Embrace the Wild Land

by Rosanne Bittner

  “Now, Father, now!” Wolf’s Blood quietly hissed through gritted teeth. “Hurry before you weaken!” The roar of the crowd around him was almost deafening, and the onlookers closed in, leaving the opponents less room in which to move.

  Zeke suddenly let out a blood-curdling screech through gritted teeth, taking advantage of a misstep by Blade that made the man stumble slightly. A quick thrust ended with Cheyenne Zeke’s blade deep in the abdomen of the one called Blade. Blade froze in place, his eyes bulging, while the crowd of onlookers suddenly went almost dead silent. Wolf’s Blood grinned through tears as the two opponents stood there for one tense moment, until Zeke, using his own brand of ending a knife fight, jerked upward with his knife, opening Blade’s torso before pushing the man off his knife and letting him fall backward, the leather strap ripping from his mouth.

  Everyone gawked in astonishment as Blade lay writhing for a moment before his body finally went still in death.

  “Damn!” someone muttered.

  Zeke spit out his end of the leather strap and walked up to Blade, wiping blood from his own knife onto Blade’s pants, then shoving the weapon into its sheath. He turned to face his Cheyenne brother, Black Elk, who grinned; then he faced his son, seeing the relief on Wolf’s Blood’s face and the love in his eyes. Zeke raised his free arm and let out a Cheyenne yell of victory, and the rest of the Indians suddenly broke into howls and cheers, while Wolf’s Blood ran up to hug his father. The boy quickly began untying the strap that held Zeke’s left arm, while the Indians began collecting on their bets and making new bets on the horse races that would take place the next day.

  “Father, you are hurt!” Wolf’s Blood was lamenting.

  “The only bad one is my arm,” Zeke replied. “Tie that strap around above the cut, Wolf’s Blood. Get the circulation stopped until Abbie can pour some whiskey in there and wrap it good and tight. The other two are just surface cuts.”

  Their eyes held, and the noise of the crowd seemed far away as they looked at each other lovingly. “I am glad you are all right, Father,” the boy told Zeke. “I hope one day I will be as great a warrior.”

  Zeke nodded. “You will, son. You’ll be better.”

  “I will try.”

  Zeke put an arm around his shoulders. “I need to go back and rest. Tonight I’ll collect for the Appaloosas I sold. Tomorrow are the horse races, then we head for Santa Fe before we go home. I want to bring your mother to the Navaho camp tonight to trade for some of those blankets she’s been wanting, the ones with all the colors in them.”

  “She will like that. Right now she will be worried, though. You should hurry and tell her you are all right.” He quickly secured the strap around his father’s arm to slow the bleeding.

  They walked toward the Cheyenne camp, Zeke’s wounds stinging and his arm beginning to ache fiercely. But he would hide the pain as much as possible for Abbie’s sake. Their progression was slow, as Indians and even some soldiers stopped Zeke to congratulate him and offer him whiskey. Zeke ignored most of them, wanting only to get back to Abbie and assure her he was not badly wounded.

  It was several hundred yards to the camp. In the distance Zeke could see children playing, and Abbie’s plump and faithful friend, Tall Grass Woman, waved at them, letting out a screech of joy at the sight of Zeke returning. Several Cheyenne men were quickly following them, cheering about the great knife warrior, Black Elk leading them, relieved that his half-brother had not been badly hurt. There would be much dancing and celebrating and feasting that night. The Cheyenne who were present would take advantage of the moment to forget about the illegal Treaty of Fort Wise and the fact that they were now expected to survive within a chokingly small piece of land the Great White Father claimed was all they had left. They would forget the fact that often some of them were shot on sight by settlers for no reason. They would forget that when just one of them disobeyed the Great White Father, all of them were punished. This was not a time for dwelling on deprivation and disease. It was a time for celebration, time for the annual trading and betting and horse races at Fort Lyon a time to enjoy their women and to enjoy the warmth of the autumn sun before it stopped giving off enough heat to keep away the bitter winter snows.

  Abbie emerged from her tipi. Her eyes locked onto Zeke’s, and he instantly sensed something wrong, something more than the fact that he’d been in a fight and wounded. Her eyes dropped quickly, too quickly. He could see her shaking even from the distance. He walked faster, quickly enveloping her in his arms while the rest of the men joked about the victorious warrior enjoying his woman that night as part of his prize. There was something about being victorious in war that made a man desire his woman. Abbie blushed at the other men’s gentle teasing but kept her face buried against Zeke’s chest, not caring that he was getting blood on her, caring only that he was alive and had walked back to her on his own two feet. Most of all she hoped she could hide the incident with Randolph Cole from him.

  They ducked inside the tipi, while outside drums began beating and men’s hoots and laughter filled the air.

  “Get out the whiskey!” Abbie ordered Wolf’s Blood. “And the alcohol. Zeke, you drink down some whiskey for the pain. I’ll douse the wounds with alcohol. It will burn terribly, you know.”

  “I know,” he answered quietly, watching her closely. He noticed Lillian sitting quietly to the side, her body jerking occasionally as though she had been crying, her eyes wide as she watched him, her mouth sealed tightly. Jason ran around the tipi babbling about water but making no sense. Abbie was bringing things over to him to treat his wounds: gauze, scissors, alcohol, a pan of warm water to wash out the wounds. She was nervous, not the kind of nervousness that came from someone she loved being wounded, but more the kind that came from wanting to avoid something. She would not meet his eyes directly, and she moved too quickly, tried too hard to be casual.

  “We should sew this arm, you know,” she told him as she gently washed the deep cut on his right forearm.

  “I want to try just wrapping it tight as hell,” he replied.

  She sighed. “If you say so. But I think I should sew it.” She shook her head. “You won’t have any room left for scars pretty soon, Zeke Monroe. The day is coming when you’ll have to stop all this, you know.”

  “I’ll never stop. The day I stop defending my honor and my family is the day I stop being a man.”

  She glanced at him, then quickly looked away, turning and rinsing out the rag. The water turned red. “I suppose Blade is dead.”

  He snickered. “Would I leave him any other way?”

  She gently washed the wound once more. “I suppose not.” She reached for the alcohol while Zeke took a bottle of whiskey from Wolf’s Blood with his left hand and put it to his lips. He took a long swallow, then set the bottle down and watched Abbie with all-knowing eyes while she doused the wound with the alcohol. He jerked at the pain, but made no sound. For several quiet minutes he let her work, loving her, feeling apologetic, wishing he could have given her a better life, even though she had never asked for more. But strangely, she was not his Abbie now. Something was amiss.

  Wolf’s Blood watched also, thinking there was something different about his mother. Perhaps she was just upset with Zeke for getting into the fight in the first place. But that would not be like her. Yet she was too quiet.

  “I’ve made you angry,” Zeke told her, trying to discern her quiet aloofness.

  She shook her head. “No. I’ve lived with you too many years to be angry over something like this.”

  He frowned, noticing an odd red puffiness at the corner of her lower lip. His chest tightened with apprehension.

  “What’s wrong with your lip?” he asked.

  She met his eyes too quickly. “My lip?” She put her fingers to the spot, disgusted with herself for being unable to control the blush that rose to her cheeks. She had not realized Cole’s brutal kiss had left a mark. “I … must be getting some kind of sore,” she answered, returning to
wrapping his arm. It was then he noticed the shoulder of her tunic was laced crookedly, and a pale bruise, like that of a finger or thumb mark, was appearing on the inner side of her left arm. He reached out and grasped her wrist firmly but gently.

  “Suppose you look me in the eye and tell me again about your lip,” he told her. “You’ve never had a blemish or a sore on your face since I’ve known you, Abigail Monroe!”

  She swallowed and met his eyes hesitantly. “I said it was a sore,” she told him quietly.

  His eyes flashed. “Like hell!”

  “Zeke, we are at a fort! A fort!” she said in a shaky voice. “We’re surrounded by soldiers, and you know what that can mean! Let it go, please!”

  He studied her eyes, gentle brown eyes that pleaded with him now. “Let what go?” he asked carefully.

  She looked at her lap and shook her head. He grasped her chin firmly and forced her to look back up at him. “Answer me, woman! Let what go?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “Beat me if you want! But I’ll not tell you!” she replied, a tear slipping down her cheek.

  There was a long moment of silence as she waited for an angry reaction. But he only spoke her name softly.

  “Abbie-girl.” She opened her eyes to meet his loving ones. “I’ve never laid a hand on you and you know very well I never would, no matter how angry I might be. You’re talking foolish, which only tells me there is something terribly wrong. You’ve never lied to me and you’ve never hid anything from me. So don’t play games with me now. Trust me, Abbie.”

  “But … the soldiers!” she whimpered.

  “You let me worry about that. I brought my woman along on this trip because I thought it would be good for her to get away from everyday hard work, away from the loneliness of living on a ranch in the middle of nowhere with never any company and no place special to go. I brought her along because I hate being apart from her and I wanted her with me—wanted to show her things, buy her things. We haven’t even been to Santa Fe yet. You’ll like Santa Fe, Abbie-girl. I want to buy you something nice there—anything you want. And I don’t want anything that’s happened here to spoil your good time. Now you tell me what happened and let me handle it.”

  “Someone has hurt her!” Wolf’s Blood hissed. “I’ll bet it was one of those white soldiers. It was, wasn’t it?” the boy demanded, his fists clenched.

  Her eyes were still on Zeke’s, and he saw the pain and humiliation there, mingled with an almost apologetic look. “No apologies, Abbie-girl,” Zeke told her. “Just the truth, plain and simple.”

  She watched him for several silent seconds. He was still painted for battle, his handsome face fierce but his dark eyes gentle. His presence was powerful. He always had a way of making her do his will in such matters. She could not deny him.

  “A soldier … came into the tipi,” she told him. Her body jerked as she sniffed in a sob. “Oh, Zeke! Don’t do anything foolish!”

  He sighed and pulled her close with his good arm, then looked up at Wolf’s Blood. “Go outside, son. Take Lillian and Jason with you.”

  “I want to get that soldier!” the boy growled.

  “I’ll take care of it. Go on outside so your mother and I can talk.”

  Wolf’s Blood sighed impatiently, then walked over and picked up Jason. “Come with me,” he said to Lillian, who quickly obeyed her older and much revered brother. The boy stopped and looked at his mother, who wept quietly against his father’s chest. “I should have left Smoke with her!” the boy lamented with a mixture of anger and sorrow.

  “It’s all right,” Zeke answered. “I’m the one to blame.” Both Wolf’s Blood and Abbie could already sense the rage that seethed beneath Zeke’s calm exterior, for although he gently stroked Abbie’s hair, he was tense, his eyes showing a need to kill. Wolf’s Blood left, and Zeke ran his hand over Abbie’s shoulders. “I’m afraid you’ve got to finish my arm, Abbie-girl,” he told her gently. “Why don’t you tell me what happened while you wrap it.”

  She sniffed and nodded, pulling back and taking a handkerchief from the beaded belt at her waist where she’d put it after crying earlier. She blew her nose and wiped at her eyes, and Zeke’s heart ached at the thought of her warding off the soldier alone, just to keep her husband and the Cheyenne out of danger.

  He reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “Who was it?” he asked.

  She turned to finish wrapping his arm. Blood had already soaked the gauze she had used so far, and she began wrapping faster. “I still say I should sew it!” she fussed.

  “I heal fast,” he replied. He sighed impatiently, and the entire tipi seemed filled with his power and thoughts of vengeance. When he was this way, Abbie always thought she could hear drums and bells and distant war cries, for he was pure Indian, his thoughts filled only with revenge and murder. “I want an answer, Abbie,” he told her gently but sternly. “I asked you who was here.”

  There was no arguing with him. “He called himself Randolph Cole.” She swallowed. “He’s … a big man … with a beard and an ugly scar on his left cheek where no beard grows. And he …” She hesitated and glanced up at him. If he were not her own husband, she would have been afraid of the dark warrior look in his eyes, the thin scar that ran down one side of his handsome face showing whiter than usual. The scar had been put there by a Crow Indian’s knife years earlier, and the Crow Indian had not lived. This man had known nothing but violence all his life, and she often marveled that he could be such a gentle and loving husband and father. She returned to dressing his wound, wondering when the day would come that one of his wounds would kill him. “He will have scratches over his left eye,” she continued. “I put them there.”

  He winced with pain but made no sound as she wrapped back upward again from his wrist to his elbow. He wanted to smile at the thought of his Abbie putting marks on Randolph Cole. She had spunk and courage—two of the things he loved about her. But his heart hurt too badly at the thought of her attack, and what could have happened, for him to be able to smile about any of it.

  “What did he do?” he asked in a low hiss. “Tell me all of it, Abigail.”

  She wrapped downward again. “He wanted to know if… if I was a captive.” She smiled a little. “I should have told him I was.” She looked up at him. “A captive of love,” she added, trying to humor him. But there was no humor in his eyes. “When I told him I was most certainly not a forced captive here he … said things.” She looked away again.

  His breathing quickened, and she knew he was reliving the horrible memory of his first wife’s brutal rape and death at the hands of Indian haters. She, too, had been white, and had died at the hands of men she had once called friend. But Zeke Monroe had found her murderers, one by one, dishing out a horrifying vengeance that had left him a wanted man for many years in Tennessee.

  “Did he hurt you?” he asked in a near whisper. “Touch you?”

  She tied off the gauze and looked at her lap. “I …I needed an advantage, Zeke. I wanted to get rid of him without any trouble, and I was afraid for Lillian and Jason. So I … I let him … unlace my tunic.” She swallowed and crossed her arms over her breasts almost defensively. Zeke thought he might explode any minute. “He … touched me … and I let him … kiss me. I … wanted him to think I was willing.” She blinked back tears of shame and her face reddened. “Then I scratched his face and eye as deeply as I could. He let go of me and I kicked him where it would hurt the most and then kicked him backward. He fell into Jason’s little tub. It gave me time to grab my Spencer.” She wiped at her eyes. “I told him I’d shoot him if he didn’t leave, and apparently he believed me.” She covered her face. “I was so scared! Not for me, but for the baby and Lillian. And then for you if you found out. I … wasn’t trying to lie to you, Zeke. I just don’t want trouble. Not here! All I could think of was what those soldiers did to the Sioux at Blue Water Creek. I don’t want that to happen here!”

  He grasped her wrists and pu
lled her hands away, forcing her to look at him. He bent close and kissed her lip where it was bruised. “Abbie, my Abbie,” he said softly. “Forgive me. This is my fault.”

  “No. It isn’t anyone’s fault but that man’s.”

  He kissed her tears and gently unlaced her tunic, letting it fall. He traced his fingers lightly over a bruise near her breast. She well knew the rage that would have to be unleashed from his soul for the wrong done to his woman, but he held himself in check for her sake, as he gently kissed the bruise. His eyes met hers, and his glittered with remorse and determination as he pulled the tunic back up and tied it again. “Tell me that’s all he did,” he told her, fear of something worse in his voice.

  She nodded. “It is. I’ve told you all of it, Zeke.”

  He closed his eyes and sighed as though greatly relieved. But when he opened them again the cold look of rage was surfacing. “He’ll pay, Abbie. I’ll find a way to do it without making trouble for the others. But he’ll pay, one way of another!” He caressed the thick tresses of her hair. “No man touches Zeke Monroe’s woman without wishing he hadn’t! The fact that he abused you in front of poor little Lillian makes it even worse! After being sick so much, I wanted her to have a good time on this trip.” He moved his hands to the sides of her face. “I’m so damned sorry, Abbie-girl. I keep you buried on that ranch because I’m always afraid of how you’ll get treated whenever I take you to settled places. You’re the best damned woman west of the Mississippi. You don’t deserve those insults. And you deserve a hell of a lot better life than I’ve been able—”

  “I have exactly what I want,” she interrupted, reading the little boy look that always came into his eyes when he thought he might lose her because of the different blood in their veins. “I have everything a woman could ask for in a husband, and I have my children. And I love the ranch and that little cabin. I love the beautiful horses we raise and the mountains in the distance. I love baking for my husband and children and I love being near your brother and the people. Tall Grass Woman is the most loyal friend a woman could have. I love the days with the children—and the nights with my husband. I have never wished for more, Zeke Monroe, and you know that. When I married you my eyes were wide open. I well knew what some people would think, but I didn’t care. I was Zeke Monroe’s woman, Lone Eagle’s woman, and nothing else mattered.”