He closed his eyes, trying to do something Zeke had once told him about, trying to find his inner soul, a secret, peaceful place inside of man to which he could turn whenever his outside world was filled with pain and heartache. He suddenly wished he had the special spirituality that Indians seemed to have, that feeling of “oneness” with the universe. He could not find that “inner self” Zeke had tried to explain to him, and his only result was a siege of terrible convulsions that brought screams from his lips until his body finally stopped jumping and shaking and he could lie still again.
How he wished he could see Emily and Jennifer! How would poor fragile Emily survive without him? He was all she had now. And his father! What about his father? What if he and Lance both died in this bloody war and never returned to the farm? There would be no sons left but Zeke, and Zeke would never go back. Hugh Monroe would die a shriveled, lonely old man. “Pa,” Danny moaned, wishing there were some way he could just crawl home. This horrible battleground near Pittsburg Landing was only a few miles from the old farm. So close and yet so far! If only Hugh Monroe knew his son lay wounded and freezing just miles away. If only he knew, he could come when this battle was over and take his son home. But there was no way for him to know, and Danny Monroe resigned himself to believing he would never see his father again, or Emily and Jennifer, Lance and Zeke.
He suddenly thought of Fort Laramie and the rolling hills of eastern Wyoming. He tried to envision the warmth of the Western sun, pretending it was shining down on him now. Why had he ever left that place? He missed some of the Indian friends he had made, and he thought about Swift Arrow, Zeke’s full-blood brother who rode with the Sioux. He actually smiled at the thought, for in spite of Swift Arrow’s haughty hatred of the white man, he was a likable man, mostly because he was an honorable, proud man. Swift Arrow could be fierce and menacing one moment, and joking and teasing the next, with that special kind of humor the Indians had that came out in wry statements of blatant truth that could sometimes make a white man feel foolish. Swift Arrow had a way of tripping up a man’s statements and turning the words around. Then he would look at the man with that teasing twinkle in his dark eyes, and the man would realize it was only a joke. Yet Swift Arrow was most certainly not a man to be taken lightly. He had lost two wives, one to white man’s disease and one at the battle at Blue Water Creek, a senseless soldier raid on peaceful Indians. Swift Arrow’s heart was hard as a rock and his goal in life set—to ride with the Sioux and keep the white man out of the Sacred Black Hills, no matter what the cost.
Suddenly Danny wished he were riding against the Indians. Anything would be better than this brutal battleground with the sounds and smell of death all around him. He forced back an urge to openly sob. General Johnston was dead. He had been a grand leader and had died valiantly. Danny had respected and admired him. He would miss the man. There were many others he would miss. But that didn’t matter, for soon he himself would die. Lightning flashed again, and he saw that a few others had managed to crawl together for warmth. But what Danny wanted more than warmth was water. He opened his mouth so that some of the rain would fall into it, but it wasn’t nearly enough to quench the excruciating, burning thirst he had. He was certain there was a pond not far away. He remembered it being there earlier when first he fell. If only he could get to the pond!
He turned onto his belly and tried crawling again, his overwhelming need for water giving him incentive to try harder. Lightning flashed again and he could see the little body of water, not so far away it seemed. But his progress was slow and painful, and what should have been a three-minute walk turned into an hour’s crawl. He finally reached the edge and doused his face in the water, then put some to his lips.
“Oh, God, God help me!” he cried out as he spit the water back out and began to vomit. The water was undrinkable, for hours earlier the pond had turned pure red from blood. Many others had crawled there to drink and bathe their wounds. He did not know it then, but the place would be named Bloody Pond, in memory of that night of hell.
Everywhere the rain fell, cutting washouts in the softened earth. Each time a washout filled with the flow of rain water, it quickly turned red, for everywhere the ground was saturated with the blood of the wounded.
Danny tried to crawl away from the pond to find some kind of shelter, but his hand sank into the muddy, bloody bank, and he could go no further. He gasped and let his face drop against the mud, his tears mixing with the rain and slime. He thought again of Zeke, wondering what he would do in such a situation, knowing Zeke, too, had been wounded many times. Where was that special power men like Zeke drew on to survive?
“Zeke,” he muttered.
“Ho-shuh,” he seemed to hear a voice telling him. “Be still, my brother. Be confident.”
Zeke moaned in his sleep, and Abbie was stirred awake, her subconscious mind sensing her husband’s pain. She opened her eyes and sat up, reaching out to him. His body was soaked with sweat and he groaned again.
“Zeke?”
“Help me!” he whispered.
Abbie quickly got up, alarmed at the apparently painful nightmare he was having. Nightmares were common to her husband, whose past was filled with abuse and violence. Abbie wrapped herself in a homemade flannel robe, then climbed back onto the bed of robes beside Zeke as he groaned again and tossed.
“Zeke?” she said louder, pushing on his shoulder gently.
“No!” he shouted, suddenly sitting up. Abbie jumped back, and he sat there a moment just staring at her. In the dim light of the fire in the outer room his dark eyes looked wild and menacing. She was almost afraid of him, not sure if he was truly awake.
“Zeke, it’s all right. You were dreaming.”
His breathing was heavy, and he wiped at the sweat on his brow with a shaking hand. He said nothing as he suddenly turned and stood up, walking to the window and throwing open the wooden shutters, oblivious to the chilly night air on his naked and sweating body.
“Zeke, you’ll be sick. Please close the shutters.”
He stood there breathing deeply, his head back, his hands clinging to the shutters. “Something is wrong,” he said in a choked voice. “Check on the children.”
“Zeke, the house is quiet. They’re all asleep.”
“Check on them!” he barked.
She sighed and left the room, returning moments later to walk up close to him. “They’re all fine,” she told him. She folded her arms and rubbed at them. “Please close the shutters, Zeke.”
He sighed and nodded, bolting the shutters closed again and putting an arm around her shoulders, leading her out to the fireplace. He picked up his deerskin leggings from a chair on the way out and began pulling them on while Abbie poked at the coals in the large stone fireplace. The flames flickered higher. She put another log on and hung a pot of leftover coffee over the hearth.
“What is it?” she asked him. She turned and met his eyes, alarmed at the pain and terror there. Zeke Monroe was a man of vision. He had sensed things before, especially in his sleep.
“Someone … is hurt,” he told her. He began to pace. “Someone needs me … and I don’t know who it is. Maybe … maybe soldiers have raided Black Elk’s camp.”
“Then you’ll have to ride out tomorrow and see.”
He ran a hand through his long hair and shook it out. “Maybe it isn’t Black Elk. Maybe Swift Arrow has been raiding with the Sioux. They say the Sioux have been getting stirred up again lately, and you know Swift Arrow. He’ll be right in the thick of it.” He waved his hand. “I wish to hell he’d come back down here to live.” He turned to face her, remembering why Swift Arrow stayed in the North. In that first year he had brought Abbie to the Cheyenne and to his brothers, Swift Arrow, nearly the same age as Abbie, had found himself falling in love with his half-brother’s white woman. Zeke did not blame his brother. Abigail was easy to love.
Abbie blushed lightly under Zeke’s eyes, herself suspecting Swift Arrow’s feelings but never speaking of
them. Zeke ran his eyes over the soft curves of his wife’s body, made more enticing beneath the fluffy softness of her flannel robe. He wanted to touch her breasts, to run his hands over the roundness of her hips, suddenly feeling as though that privilege might be taken from him. This woman must never be touched by anyone but Zeke Monroe, who had been first to claim her, the man who had stolen her virginity when she was not yet even his wife the white man’s way. No other man had ever laid hands on her.
He came closer, and she read his thoughts. He embraced her, and she rested her head against the broad, dark chest, the familiar wonderful scent of him bringing her comfort, his strong, loving embrace always erasing her fears. He kissed her hair. “Perhaps it’s Danny,” he said quietly. “We keep hearing about how terrible the Civil War is.” He closed his eyes. “God, I hope it isn’t Danny.” He squeezed her tightly. “Damn, I hate not knowing, Abbie! I feel like there’s something I should be doing, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Unless you get word from someone, Zeke, there’s nothing you can do. Perhaps it was just something from the past that haunted you and made you wake up.”
He ran a hand gently over her hips and relished the feel of her full breasts against his chest. “I wish it were. But it’s something more than that. I’m sure of it. I’ve had these feelings too many times before.”
She leaned back and looked up at him. “They we’ll just have to pray that if you’re needed, God will let us know. We can’t do any more than that.” She pulled away from him and walked to the mantle, picking up an old Bible she kept beside the ticking clock. On the other side of the clock lay Zeke’s sacred pipe. She turned to face him and he glanced at the Bible. Religion was probably the biggest difference they had in their marriage, but something that had never come between them. He looked at her with the little boy look again.
“Do you miss it, Abbie? Do you miss dressing up and going to a real church and singing hymns?”
She held his eyes steadily. “This house—this land—these things are my church, Zeke. And the love I have for you and my family is my hymn. I can sing to my God whenever I please. He couldn’t care less if I’m sitting in a pew or bending over a washtub.” She turned and took his pipe from the mantle, handing it out to him. “I’ve told you before, I’m not so sure we don’t both pray to the same being. I’ve seen how your prayers work, Zeke Monroe. They’re very powerful. They have saved me from death—more than once.”
He took the pipe, then sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of the fire. Abbie glanced at the table, where the big menacing knife that belonged to Zeke Monroe still lay where he had put it the night before. She stared at it, a tingling sensation creeping through her blood. It represented the wild, savage side of him, the side he seldom showed inside the confines of their cabin.
She tore her eyes from the knife and sat down in her rocker, closing her eyes and clinging to her Bible, praying silently, smelling the sweet smoke of his prayer pipe. For some reason she could not help being drawn back to the knife, as though it were almost alive. The tingling sensation would not leave her, and she suddenly realized his prayers and the knife seemed linked. The blade was as much a spiritual part of Cheyenne Zeke as was the sacred pipe. His prayers and spiritual strength only gave him the power and skill he needed to face his enemies. The knife was the extension of that strength, the instrument used to deal out proper justice. She rose and walked back to the table, setting down the Bible and touching the handle of the instrument that had brought a savage death to so many men.
“You’re going to leave me,” she suddenly blurted out, her voice calm and sure, interrupting his prayers. He frowned and lowered his pipe, turning to look at her.
“What?”
She held his eyes steadily. “You’re going to leave me. Something is going to take you away again. I know it as surely as I’m standing here now, Zeke.”
He slowly set down the pipe and rose, walking closer. “I have already felt it. I just didn’t want to say anything.” He reached out and touched her face. “I hope to God we’re both wrong, Abbie-girl. I promised you once I’d never go away again, that I’d let nothing make us have to be apart again.”
She took a deep breath, fighting tears. “Hold me, Zeke!” she whispered.
He pulled her tight against him and suddenly they were kissing, desperately, both wishing they could stop time and keep this quiet, private moment together. He left her lips and moved down to her neck, and suddenly it didn’t seem as though they had just done this earlier in the night, for this was a different need, a different hunger, both of them already feeling lonely because they sensed something was going to pull them apart.
“Zeke! Zeke!” she whimpered.
“Ho-shuh,” he murmured. “You know that distance can’t really part us, Abbie-girl. Ne-mehotatse!” He picked her up in his arms, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He buried his face in the opening of her soft robe, nuzzling the soft whites of her breasts, as he carried her back to the bed of robes, and gently laid her down. In the next moment he was naked beside her, his hands moving inside her robe and pulling it open. “I need you, Abbie,” he told her gruffly.
His lips covered her mouth hungrily and her robe fell open as his fingers moved lightly over her breasts and nipples, down over her belly and into the little hollow where her thighs met hidden places. She groaned as he moved his hand to that secret part of her that he owned and found that it was moist for him. How many times had they done this? Always she was willing and responsive. It would seem these movements would be so familiar to them that the excitement would be gone. But it was not that way for them. Their love was too strong, and the hardships they had shared had only enhanced this part of their love, for each knew that to predict tomorrow was a foolish game, and they had been apart enough to know the pain of separation and the glory and joy of simply being together. Moments like this were not to be wasted.
Abbie’s own fear of being apart again only heightened her desire for this man that all women desired but only one woman could own—her own small self. Always she wondered how she had ever captured such a man to begin with. She could only thank God that she had, for to live without Zeke would have been like not living at all. She felt dwarfed beneath him, and basked in the thrill of his manliness, the wonder of being able to please this man who needed so much in a woman, and who gave so much in return.
She whimpered with a mixture of desire and fear of separation. In the next moment her insides were exploding with the ecstasy that only Zeke Monroe could bring to her soul. Her fingers dug into his skin, and she returned his kisses like a wanton woman.
“Tell me it won’t happen,” she whispered as he moved between her legs. “Tell me we won’t have to be apart again, Zeke.”
He kissed at her eyes, her cheeks, tasting the salt of her tears. “My Abbie-girl,” was all he said. He kissed her lips again, searching with his tongue while his hands moved beneath her hips. Every moment like this must be savored. It must be gentle and easy and slow. Perhaps somehow they could stop time from moving at all. In the next moment that part of him that was most manly was moving into its nest of love, consumed by her passion, warm in the soft embrace of her womanhood. All the children she had borne had not changed this part of their lovemaking, for it was the beautiful love they shared that made it so sweet, and each gave unselfishly and received gratefully. It was not just their bodies that were one, but their very souls. They were finely tuned to one another, each knowing what gave the other the most pleasure, moving rhythmically and in beautiful unison.
She opened her eyes and drank in the dark form above her, some of his long hair brushing lightly against her full breasts as he pushed deeper, almost violently in a sudden need to make sure this moment would not be taken from them. She knew that he was just as afraid as she that he might have to leave his family and his woman again, something Zeke Monroe did not like to do. She grunted when he thrust himself deep and hard in his sudden urgency to cling to her and ke
ep the moment, and quickly the harsh movements vanished as he eased back slowly and then gently moved inside of her again.
“I’m sorry, Abbie,” he whispered.
She traced slender fingers over his lips. “Do what you must do,” she answered quietly. “The pain you give me is beautiful, just like that first time.”
He thrust harder again, moving rhythmically, and Abbie tried to muffle her gasps of pleasure so that the children would not be disturbed. In the outer room the coffee hissed quietly over the fire. There was no one to drink it.
At dawn men came to pick up Danny’s nearly dead body. He was unconscious by then, unaware of being carried to the little Shiloh church, which had been made a temporary Confederate hospital. But still he lay untreated, for the doctors had no time for internal wounds. All of their time was occupied with those who were the worst, those with legs and arms half blown off. They had to come first, and all around Danny’s unconscious ears there was the rasping sound of saws cutting through bone, and the pitiful groans of barely conscious men who knew they were losing limbs, men who begged and screamed with doctors not to cut them. Few of those who felt the saw ever lived to know what it would be like to survive with a leg or an arm missing.
Danny was oblivious to it all, and oblivious to the fact that Generals Grant and Sherman were preparing for a new onslaught. The Confederate victory at Shiloh would be a short-lived one.
Ten
Bonnie walked quietly to the door of her husband’s small study, where he sat bent over a Bible on his desk, a nightly ritual. Rodney Lewis poured many hours into his sermons, for the settlers of the vast Dakota Territory that he served as a circuit preacher were hungry for good sermons, and Rodney Lewis was a sincere, devoted man.
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