Authors: Norah Hess
"Meet your son."
Fierce pride and elation flooded the chief's face as he looked at the pure Indian child. "Mine," he said, touching a gentle finger to its soft cheek.
"What you name my son?" He frowned at her.
"I have given him no name, knowing that you would want to do that. In the meantime, I have been calling him Boy."
That pleased the chief; she could tell by the softening of his lips. "What papoose see the first time he open eyes?" he asked.
Raegan thought a minute, trying to remember what the baby might have seen when his black eyes opened for the first time. She had been sitting in front of the fireplace bathing him right after Jamie took him from his mother's womb. Her face had to be the first thing his son's eyes looked upon. The chief is not going to like that, she thought nervously and wondered if she should lie to him, tell him something else. She knew that Indian babies were sometimes named in this manner and certainly he wouldn't want to call his son by her name.
But she couldn't bring herself to lie to the man. She looked up at him and said as bravely as she could, "I'm afraid it was me your son first looked upon."
He was startled, she knew, but after staring thoughtfully at the ground for a moment, he said, "Then his name shall be
Kesathwa
after your hair."
Raegan smiled her pleasure. "I am greatly honored," she said and held the baby out to him. "I must be getting back home, before dark, I hope."
The chief made no move to take the infant. "I can not let you go, white woman. You must come with me to my village. You will stay there while I take some braves and track down this man who took my wife."
When Raegan began to protest, angrily and fearfully, he shook his head at her. "Do not act like the spoiled white woman who gives her husband arguments. If the braves and I find that what you say is truth, then I will take you home. Besides, it will give
Kesathwa
time to know his grandmother and get used to her tending him."
Raegan stared at him, blinking rapidly. It wasn't suppose to happen this way. She shook her head. "I've brought you your son, kept my promise to his mother. Now I must return home."
Before she finished protesting, the chief again grabbed Beauty's bit and Raegan was following the mustang off through the forest. "Didn't you hear me?" she yelled at the broad back. "I want to return home."
The tall Indian jerked the two mounts to a halt. Turning around on the mustang's bare back, he pinned Raegan with a black, threatening stare. "Did you not hear
me?
I said that you will stay with my son until I return. Only then will you
return to your people—if you have not lied to me.
Raegan stiffened, divining the promise of violence if she continued her argument. "You, insufferable, unreasonable man," she muttered to herself, but said no more to the chief when Beauty was tugged into motion again.
They left the river and moved through the forest. No word was spoken between them as they traveled wilderness no white man had ever set foot on. The air grew colder, and despite her heavy shawl, Raegan's teeth chattered.
Was Boy warm enough? she wondered. Evidently he was, or he would be making his discomfort known in a very loud voice.
As Beauty followed the other mount for what seemed hours to Raegan, the tree shadows lengthened and twilight approached. Stars were twinkling coldly when she saw through the trees ahead the light of scattered campfires. Her nerves tightened. They had reached the end of their journey.
A few minutes later, her companion sawed on the two reins. As the spent horses blew and snorted, Raegan sent her gaze ranging over the Indian village.
Scattered through the trees were many long, rectangular, pine-plank houses with slanted roofs. Several families could live in one, she thought, and found out later that this was the case. A blue haze of smoke hung over the village, created by the cooking fire in front of each abode.
The chief slid off his mount and lifted his arms to receive his son. When Boy had been handed down to him, he said shortly, "Follow me."
Raegan stiffly dismounted and, stumbling drunkenly in her exhaustion, walked behind him.
Men, women, children, and barking dogs converged upon them when the chief stopped in front of a building larger than the others. Curious, sullen looks were turned on Raegan momentarily, but mostly their interest was focused on the baby in their leader's arms.
The chief raised a hand to silence the many questions posed to him. He spoke in his native tongue at some length, and Raegan watched a succession of expressions race across the listeners' faces—anger, sadness, then finally, joy. By reading the emotion on his people's countenance, she easily followed the chief's story.
He said something to his people then that sent the men to a large communal campfire and the women to gather under a tree, where they began a wailing lament for the chief's dead wife. As Raegan stared at them, gooseflesh rising on her arms, the chief nudged her and motioned her to step inside what she assumed was his home.
She was sure of it when she saw the soft furs on the floor and on the walls. There would be no drafts in this building when winter arrived.
In the center of the room was a large fire-pit, in which burned a cheery fire, its smoke rising to the roof and escaping through a hole cut for that purpose. Along one wall were several neatly stacked furs, which she assumed was the Indian's bed. Boy began to fuss, and she carried him to one of the piled furs and laid him down.
By the time Raegan had changed the baby from the clothes that were soaked from head to toe, his hungry cries were becoming deafening. She had just cradled him in her arms and was offering him his bottle when the door opened and an Indian woman stepped through it.
She watched the middle-aged woman walk toward her, admiring the regally held head, her stately walk. There were only a few threads of gray in the black hair pulled back from the broad forehead of the attractive face. There was warmth in her dark eyes when she sat down next to Raegan. Pantomiming with her hands, she made it known that she was Boy's grandmother.
With a smile, Raegan held the baby out to her, then moved to another pile of furs. A gentle look replaced the stoic one on the proud features as the woman gazed down at the tiny face of her grandson. She gave Raegan a look of approval after slipping the nipple from the baby's mouth and examining it.
The two women sat in silence, the only sound Boy's greeding sucking of his milk. There was sadness on the woman's face as she gazed at her grandson, and Raegan knew she was thinking of his dead mother.
Raegan turned her head to the door when it opened again. A young Indian woman stepped inside, bearing a tray on which was a bowl that
sent out a steaming aroma of meat and spice. Raegan's stomach growled in hungry response. She looked up at the newcomer as the wooden tray was placed before her, her smile of thanks dying on her lips.
Never had she seen such hate on another person's face. The black eyes pierced with their hostility.
She hates me for the death of her chief's wife,
Raegan thought, then changed her mind after seeing the same look bent on Boy.
My God, she's jealous.
Raegan wanted to laugh hysterically at the woman's foolish notion. The woman was in love with her chief and had plans to replace his dead wife. Raegan hoped she would not be successful, for she would not be kind to Boy.
Evidently, the older woman had caught the heated glower that had been turned on Raegan and the baby, for after a few sharp words from her, the young, sullen-faced woman turned on her heel and stalked out the door.
She is an enemy,
Raegan thought, but after only a slight hesitation she dipped her fingers into the bowl of stew. Jamie had mentioned once that Indians used no flatware when they ate.
The bowl was empty and Raegan's stomach full when the chief came into the big room, bringing the odor of fresh air and pine with him. He squatted down in front of Raegan, his black eyes going over her face, lingering on her hair, which looked pure gold from the firelight shining on it. He picked up a thick strand of it, and as he let it slide through his fingers, he spoke.
"I am taking three of my best trackers to your village of Big Pine, where we'll pick up the fat one's trail. My mother will stay here with you and little brave. You will be safe as long as you stay at her side. Do not be foolish and try to leave the village. It would sadden me to return and find that my braves had thought it necessary to put a knife through your heart."
And while Raegan stared at him, her heart hammering like a mad thing, he rose and walked to where his mother sat, holding his now sleeping son. He gently swept his fingers across the baby's smooth brow while conversing with his mother for a short time. He stood up then, and without another glance at the white woman, the tall, handsome chief walked out into the darkness.
The older woman removed her moccasins and leggings. Then, giving Raegan a smile, burrowed beneath the top fur and snuggled her grandson to her side.
Raegan stared into the blazing fire, uneasy about the chief's behavior, his intent look at her face, his playing with her hair. Did the red man want her, in the bibical sense? Would Chase have to fight him and his people in order to take her away from here? Would one problem be solved, only to be faced with another?
When the fire had died down to a bed of red coals, Raegan sighed as she too crawled between the furs.
A heavy twilight was deepening when Chase and his group of seven men, tired and hungry, drew rein for the night.
It was young Johnny's job to start the fire when they made camp, while the others, except for Chase and Sid, took turns gathering wood to keep the fire going all night. Chase and Sid did the cooking.
Soon, smoke curled upward from Johnny's crackling fire and the savory odors of brewing coffee and roasting meat hung in the air. Tonight Sid was cooking since Chase had provided the meat. He had shot the heads off seven squirrels as they had ridden along.
Cigarette smoke wreathed Chase's head as he sat staring into the leaping flames, seeing only vaguely the dissolving trail of steam lifting from the blackened coffee pot. He was thinking of
Raegan and how much he missed her, and wondered if she was all right. He had thought that by now they would have caught up with Roscoe and would be on their way home. They had been following his course down the river for four days now. But Chase and the other men hadn't reckoned that along the river they would come upon stretches of underbrush so thick and wide that they would waste hours hacking a path through it. Consquently Roscoe was always a day ahead of them.
When the men had separated four days back, Sid Johnson's hound had picked up Roscoe's scent the following morning. Sid had insisted on bringing along the old dog. The men had teased the fur post owner, declaring that he'd have to let the dog ride with him every once in a while to rest up. And Sid had indeed taken the old fellow up on the horse occasionally to give his legs a rest.
But old Sounder, as Sid called him, was much praised when it was he who discovered where Roscoe had slept the night before, letting them know they were on the right track.
"He's picked up Roscoe's trail," Sid had yelled, pointing to the hound, who sniffed the river bank, the hair on his neck bristling. Some doubted that was the case as they headed their mounts toward the hound, and one man mused out loud that he was smelling a wolf track, while another laughingly said he was smelling his own tracks. It turned out they were both wrong, for there were Roscoe's tracks and the scuff marks where he had dragged the canoe into the water. With
wild whoops, the chase was on.
By now the other group of men were back home, Chase thought with some envy.
A shrill burst of feminine laughter brought Chase back to the present. The trappers had insisted that the skinny whore from the tavern accompany them. When Chase had demurred, they had argued that at the end of a hard day, a man needed his pleasuring. They pointed out that he, a married man, should surely understand that.
He had argued back that her presence would cause trouble among the men, but when the men promised faithfully not to fight over her and to draw cards for their turn in her blanket, he had agreed. Half the men were married anyhow and shouldn't be interested in the whore, he had told himself. He soon discovered that to some of the men, their married state didn't make any difference.
A wry smile tugged at the corners of his lips. As it turned out, only he, Sid, and one other man hadn't visited the woman he had previously spent a lot of time with. Even young Johnny had been introduced to the pleasure of a woman's body, the trappers donating the money for the young man's first sexual experience.
Chase stood up when Sid called out that the meat was done and they should get their plates and line up. There followed a few minutes of clattering tin plates and cups as the men dug into saddlebags for their own personal tins.
There was little conversation as the men hungrily consumed the roasted squirrel and drank the coffee. There was one small roasted squirrel leftover from the meal, and stripping the meat from the bones, Sid fed it to the old Sounder. "You sure do pamper that old hound," one of the men ragged Sid.
"He ain't got many teeth left." Sid defended his old friend.
"Yeah, I reckon." The man looked a little shame-faced and pulled a deck of cards from his vest pocket. "Come on, gents." He grinned. "Time to draw for the first crack at our fair lady."
The man who drew the high card gave a whoop and, grabbing the giggling whore by the hand, rushed her to the blanket spread under a pine, not too far away from the fire. The nights were chilly this time of year, and there was always the danger of curious wolves coming around camp.
The fire burned down to coals, and as cards were drawn again, Sid piled more wood on the fire, then sat down beside Chase. As the coals hissed, smoked voluminously, then leaped into flames, he groused, "Do you think we'll ever catch up with that bastard?"
"We will, Sid. Sooner or later he's bound to light somewhere. Probably at the first village or town he comes to. Hell be needin' a woman by now."
"He ain't the only one." Sid half laughed. "I need Ruthie real bad. This is the first time I've gone longer than two days without her pleasurin' me."
"I sympathize with you, friend," Chase said, grinning.
"Does Roscoe have a last name?" Sid asked after a few minutes of silence as one man left
the whore's blanket and another took his place.
"I'm sure he does," Chase answered with amusement. "Most men do. We'll probably never know his, though."
Sid nodded agreement. "There's a good many men who have left their names behind them for some reason or other. There's no tellin' what made that bastard run from his."
After a while Sid said good night and rolled up in his blanket. All the men but one had sought their blankets as soon as they finished their turn with the whore. Finally, her last customer rolled off the skinny woman and unrolled his sleeping gear.
But Chase sat on, staring into the ruddy glow of the campfire, thinking of Raegan. It grew quiet, the only sound in the night an occasional stamp of a horse's hoof and the snores coming from most of the blankets spread around the fire. Suddenly, Chase cocked his head and listened intently. He had heard an alien sound in the forest. At length, he caught a swishing sound, like that of a body moving carefully against brush. Indian? he asked himself.
Keeping the movement of his hand hidden, he drew his gun from its holster, slowly twirled the cylinder, found it full of cartridges, then replaced it, making sure the holster flap was out of the way so that it wouldn't catch or drag at the weapon in case he had to use it.
He rose slowly, in a casual way, and walked over to the horses, pretending that he was checking to see if all were securely tied. All the time, his eyes were sweeping the area. He moved on to a tree opposite the campfire and, seemingly at ease, answered nature's call, the act of a man about to retire. His eyes roamed over that area too. He saw nothing but the thick growth of trees.
Relacing his buckskins, Chase returned to the fire. Whoever had been out there in the darkness was gone now. Nevertheless, when he crawled into his bedroll, he kept the Colt handy to his touch.
All day a thick mist had hung over the river, and the sun hadn't once broken through the clouds that hovered like a gray cloak. Roscoe, lifting and dipping the paddle, sending the canoe skimming downstream, looked up at the angry clouds and knew that he would be rained on before the day was over.
An hour later, heavy rain was pouring down on him and there was no chance of leaving the river. Trees were a dense barricade right up to the edge of the water. And to worsen matters, the canoe was beginning to fill up with water and there wasn't a thing he could do about it except swear and sweat. If it should sink, he'd be a goner. He couldn't swim.
The vessel was nearly ready to capsize when Roscoe paddled around a bend in the river and sighted a rude log building about thirty yards away. "A fur post, by God," he exclaimed and nosed the water-swamped vessel toward the long, low-to-the-ground structure. At that moment, the rain that had slowed down a bit renewed itself and came down so fiercely that Roscoe couldn't see a foot ahead of him. He didn't see the huge log floating downstream, but he felt it when it rammed the canoe, breaking it in two.
As the craft broke apart, one half sinking immediately, Roscoe grabbed onto the part that still floated, yelling for help at the top of his lungs as he stared death in the face. His strength was giving out when a pair of hands grabbed him under the arms and dragged him into a boat. More dead than alive, he was rowed to the fur post and flung into a chair before a burning fireplace.
On their fifth day of tracking Roscoe, bitterly cold wind beat against Chase and the men. Dark clouds had run before its onslaught, tumbling and rolling like a turbulent sea.
Sid rode up alongside Chase. "We're gonna get rained on before dark."
"I'm afraid so." Chase bent his head against a blast of wind. "As cold as it is, we'll be lucky if we don't get snowed on."
Sid dropped back behind him, and the single file of mounts clomped along. The wind grew to a howl, and the pine branches overhead waved and creaked. Then, half an hour later, the wind died away and the rain came, shooting straight down. The men were soaked before they could dig the slickers out of their gear and shrug into them.
It grew dark early, brought on by the rain clouds, and Chase peered ahead, searching for some kind of shelter. Finally he saw a stand of spruce, so thick he doubted the sun ever managed to pierce through the interwoven branches.
He smiled his relief. He had thought that tonight's supper would be strips of dried beef, but under that thick shelter, a fire could be built. "This way, men," he called and turned Sampson toward the trees.
As Chase had surmised, the forest floor was barely damp as he swung out of the saddle. He tied the stallion to a tree, then called to Johnny, and the two of them went searching for dry wood. They found that the supply was plentiful, and within minutes each had gathered an armful of dry sticks and good-sized limbs. While Chase went to get the tarpaulin tied behind his saddle, Johnny got a fire going. Chase spread the large piece of canvas alongside the campfire, then emptied the grubsack onto it.
As sparks rose from the crackling fire and disappeared into the shadows, the men and the whore came and stood around its warmth, rubbing their cold hands together as their wet clothes steamed.
"You men are gonna have to step back if you want any supper tonight." Sid pushed his way between them, a brace of young pheasants he had shot that day swinging from his hand, green slender sticks in the other.
The men moved back a few steps, leaving the cook barely enough room to spear the plucked fowl with the wooden spits, then rig them over the fire. Sid shot them dark looks, mumbling sarcastically that they were fine trappers if they couldn't stand a little wet and cold.
The trappers only grinned, confident of their ability to withstand most anything Mother
Nature saw fit to visit on them. But if there was a warm fire nearby, they were as eager as the next man to feel its warmth.
Sid didn't object, however, when the skinny little whore edged closer and closer to the heat. He even folded a blanket quite close to the fire and motioned her to sit on it. The big man had a softness for children and the weaker sex. It didn't matter to him if the female was his wife, a neighbor woman, or a worn-out whore. The woman smiled her thanks and held her hands out to the heat radiating off the flames. Evidently, there was another man in the group who shared Sid's sentiments, for one of them had given up his slicker to the woman.
Solid darkness came quickly to the sodden forest, but as the weary men and one woman fell upon the roasted meat, the roaring fire pushed the gloom back. The meal was quickly eaten and wet clothes hung around the fire to dry; then the men sought their blankets, none interested in drawing cards tonight. The skinny whore sighed in relief and scooted into her blanket before one of them changed his mind.
The next morning, Chase rolled out of his blankets and stood up, feeling cramped and sore. It had stopped raining sometime during the night, but the air was damp and bitterly cold. He looked at young Johnny's thin body hunched up in his bedding and didn't have the heart to awaken him. The boy had been dead beat last night when they made camp, but hadn't uttered one word of complaint. This morning he would make the fire and let the kid sleep a little longer.
He hunkered down and began raking together the remains of last night's fire. There were some live coals among the ashes, and the small pieces of wood he laid on them caught readily. When it flamed to his satisfaction, he picked up the coffee pot and walked down to the river to fill it. Heavy clouds still hung overhead, and white mists curled along the river as he dipped the vessel into the water.
Chase returned to the fire, piled on more wood, then started the coffee to brewing. Soon the heat he had created reached the men, and they began to stir. They sniffed the aroma of the coffee and within minutes, buck naked, they were crowding each other for a spot before the fire.
"Your clothes are dry, men," Chase informed with a frown, "so get them on and drink your coffee."
A few minutes later, dry and comfortable, their bellies warm from the black brew, some of the men began to eye the refreshed woman with an interest they'd lacked the night before. Chase caught their looks and shook his head at them. "There'll be no card drawin' now. Saddle up and let's get goin'."
There was some grumbling, but ten minutes later, the men were mounting up and following after Chase.
The early chill of the morning struck Raegan's uncovered shoulders, bringing her slowly awake. As she pulled the soft fur covering up to her chin, Boy's grandmother rose from her bed beside him and kindled the red coals in the
fire pit into leaping flames.
As Raegan gazed into the glow of the fire, her first thought as usual on awakening was, what would the new day bring? She was no longer afraid for her safety in the Indian village. Although she received many hostile looks, no one had bothered or approached her. She had even made two friends—Boy's grandmother for one. Because of the love they both shared for the baby, a close bond had grown between them. It saddened her, though, that she no longer had the care of the little fellow. His grandmother had taken over that duty with great tenderness.
However, for an hour each day she was allowed to hold and play with the baby, whose first weak cry had sounded in her cabin. But she could only watch as he was bathed and given his bottle, the two things she had most enjoyed doing. But as the chief had said, the little one had to be weaned away from her.
Boy, as she continued to call him, now drank goat's milk. Where the animal had come from she didn't know, but she suspected that its previous home had been in some white man's pen. At any rate, the baby was thriving on his new milk.
Raegan looked across the fire pit to a small figure huddled in a bed of furs. She smiled. The chief s ten-year-old son was her other friend. The youngster had learned quite a bit of English from his father and he was her interpreter when she wanted to converse with his grandmother.
From their first meeting, the solemn-eyed boy had been drawn to her. When they were alone together, he let her cuddle him a bit, for he grieved for his mother. Sensing that the white woman would sympathize with him, he had let fall the tears that would be ridiculed had his people seen them. Always the Indian male, from five years on, must be stoic and show no weakness.