1848, located on the south side of the Platte near where it joined the Little Blue River, was fully an eight days’ ride from Independence.
When Sarah returned from church on Sunday morning, Luke had his horses loaded and tied out front of her shop.
“Please stay another day,” she begged.
“Hasn’t your business suffered enough? You’ve been closed the entire time I’ve been here.”
“And it was worth every penny lost.” She tilted up for a kiss, and got it.
“I’ve stayed longer than I planned as it is. But I’ll tell you what – when winter comes, this will be my first stop.”
“Do you mean it?” Sarah brightened noticeably.
“And if I won’t be too much of a burden, I may stay on then till spring.”
“Much of a burden? Not at all! Oh, Luke, you’ve just made me the happiest woman in the world.” She lunged to him.
Luke took her in for a long kiss and an even longer embrace.
“I’ve enjoyed these days with you, Sarah. I’ve regained something I thought I’d lost forever.”
“Oh, Luke, honey, what’s that?” She locked onto his eyes.
“You may think this is silly, but I do believe you’ve given me back my youth. It felt a whole lot like the old days, being here with you.”
With that, Sarah began to cry. “Oh, Luke, that was so sweet of you to say.”
“Now may I go?” he said with a smile.
“Go! Please! Just be sure you come back to me, riding on the first snowflake.”
“Count on it,” he said as he mounted the chestnut and tugged at the lead rope of the bay.
At the end of the block, before turning west, Luke saw Sarah still standing in the street, though barely visible from this distance. The poor woman had fallen in love with him, he knew now. Perhaps it was much the same as the feelings he still carried for Breanne. It was too bad he couldn’t feel the same about her. But she did offer up a good measure of pleasure. No doubt he would miss that until he saw her again in the fall. And perhaps that would have to be enough for him for now – if not forever.
