Climb the Highest Mountain (26 page)

She picked up a cup of tea and sipped it, and his heart ached for her. He knew full well the torture she was silently suffering. “Do you want me to send someone to Denver to try to talk her into coming home?”

She sighed deeply. “I don’t quite know what to do. I don’t want to lose her completely, Edwin. I don’t want to be accusatory or to embarrass and demean her. I think perhaps I will write to Anna, have her keep a watch on Margaret, maybe even talk to the girl. Then, if Zeke isn’t back within another week, I’ll make the trip to Denver myself. There isn’t much else I can do. But this looks like a bad storm. I won’t be able to get a letter through for the next couple of days so maybe one of your men could make it as far as Pueblo and send a wire to Denver over the telegraph lines. The way it’s snowing right now, he might not even be able to get that far.” She rose and paced. “Damned weather! Why couldn’t it have kept thawing?” She folded her arms. “I have to think about this. I have to be very careful, Edwin. Very careful. Margaret and I had something special. I don’t want to lose that.”

“I’ll do whatever you ask.”

She turned to face him. “I know you will. I’d like to reply to Anna right away, if you have a pen and paper I can use.”

“Certainly.” He took out a pipe. “How on earth do you know this Anna Gale?”

He began stuffing his pipe. She didn’t answer right away, but turned and walked to the window. “When I was telling you about Zeke’s and my past, I left out Anna.” She stared at the long icicle on the overhang. “I left her out because to tell you the whole story about her would mean telling you something that no one knows about me and Zeke, Wolf’s Blood, and Anna.”

“You said you were abducted a couple of years ago, but you couldn’t tell me by whom or why because you would have to tell me something no one must know about. Does it have to do with that?”

“In a way. Years ago Zeke was searching for his Cheyenne sister-in-law—she had been sold for whiskey—and his search led him to Anna. That was when she was deep into prostitution down in Santa Fe. She owned her own place. Only Anna could give Zeke the information he needed. By then he’d been through hell. He’d been wounded, had been away from home a long time. He was tired and desperate. Anna was well guarded. If he had beaten her or hurt her to get his information, he’d have been arrested and hung, for he was Indian. Anna was more wicked then, younger, wilder. She … wanted Zeke. She demanded only one price for the information … and he paid it.” Abbie stared out the window for several silent seconds. “I’ll tell you how much Zeke loves me, Edwin. The Cheyenne believe in making personal sacrifices for their loved ones, usually when they die. Relatives have been known to slash themselves several times, to let blood, over lost loved ones. I have seen Zeke do it himself. And when he was untrue to me, the Indian in him made him want to suffer. He seemed to think he had to show me how sorry he was by making a physical sacrifice, by letting blood, so to speak. He slept with Anna Gale to get his information, and after he left there, he cut off the end of a little finger. He wanted to
feel the pain, hoping it would relieve the pain in his heart, because he was afraid his white woman would never forgive him for what he had done.” She smiled softly. “He did not have to tell me everything, but he did—because that is the kind of man he is.”

She sighed and walked back to her chair. “Ironically I met Anna a few years later when we went to Denver to see a doctor about my dangerous pregnancies. Some white men picked on Wolf’s Blood, and Zeke went to the boy’s rescue and landed himself in jail. Anna saw it all. Zeke had not given her a thought in years, thought she was still in Santa Fe. She saw me standing there, helplessly watching those men drag Zeke off to the jail, and she hurried to my side, offered me a place to stay. I didn’t even know who she was, and when I found out I hated her at first. But she helped get Zeke out of jail—he could easily have been hung—and she gave us a free place to stay when we learned I needed an operation. I’m not sure what we’d have done without her help. We were forced to talk, got to know each other, discovered we were not so different, except that our lives had been led in different directions by fate. We actually came to like each other, even though I knew she loved Zeke. She told me she’d never forgotten that one night with him, in spite of all the men she’d known. She said he’d made her wish she had lived differently, and that she greatly admired me. I learned about her past, came to understand a little better why she had become the way she was. But she said then that she wanted to live a better life someday, in spite of the great deal of money she made. She’s an exceedingly beautiful woman. I’m glad she has the boardinghouse.” Abigail sipped some more tea. “A few years later she helped us again. She had information that helped Zeke deal his own form of justice to my abductors … and it also helped him find me. We owe her a great deal.”

He puffed quietly on his pipe. “So … Anna Gale loves your husband … and I love you. Yet you and Zeke have eyes only for each other. What bad news for me and for Anna Gale. I wonder how many others have loved each of you secretly?”

She stared into her tea and thought about Swift Arrow. There was a time … but she had not seen Swift Arrow in years. She knew why he stayed in the north with the Sioux, however, that was another matter better left buried. And, of course, there was Bonnie Lewis, who loved Zeke.

“Zeke told me once there are many kinds of love, that he realized other men at different times would love me, other women love him. But we seldom find that special kind of love that must be quenched, a love that cannot be broken, one that transcends the temptations others might offer. We love them back in a grateful sort of way, but we never really love them in that one special way.”

She met his eyes and saw that he was studying her. “So I am just one of many who have admired you deeply,” he answered. “Is that it?”

“Yes. I suppose so. I don’t mean to sound cold, Edwin. You will always be very special to me.”

He leaned forward and tamped out his pipe. “But I am not Zeke Monroe,” he said with resignation.

Her mind flashed to that first time she had set eyes on Cheyenne Zeke, his dark eyes glowing in the night campfire, his long, black hair hanging over shoulders clad in a buckskin jacket with long, dancing fringes; his waist adorned with an array of weapons; his physique commanding and almost frightening. His aura of power and manliness had struck her hard, and he’d been in command of her whole being when his eyes had first met hers and he’d flashed that broad, handsome grin. She set down her cup and fingered the diamond
ring he had bought her years before in Santa Fe.

“Zeke is Zeke,” she answered. “There is no other like him.” She closed her eyes. “I just pray to God he comes home soon, with LeeAnn, but I don’t know how I’m going to tell him about Margaret and Lillian.” She breathed deeply, and Edwin could tell that even apart, Zeke and Abigail Monroe were together.

Chapter Fifteen

The early dawn was extra cold, and Zeke noticed that the snow was getting deeper as they entered Colorado. If he were alone, he would have been up and on his way, for they would be home soon if they hurried. But LeeAnn was sleeping so hard, buried under all the blankets, that he hated to wake her. Zeke wore only his sheepskin jacket. He had given LeeAnn all the blankets, wanting to her to have all the warmth she could get. He was used to the cold and the elements. He didn’t mind sleeping huddled under his jacket, his head on a saddle, pine branches beneath him to keep him from the wet ground. But it irritated him that every old wound and every joint ached now in the early morning, worse when he was cold. They never used to bother him quite so much, and now he had the additional pain in his right calf. It had healed slowly and still pained him.

He looked out at the brilliant colors of the winter morning. There were wispy clouds in the sky, pink and yellow and blue, depending on how the rising sun hit them. They hung just above the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and Purgatoire Park loomed above the lesser peaks, ascending into the clouds. There was no
sound, yet he knew that the mountains and foothills teemed with life: deer and elk, bear and eagles, streams full of fish. The mountains were topped with snow, gray and purple rocks jutting out from beneath the white. In the distance, they looked like a painting, hanging there for him to view. On mornings like this it seemed this land was at total peace. It was difficult to realize the violence that could take place here, violence he himself had often dealt out. It was so vast, this country, that he wondered why there was not room for the Cheyenne to stay. But no, the whites had to have it all—every last bit of it. The Indians had been forced into worthless land they didn’t want, and those who refused to go and chose war would have to run and hide and starve until they surrendered. He wondered how Wolf’s Blood was getting on. He missed the boy so badly that at times his absence was a physical hurt. Maybe he should leave Abbie and the rest of his family to Sir Tynes and join the warring Sioux and Cheyenne in the north—ride free one last time and die in battle. That was what he was meant for, not civilization. But he had chosen civilization, for his Abbie girl.

He closed his eyes and thought of her. The struggles they had been through were too many to think about all at once. He knew how much she loved him, and he loved her more than his own life. But Sir Tynes loved her too. He was sure of it. If there was any possibility of her making a life with Tynes, maybe she should. She deserved to live the rest of her life in comfort, yet he knew she would not choose it for herself. He would have to convince her that it was best for her. His mind reeled with confusion, his passion for Abbie making these thoughts seem absurd. The mere suggestion that any other man might touch her brought a killing jealousy to his soul. No man but Zeke Monroe had touched her in love and desire, and with her willing.
Her rape was different. That had been cruel, forced on her against her will, and he had avenged it. They had abused his Abbie, had hurt her. But what about a man who truly loved her? Could she learn to love another somehow, if it was best for her? All his life he had suffered guilt for marrying her, even though she had wanted that more than anything else. Life could have been so different for her if she had stayed within her own race. Yet what would his own life have been like without Abbie? He’d probably be dead by now, for he would have lived like the wild grizzly and would probably have been killed in battle or died from exposure to the elements. Abigail Monroe was the only thing that kept him somewhat civilized. She was the only woman who stirred aching needs in him that made him restless and frustrated when they were apart. How could he possibly live out his life without her? Yet how could he deny her a chance at the peace and comfort she deserved? She had given him so many good years. Still, the thought of her lying in another man’s bed …

Angrily, he snapped the stick he was holding and got up, stirring the fire. He would heat it up before he roused LeeAnn. He was worried about the girl. She had spoken little since he’d rescued her. At first she had been almost hysterical with relief at being saved, had clung to him every moment, begging him never to leave her alone. He could see that she was going to be afraid of everything and everyone for a long time, and her normally happy, carefree spirit was destroyed. LeeAnn had never been one to think too seriously about anything; she had lived one day at a time and enjoyed it. But she was different now, and he hated to see that. She was another casualty of this land, another reason for him to feel guilty, and he would forever live with the nightmare of how it felt to have her torn from his arms. He had been unable to help his wife once. He’d been
gone when she’d been abducted. And he had been unable to help LeeAnn. That was devastating to a man like Zeke. It ate at him, feeding his feeling that his whole family would be better off without him.

He added more wood to the fire, then stooped over LeeAnn to tuck the blankets closer around her neck. His long, black hair brushed against her cheek and she started awake, screaming and grasping the blankets about her, then scooting back.

“Don’t touch me!” she yelled.

He frowned, his heart breaking. “LeeAnn, it’s just me—your father.”

She stared at him with wide, blue eyes, her breath coming in short gasps, her face still that of a little girl, for that was all she was. It sickened him to think of the horrible way she had learned about the realities of life, the side of life he’d hoped to keep from her a little longer, the cruel side.

She choked in a sob. “I’m … sorry,” she whimpered. “All I saw was … an Indian.”

The words cut him deeply. Their eyes held for a moment; then he turned to go to his saddlebags and get out some beef jerky and coffee. “Since you’re awake, we’d best get moving,” he told her. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I only meant to make sure you were warm.”

As she watched him make coffee in an old tin pot, she could not stop her tears. She loved her father, but she hated all Indians now and she wished she were old enough to go East, where she could be free of the terror in this land, where she could pretend she knew nothing about Indians, pretend that she herself had no Indian blood. None of the children looked less Indian than LeeAnn, with her flowing white blond hair and fair skin.

She stepped closer to the fire, and Zeke looked up at her. “I’m sorry, Father. I have … bad dreams. I
remember those awful Comanches … dragging me away from you … beating on you. When you leaned over me and woke me … my first thoughts were of them.”

He nodded. “I know. It’s all still fresh in your mind.” He stood up, towering over her. “You half grew up with the Cheyenne, LeeAnn. You know that not all Indians are bad. And you know why they’re doing what they’re doing now. They’re desperate and starving.”

She hung her head. “I know. But now I don’t care. I just don’t care, Father. Maybe someday I will again.”

He touched her hair gently, hoping she had told him the truth when she’d said she’d not been raped. She probably was. It would be like the Indians and the Comancheros to save her so they would get more money when she was sold. But she had been badly abused, and had seen and heard things that had affected her deeply. She had been humiliated and inspected and touched, he was sure of that. He could not blame her for hating those men or for connecting all Indians and this land with her misery and terror. It would take her a long time to forget… if she ever could. He would have to leave the right words up to Abbie. He wasn’t sure how to talk to a thirteen-year-old daughter just budding into womanhood who had been so cruelly awakened to reality. Abbie would know what to say to her. Abbie always knew what to say to the girls.

“Sit down by the fire, LeeAnn,” he told her. She sighed and did as he bade her, and he got out a small frying pan and set it over the flames. He took two potatoes from his parfleche, along with a small jar of melted pork fat and a spoon. He scooped some of the fat into the pan, then set down the jar and picked up a potato, pouring a little canteen water over it to wash it. Then he whipped out his huge knife and in seconds
dashed it through the potato many times, cutting it into tiny slices. As he picked up the second potato, he glanced at LeeAnn, who was staring at the knife. He hesitated, realizing she was thinking of his own capacity for violence. Her eyes teared.

“How can you kill men … and slice up a potato … with the same knife! It’s like … like killing those men was … nothing to you.”

He washed off the second potato. Irritated now, he quickly sliced it. “A knife is a knife, LeeAnn. At home your mother uses her own favorite knife to clean rabbits and other animals, the same knife she uses to cut vegetables and bread. You simply wash the knife and use it.”

She closed her eyes and looked away. “You’re … like them, aren’t you? Sometimes you’re just like them. You can kill… so easily.”

He frowned and shoved the knife angrily into its sheath. “What was I supposed to do? Let them carry you off to some Mexican because I didn’t want to dirty my knife, or because I might feel guilty about killing them? You’ve been forced to see the real side of life, LeeAnn, one you didn’t know existed. As long as you had to learn that lesson, then learn the lesson of survival. Understand my violent side. When it comes to protecting my own, I don’t give a damn if I have to kill fifty men! They mean nothing to me! That’s right. Nothing! I lost count a long time ago of how many men I’ve killed, but I’ve always done it in self-defense, or in vengeance for my loved ones.” He rose and limped away from her to look out at the mountains, inwardly cursing the pain in his leg. “Yes. LeeAnn, I am just like them. I wouldn’t harm innocent people like the desperate ones are doing now, but otherwise, I am just like them—in spirit, LeeAnn. And you have some of that spirit. You just don’t realize it yet. Someday you
will.” He turned around to look at her. “I am Indian, LeeAnn. Half of me runs wild and free with the wind. I love the Cheyenne. I love this land. My name is Lone Eagle, and for years I lived with my Cheyenne mother and brothers. I fought other Indians, hunted the buffalo, lived in a tipi, slept with Indian women. Then I met your mother, and she pulled at the other half of me, the white boy from Tennessee. Your mother keeps me civilized, LeeAnn. But she never asked me to deny my Indian blood, and I have never wanted to and never will! I am Cheyenne! I am proud of it. So don’t look at me as if I were some kind of worthless savage!”

She started to cry then. She could not forget the way he’d clung to her and fought for her the day she was abducted, nor the fact that he’d risked his life with the Comanches and the slave traders to get her back. Lucky for her he was the way he was, or she would be in the hands of some cruel Mexican by now, suffering untold horror. He’d been badly hurt by the Comanches, his leg still pained him badly.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” she sniffled. “I’m… confused. You’re just like them … but you’re my father. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.” She looked up at him with her blue eyes, eyes that made him so unnaturally soft. “I love you, Father. Don’t be angry at me.”

He sighed and walked over to her and knelt down, petting her hair. “I’m sorry, too. It’s been a bad day for both of us, hasn’t it, little Ksee?” She dropped her blankets and hugged him around the neck, and he embraced her tightly.
“Nemehotatse,”
he whispered, his dark hand petting the nearly white hair. “Let’s eat and head home, little girl.”

Margaret brought a tray of drinks to the table of
well-dressed men who were gambling. She wore a low-cut Indian tunic, at the request of the tavern owner. “You’re an Indian, might as well dress like one. That will be your come-on,” the man had told her. “Some of the wealthier men who come here have never had a try with a squaw. You’ll be right popular. Do a good job of serving drinks and you can keep what you earn any other way. No matter to me.” He’d puffed on his fat cigar. “You look a mite young, though. How old are you?”

“Nineteen,” she had replied.

“Well, seems to me you’re lyin’, but who cares if you want to be here. Most men like the young ones.” He’d put out his cigar. “I… uh … I usually get first turn though, seein’ as how you’ll be working for me and all.” His eyes had roved her body then, and she’d felt ill. Yet her rage and bitterness were too strong.

“Sure. Show me where I’ll be sleeping,” she had replied.

His grin still haunted her, his foul breath and his sweaty body. She hated white men, and only slept with them to take their money. After all, wasn’t that what Indian women were supposed to do?

As she set down the drinks, an older man in a dark, silk suit smiled at her and rested a hand on her hips, signaling her to bend closer. She thought about the rich white man who had abducted her mother, thought about what her father thought of men such as this one, but she banished those thoughts and smiled prettily for him. He was wealthy. He would pay a high price. She bent closer.

“You’re about the prettiest thing I’ve ever set eyes on, even if you are Indian,” the man told her. “I don’t suppose you have a room upstairs? You do more than serve drinks, don’t you?”

Her face was close to his, which was red from
whiskey and desire, making his white mustache look even whiter. She thought about how nice it would feel to stick a knife him and watch his eyes bulge out in pain.

“Yes, I have a room upstairs, and I do more than serve drinks,” she replied, smiling enticingly at him.

He patted her bottom. “That’s what I thought,” he said with a chuckle. “You’re a smart girl. This beats the reservations, right? Here you can get rich doing what Indian girls are best at doing. What’s your name, anyway?”

She straightened and tossed her long, dark hair behind her shoulders. “I am Moheya, Blue Sky,” she told him, holding her chin proudly. She remembered then the day her mother had made them go around the table saying their Indian names and telling them to be proud. Pain stabbed at her heart. Sometimes she wanted to go home, but she couldn’t do that now. Not now. She remembered Sam Temple’s words, and her bitterness and hatred returned. She had hoped that she would see Sam, that he would know what she was doing and feel badly about it, perhaps ask her to stop. But that was probably a foolish dream. “I get off at midnight,” she told the man in the suit. “And I prefer not to know your name.”