Embrace the Wild Land

by Rosanne Bittner

  “My father will know about this and you will all be sorry!” the boy hissed.

  “We’ll be long gone before you ever get back to your father and civilization,” Zeke answered. “Forget it, Garvey. You’ll never see us again.”

  The boy stared at him, his mind groping to remember where he had seen this man. Was it in Denver also? Perhaps. But he had seen him before that, when he was a very small boy. He was sure. He would remember the name and ask his father about it.

  Garvey turned his horse without another word and trotted off. The man Wolf’s Blood had wounded with his knife was on his feet then, his shoulder painful and bleeding. Zeke walked over to him and removed the rest of the man’s weapons, telling Black Elk and Falling Rock to load the last two men onto their horses, one still lying badly wounded from Smoke’s attack, and the other groaning from the knife wound to his hip.

  “Get the hell out of here!” Zeke ordered the man with the shoulder wound. The man scowled and mounted up, and Zeke put the reins of the last two men’s horses into the conscious man’s hand. “You’d better ride after that boy whose hide is so precious to you!” he told the man. “Winston Garvey wouldn’t be too happy if you let something happen to his son. In fact, if this Garvey fellow is as powerful and wealthy as you say, I don’t doubt your own hide isn’t too safe, seeing as how that boy could have been killed today.”

  He smacked the man’s horse and it galloped off. Zeke turned and looked at Abbie, who still sat mounted, rifle in hand. He grinned to himself. Abigail could use a rifle if she had to. He’d seen her use it on three Crow warriors. He reached up and took the rifle from her stiff fingers. “You all right?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “What about you?” she asked him with a shaking voice.

  He wiped blood from the deep gash on his lower right jaw. “Just another one of those damned scars,” he tried to joke, seeing the terror in her eyes. It was not easy for a woman to watch her husband and son being shot at and attacked. Tall Grass Woman ran to her own husband, wailing and carrying on about the wound on his scalp.

  Abbie moved her eyes from Zeke to Wolf’s Blood and held out her hand. “You saved your father’s life today when you threw that knife,” she told him proudly. “In that moment I saw how much you are like your father.”

  The boy reached up and took her hand, and Zeke folded his own big hand over both of theirs, again turning from vicious fighter to gentle husband and father.

  “I’m more proud of you than I have ever been,” he told Wolf’s Blood. “What else can I say, son?”

  “Nothing,” the boy replied. “You have saved my life and that of my mother and the others too many times to remember. It is time for me to do ray share of protecting our family. But I am worried, Father. Black Elk spoke your name. That Garvey boy will remember.”

  Zeke squeezed his hand. “Let him remember. It was a long time ago. We will not waste our waking hours worrying about it. This is your time, Wolf’s Blood. We will put all of these things behind us.” He looked up at Abbie. “They’ll be a long time getting to help and taking care of their wounds,” he told her. “We’ll be far from here if and when they send others back, which I doubt they will do. But to be on the safe side, we’d best get out of here.”

  “I agree,” she answered calmly, blinking back tears. “I …I hope that boy’s father doesn’t figure out—”

  “Forget it, Abbie-girl,” he told her. “I don’t want anyone fretting over it.” He patted her arm and left her and his son and approached Black Elk, who was removing his belongings from his dead horse. “I brought three extra Appaloosas to trade at the Sun Dance,” he told his brother. “Put your blanket on one of them.”

  The man nodded. “I will pay you,” he said sullenly.

  “It isn’t necessary, Black Elk.”

  The man turned sad eyes to Zeke. “I have learned much this day. I have learned we are followed wherever we go, and I have learned about the barbed wire fences. I have learned there is no future for my son and daughter.”

  Zeke put a hand on his shoulder. “There is always a future, Black Elk. We go now to the Sun Dance celebration, and you will see.” He scanned each of his children, walking up to them and patting each one on the arm or the bottom, making sure each one was unharmed and reassuring them that all was well. But he saw questions in the eyes of the older ones, a confusion as to why white men should hate them. He walked up to his eldest daughter, a budding young girl just entering her teens, a girl with the rare, provocative beauty given only to those of mixed blood. He recognized already the strikingly beautiful woman she would some day be, and felt a sudden possessive jealousy, as well as a hidden fear of how men might treat her.

  “What is your name?” he asked her.

  She frowned. “Father, you know my name. It’s Margaret.”

  “But what is your Indian name?” he asked her.

  She thought for a moment. “It is Moheya,” she replied, “Blue Sky.”

  “That’s right.” He stepped back and spoke to all of them. “Each of you has a white name, and an Indian name. You are the best of both worlds, and there is no reason to ever be ashamed of either blood that runs in your veins. Do you all understand that?”

  “Yes, Father,” they answered almost in unison, all of them carrying a high respect for their father, and sometimes in absolute awe of him, especially when they saw him fight as he had fought this day.

  “Good,” Zeke replied. “For the next few days you will be Indians, and you will help your brother celebrate his manhood. It will be an exciting time for all of you.”

  He walked over and took little Jason from Blue Bird Woman, hoisting the child to his shoulders. The boy laughed as his father walked him over to Abbie and plopped him in front of his mother.

  “Let’s ride!” he announced. He leaped up onto his own horse with ease. “We’ll ride on down to where the fence ends.” He moved his mount forward and the others followed, Falling Rock holding a cloth to his still-bleeding scalp. Smoke trotted along beside Wolf’s Blood, enjoying the taste of blood in his mouth.

  Behind them lay Black Elk’s mount, tangled in the wicked barbed wire, a sad symbol of a dying way of life. And Zeke buried his own haunting worry over the fact that Charles Garvey had seen him again—and knew his name.

  Eleven

  There had been many days of celebrating while the huge medicine lodge was erected in the center of the Sun Dance camp. The gathering of nearly all the Southern Cheyenne made camp on the south bank of the Smoky Hill River, in a circle close to a mile in diameter, the opening of the circle facing east, as was the custom, to face the rising sun. The Sun Dance lodge was surrounded by the tipis of the lodgemaker’s warrior society, and outside of that circle were the lodges of the rest of those who had gathered for the great celebration.

  The first few days had been good ones, a time to forget the disaster that seemed to be coming to claim the Cheyenne. This was a time to live the old way, a time to hunt buffalo for the tongues and hides needed for the ceremony, a time to gather brush and timber for the Sun Dance lodge. It was a time to paint the bodies of those who would participate in the ritual with many colors and designs that signified life—the sun, moon, flowers and plants, or animals.

  Wolf’s Blood would be painted with his sign, the wolf, and with his father’s sign, the eagle. Tall Grass Woman did the painting, a job she accepted with great honor. It would be tedious and time-consuming, but she would do it with great joy, for this was the white woman’s first-born son, and this moment was very special to her good friend, Abbie, and to the boy. But Abbie knew it was most special to Zeke, who saw in his son the Indian blood he knew would not run as strong in any of his other children.

  Abbie wore her best tunic, one bleached white and painted and beaded in bright colors. It was a gift from Tall Grass Woman many years before. Her cheeks and arms were painted with flowers, and to Zeke she was a vision—a goddess—an Indian with white skin, for when she was with his people this way, she
was an Indian at heart. She understood his need to live this way, at least some of the time, and she never objected.

  About her waist she wore a leather belt with two eagle feathers, a gift from an old priest when first she came to the Cheyenne—a gift he had given her in honor of her courage and strength for what she had suffered on her way West, and for living through the wound of a Crow arrow. She had been more like a little girl then. Now she was a woman, and to Zeke she was more enticing then ever.

  For days the drums beat and the dancing continued, and the air was filled with sweet smoke from campfires and roasting meat. Wolf’s Blood sat patiently outside his parents’ lodge day in and day out while Tall Grass Woman painted with painstaking care—his chest, arms, back, face and legs. Abbie exclaimed that her son would be the most beautifully decorated young man at the ceremony, but each day Zeke grew more quiet, in spite of his pride and eagerness for the ceremony. This was his son. And his son would suffer.

  On the night before Wolf’s Blood’s fasting and three-day-long ordeal of constant dancing around the Sun Dance Pole, the entire family sat quietly in a circle in their tipi, Zeke and Abbie on either side of Wolf’s Blood. Abbie offered her son another piece of the venison she had cooked for him that evening. She cooked it his favorite way, flavored with pork and special herbs. This would be the last meal her son would eat for many days, for not only must he begin fasting, which would last for three days, but after that he would suffer wounds to his flesh. He would lie in pain while recovering and eat little.

  Zeke sat quietly, not eating anything, his face painted in his prayer color. He seemed totally removed from what was going on around him, and Abbie knew he was concentrating all of his faith to beg the spirits to save his son from too much suffering. Some participants would cry out and give up, and some would die. He prayed that neither thing would happen to Wolf’s Blood.

  Outside the drums beat rhythmically. Wolf’s Blood didn’t seem worried at all. He was excited and ready, for not only would he show the other warriors he was a man, but he would also show the young maidens, many of whom had been watching him slyly. Never had he been so disturbed by the soft curves of their bodies as he was in this his fifteenth year, and he was beginning to change his mind about never marrying. He had grown up with parents who were happy in their love, strong in their love, whose very strength seemed to come from the bond they shared. His father was a skilled and powerful man, a man of spiritual faith and magnificent courage. Taking a woman had not weakened him. In fact, Zeke had told him once that being with Abbie gave him more strength—that it was when he had to be separated from her that he felt weak.

  Yes. Perhaps taking a wife would not be so bad. But first he must be a man. He would show the young maidens who would watch and who would encourage him with their songs as he suffered just how much of a man he was.

  The boy bit into another piece of meat when Smoke suddenly leaped to his feet, his ears perked straight and his lips curling. He growled low and looked at the tipi entrance.

  “Someone strange is near,” Wolf’s Blood said, quickly getting to his feet along with his father. Zeke whipped out his knife when someone rattled the bells and buffalo hoofs Abbie kept strung outside the entrance for people to announce their entrance.

  “Zeke. It is I. Swift Arrow,” came the voice.

  Abbie gasped and broke into a smile, and Zeke was instantly throwing back the flap of the lodge entrance, while Wolf’s Blood ordered Smoke to lie back down. Swift Arrow ducked inside, dressed in his most brilliant warrior regalia. Zeke grasped his wrist instantly, grinning broadly, his eyes watery.

  “Swift Arrow, my brother! You came to witness my son’s sacrifice!”

  Their eyes held in brotherly love, and Swift Arrow placed his other hand on Zeke’s shoulder. “The runners told me the Cheyenne to the south would not come north this summer for the ceremonies. I knew this was Wolf’s Blood’s fifteenth year, the year that he was told in a vision he must make the sacrifice. For the first six years of the boy’s life I helped raise him, taught him the warrior ways. He was like a son to me. I wanted to be here.”

  Zeke’s jaw flexed in an effort to control his emotions, and Swift Arrow saw how difficult the ceremony would be for him. “I … am glad you came, Swift Arrow,” he replied. “It will be easier with you here. And it’s been so long since we’ve seen you. I had a vision several weeks ago … a bad dream. I thought perhaps something had happened to you.”

  Swift Arrow grinned. “I am fine.” They squeezed each other’s wrists, and Swift Arrow dared to move his eyes from Zeke’s to look at Abbie, something that would be difficult, for he must not show his emotion. Zeke knew the moment Swift Arrow saw her standing there, beautifully painted, her long, lustrous hair brushed out thick and loose, her white skin painted with flowers, that it was still difficult for his brother to look at her. He squeezed Swift Arrow’s wrist again in a gesture of gentle warning mixed with quiet understanding.

  Abbie smiled and blinked back tears. “Swift Arrow,” she said quietly. “It was … good of you to come. It’s been such a long time. We were worried. And Zeke needs you.”

  His eyes quickly scanned her beauty, his body rigid with cold control. Did the woman never change? Did the elements never age her? Why did she have to be cursed with such beauty?

  “So … you live like the Indian again … like that first year you came to the Cheyenne with your new husband,” he spoke up.

  “You taught me many things that year,” she replied.

  He nodded, then tore his eyes from her to face Zeke. “I learned that there are some whites with the same strength and courage as the Indian.” Their eyes held. Zeke knew it was difficult for his brother to come at all, for out of honor and to ease the pain in his own heart, he had vowed to stay in the North with the Sioux and never set eyes on Abigail again. “I … came only to give you support, my brother,” he told Zeke. “And to witness my nephew’s sacrifice.” He grinned. “You must be very proud.”

  Zeke nodded, and Swift Arrow turned to Wolf’s Blood, grinning more and walking up to the boy, placing his hands on Wolf’s Blood’s strong shoulders. “My nephew—look at you! You are a fine, strong, handsome young man. The young girls, they watch you eagerly, do they not?”

  Wolf’s Blood grinned and actually looked embarrassed. “I am glad you came, my uncle! My heart is happy. Now you will all be here—you and my father and my uncle, Black Elk. My father and his brothers will be together. It is good! I can bear the pain with all of you there.”

  Swift Arrow put a hand to the side of the boy’s face. “My Little Rock. This is how I remember you, by the name you were called when you were small—before you had your vision and slept with the wolves. You are the son I lost. You and your family are my family. I have no other.”

  Abbie looked at Zeke, wanting to weep at the words. She walked over to Zeke and he embraced her.

  “Swift Arrow, there is food left,” Zeke told his brother. “Sit with us and eat. Did you come alone?”

  The man turned, forcing back the ache of seeing Abbie standing in Zeke’s embrace. “Ai,” he replied, “I have come alone. It is dangerous to travel the country in large bands now. Whenever the stupid whites see more than ten Indians together, they think it is a war party.” He laughed sneeringly, then marched around the circle of Monroe children and studied each one as Abbie named them for him. The children looked back at their estranged uncle with wide eyes. He looked very much like their father, only slightly darker, a handsome Indian man, but not the same handsomeness Zeke had, for Zeke carried mixed blood, the harshest Indian lines toned down by his white father’s blood into the best of both. Swift Arrow was not quite as tall and broad, for Zeke got his size from his father; but Swift Arrow was bigger than most Cheyenne men, and was a powerful man in his own right, a highly respected Dog Soldier. Swift Arrow was a superb specimen of a Cheyenne warrior. Zeke was the best of two bloods, and it was obvious Wolf’s Blood would inherit his father’s height and breadth, fo
r already he was as tall as Swift Arrow, and was not finished growing.

  Swift Arrow’s eyes rested on LeeAnn, and he reached down and touched her golden curls. “The soldiers will think you have stolen this one,” he told Zeke. “You must be careful with her.” He moved to Margaret, struck by her provocative beauty. “You are Moheya,” he said softly. “Such beauty I have never seen!” He looked at Abbie, then Zeke. “She has the soft beauty of her her mother, and the fine lines of her half-breed father. The warriors will give you many horses for this one.”

  Zeke grinned. “I have horses of my own. The warriors will have a hell of a time proving to me they’re good enough for my daughter,” he replied.

  Swift Arrow grinned. “I do not think I would want to be the young man who must come to you for her hand,” he answered. He glanced at the big knife strapped to Zeke’s waist. “And how many men have felt your blade since last I saw you, my brother?”

  Zeke smiled more. “I’ve lost count.”

  Swift Arrow laughed and Wolf’s Blood grinned. “You should have seen him last summer, my uncle,” the boy spoke up eagerly. “He was in a knife duel with a white man who was the best white man with a knife. They fought the Cheyenne way, with a leather strap in their teeth and one hand tied behind their backs. You have never seen such a duel!”

  Swift Arrow scanned his tall, powerful brother. “I have seen him use the knife, Wolf’s Blood. No warrior that I know would consider fighting him with the blade.”

  “And then later—when he found out a white soldier tried to hurt my mother, father raced him, and when no one could see them, he knocked the man from his horse and broke his neck with his bare hands!” The boy laughed lightly. “He came back and said the man fell from his horse and was killed, but all of us knew what really happened. He was a big man, Swift Arrow, and my father broke his neck.”

  Swift Arrow looked at Abbie again, enraged at the realization of what the boy was telling him. A soldier had insulted her—perhaps even … His eyes darted to Zeke. “She was hurt?”