Climb the Highest Mountain (29 page)

“You’ll stay with me,” she wept. “We have to be together.” She looked up at him. “Don’t go, Zeke. Don’t go without making love to me. Surely an hour or two—one night—won’t make a difference. We need that. We get our strength from it.”

He shook his head. “No. It will only make it harder if… if you should want to consider staying here.”

“But I thought that was settled! I don’t want to stay here. I want to go home.”

She saw him changing again, giving up again. “Home to what? I managed to save Kehilan and two mares that had been mistreated and probably won’t be worth anything now.”

“We still have Sun and Dreamer, Zeke, and they’re both pregnant.”

“That’s a far cry from a full herd. It takes ten months for a mare to deliver. Sun and Dreamer will deliver
soon, but you’re talking another year before they can deliver again. That gives me two mares that I can’t sell because I need them, a stud I can’t sell for the same reason, two other nearly worthless mares, and two foals. Who knows if the foals will even survive? I don’t have any horses to sell, and I won’t for a long time.”

“We’ve been in worse shape.”

“Not with a whole brood of children to feed.” He walked toward his horse. “I’m leaving today, Abbie. You’ll think more clearly if I don’t touch you now. I want you to think very hard about a lot of things while I’m gone. Let’s go back to the house. I want to see Anna’s letter.”

Anna! Her heart pounded with dread. She could not let him go this way, especially when he would be seeing Anna Gale! He was hurt, lonely. He was trying to prove to himself that he could survive without his family. Anna Gale was the last person he should see right now. Anna had been good to them, she cared about them; but if she knew for one minute Zeke Monroe wanted her, needed to relieve his needs with her, she would surely let him, for her heart and body wanted Zeke Monroe!

She met his eyes as she walked to her horse and grasped the bridle. She held her husband’s gaze. “You think too, Zeke. Think about the fact that if you leave for good you’ll be killing me.”

Pain passed over his face and he reached out and touched her cheek. “I should have ridden out of your life when you were fifteen—when it would have been so much easier.”

She took his hand and kissed the palm. “Don’t leave this way. Please. Stay with me one night.” She kissed his hand over and over, talking meanwhile. “You must… be to tired … and you’re wounded. And I… need you, Zeke. Please stay … just one night.”

He pulled his hand away. How he wanted her! How he longed to take her, ravage her, devour her. But he thought about her abduction nearly two years ago, how he had found her, what she had suffered. If she had not been married to him, none of those things would have happened.

“No,” he answered quietly. “But I will come back, Abbie. That’s a promise. I will come back before we make any final decision—and I’ll have Margaret with me. We’ll talk about it then, all right?” She nodded, holding back a sob. “Tell me true. Is Tynes treating you all right?”

She nodded again, unable to meet his eyes because she wanted him so. “He’s been … wonderful,” she answered. “Very respectful. He is a gentleman, and he is very concerned about all of us.”

He fought his torturous jealousy. “And he loves you.”

“Yes,” she answered quietly. “But he hasn’t been disrespectful. He is like a good friend … that’s all.”

He studied the woman he had loved for so many years. “I’m sure it didn’t take long for him to know that he loved you. You’re easy to love, Abbie girl. That’s the hell of it.”

He turned and eased up onto his horse in one graceful movement, the tiny bell tinkling again. The only thing that made the thought of his leaving bearable was knowing he would come back. He would not break that promise. But how would he feel when he returned? Perhaps Anna Gale would help him make the final break. She must rely on Anna’s common sense and the brief friendship they had shared. Perhaps Anna could convince him that he must stay with his family. Perhaps seeing Margaret would help.

“Zeke, you can’t go to Denver looking like … like that.” How she hated having to say it. “You’d be hung
before they’d let you in any establishment.”

He looked down at her proudly. He was all Indian, from the tinkling bell to his buckskin moccasins. His eyebrows arched. “Shall I cut my hair too?”

Her eyes teared more. “No. Please don’t ever cut it.”

He grinned rather sarcastically, but a bitter grin was better than none at all. “You read a story to the children once from that Bible of yours, about a man called Sampson. I think I would feel a little bit like he did if I cut my hair. It would take away some of my strength.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. “If it would make you weak enough to stay with me, I would cut it off myself.” Their eyes held, and Cheyenne pride shone through his.

“Then it’s best for you that I keep it. I’ll braid it neatly for the white men, though.” He snickered. “Perhaps your Edwin has a suit I could use.”

“Don’t call him that. He’s not my Edwin. There is only my Zeke.”

He looked at her almost as a raiding Indian would look at a white woman, sitting tall and proud, looking down at her as though she was at his full command. “Perhaps I only loaned myself to you, Abbie. Perhaps I belong only to the land after all.”

She shook her head. “You’re trying to hurt me, trying to make me hate you. It won’t work.”

His bronze shoulders glistened in the sun. “I’ll just go to Anna’s first,” he told her, ignoring her statement. “She’ll let me in no matter how I look. She can help me find the proper clothes.”

Her heart raged with jealousy. “I am sure she can! I am sure there are a lot of things she can do for you, except give you back twenty years of your life and give you seven beautiful children!”

His horse pranced in a circle, seeming to sense that his master was ready to ride again. “What about Wolf’s
Blood?” he asked. “Has there been any word of him?”

She wanted to hit him for avoiding a response to what she’d said. “None.”

He gazed across the plains, dotted with melting snow. “Perhaps when I get back I should go north and find out what has happened to my son. I’m worried about him.”

If only she were stronger!… She would pull him from his horse and tie him and make him stay until he was himself again. “If you went north, you’d join the Sioux and never come back, not in the mood you’re in.”

He smiled proudly down at her. “It is the only way for a man like me to die, Abbie, and without you I would have no reason to live. You would have the children and all of this, and a fine man who loves you. You would survive.”

“I have never heard you talk so foolishly in my entire life!” She climbed up onto her own horse. “I’m telling you right now that wherever you go I’ll follow you! I’ll never let you go! Never!”

He was staring at Lillian’s grave marker, his jaw flexed in an effort not to soften. She knew a terrible struggle was going on inside of him. She couldn’t hate him or be angry with him. She knew him too well. He looked at her with softer eyes then, but just for a moment. “We must get to the house. I want to see the letter, and I have to restock my supplies while it is still daylight.”

“Zeke, you must rest! You must!”

“No! Every moment I rest some man is putting his hands on my daughter! My Moheya! She has a pride deep inside her that she does not even realize she possesses. Indian pride! I’ll shake it out of her if I have to! But I won’t come back here without her, even if I have to tie her and drag her behind me!”

“Zeke, be careful. You’re right. She is proud. So, be careful how you treat her or we’ll lose her forever. She’s still so much a child.”

He looked at her, the love in his eyes obvious as they moved over her. “When you were seventeen you had already given me a son. You were a woman.”

“I was white. I had choices Margaret will never have. And I had a man who … loved me.”

Their eyes held. “I don’t mean to hurt you, Abbie.”

She rode up closer to him. “I know that.” She drew her cape back around her shoulders. “Please be careful with Margaret, Zeke. She must come back of her own accord, or she’ll just leave again. It has to be her decision, her desire.”

“I will try, but it will not be easy.” He turned his horse and she followed. They headed toward the grand Tynes mansion.

It seemed ironic that she had wealth and luxury at her fingertips, that she could grasp it at any time, yet all she longed for was to be back in her little cabin, with all of her children around her and with Zeke Monroe beside her at night on a bed of robes. Love has a way of making everything else seem unimportant. They rode side by side, he in all his Indian splendor, she on a grand thoroughbred, the yellow skirts of her expensive dress flowing in the wind, each a stark contrast to the other, bound by only one thing, one delicate bind—love. She had always thought that bind was made of very strong material. She could only pray now that it had not been weakened to the point of breaking. Zeke Monroe was suffering, and she did not know what to do about it. Somehow, while he was gone, she must think of a way to reach him. She was losing him! She was losing Zeke Monroe! It would be better to lose him to death than to lose him this way!

Chapter Seventeen

Dan ducked down into the rifle pit as another bullet sang past him. If he weren’t in command of this platoon of cavalry sent out to scour the southern portion of the Bozeman Trail, he would gladly down some whiskey. If he was going to die, maybe with some liquor in him, he wouldn’t feel the pain of the Indian tomahawk or lance that would take his life.

They were surrounded by hundreds of Sioux, who darted in and out teasingly, taking turns badgering the bluecoats, laughing at them, cursing them, waiting in the surrounding hills for the forty soldiers to die slowly from thirst and starvation. For two days and a night the Sioux and Cheyenne, who had surrounded and attacked them near a tributary of the Powder River, had continued to harass them, belting out war whoops, dancing and drumming nearby at night, enjoying the advantage of their numbers.

Dan cursed his superior officer, a greenhorn from the East, who had ordered the patrol. He had told him the dangers involved in the mission, had tried to impress upon the man that there were thousands of Sioux roaming the Powder River and Bozeman Trail territory, not just a handful. But orders were orders.
The settlers and miners headed for Montana insisted that the trail be kept open, no matter how many men had to be sacrificed to do it. They didn’t even have a cannon along, and most of their horses had been shot by the Indians to keep the soldiers from getting away. They had crouched behind the dead bodies of their mounts for protection until Dan had ordered trenches to be dug.

He wasn’t certain how many of his men had been lost, perhaps five or six. Several others had been wounded. The Indian casualties were probably greater than that, but there were so many of them it didn’t matter.

He cursed their vulnerable location, in a ravine near a creek, with hills all around them, hills dotted with large boulders that made good hiding places. His own feet were soaked, for in digging the trenches they had hit water just two feet down in the boggy ground. Two more mounted platoons were to have started out from Fort Laramie two days after their own departure, but there had been no signs of them yet, no sign that they would be saved from their present predicament.

There was a lull in the fighting, and he used it to rest, leaning against the side of the rifle pit, wishing he could sit down but unable to because of the water. He thought about Bonnie. He had thought of her often, wondering if he was foolish to consider marrying her so soon after his wife’s death. But Emily had not been a wife to him for a long time, and Bonnie was alone. They were both alone. Out here in this land, people married who hardly knew each other. A woman might be widowed with children, and a settler would marry her because he needed a woman for all the things a man needs a woman for. Women remarried quickly because in the West a woman needed a man. It was done for practical purposes, but the marriages were usually
good, often leading to genuine love. He was sick and tired of being alone. He wanted someone like Abbie, and Bonnie was as close as he would come. He had no doubt she’d make a good wife, and she was already accustomed to this land and its dangers and hardships. But maybe she wouldn’t want to marry him. Maybe there would be some religious reason why she couldn’t. And the fact remained that she loved Zeke, but she could not have him.

A private crept over to him, crouched low. The boy reloaded his rifle with shaking hands. “You scared, Lieutenant?” the boy asked.

Dan pushed his hat back, studying the boy, remembering his own first days in the Army and the Mexican War. “Sure I’m scared. A man would be a fool not to be. I’ve seen what the Sioux do to some of their captives. But help is coming, Private. Don’t you worry. It’s good to be scared. Keeps you alert like you ought to be. There’s a difference between being scared and being a coward, Private.”

The boy grinned a little. “I suppose.” He finished loading his gun. “You married, sir?”

Dan pulled a last cigar from his pocket. “No,” he answered quietly. “I was. My wife is dead.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Dan lit the cigar. “You couldn’t know.” He puffed on the smoke for a moment. “I have a little girl. She’s coming out next month with a Regiment out of St. Louis.”

The boy grinned again. “That’s real nice. I hope she makes it safely. How old is she, sir?”

Dan stared at the cigar he held between his fingers. “Jennifer is almost nine.”

The boy turned to peek out over the trench. “I have a girl back in Illinois that I’m going to marry. I’ve been wanting her to come out, but with the Indians at war like
they are, I’m afraid for her.”

Dan puffed the cigar again. “Don’t be, Private. Send for her. Believe me, a few years of being with your love is a lot better than many years apart. More and more wives are coming out all the time. Send for the girl and marry her. Don’t waste your time leaving her back East when you’re out here.”

The young man frowned. “I don’t know. She could die young out here.”

Dan lightly pressed out his cigar, wanting to save as much of it as he could. “She could also die young back East like my wife did.”

A bullet hit the dirt just in front of them, sending sand and tiny rocks flying. They ducked.

“Do me a favor, Private, and get around to all the others if you can. Give me a count of the dead and wounded, and tell them to guard their ammunition. I don’t want them wasting it on targets that can’t possibly be hit. We must make every shot count.”

“Yes, sir.” The boy scooted off as a new band of Sioux and Cheyenne swooped out of the hills for another attack, screeching and war whooping and raising their lances. Some braves had crept forward ahead of them, and they let off a volley of shots to keep the soldiers down and unable to fire as the mounted Indians circled closer, shooting arrows in arcs so they came down like rain on the soldiers. The painted warriors shot the arrows while riding, sometimes hanging from the sides of the horses facing away from the soldiers so that the horses provided protection for them. Dan never ceased to admire their riding ability and the feats they could perform while on a fast-moving pony. He had seen Zeke perform similar tricks, and Swift Arrow and Wolf’s Blood. He wished the days of peaceful visiting had not ended.

The thundering hooves came closer, charging in
when they knew most of the soldiers had fired and had to reload. They were getting braver now. They wanted to ride in close and count coup—touch their enemy. This was considered an act of bravery by their kind. Now a young warrior charged toward Dan’s trench, his face painted, feathers of conquest tied onto his long, black hair, his Appaloosa sure-footed. The boy looked familiar, and Dan’s eyes widened with surprise. Could it be? He called out without thinking.

“Wolf’s Blood!”

The warrior stopped short, his horse’s hooves digging into the soft earth as he stared at Dan, who rose up slightly from his trench. A shot rang out and a hole exploded in the boy’s upper left chest. He was hurled from his mount, grasping at the reins as he fell and bringing the horse down with a crash beside him. He lay still.

“Jesus Christ!” Dan swore. “Cover me!” he ordered the sergeant several feet from him. He set down his rifle and scrambled out of the trench, crawling on his belly toward his nephew, memories of Shiloh reeling in his mind, of the terrible belly wound he had suffered there. He prayed he would not feel that pain again. The Appaloosa reared and stood up, running off. Wolf’s Blood lay panting and bleeding badly, his eyes wide and staring when Dan reached him. He pulled his knife when he saw the bluecoat moving toward him. He tried to rise but could not. The most he could do was raise his arm, in a determined effort to plant the knife his father had given him into the white man coming toward him. But the man’s hand grasped his wrist and pushed the arm down. Wolf’s Blood was too badly wounded to resist.

“Don’t struggle, son!” Dan ordered. “You’re badly hurt. It’s me, Dan, your father’s brother.”

The boy just stared at him, the wound making his
mind hazy and confused. Dan carefully took the knife from the boy’s hand, while bullets and arrows sang past him. He put the knife in its sheath and placed an arm under Wolf’s Blood’s shoulders, wrapping another around his chest. “It’s all right, Wolf’s Blood,” he assured the boy. “I’ll get help for you.”

He began pulling, and the boy groaned pitifully. He uttered something in Cheyenne, and Dan recognized the word for father. Dan wished Zeke were there. He wondered if Zeke was even alive, whether he had found LeeAnn. He had not heard. He struggled backward, pulling the boy into the trench, holding him with one arm while he dug at the dirt sides with the other hand to cover over the water so there would be a place to put the boy without getting him wet. The private was returning then, and he stared at the young warrior wide-eyed, while the sergeant also looked on. The private pulled a pistol.

“No!” Dan ordered. “Don’t shoot him!”

The private frowned, still pointing the gun. “But, sir—”

“No! He’s my nephew!”

Both soldiers showed their surprise. They looked at each other, then back to their lieutenant. “Nephew!” the private exclaimed.

Dan removed his neckerchief and pressed it against the boy’s wound. “I have a brother who is half Cheyenne. We share the same white father. This is his son.”

The private crept closer to have a look at the wild Indian in the lieutenant’s arms. “I’ll be damned!”

“Help me get my blanket under him,” Dan ordered. “And give me your neckerchief. I’ve got to stop this bleeding! This boy means everything to my brother.”

The private moved quickly to his officer’s command. Dan prayed inwardly that he could help the boy, but
unless they could get back to the fort and a doctor soon, he knew Wolf’s Blood would not live.

“Damn!” he kept swearing. “I shouldn’t have called out to him!” His eyes teared. He hadn’t seen the boy for a long time, but Wolf’s Blood could be Zeke’s twin, in younger form. He had known instantly who he was. It was like seeing Zeke again.

The firing continued for several minutes, then the Indians suddenly drew back and things quieted down. Several minutes passed before the sergeant crawled over to Dan.

“Sir, some of them are riding off. I don’t understand it.”

“One of them is coming in!” someone shouted. “He’s carrying a white flag of truce!”

Dan frowned. Why this sudden change? He looked down at Wolf’s Blood. The change had come after the boy was shot. “Swift Arrow!” he whispered to himself. Of course! Where Wolf’s Blood’s was, there would be Swift Arrow. He rose from the trench.

“Hold your fire!” he ordered loudly. “Any man that shoots will be shot by me!” He climbed out of the trench, and the other men stared at him in wonder as he removed his weapons and walked toward the approaching Indian. The Indian man rode a grand Appaloosa—one of Zeke’s, no doubt. The handsome warrior came closer and stopped before Dan. “Swift Arrow.” Dan put out his hand and Swift Arrow took it. They grasped wrists, brothers through Zeke, but not blood brothers. Zeke and Dan shared the same father; Zeke and Swift Arrow shared the same mother.

Swift Arrow studied the blue eyes of Zeke’s white brother. They were honest. “My nephew’s horse returned without him,” he spoke up.

“I saw him go down. I have him, Swift Arrow. He’s badly wounded. Let us go and I’ll take him to the fort
where he can get help. It has to be soon or he’ll die.”

Swift Arrow nodded. “My heart is heavy. I will be a broken man if he dies. Take him. We will let you go. I am a leading Dog Soldier. They will listen to me.”

Dan nodded. “Thank you, Swift Arrow.” The man didn’t seem any older than he had when Dan had met him years before at the signing of the Laramie Treaty in 1851. He wondered how some Indian men remained so strong and solid in spite of aging. The man was about forty, but he looked no more than thirty, if that, still hard muscled and handsome.

“Tell me quickly. How is my brother … and Abigail?”

Dan frowned. “I don’t really know, Swift Arrow. I got a letter that LeeAnn, their blond daughter, had been stolen away by Comanche renegades and Zeke had gone off to find her. I have no idea if he found her or if he got back. Then I recently got a letter telling me another daughter, Lillian, had died of pneumonia. Needless to say, Abigail is suffering.”

Swift Arrow’s eyes softened. “She is a woman born to suffering. She does so because she will bear anything to be with my brother.” How his heart ached for her! What burdens she had to bear! “Do not tell her her son has been wounded. It would be too much. Make him well first, so that you can send her good news, not bad.”

“I will. There’s no sense worrying her until I know how the boy’s going to fare.”

Swift Arrow breathed deeply, his chest aching. “Save him!” he said in a voice gruff with sorrow.

“I’ll do my best.”

Swift Arrow nodded. “In one moon, I will send a runner to learn of the boy’s health and to find out if you have heard from Zeke. I will pray to the spirits for my brother and his family. The boy should go to his father. It will relieve Zeke and Abbie’s suffering some, for the
boy and Zeke are close. Convince him he should go home for a while.”

“I’ll do my best, Swift Arrow, and I’ll get word to you. Zeke and Abbie are always inquiring about you, but I can never find you to tell them how you are. Now I am glad I can tell them you are alive and well.”

The man backed his mount. “Tell Abigail… I think of her often. Tell my brother I am with him in spirit, but I cannot come and see him. Not now. It has gone too far. I will let you go, bluecoat, because you are blood to my brother and because I know you to be an honorable man. You have good doctors at the fort. You can help my nephew. Go now.”

As he turned his horse, Dan noticed the Z branded into the animal’s rump. He turned and walked back toward his men, again shouting at them not to fire. Swift Arrow rode hard, his long, black hair flying, the feathers tied onto his horse’s mane dancing in the wind. Soon he disappeared over a low hill and everything was quiet.

Edwin Tynes walked into the kitchen, where Abbie was already ordering things prepared for Zeke’s trip to Denver. He frowned and watched quietly, studying the savage-looking man who stood near his tiny wife eating a piece of venison. Tynes noticed that Abbie’s hair had fallen free of the combs, and when she returned, her face was stained from tears. Zeke followed her gaze to meet the Englishman’s eyes. There was a moment of quiet, and Tynes wondered what sort of torture Zeke Monroe was considering inflicting on the white man he stared at. Zeke had put his buckskin shirt back on, but it was not laced, and part of the raw, red line from his self-inflicted mourning wound showed. Tynes glanced at the handle of the huge blade at Zeke’s weapons’ belt;
then he swallowed and stepped a little closer.