Faith frowned with irritation. “You’re really taking us all the way to Montana because of a bet on a card game?”
The man chuckled. “A man bets some foolish things sometimes.” He looked her over again. “We’ll all make do. I was fixin’ to go to Montana anyway. If I can help a couple of young folks like you get there, all the better.”
Faith looked at Johnny. “According to the papers the Indian situation in that area is very bad. Some forts have been abandoned.”
“No fret about Indians,” Cletus assured her. “I’ve been handlin’ them since I was hardly out of my teens. You’ll be all right. You might want to keep a hat over that pretty red hair, though. It might attract a few too many braves who’ve never seen red hair like that.” He grinned at Johnny. “I gotta say, kid, you’ve got a right pretty woman there. You’ll have to watch over her good if you’re goin’ to some of them mining towns. Women are mighty scarce in some of them places, and pretty ones like her…”
“I’ll watch her good. You just remember to be around in a couple more months. We’ll leave soon as it begins to warm.”
Cletus replaced the hat onto his bald head. “I’ll be ready and waitin’.” He nodded to Faith. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
Faith wished she could reply in kind but could not.
After Clete left, Johnny grasped Faith’s arms and turned her to face him. “A free guide, Faith! We’re practically all set. I’m sorry for all your hard work here, having to wait to realize our dream, but it’ll come true soon enough, you’ll see. We’ll go to Montana and find gold, and you’ll be a rich lady! No more scrubbing clothes for my Faith!”
Already she could see this would be one of those nights she dreaded. Whiskey was heavy on his breath, even though he’d come home much sooner than usual. “Johnny, if you don’t stop the drinking and gambling, we’ll never have enough money to go anywhere. Did you get that job you went looking for today?”
He waved her off. “That boot maker had already hired somebody else. Don’t worry. I’ll get something again. I’ll work real hard the next couple of months, and we’ll do okay.”
“Johnny.” She turned away dejectedly and smoothed a few strands of hair back from her face. “I’m beginning to see that you live in a dream world. You seem to know nothing about reality.”
“Sure I do, sweetheart. I know I really love you and we’re really going to Montana. We have a real destination now. That’s all the reality we need.”
She held up her hands. “I didn’t plan on this! I didn’t plan on being the one to earn the money so we could go! I didn’t plan on you gambling away everything you had saved so that we’d be stuck here in Chicago!”
“Honey, honey, we’re not stuck. You heard Clete. He’s taking us to Montana in just a couple of months.”
“I don’t like Cletus Brown one whit, nor do I trust him. How can you put us at the mercy of a man like that? An experienced mountain man who consorts with Indians and smells like a skunk! You don’t know anything about him, Johnny, or if he’s even telling the truth about knowing what he’s doing. I’m telling you I don’t trust him, Johnny. I don’t want to travel with that man! We’ll find a wagon train.”
“Heck, Faith, we don’t need the headaches of a wagon train. If we go with Clete, we’ll get there a lot faster. Wagon trains have breakdowns, and people have to wait. Sometimes somebody has a baby, or gets shot, or their horses or oxen give out. Sometimes they have outbreaks of cholera, measles, things like that. We’re a lot safer going on our own. We’ll make a lot better time and not have to get mixed up with other people’s problems and diseases. Clete’s okay. Hell, it’s a good offer he’s making us. Everything will work out, you’ll see.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Heck, Faith, I can’t help it if it’s hard to find work around here. And I’ll be working plenty hard when we find us a claim and I start digging for gold. Before long you’ll be living like a queen, I promise.”
He pulled her close and kissed her, and Faith wanted to cry at the realization that she no longer felt the passion for him she’d once felt. The more she saw of the real Johnny, the less she desired him, in spite of his dashing looks and fetching smile. “Let’s go to our room,” he suggested.
She wrested herself from his embrace. “Johnny, don’t you have any idea how tired I am? Every muscle aches in my neck and shoulders and arms from scrubbing clothes, and my fingers are burning raw! I’m working here like a slave while you sit in that tavern and play cards! This isn’t what I expected when we ran away, Johnny. What if I should find out I’m carrying? How do you propose to provide for a baby? I certainly can’t work this hard with a baby in my belly!”
The look in his eyes reminded her of a hurt little boy. “Heck, Faith, you should have known it wouldn’t be all easy right off. I’ve worked, and I’m looking for work again. At least we’re away from Pennsylvania. Isn’t this better than being married to that old codger Henry Bartel? Isn’t this more exciting than sitting in prayer meetings all day, or picking corn?”
Faith turned away. “I have to admit it is. Father came to see me today, Johnny. Henry was with him.”
“What! Did they try to take you away? I won’t let them—”
“No, Johnny. Father just wanted to know I was all right. I lied to him and said I was, and I said you were getting a new job.” She faced him again. “He wanted me to annul the marriage and go back to Pennsylvania, but I’d never do that, Johnny. I made vows to you, and I intend to keep them. I just hope you intend to keep yours.”
He put a finger to his lips. “Let’s go up to our room first. We shouldn’t be talking like this down in the parlor.” He took her arm and led her upstairs, closing the door to their room. “Of course I intend to keep my vows, Faith,” he told her then, rubbing at her arms. “How can you think I wouldn’t?”
She sighed, studying his eyes, wanting so much to believe only the best about her Johnny. “You will look for more work tomorrow, and you will stop gambling, won’t you? I’ve heard there is a lot of gambling up in those mining towns.”
He pulled her close again. “I promise to look for work, and no more gambling.” He kissed her neck. “If you want me to stay away from the gambling table the rest of tonight, let’s go to bed, sweetheart.”
She tried to fend him off. “Johnny, I’m a mess. I’ve been scrubbing clothes all day, and I’m tired. I ache all over, and I must look terrible.”
“You’re always pretty in my eyes,” he responded. Without warning he picked her up and carried her to the bed. He moved on top of her and eagerly pulled off her clothes between kisses and promises. This was the last thing Faith wanted to do, and she knew it would take him even longer because he’d drunk too much whiskey again.
As he shoved himself inside her, she forced back the tears. She could not even think of her husband. All she could think of was how Cletus Brown had looked at her. She lay rigid while Johnny took several minutes to get his satisfaction. Finally he rolled off her, stretching and letting out a long sigh. “See? My gambling isn’t a total waste. I got us a free guide all our own so we can get there that much sooner. I can’t wait till the weather warms, Faith. Then it’s off to Montana. Just the three of us.”
Faith lay silent. Just the three of us, she thought with trepidation.
“Faith?”
“Yes, Johnny.”
“I’m glad you didn’t listen to your pa. Life wouldn’t be any good without you.”
She curled next to him. “What am I going to do with you, Johnny Sommers?”
“Just love me, girl. I’ll make it worth your while, I promise.”
Chapter Eight
May 1864…
Tall Bear liked this new country where the Teton, Oglala, Hunkpapa and Brule Sioux lived. He decided this land farther west was surely a better place for the People. Most whites would not want to settle here. It was too high, too rugged. Here in this land even farther west than the Black Hills, majestic mountains rose like guardians
of the land. It was beautiful here, and he had never felt so free.
A few of those with whom he had traveled had died on the rugged journey through winter winds and snows, but February had brought calmer, sunnier weather as they’d marched through the Dakotas and into territory they had learned from the Oglala was called Wyoming by the white man. Now they were encamped with the Oglala, some of Red Cloud’s people, who were celebrating a winter of few soldiers to worry about. The white man’s war and Indian raids had closed some of the white man’s forts for the winter, and from what Tall Bear had seen and heard, he took great hope that here in Powder River country the Sioux could continue dominion over the land. Red Cloud was a great leader, and new leaders were rising in prominence, men to take Red Cloud’s place once he was too old to continue leading warriors, men like Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa, and Crazy Horse, a very young Oglala warrior, who had already proved himself quite skilled with the lance and arrow, and with the white man’s rifle.
The Sioux here were quite confident. Bellies were full, and Powder River country continued to be their domain. Being in a new place helped Tall Bear deal with his loneliness, and he had been welcomed as a member of the Crow Owner’s Society. Soon it would be time to hunt buffalo. Many prayers were said over the pipe to Wakan Tanka that many buffalo would be found. Soldiers and miners were killing off the buffalo in great numbers, and now white men who hunted buffalo for their hides had also begun coming into Powder River country. The Sioux were determined to keep all such people out of their hunting grounds, and as long as they could keep soldiers driven out, they could rule the land.
He lived with an old Indian man called Fox Hunter and his wife, Kneeling Woman. He provided for them, as Fox Hunter could no longer do much hunting of his own because of his age. It was a good life, a last bit of freedom for the Sioux. Tall Bear was thinking about this as he worked on a war shield Kneeling Woman had made for him. He was tying scalps to it, the three scalps he had taken from the men who had killed Little Otter and his son, but he was interrupted when Kneeling Woman rattled the pieces of tin tied to the entrance flap to the tepee and ducked inside. She carried in some wood and stacked it nearby, then looked into an iron pot that hung over the fire, in which she had cooked a stew of turnips and buffalo meat.
“Traders are coming,” the old woman told Tall Bear. “They say they come north from a place called Denver. They trade at Fort Laramie, then come into Sioux country to trade for buffalo robes and deer skins. I would like to go to them, perhaps trade for some colored ribbons.” She looked over at her sleeping husband. “Will you go with me, Tall Bear? You speak their tongue.”
He nodded. “I will go. But I do not like the thought of white traders coming here.”
“The others say these are the kind of men who understand us, speak our tongue, respect our ways. They are not like the buffalo hunters and soldiers and miners. And they bring rifles.”
Tall Bear set the shield aside. “How far away are they?”
“Not far. They will reach our village soon.”
Already Tall Bear could hear yipping and shouting, the sound of Indian men welcoming strangers with a combination of friendliness and warning. “We had better go see them,” he told Kneeling Woman. “Gather your robes. I will help you carry them.”
The weather had finally warmed, and Tall Bear wore a buckskin shirt and leggings but did not need an extra robe. There was only a slight chill to the wind, made so by snow still packed on mountain peaks to the west and south of them, and patches of snow still on the ground in many places. Kneeling Woman tied a wolfskin cape around her shoulders and picked up three more wolfskins that lay at the side of the tepee, all thanks to Tall Bear’s hunting. Tall Bear in turn took up two bearskins and carried them out.
“Save the buffalo hide and the other bearskin,” he told Kneeling Woman. “We never know when another winter might bring a poor hunt and we will need the extra warmth.”
They walked toward the pack train of approaching traders, who used mostly mules but also a couple of canvas-topped wagons—big, lumbering contraptions weighed down with all kinds of trade items. Dogs ducked around the wagon wheels, barking at the intruders.
“Sitting Bull says it is not good that we trade with the white man and begin to depend on him,” Kneeling Woman said. “He says it will make us dependent on the white man, and maybe he is right. I need another cooking pot, and perhaps you have something to trade for tobacco and guns.”
“I will see what they have first. The wild horses I caught last week are good, strong stock, and I need a good rifle.”
Already the traders were opening the wagon gates and displaying all sorts of trinkets, ribbons, beads, cooking utensils, blankets, and a hundred other items, including whiskey. The white man’s firewater was one thing Tall Bear had tried to warn the Sioux to avoid. He always remembered his father’s warnings that whiskey would someday be a tool the whites would use against the Indians to make them do foolish things, sign away their land, become so lazy they could no longer hunt. He had warned Tall Bear never to drink whiskey. Still, several other Indian men were already trading for the jugs of burning drink, feeling very cocky over the success they had had so far in keeping miners and soldiers out of their hunting grounds.
Kneeling Woman began dickering for an iron pot, offering two wolfskins. The man to whom she spoke looked the skins over. “They are very clean,” Tall Bear told the trader, who looked familiar to him. His hair was white and his beard white mixed with red, but though he was obviously old, he was quite robust.
“Well, I reckon they’re worth a cookin’ pot,” the man answered with a grin. He studied Tall Bear curiously. “You speak English.”
Tall Bear nodded. “I learned it from my father, mon père. He was French.”
“That so? Say, I knew a French trapper once, good friend of mine. We used to practically live with the Sioux over by Minnesota and them parts. His name was Alex Beaumont. You wouldn’t know of him, would you?”
Tall Bear frowned, studied the man closer. “Jess? He had a good friend named Jess Willett.”
The man’s brown eyes lit up. “Gabriel?”
Tall Bear nodded. “My white name is Gabriel Beaumont. I have not used it for many years.”
“Hot damn! Alex’s kid! I knew I recognized them green eyes!” Jess reached out a hand to Tall Bear. “What the hell you doin’ here with these Sioux, and you dressed just like ’em. What’s happened to your pa, Gabe? I never run into him for years, and I always wondered what happened to him. I sure as hell liked that man. Honest he was. Honest as they come.”
Tall Bear smiled, glad to see one of his father’s old friends. He shook the man’s hand. “I am called Tall Bear now. I have lived among the Sioux for many summers, since I was ten. I am twenty-eight summers now.” He lost his smile. “My father was killed by robbers on a riverboat when we were returning from St. Louis. My mother and I went to find her people, and I have lived among them ever since.”
Jess frowned, saddened about Alex’s death. “I’m sorry to hear about your pa, Gabe—I mean, Tall Bear, damn sorry.” He brightened a little. “I sure do remember Yellow Beaver. She was a looker, all right. Is she still with you?” He yelled at the others with him to continue the trading and walked away from them with Tall Bear. “It must have been hard on her when your pa was killed. How did it happen?”
“Thieves on the riverboat. They stabbed him in the back and took his money.” Gabe’s eyes showed renewed sorrow and anger. “Yes, it was very hard on my mother, but she is also dead now. She was killed by soldiers at Blue Water Creek.”
Jess shook his head. “I’ll be damned. They’re both gone.” He looked Tall Bear over. “And you chose to stay livin’ with the Sioux?”
Tall Bear stood a little straighter with pride. “I might have later left them, but I married a Sioux woman, and we had a little boy, but both of them were shot by buffalo hunters, for no reason.”
Jess rubbed at his whiskers. “Lordy, lordy. I’m sorr
y you’ve lost so much, Tall Bear.” He could see the look of a proud warrior about the young man as his green eyes turned to slits of hatred.
“I killed and scalped them…all three of them. Ever since then I have not wanted to go back to the white man’s world. I have only wanted to fight them. Most of my mother’s people have had to flee Minnesota, and now we are here with Red Cloud, where the Sioux still rule their land.”
Jess sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Sweet Jesus.” He pushed his hat back a little, looking intently at him. “Tall Bear, you must know that it won’t be long before whites will be here in Powder River country, too, in a lot bigger numbers. With gold up in Montana, settlers movin’ into Nebraska and Kansas, gold discovered in the Rockies south of us, a big city startin’ to grow there called Denver—they’re all around, Tall Bear. It’s a fact the Sioux and all other tribes is gonna have to face and accept. And you gotta remember you’re half-white yourself. You ought to think about that.”
“I think about it all the time, but I would not know where to go, what to do. I have no one now. These Sioux are my only friends.”
Jess put a hand on his arm. “Well, son, you’ve got a friend in me, and that’s a fact. You remember that. I’m usually around these parts someplace, around Laramie, or over to the Green River. Most anybody you ask at any of the forts around this territory knows me. If you ever feel the need to talk or give our side a try, you just come to me. Anything I can do for you is like doin’ it for your pa.”
“That is kind of you.” He glanced over to watch Kneeling Woman. “Do you truly believe there is no hope of the Sioux keeping their hunting grounds?”
Jess sighed. “You’ve seen places like St. Louis. And right now the only reason the army can’t quite hold its own out here is because of the war back east. You just wait till that war is over. There will be plenty of men to send out here to chase Indians, and plenty of people ruined by the war who will want to come west for free land and to start over. I can see the writin’ on the wall, son. Your pa and me, we came from a different time, when the only white men out here came to trade and hunt, not to stay. We got along good with the Indians. These new ones that are comin’ now, they’re here to dig for gold until there’s none left, and to claim the land for themselves, kill off the buffalo. Still, they ain’t all bad, Tall Bear. You know that. Part of what’s happenin’ is just life, a change of times.”
Tame the Wild Wind Page 9
