Whitefeather's Woman (12 page)

He knew his sister too well to believe he had any real choice. Besides, the bedeviling Miss Harris would soon be out of his life for good, taking her dual spirits of blushing virgin and brazen temptress with her. Which was the real Jane? He thought he'd known, but she was clearly a trickster of confusing subtlety. Perhaps Caleb had been right about her in the first place.

Over his shoulder John growled, “Tell her whatever you want.”

 

“John's looking forward to your trip out to Sweetgrass tomorrow.” Ruth beat the fleece rug from her brother's cabin with vigorous strokes.

“He is?” Jane gnawed at her lower lip as she hung one of John's shirts to dry.

When she'd seen it in the wash basket this morning, she'd had the scandalous urge to smuggle it up to her
bedroom so she could wrap herself in it to sleep that night. What had possessed her? Something at once foreign and familiar. A curious power that terrified and thrilled her by turns.

Maybe she didn't have Lizzie Kincaid's golden appeal, nor Abby's strong, striking beauty, but she had still made a potently attractive man like John Whitefeather burn with desire for her. Burn so hot it had taken a creekful of icy water to quench his ardor. So hot it had incinerated the massive barricade of his honor.

When a woman had been so vulnerable all her life, how could she help but let this kind of power go to her head?

Giving the fleece rug one last swat, Ruth nodded. “I talked to John about it just this morning.” Something in her voice didn't sound entirely candid. What was John's sister
not
saying?

Ruth dropped her rug beater and scooped her young son up from the ground. “What have you got in your mouth now, Thundercloud? Clover. I don't reckon that'll kill you. One of these days, I'm afraid you're going to take a bite out of a rattlesnake.”

The child gave an infectious chuckle, drooling a cascade of pink clover buds out of his mouth. He held out his arms to Jane. “Na-na-na!”

“Yes, you can go to Nana.” Ruth passed her son to Jane. “Just like a man. He knows when he has a lady's heart wrapped around his finger. I hope you'll have many children of your own, Jane—you're so good with them.”

Trying to ignore the intense, contrary feelings Ruth's words kindled in her, Jane wiped Barton's mouth with the corner of her apron. “I think this young warrior has a new tooth.”

She nuzzled his ticklish neck. “Have you cut a big sharp tooth?”

The baby chortled and crowed with glee, and Jane hugged him tight, dreading the day she would hold him for the last time.

“Aren't you putting the cart before the horse, Ruth?” She tried to sound flippant, but the thickness in her voice hit a discordant note. “I don't have a husband. I'm not sure I want one.”

Those last words gushed out, unbidden. A week ago, she'd have vowed solid certainty she didn't want a man in her life again. What had caused this sudden waver in her beliefs and plans?

“I know they seem like more bother than they're worth sometimes.” Ruth made a face. “But they probably think the same of us. It's often hard to believe men and women aren't two different orders of creature altogether.”

Ruth did understand. Until coming to Montana, Jane hadn't realized how deeply she craved sympathetic female companionship. Barton wouldn't be the only one she'd miss when the time came for her to leave the Kincaid household.

The humor left Ruth's striking face, displaced by ardent sincerity. “There's strong magic in the balance of opposites, Jane. In the Big Sky, we need all the balance magic we can get. This land can be hard on its women and worse on a woman alone. You've only seen it in a pleasant humor.”

For the first time since stealing out of Boston, Jane thought about marriage with sentiments other than nauseating dread. In the past month she'd cultivated unexpected talents that a prospective husband might prize.

After an uncertain beginning, she'd become a pretty fair cook. Instinct tempered by trial and error had ripened her love of children into a true knack for managing them. To her amazement, she had come to enjoy all the little chores that made a home clean, warm and snug for a family.

Her acquaintance with Caleb Kincaid had shown her the vital importance of a settled home life to a man who daily wrested his living from this sometimes grudging land. Zeke had spoken of the messy, haphazard domestic arrangements he and his father had endured before Ruth took the Kincaid ranch house in hand. Might Jane, too, feather a cosy nest for the right man and their young?

While it had come as a surprise to her how much men on the frontier needed a woman's softness in their lives, she didn't for a moment doubt the truth of Ruth's words. A woman of the Big Sky could use a strong, canny man to fight for her and provide for her.

“What if you pick the wrong man, Ruth?” Jane shuddered, thinking of Emery Endicott. She'd been so pathetically certain she needed him to survive, and instead he'd almost killed her. “Wouldn't a bad man be worse than none at all?”

Ruth flashed her a probing look, then grabbed a pair of Caleb's trousers and pinned them to the clothesline. “You're right, of course. Some women haven't much sense about the men they pick. Often I wonder if they choose for the wrong reasons.”

“Like…?” Jane prompted her.

“Like thinking nobody else will have them and the man who will is doing them some kind of favor. Like thinking they can reform an incurable outlaw. Like wanting a man for the things she thinks he can give her, instead of for who he is.”

No wonder her relationship with Emery had gone so disastrously wrong, Jane reflected, hearing herself declared guilty on all counts.

Barton began to fuss, bouncing up and down in Jane's arms.

“I'll finish hanging out these clothes,” said Ruth, “if you
want to take him for a walk. John might not be too busy to take him for a little ride.”

“Go see
unka?
” Jane asked Barton, unsure whether she was ready to see John Whitefeather.

“Unka-unk!” the baby shrieked, wriggling to reach the ground.

“I reckon that settles it.” Ruth laughed.

Jane managed only a tepid smile in reply. One look into John's deep-set blue eyes and she would know whether he'd been watching her last night.

She wasn't sure which would dismay her more—discovering he had or finding out he hadn't.

“Okay, Bronco Bart, away we go.” Jane let him latch on to her hands for balance as he tottered off in search of his favorite uncle.

As it happened, Barton's leg power gave out long before they managed to track John down. They found no sign of him around the corral or the stable. Jane even stole a curious peek into the foreman's cabin with the excuse of looking for him.

The place was tidier than she'd expected of bachelor quarters, though she knew Ruth had been in to clean for her brother just that morning. A long narrow bed occupied one corner, with a low chest standing sentinel at its foot. The only other pieces of furniture were a small table and two chairs in front of the window.

One of Ruth's patchwork quilts and a wall hanging of beaded leather and feathers dangling beside the bed were the only splashes of color or personality about the place. The oversize stone fireplace drew Jane, as she imagined its hearth aglow with an inviting fire. This afternoon, it looked as cold and bare as the rest of the cabin, compared to the bright summer sunshine outside.

“Unk's not around, Barton.” A mixture of relief and
disappointment swirled deep in Jane's belly. “Guess we'll just have to try to catch him later.”

Two precious dark eyes crinkled up and one plump lower lip began to quiver.

“It's all right.” Jane lowered him to the ground again. “We'll walk some more. Walking always soothes your feelings.”

Sucking back a tearful sigh, Barton staggered off, towing Jane away from the part of the ranch with which she'd become familiar. They hadn't gone far when she heard a male voice from behind a shed.

“Big Chief's on the warpath, today, Clel. Mind you stay out of his way or he'll scalp you good with that tomahawk tongue of his.”

Several men broke into harsh, scornful laughter. Jane felt something foreign and frightening brewing inside her. How dare they talk about John this way? Why, he was worth a dozen of them!

“He's a fine one to talk about us not pulling our weight around here.” The bitter words spat out like a disgusting gob of chewing tobacco, and Jane recognized the voice of Floyd Cobbs. “Lazing around the corral petting those wild mustangs instead of busting 'em like a real man.”

“Shucks, Floyd,” joshed a third fellow. “You're just sore on account of Kincaid made his brother-in-law ranch foreman over you. Or is it 'cause Big Chief rode off with that pretty little Boston filly yesterday? I reckon
that's
what put him on the warpath today. Got a whiff of her and now he's all hot and bothered like a stallion in rut.”

“I reckon you got a damn big mouth, Clel Harding!”

Jane grabbed Barton as the sound of a scuffle broke out. Twelve years of life in Beacon Hill told her to run the other way, but six life-changing weeks in Montana propelled her forward.

The flabbergasted looks on those leathery, unshaven faces as she rounded the corner of the outbuilding might have been comical, if Jane had been the tiniest bit disposed to laugh. She wasn't.

“M-may I assume Mr. Kincaid pays you gentlemen to do something besides fighting and gossiping?” Jane couldn't believe she was scolding a bunch of Montana ranch hands like they were so many schoolboys, still wet behind the ears.

“Now, ma'am, no need to get riled.” Floyd Cobbs winked, as though telling his cronies he could handle her. “We was just funning is all.”

He took a step toward her, and it was everything Jane could do not to turn tail. They wouldn't dare lay a finger on her while she was holding their boss's son, she tried to reassure herself as her mouth went dry and her heart raced. Besides, the house was within screaming distance.

“Y-you'll think it's a good deal less funny if you're run off this ranch on the barrel of a smoking gun, Mr. Cobbs. And I imagine that's just what Mr. Kincaid would do if he heard you'd been speaking of his wife's brother with such disrespect.”

“Now, ma'am—”

A sharp elbow in the ribs stopped Floyd. “Shut up, now, before you land us up to our necks in fresh cow pies!”

“An admirable suggestion, sir.” The combustible mixture of fear and anger inside Jane almost exploded in hysterical laughter. What a pungent image the cowboy's words conjured up!

She hadn't been on the receiving end of Mrs. Endicott's haughty stares for nothing. Now she mimicked one for the benefit of Floyd Cobbs and company.

“If I hear one of you so much as whisper your disgusting insinuations about Mr. Whitefeather and me again, I will
take the matter directly to Caleb Kincaid. Is that understood?”

“Loud and clear, ma'am. Loud and clear.”

They vanished like so many nasty insects confronted by a bright light.

Jane let Barton slide to the ground. She wasn't sure she could sustain her own weight, let alone his, on legs that felt like twin columns of mashed potatoes.

Just then, John Whitefeather came charging around from the other side of the smokehouse. “Jane, are you all right? I heard your voice and some of the men's. They didn't hurt you or Barton, did they?”

He looked so anxious on her behalf, and maybe a tiny bit…jealous? An urge to swoon almost overcame Jane. She did feel a bit unsteady, and she longed to revisit the sensation of being cradled in John's strong arms.

But she'd finally learned to stand on her own two feet and she wasn't about to let go of that hard-won accomplishment for anything.

She willed her voice not to tremble and her chin not to quiver. “We're both fine. I just told the men they'd better get back to work. By the way, how early will we be heading out for Sweetgrass tomorrow morning?”

E
arly the next morning, while a mild breeze sighed through the western fringes of a prairie wet with dew, John and Jane prepared to set off for Sweetgrass.

“Are you sure you don't mind us leaving you by yourself again today, Ruth?” John asked as they drank coffee around the kitchen table.

His sister waved her hand as if to sweep them on their way. “Caleb should be back from Miles City by noon. You need to get away before it becomes too hot to travel. Jane, you won't forget to give those sewing supplies to my auntie?”

Jane shook her head. “I'll make sure she gets them. Did you tell me her name means ‘Walks on Ice'?”

John spoke up, his voice gruffer than he intended. “I suppose you think that's funny. Well, it happens Auntie is a skilled midwife. Women of my people always call on her when it's a hard birth. One spring when she was young, she crossed a river on thin ice to attend a woman in labor. The ice cracked behind her with each step, but she got to
the other side safely. The elders said the Great Spirit made her step light because she was doing a worthy deed.”

“I don't think it's funny, at all.” Jane looked him straight in the eye, her voice quiet but uncowed. “How wonderful to have done something so important folks are reminded of the story every time they say your name. I've never done anything that would earn me a name.”

Her wistful tone blasted John's conscience. He hadn't meant to hurt her any more than he'd meant to kiss her the other day. Would he regain control of his actions once she was gone from his life? And if he did, would the price be too high?

Ruth patted Jane's shoulder and flashed John a scolding glare. “If you were a Cheyenne girl, your name would likely be Calls to Children. That's a gift, and not everyone has it. Especially not… Ah, listen to me going on when you two should be on your way.”

If Ruth was hoping to distract Jane, she failed.

“Especially not…who?” Jane turned her soft hazel eyes on his sister.

John knew from experience the futility of trying to hold anything back from that beseeching gaze. He also knew what Ruth had meant to say.

“Especially not
ve'ho'e,
dear.” Ruth sighed over the offensive truth. “Most white folks are much harsher with their young than the
Tsitsistas.
”

“I see. Then I guess I'll fit right in at Sweetgrass, won't I?” On that modestly defiant note, Jane drained the last of her coffee, then carried her dishes to the washtub.

Oh, she'd fit in at Sweetgrass. Suddenly John had a bad feeling about the whole day ahead of him. Jane Harris would fit in at a Cheyenne village…when frogs grew teeth!

 

“Oonâhá'e mâxhevéesevôtse,”
said John as they rode north.

“What does
that
one mean?” Jane nudged her horse to a slightly faster pace to keep up with him.

Asking him questions about the Cheyenne language, she'd finally got John talking to her again. She couldn't tell from his manner whether he'd seen her in the window the other night, so she'd made up her mind to behave as if he hadn't.

“It's a saying of my people—‘when frogs grow teeth.' It means ‘never.'”

Jane laughed. “Back in Boston, we say, ‘when pigs fly.' Some folks say ‘when hell freezes over.' I guess none of those are too apt to happen, are they?”

“A flying pig would be quite a sight.” John appeared to be doing his best to fight off a smile.

Jane wished with all her heart he'd surrender.

“Ruth told me a bit about Sweetgrass, but I don't quite understand. Is it a government reservation?”

Her question averted any threat of a smile from John, and she regretted that. His usual grave countenance was one of the most striking she'd ever seen. But his rare smiles lit up something inside of him. And her.

“A reservation's the one thing Sweetgrass is
not.
I don't want my band living off government charity, overseen by Indian agents like we're children who don't know what's best for us. We
own
every acre of Sweetgrass, and it's a good piece of land. It has water with plenty of fish, woods where we can hunt and trap, tall grass where the buffalo herds still come. William Kincaid approved the loan and a lawyer in Livingston registered the deed.”

“That must have cost a lot.”

John gave a curt nod. “I reckon if I keep working for
Caleb until five years after I'm dead, that should just about pay it back.”

“I see.”

It did illuminate a number of puzzling questions. Like why a man who so obviously prized his Cheyenne heritage worked as a ranch foreman instead of living among his father's people. Like why he fought so hard against his obvious attraction for her. Did he think he had nothing to offer her compared to men like the doctor and the saloon-keeper?

In terms of Endicott values, perhaps he didn't. No big house in an affluent neighborhood. No fine carriages or jewels or accounts with the best tradespeople.

In terms of the things that really mattered—priceless assets like strength, honor and kindness—John Whitefeather was a millionaire and Emery Endicott a pauper. What John had just told her proved that he would go to any lengths to protect and care for those he loved.

If she could someday count herself among that number, Jane thought she might be the happiest woman in the world.

“We're riding on Sweetgrass land now.” As John looked around at the flourishing land his voice took on a rich note of pride. “We'll come to the camp soon.”

He pointed toward the northern horizon. Jane shaded her eyes and peered into the distance. Sure enough, she could make out a cluster of tall, conical dwellings and slender plumes of smoke lofting skyward. It was as though she had stepped into the pages of a Beadles dime novel. With John by her side, she felt a quiver of excited curiosity, but surprisingly little fear.

As they drew closer to the camp, some boys and girls about Zeke's age ran out to meet them, laughing and calling to John. The girls wore beaded buckskin dresses and
the boys fringed trousers. Several dogs with pointed snouts and curled tails barked at the children's heels.

“What are they saying?” asked Jane, thankful all the cordial commotion didn't upset her placid gelding.

“They say they're happy to see me. The girls ask who you are. The boys want to know if I brought them any sweets from Whitehorn.”

“Have you?” Surely a man this much at ease with children wanted sons and daughters of his own.

One corner of John's wide mouth tilted as he reined his mare to a halt. “I know better than to come without.”

He dug in his saddlebag and tossed down a small paper sack bulging with some variety of confection.

“Licorice,” he told Jane. “They're all crazy about it.”

The children ran away with the bag, calling back words of thanks in their own language.

“Shouldn't you tell them to share it fairly?” Jane slid from her saddle. She remembered the times she and her brother had fought over treats. Armed with her newfound contentment, she no longer battled to suppress memories of her family.

John shook his head. “It wouldn't occur to them to do anything else. Here at Sweetgrass the hunters bring back game for everyone in the village. The women make fry bread, and when mealtime comes everyone eats.”

Had any of the men who wrote those dime novels about savage, warlike Indians ever been west of the Mississippi? Jane wondered. Might she have grown into a different, stronger woman if she'd been born into a community like this one, where the whole group took responsibility for nurturing all its members?

They left their horses to graze, and John led Jane into a loose circle of tepees. Beside the smoldering embers of a large central fire, a group of older men sat talking.
Around the camp, Jane could see four or five grandmotherly women doing chores, with cradleboards strapped to their backs. Two were scraping hair from an animal hide, another stirred something in a big cast-iron pot suspended over a smaller fire. Two more sat together talking over their beadwork. Fascinated, Jane took it all in.

One of the women spotted John and called out to him. He led Jane over to where she sat. He addressed the old woman in the language Jane sometimes heard him speak to Ruth. It had a pleasing staccato rhythm and, from what she could tell, employed a much narrower range of sounds than English. She did not need to understand John's words to recognize the tone of respect and affection in which they were uttered.

“Jane, this is my auntie, Walks on Ice.” Was it her imagination, or did he look nervous making this introduction?

She had picked up a few words of Cheyenne from Ruth's conversation, but none of them seemed like an appropriate greeting, so Jane settled for smiling and nodding.

Walks on Ice was a tiny scrap of a woman. Jane doubted she'd needed much divine intervention to cross the thin ice of a thawing stream. John's aunt must have been a beauty, too, for her graying ebony hair was still lustrous and her high-cheeked features gave her a curiously aristocratic look.

The old woman acknowledged Jane with a cool but polite nod, and one dark eyebrow raised in a haughty stare worthy of Mrs. Olivia Endicott herself.

Suddenly Jane remembered the parcel in her hands. She knelt and held it out to Walks on Ice. “Ruth asked me to bring you these. Beads. Needles. Thread.” She pointed to the women's handiwork.

A smile softening her features, Walks on Ice patted the ground beside her, inviting Jane to sit.

“Will you be all right here?” John hovered near. “I have to go talk with Bearspeaker and the other elders. The young men are out hunting and the young women are off gathering wood. They'll be back soon. So will the children, once they've eaten all the licorice.”

“I'll be fine.” The ring of truth in her own words surprised Jane.

For a little while after John moved away to confer with the elders, she felt awkward and out of place. Then a small girl, not long out of the cradleboard, toddled over and plopped herself in Jane's lap. They fell into a game of peekaboo, then patty-cake. After a while more children joined them. Jane pillaged her memory for nursery songs with accompanying actions.

They crowded around her, touching her clothes and her hair. It made her a trifle nervous until she realized that these children might never have seen a woman with clothes and hair like hers. She traded them touch for curious touch, praising the lovely bead and quillwork on their clothing, telling them they were clever, strong, swift and handsome. They might not understand her English any more than she understood their language, but she hoped they would know the tone of a compliment when they heard it.

The sound of feminine laughter heralded the return of the younger women, with bundles of wood strapped to their backs and more in their arms. Some of the children ran to their mothers, talking excitedly and gesturing toward the white visitor. After they had unpacked their burden of fuel, the women came and sat near Jane and Walks on Ice. Pointing to them one by one, John's aunt made the introductions with grave formality, also signaling which of the children belonged to each mother.

Two of the youngest women brought everyone tin mugs
full of a steaming beverage. Gingerly, Jane took a sip. It had a mellow sweetish taste, like sassafras tea.

Some of the women took up beadwork; some sewed together pieces of tanned hide. One young woman suckled a small baby at her breast as Jane had seen Ruth do with Barton before she put him to bed. As they gossiped and laughed together, Jane let the bewitching melody of their language wash over her while she soaked up the novel sounds, smells and sights of the Cheyenne settlement.

She eyed the tall tepees with their frame poles tufted out above patchwork sheaths of stout buffalo hide. Slanted racks with animal skins stretched for tanning. Cosy cradleboards, whose breathtaking beadwork spoke volumes about how the Cheyenne treasured their babies.

As the molten-gold Montana sun made his slow arc across the Big Sky, he seemed to kiss the people of Sweetgrass with his blessing. And Jane wished she never had to leave.

 

John Whitefeather sat among the council of elders, listening to their warnings and complaints, nodding his head at strategic moments and frowning as if in deep, concerned thought. His true thoughts concerned Jane.

How soon he could steal his next glance across the camp at her without arousing notice. How amazingly well his kinswomen had accepted her. How very much he wanted to kiss her again and make the most intimate acquaintance of the tempting body she'd let him glimpse.

As he'd expected, Walks on Ice had not been very pleased to see him show up with a white woman in tow. She hadn't been bashful about telling him so, either. With a curt word, John had reminded her that he was the son of a white woman. In doing so, he also reminded himself.

Watching Jane sitting among the women, looking more at
ease than he'd ever seen her, John recalled another beloved pale face and head of light-colored hair. Strangely, Jane's presence at Sweetgrass made him feel more at one with his band, just as it had made him less alien among the Kincaids. He'd brought her here to convince himself how futile it was to hanker after her. But his plan had misfired badly.

The return of the hunters a few hours after midday brought John a welcome distraction.

“We caught four rabbits in our traps,” Red Stone announced, “and we shot an old stag of good size.”

A murmur of approval ran through the council, and several of the women went off to help dress the carcasses. As the hunting party took seats among their fathers and uncles and accepted cups of tea, Red Stone shook his head.

“We bring a good kill, but also troubling news. The buffalo have moved north, looking for more plentiful water and greener forage. We must strike camp and follow them, or it will be a hungry winter.”