Meet the New Dawn

by Rosanne Bittner

  He smoothed back her hair. “It’s pioneer women, hmmm?”

  “Yes. It’s a beautiful article, Zeke. Very well written.”

  “That’s because he was thinking of you when he wrote it; and all that love he had for you came right through, I’m sure.”

  “I … I thought you’d like to read the letter … see the article. But I wasn’t quite sure how to tell you. I hope it doesn’t upset you. Edwin was very good to us, and it’s been ten years since we heard from him after he left. I think he deliberately kept silent, knowing that was best. And now he’s married again. I’m glad for him.”

  Zeke stared in the direction of the Tynes land. Somewhere out there the great stone mansion still sat. Tynes had built it to remind him of England, and Zeke supposed the man had hoped to live in it with Abbie. But that could not be, and Tynes had left, turning the ranch over to a brother and an uncle, who ran it for three years, then sold it to an American rancher from Nebraska. The American preferred a simple log house to the mansion, and now the great castle Edwin Tynes had built sat empty, most of its contents and expensive furnishings and accessories sold off or shipped back to England. It seemed almost haunted—haunted by memories; haunted by things that could have been but never were. That had been a hard time for Zeke and Abbie, the closest they had ever come to parting. But real love bears all things and cannot be denied. Zeke had seen the mansion a time or two in his travels, and it gave him chills. What had ever made him think he could live without his Abbie? Abbie refused to go and see it at all. She did not want to be reminded of those sad times, for in the midst of their troubles, her little Lillian had died and still lay buried on a little knoll on the Tynes property.

  He met Abbie’s eyes again, then her lips, pulling the blanket from her naked body and laying her back on it. There was nothing to say. The thought of those years brought out a need to make love again, to remind one another who they belonged to, who they loved and could not be without. She broke into tears, remembering how determined he’d been to leave her for her own good, remembering that he had even gone to the harlot Anna Gale in Denver to vent his needs and try to prove to himself he didn’t need his Abbie. But it hadn’t worked. Some things could not be denied, and this was one of them.

  She whispered his name as he moved between her slender thighs, pushing himself inside of her again. There were so many reasons they must do this often, and for a moment the memory of Swift Arrow smearing blood on his cheeks in sorrow flashed into Zeke’s mind. He thrust himself hard then and she cried out with the force of it, arching up to him in return. Edwin Tynes had been a handsome, dashing, worldly man that most women would pray to find. But how could he compare to this man who hovered over her now? How could he compare to Zeke Monroe’s dark handsomeness; to Zeke Monroe’s magnificent build; to this man who had many times risked his life for her, who had protected and defended her, and who loved her beyond all common forces? Could it really be true they had been together thirty years now? Or was it only thirty days? No length of time was long enough, and if she could live to three hundred she would want to stay with this man. Her love, her life! But what if she had only a year left with him, or perhaps two? What would she do? There was no Abigail Monroe. There was only Zeke Monroe’s woman, and the thought of being alone brought terror to her heart. No! He must never leave her. Never!

  She cried out his name again, pushing, giving, and also taking. Time was growing short. She felt it in her bones. She would take advantage of every moment—every sweet moment—and let her passions flow like the rippling waters of the nearby stream.

  While gathering supplies at Fort Lyon in April of 1876, they heard the news. The first spoken words had been heard through a contraption called a telephone, in March of that year. The Indians had thought the talking wires of the telegraph had been magic enough. But a device that could transmit actual voices? All the way home Zeke and Abbie and Ellen talked about it, joking at how handy the telephone would have been during all the times Zeke had had to be away from home.

  “Just think of the worry it could have saved me!” Abbie teased.

  “Well, maybe they can throw a voice from one room to another, maybe even across the street,” Zeke replied. “But they’ll never create something that can carry voices over the miles.”

  They rode on silently for a while, both staring ahead then looking at each other. “Never underestimate the white man’s hunger for progress,” she told him.

  He nodded, frowning. “I was thinking the same thing.” He looked back over the horizon again. “It’s all changing, isn’t it, Abbie? I see all the old ways vanishing. Remember how empty this land was when you and I settled along the river? All we had was a tipi, and there wasn’t a soul around but a few trappers at Old Bent’s Fort.”

  “And the Indians,” she added.

  The wagon clattered on toward home. He nodded. “And the Indians.”

  In May of that year Hal Daniels came home to stay, much to the great joy of Ellen, and Zeke was kept busy making trips to his son-in-law’s property to help finish their cabin. In early July of that same year, Zeke Monroe came home with a face almost gray with dread. He sank into a kitchen chair, ordering an alarmed Abbie to go and get Wolf’s Blood.

  “Zeke, what is it?” she asked. “Has something happened to Ellen?”

  He closed his eyes, putting his head in his hands. “No,” he answered quietly, resting his elbows on the table. He rubbed at his eyes for a moment, then faced her again, his eyes red. “About five thousand Sioux and Northern Cheyenne wiped out General Custer and roughly two hundred and twenty-five soldiers under Custer’s command a couple of weeks ago. At least those are the figures for now. There might have been even more warriors than that.”

  She sat down slowly. “Wiped out?”

  “Massacred. Every Indian leader we’ve ever heard of took part: Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gall, Red Horse, White Bull, Dull Knife.” He sighed deeply. “I have no doubt Swift Arrow was there, too.”

  She waited a moment, trying to let it sink in. “Where did it happen?” she asked.

  “On the Little Bighorn River. I guess just a few days before that, soldiers had attacked a peaceful Cheyenne village on Rosebud Creek, getting them really riled.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I rode into Fort Lyon to get some things for Hal and Ellen. Everybody was talking about it there. The stories are wild and mixed up. The only thing that is sure is that Custer and his men were all killed. The Indians were together in great force, and red-hot because their treaty was broken. I guess they’d been ordered onto smaller reservations over the winter and refused to go, so Custer and others were sent into the field to force them to go. No one is sure why or how the man rode right into the middle of such a huge gathering of Indians. They say that including women and children there must have been a good ten thousand Indians in the area. They panicked when they saw Custer coming. The warriors gathered, and that was that. When an Indian is mad, no prisoners are taken. The enemy must die.”

  Abbie looked at her lap. She wore a tunic that day, and she picked at the rawhide fringes of the dress. “Things will be very bad for them now, won’t they? The government won’t let this go lightly.”

  He rose, turning and slamming a fist against the wall. “They had a right! They had a right to kill the bastards! The soldiers shouldn’t have been there! The miners shouldn’t be there. None of them should be there! There’s a treaty! But the goddamned whites are so gold-hungry they’re blinded by it! Sure, give the Indians some land, until you find out there’s something valuable on it! Then they can’t have it any more. Then the government comes and says they’re sorry but the poor Indian will have to move on.” He turned to face her, his eyes blazing. “And the soldiers have no idea the terror that fills the hearts of the women and children when they see soldiers coming. The Cheyenne especially have memories—of Blue Water Creek and Sand Creek and Washita. They saw Custer and his men and the warriors moved quickly. They weren’
t about to let that happen again. And it’s the Indian way to kill his enemy and spare none, but the government doesn’t understand that! Don’t you see, Abbie? If they’d just take the time to understand how the Indian thinks, why he behaves as he does, to remember the Indians have memories of unprovoked slaughters of their own women and children; if they would just try to think the way the Indian thinks, they could work with them, be at peace with them. The Indian doesn’t understand a man who will make a promise and then break it over and over again. He doesn’t understand what the white man wants, why it’s so important to go after the gold. Gold doesn’t mean a damned thing to them!”

  “Zeke, you don’t have to explain those things to me. I understand just as much as you do.”

  His breathing was quick, his eyes teared. “Then you must understand that this is the end, Abbie! It’s the end. The government and soldiers won’t let up now. Not just the Sioux, but the Apache and the Utes and the Nez Perce—all of them! Already most Indians have been swept under the rug, buried on putrid reservations to rot and die, and none of them give a damn!” His teeth were gritted and he threw his head back, breathing deeply. “They won at the Little Bighorn,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “But they’ve sentenced themselves to death. I said myself I’d like to see Custer get his due, but this will go badly. They’re dying, Abbie, just as surely as if someone were slowly sinking swords into their hearts. They’re dying … and I’m dying. There is no future now—not for them … and not for me.”

  He turned and walked out, and her heart shattered at the words. She felt the need to run after him, but knew he did not want her to. She sat frozen in the chair. “Zeke,” she whispered. Her heart pounded wildly. She was not foolish enough to think she was his only reason for living, although she meant the world to him. But there was something else that had been important to him, something that was a part of him; and now that something was dying, and part of Zeke Monroe was dying with it.

  The government and Army swore revenge. The Black Hills, with their billions in gold, were declared the property of the U.S. government, whether the Indians liked it or not. After a savage campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne, who had only fought for something they thought belonged to them because the government had promised it would, the Indians were finally severely beaten and surrendered from starvation and broken spirits, signing a new treaty they did not understand, giving up the sacred Black Hills. None knew then that for well over the next hundred years there would continue to be bitter fighting over the legality of that treaty, signed by the Indians because of trickery, false promises, and threats. But the damage was done. Five months after the Little Bighorn, the great Cheyenne chiefs, Dull Knife and Little Wolf, were defeated, many of their people killed, their villages plundered and burned, everything destroyed.

  It seemed war had broken out everywhere, and the saddest part was that the soldiers were pitting Indian against Indian, bribing and frightening Indians to turn on their own kind and help the soldiers find and attack hostiles. And after surrendering the Black Hills, the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne were forced into humiliation when their guns and ponies were taken, their tipis searched, the men put under arrest and not even allowed to ride horses. Every place they went they had to walk. There was nothing more important to an Indian warrior than his horses. To walk was to be a woman, and they were broken and disgraced.

  And so indeed the battle at the Little Bighorn had brought a reprisal from Washington that cost the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne all that was most important to them, even though they had been right to fight for what was theirs. But the white man wanted the gold, and if not the Little Bighorn, Washington would have found some other excuse to sweep through Paha-Sapa and kill and destroy.

  In 1877 the great Sioux Chief, Crazy Horse, was bayoneted by a Sioux scout, while peacefully surrendered at Fort Robinson. He was unarmed, a prisoner, yet still a hero to the young warriors. He was killed by another Sioux, one of the many who had allowed themselves to be bought off by the soldiers, who had lost their pride and their fighting spirit.

  Not long after, the Northern Cheyenne who had surrendered with Crazy Horse at Fort Robinson were ordered south, to join their relatives on their reservation in Oklahoma. None of them wanted to go. All thought they would be allowed to stay on the Red Cloud reservation with the Sioux, for their leaders, Dull Knife and Little Wolf, had signed the treaty along with the Sioux in 1868, verifying that the Northern Cheyenne could stay in the Black Hills. But the orders came from Washington: They must go south. And so in still another way that treaty of 1868 had been broken, and through the summer of 1877 a thousand Cheyenne made the sad walk south to a land they hated. The trip took three months, and many old people died along the way. A few stubborn warriors slipped quietly through the soldiers and turned back north, refusing to go to the hated new reservation. Among them was Swift Arrow.

  In that same year the Nez Perce, a totally cooperative and peaceful tribe in Oregon, were brutally chased from their promised land by whites who simply did not want them there anymore. After a thirteen-hundred-mile struggle, the Nez Perces, under Old Chief Joseph, the eloquent, peace-loving leader who had tried so hard to get along with the whites and abide by their treaty, gave up the fight. But that had not been good enough for the settlers. And in his own poignant words the old chief summed up the way nearly all the old chiefs of all the nations were feeling in their hearts:

  “Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”

  As predicted by the Cheyenne woman at Fort Lyon, Lieutenant Henely did die. He drowned in Arizona. The woman’s prediction had come true; the white soldier paid his price for taking sacred objects from the dead bodies of Indians he had killed.

  It seemed during those years of the final demise of the Indian, the very earth and wind were crying out for the People, carrying their mournful wails through the mountains and across the plains. There were death songs in the air, and the rain was their tears. And through it all Abbie saw a restlessness in her husband, and death in his own eyes.

  The big black engine belched and hissed as it pulled to a halt. Twenty-five-year-old Jeremy Monroe disembarked, walking to the end of the platform and staring out at Fort Lyon. This was familiar territory—and very close to the ranch. The train whistle blew, and more people came off while others climbed aboard. Soldiers dallied here and there, as well as a few Indians, some apparently working on the loading docks, others just sitting and staring. One looked up at Jeremy, his eyes red from whiskey, droopy bags under them from too many tears. Jeremy felt a pain in his chest. The small amount of Indian he had felt in his blood had disappeared completely. He had been a part of orders to kill Indians who interfered with the railroad, and was also behind much of the slaughtering of the buffalo to feed railroad workers. Now, just as he had predicted, the railroad went all the way to Denver, across the plains of Kansas, through the heart of what was once Indian country.

  He straightened his silk vest. At twenty-five, he was extremely successful. His keen mind for business, his loyalty, his eagerness, and his intelligence had brought him a long way fast, and he was proud of himself. He had a fine house in Denver, and a perfect wife. He had a strength of his own, but did not stop to think of where that strength came from; nor did he think about the fact that it was his mother who had taught him so faithfully and so well right at home when he was small, insisting that all her children learn to read and write and do figures. Jeremy had needed little prompting, for he was eager to learn, and now it was paying off.

  He walked around the train station, needing to stretch his legs. He had just come all the way from St. Louis, where railroad talks had taken place just as in many other cities. The past year had been one of bitter strikes and physical clashes between railroad workers and soldiers. It seemed that with the Indian problems and the railroad strike, the whole country had been at war. But things were calmer now. The strikes were over, a
nd most of the Indians were on reservations where they belonged. And he had no doubt that because of his own hand in helping solve the strikes, he would move up even faster now, perhaps become a president of the Kansas-Pacific some day. If a man was going to dream, why not dream big?

  He gazed out at the horizon again. West of this place lay a ranch—the Monroe ranch. It had been many years since he’d seen it—nearly nine. And it had been that long since he’d seen his mother and brothers and sisters, except … was his father still alive? He was afraid to find out. Besides, what did it matter anymore? Surely he would not be welcome there. He had waited too long. It was too late to make amends, and even if he did, he would have to admit to his friends and his wife that he was part Indian.

  The whistle blew again and he boarded, taking a seat by a window. He had deliberately taken the Atchison-Topeka line, wanting to check out the competition. A few minutes later the train chugged away, past Colorado plains dotted with snow. It was February of 1878, and there had been a welcome thaw from the harsh winter, but a lot of snow still lay on the ground in patches where it had drifted deeper than other places. Several hours later he spotted a familiar hill, a gnarled old pine sitting alone at the top of it. He pressed his face closer to the window. The ranch! It was part of the ranch! The train rumbled on, and he realized for the first time that a railroad had been built right through the northern section of his father’s ranch, something that must have both angered and saddened his parents. He remembered when he was very small, and his mother swore a railroad would never go through their land.