Forever by Your Side

by Tracie Peterson

  She felt a sense of peace flow over her. Clint was just a friend from the past. She neither regretted nor esteemed him. He simply . . . was.

  He was frowning as she continued. “I might have had feelings for you when I was fifteen, but that’s long gone. You were wise to refuse my nonsense, and for that I thank you, but that still isn’t why I’m here. You are failing these people by allowing Summers to do as he pleases.”

  Clint looked past her to the window. “I’ve spoken to him about it and asked him to stop. I’ve spoken to my father and brother about it. There’s nothing else to be done.”

  Connie fumed. “There has to be something. He and others like him come in and steal the people blind. They’re even raiding their burial places. They’re digging up bodies. Disturbing the dead so that they can take skulls and even full skeletons for museums. It’s positively scandalous, and even the soldiers are guilty of it.”

  “Look, I told you that I’ve tried to deal with it. There’s nothing more to discuss on the matter. What I want to return to is us. You can’t just show up after all these years and not give me a chance. I know Tom fancies himself in love with you, but you clearly don’t love him.”

  Connie was stunned by this comment. It wasn’t the first time someone had suggested that Tom cared for her, but for Clint to do it seemed completely out of line. “My relationship with Tom is none of your business. I care very deeply for Tom.”

  “I just want a chance to woo you—to show you that the feelings you once had for me aren’t dead. They only need to be revived.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not interested. I’m here to record Indian culture and tribal information. I’m also here to see that they’re treated right. You can’t let their graves be disturbed.”

  “I can hardly set up guards night and day.”

  “Why not?”

  Clint seemed momentarily stunned by the question. “It’s the Indians’ responsibility. If they want guards at the cemetery, then they need to put them in place. It’s completely up to them.”

  “And what is your responsibility, Clint? It seems to me that as an Indian agent, you have been tasked with watching over the tribes and ensuring their well-being. You’re the only one they have to fight for them.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. You’re doing a good job of it yourself.” He crossed his arms. “Honestly, Connie, you can’t save the world. You can’t even save half of it.”

  She frowned. “Maybe not, but I can fight for this little piece of it. I’m going to send a letter to my uncle Dean in Washington. Maybe he can get together with your father and brother and come to a different conclusion.”

  She headed for the door, but before she could reach it, Clint had come around his desk and closed the distance between them.

  “Leave my father and brother out of this,” he growled, taking hold of her.

  Connie had never seen him look so angry. For a moment she felt afraid, but then she pushed her fear and Clint aside. “Stop trying to intimidate me.”

  “I’m doing my job,” he continued, sounding less angry. “I’m doing the best I can with what the government gives and the laws allow. I don’t like a lot of it any better than you do, but some of the men responsible have powerful friends. Friends who would just as soon replace me and put one of their cronies in my place. You think it’s bad now? That would spell disaster for your friends.”

  Connie considered his words for a moment. Maybe he was right. She knew how the various political groups scratched one another’s backs. It could prove disastrous if they replaced Clint with someone who truly didn’t care about the welfare of the Indians.

  “I’m sorry, Clint. I just get angry when I think of soldiers digging up graves. It’s heartless and cruel.”

  “I know, Connie.” He moved closer. “You need to understand that I’ve wrestled with this for a long time. It’s been going on for decades and probably will continue. I promise, however, that I will keep trying to find a way to put an end to it.”

  She heard the sincerity in his voice. “Thank you, Clint. I appreciate your heart.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

  “You didn’t. I’ve always appreciated your passion for righting wrongs.” He touched her cheek. “In fact, I greatly admire your passion.”

  Connie backed away. “I’m sorry, Clint. I just don’t have those feelings for you anymore.”

  She was already halfway out the door when he spoke.

  “Tom’s a lucky man.”

  She knew better than to respond. If she told him she wasn’t in love with Tom either—that they were just friends—it might only encourage his affections. Connie just kept walking. She wondered if she should tell Tom about the encounter but decided against it. The last thing she needed was Tom being angry at Clint and Clint being jealous of Tom.

  Lord, I need some direction on this. I don’t know how to handle what’s going on. I thought I would always love Clint—at least I did when I was fifteen. Now that I’m grown, I can see our differences would never have allowed us to have a good marriage.

  She thought for a moment, searching her heart in case there was some motive in her for revenge. Was she just rejecting Clint because he had rejected her? No. She didn’t feel anything toward him at all. No desire for revenge or reckoning. No need for him to be hurt because he’d hurt her. She didn’t even completely blame him for what was happening on the reservation. After all, the Catholic Church and the army also played roles in the past and present. Not to mention the government as a whole.

  She changed her mind about going home and decided instead to visit Rosy. Maybe she could help Connie figure out a solution to put a stop to the grave robbing.

  She knocked on the door and waited for an answer. Nobody came. Connie waited a moment and was about to leave when she heard moaning and the barely audible words, “Help me.”

  Connie tried the door and found it unlocked. She opened it and called out. “Rosy?”

  “Help.”

  Spurred on by the frail sound, Connie entered the house and saw Rosy lying on the floor near the table in her kitchen.

  “Rosy, what happened?”

  “I’m sick.”

  Connie felt her head. It didn’t feel feverish. She couldn’t see any reason for the ailment. “Let me help you up. I’ll get you into your bed and then fetch Mama. She’ll know what to do.”

  The old woman couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, but it was still difficult for Connie to get her off the floor. Thankfully they only needed to go a few feet. Once she had Rosy in bed, Connie rushed for her parents’ house.

  “Mama! Mama!” she called before even stepping through the door.

  “What is all the ruckus?” her mother asked, descending the steps.

  Connie stopped to catch her breath. “It’s Rosy. I found her collapsed. She’s sick.”

  Her mother nodded and went to the kitchen for what Connie called her healing bag. Mama and her two sisters, as well as Faith, all had them.

  “Does she show any symptoms?” her mother asked.

  “I found her on the floor. She’s terribly weak and told me she was sick.”

  “Come on. Let’s see what’s going on.”

  Together they hurried back to Rosy’s place.

  “So many have been sick,” her mother said. “They’re convinced the flour was poisoned. I don’t know that I believe that. I think perhaps it’s something else. Bad meat, maybe. The heat makes it spoil so quickly. Your father and I rarely eat meat in the summer unless it’s freshly killed chicken or fish.”

  They entered Rosy’s house, and Mama immediately went to her bed. “Rosy, what seems to be wrong? Connie, bring me a chair, please.”

  Connie brought a wooden chair for her mother to sit on. Her mother began to check Rosy’s eyes and ears and mouth. She felt Rosy’s forehead and then checked her neck and arms for rash or any sign of injury.

  “What have you had to eat?”

  “Bread and fish.”
Rosy closed her eyes, but a strange smile appeared on her lips. “And cake. The cake Connie brought.”

  “That’s odd. None of us got sick from the cake,” Connie’s mother told Rosy as she continued her examination. “Perhaps it was the bread, though I would more easily believe there’s been bad meat shared around. Did you have any meat?”

  Rosy said nothing for a moment, then nodded. “Fish stew. Adela brought it yesterday.”

  Mama turned to Connie. “Go see if Adela and her family are ill.”

  Connie nodded and headed out, only to run full-speed into Tom.

  He steadied her. “What’s going on? I saw you and your mom practically running here.”

  “Rosy’s sick, and Mama is trying to figure out what’s wrong. Come with me. We need to do a little investigating.”

  Tom went with Connie to the house of Adela and Howard Riggs, nearly a mile away. Connie seemed relieved to find them all healthy and thriving. Adela gave Connie a detailed list of what had gone into her soup, as well as her certainty that it couldn’t possibly have made Rosy sick.

  “I hope they can figure out if it’s really the flour, and if so, why it’s making people ill,” Connie said as they left the house. “We really don’t need one more issue to deal with.”

  “No. That’s true enough. But I’m not sure we’ll ever really know.” Tom shook his head and shrugged. “If it was poisoned, no one is going to admit to doing it. The excess flour has been confiscated, and folks were told to turn in any flour they’d purchased from this shipment. Hopefully that will be the end of it.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen again. I honestly don’t understand the heartlessness of people. Their hate is so intense.”

  “Have you heard anything more from Clint about the shipments?” Tom asked, changing the subject.

  “No. I was talking to him earlier about my disgust at artifacts being all but stolen from the Indians, as well as the grave robbing that goes on, and all he wanted to talk about was his feelings for me.”

  Tom could well imagine. It seemed Clint was always watching Connie. “I know it probably doesn’t make sense to you, but I don’t trust him.”

  “Why not?” She looked at him but continued to walk. “Just because he thinks he’s in love with me doesn’t make him untrustworthy.”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s just a feeling. He often has meetings with the Indians that no one else is invited to attend.”

  “He’s the Indian agent. I would hope he has meetings with them.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “How do you know he’s doing that?” This time she stopped and waited for his response.

  “You wanted us to prove your parents’ innocence, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I’ve been getting up in the night and watching him. He often has meetings with as many as ten men.”

  “That is rather strange.” Connie frowned. “Have you any idea what he’s up to?”

  “No. I can never get close enough to the house. They always post lookouts. Whatever they’re discussing, they don’t want anyone to know about it.”

  Chapter 13

  The Fourth of July passed without much ado. The Indian children performed a play about the birth of America, but Connie doubted they did it by choice. Independence Day meant very little to a people who weren’t free.

  Rosy’s health improved, but Connie’s mother reminded her that Rosy was up in years and probably didn’t have much more time. The Indians had suffered such malnutrition and endured so many struggles that it had taken a big toll on their life expectancy. It troubled Connie. Why had a government who held life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness so dear believed themselves justified in treating the Indians so poorly?

  Near the middle of the month, Isaac left for Oregon City in order to bring back a small herd of sheep he’d purchased from their aunt Hope and uncle Lance. On August first, he returned, and with him came Hope and Lance Kenner and Connie’s cousin Faith. Just their presence managed to cheer everyone.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” Connie’s mother said, hugging Hope tightly. “How I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too. It’s hard not having you and Adam close by.” The sisters pulled away and just looked at each other for a moment. There were many untold secrets between them after all they’d gone through together. Especially when they’d been held hostage at the Whitman Mission.

  “How is Grace doing?” Mama asked.

  Hope smiled. “She’s doing very well. She sent a few gifts and told me to tell you that she’s almost convinced Alex and Gabe to come for a visit as well.”

  “That would be wonderful,” Connie interjected. “Maybe they could advise the Indians on the best way to get the mill back up and running.”

  “I’m sure they would,” Aunt Hope said, turning to Connie. “It’s hard to believe you’re all grown up.”

  “I hardly recognized her when she showed up at Nancy’s,” Faith said, laughing. “I suppose we all have to accept that time will never stand still.”

  “Speaking of Nancy,” Mama asked, “how is she? How is poor Seth?”

  “He’s recovering well,” Faith replied. “They’re both doing quite well, and little Jack is growing so fast. He’s a little cherub.”

  Connie looked around. “Where did Isaac get off to?”

  “The men are moving the sheep into one of the fenced pastures. After the sheep are secured, Isaac and your father hope to convince the others to help them put up fencing for another pasture so the sheep can be moved around.” Her mother turned to Aunt Hope. “I tell you, Isaac has worked hard to make those pastures perfect. He walked every inch, planted good grass seed, and got rid of any poisonous vegetation.”

  “That’s the workings of a good shepherd,” Faith offered.

  “He plans to get a good sheepdog too. We have promised him the pick of the litter when Dilly has her pups,” Aunt Hope announced. “But that won’t help in the immediate future. Hopefully we’ll be able to locate one already trained. We’ve advertised in several newspapers. Even the one in Salem, since it’s closer than Portland and Oregon City.”

  “It’ll be nice to have a dog around the place. When our old spaniel died, we just never got around to getting another. There are so many dogs on the reservation as it is.”

  “Well, a good sheepdog is worth his weight in gold. He’ll keep the sheep contained and safe. Hopefully we can find one soon.” Hope looked at Connie. “I understand you’re here to record information about the various tribes.”

  “I am. Tom and I were hired by the Bureau of Ethnology to document all of the Indians on the reservations here in Oregon. For the time being, we’re assigned to the Grand Ronde, Warm Springs, and Siletz Reservations. We chose to start here so that I could be near my family.” She didn’t know how much she could say about her personal investigation. The fewer people who knew, the better, but at the same time she was pretty confident the family was already well aware of what her mother and father were being accused of.

  “It sounds like quite the task.”

  Connie knew Aunt Hope had gone through terrible things at the hands of the Cayuse Indians when they had massacred the men and one woman at the Whitman Mission back in 1847. Connie had heard the story from her mother only once, and then it was never mentioned again. She often wondered what Aunt Hope thought of Mama’s devotion to the Indians. After all, her mother had been at the mission as well but hadn’t suffered the things Aunt Hope suffered. Aunt Grace had once told Connie that her mother had more mercy and forgiveness than she or Hope put together and that neither were surprised when Mercy made the announcement that she wanted to work with the Indians. Connie could only imagine the things her mother and aunts had seen in the past thirty-some years. How the world had changed since the 1840s.

  “You seem lost in thought, Connie.”

  She shook off her thoughts. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “No harm
done.” Aunt Hope gave her a smile. “We can talk about your mission after lunch. You wrote and said that there was a problem with sickness on the reservation. Has that passed now?” she asked her sister.

  “Did you ever figure out what the sickness was?” Faith asked.

  Mama shook her head. “Not exactly. The agent had to send for the reservation doctor—not that the people wanted to use him, but so many were ill that Clint worried it was an epidemic of some sort. The people thought they’d been poisoned by bad flour, but the doctor assured them it wasn’t the fault of the food. I’m not convinced. It could have been a summer malady. Those things happen all the time. However, it really did act more like food poisoning. Even the doctor was hard-pressed to give it a name. Everyone is doing better now, so at least no one is calling to kill anyone.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hope asked.

  Mama waved to the living room. “Why don’t we sit? I have stew simmering on the stove and bread warming. When the guys come back, we can eat.”

  Connie followed her mother and aunt to the front room and explained, “The Indians often kill the medicine people if they fail to heal. I suppose it ensures that the healers do their best.”

  Her mother took a seat. “It’s true. You must remember that was part of the problem at the Whitman Mission.”

  Hope gave a solemn nod. “I had forgotten, but now I remember. The chief’s children died from measles, and he blamed Dr. Whitman.”

  She and Connie’s mother exchanged a glance, and in that moment, they were connected in a way that excluded Connie and Faith.

  “So many Cayuse were sick,” Mama declared. “It was a bad time for everyone. Grace even went to the Cayuse village to do what she could. It didn’t sit well with Dr. Whitman, but Grace didn’t care.”

  “I can imagine.” Connie had heard all sorts of stories about Aunt Grace, and all of them involved her strong will and determination to heal the sick.

  “Will your Indian agent be joining us for the meal?” Aunt Hope asked, seeming anxious to change the subject.