Heart of the Sandhills (2 page)

She lifted her head and looked at her husband again.
So handsome
, she thought. Such a beautiful man, even with the premature wrinkles around his eyes, the deepening crease between his eyebrows.
Worry
, Gen thought. He was always worrying. She had thought the news that Elliot and Jane were bringing the children for a visit in the spring would have been cause for rejoicing. Instead, Daniel worried more.

We’ll put up a tent
, Jane had written.
It will be such fun. Just like the old days when the mission held its annual meeting on the prairie. You won’t believe how the children have grown. And they are so excited about seeing you again.

Daniel’s worries were groundless, Gen thought. But she didn’t know how to make him believe it. He would just have to see for himself. She would spend the winter working on the quilts she was making for each of the children. Aaron’s was almost finished, a simple blue-and-white nine-patch, small enough to include in his bedroll if he ever lived his dream of being an army interpreter.

Gen thought ahead to spring. She pictured the children arriving just as the crops were rising out of the ground, as the garden was planted, and as the wild roses she and Nancy had transplanted were blooming. She told herself the children’s visit would be a celebration and at last Daniel would see that nothing mattered but their love for one another and their love for the Lord.
He will see,
Gen thought. She nestled against him.

Without opening his eyes, Daniel drew her closer, settling her head on his shoulder. “The storm is worse,” he murmured, half asleep.

When Gen shivered slightly and curled one leg over his in an attempt to get warm, he opened his eyes, raised up on one shoulder and looked down at her. He said nothing, only pulled the worn comforter up around her shoulders before finding a more creative way to keep her warm.

It is an honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling.

—Proverbs 20:3

“
No!
” The shrill denial split the early afternoon quiet in Leighton Hall’s garden. From where she knelt beside a rosebush in one corner of the garden, Margaret Marie Dane looked toward the house just in time to see Amanda Whitrock flounce down the back porch stairs and storm in the general direction of the white gazebo on the opposite side of the garden.

“But Amanda,” Aaron pleaded from the back stairs, “it’s not until next summer. I’ll be here all this winter. We can still go to’ the winter festival together.”

“I don’t care!” Amanda shot back over her shoulder. “You’ll miss my birthday party—and it’s the most important one! A girl only turns sixteen once in a lifetime, Aaron Dane.” She disappeared into the gazebo.

Aaron hesitated on the back stairs and caught a glimpse of his sister hunkered down in the rose garden. With a woeful glance toward the gazebo, he stepped off the porch, thrust his fists in his pockets, and sauntered toward Meg.

“Somebody’s angry with Aa—ron,” Meg sang softly as he approached. “Somebody’s angry with Aa—ron and her name is Mandy Dane.” She snipped a white rose off a bush and twirled it in the air at her brother.

“Be quiet,” Aaron snapped. “She’ll hear you. She’s still Amanda Whitrock for now. And you know she
hates
being called ‘Mandy’.” He reached for the rose.

Meg snatched it away. “If you want to give Amanda Whitrock a rose, give her one of
yours
.” She gestured toward a pink blossom nearby.

“The pink ones aren’t as pretty as the white ones,” Aaron complained. He looked doubtfully toward the gazebo, somewhat cheered when a flash of color betrayed the fact that Amanda was watching for him.

“Too bad,” Meg said, and straightened up. “I’m not giving
her
,” she nodded toward the gazebo, “one of Gen’s roses.”

“She’s just sad we’re going to be gone next summer, that’s all,” Aaron explained.

“She’s being a brat,” Meg declared, “because she isn’t getting her way. Sometimes she acts like she’s four years old. No,” Meg corrected herself, “I take that back. Hope acts
better
than Amanda most of the time. I never saw
anybody
as spoiled as Amanda Whitrock in my entire life,” Meg said. “Why do you even like her, anyway?”

Aaron shrugged. “She’s the prettiest girl in the class,” he offered weakly, “and she likes me.”

Meg rolled her eyes. Snipping off one more rose, she handed Aaron her clippers. “Here,” she said, heading toward the house. “Just remember.
No white roses
.”

With a sigh, Aaron bent to clip a small pink bud off a bush. On his way to the gazebo he set Meg’s garden scissors on a white swing. Taking a deep breath, he headed toward the gazebo holding the small pink blossom before him like a penitent worshipper bearing a votive offering to his gods.

Captain John Willets pushed away the map he had been studying and leaned back in his chair. There had to be worse things in a soldier’s life than boredom, but at the moment he could not think what they might be. He’d done his best to keep from being sent back to Minnesota, but to no avail. General Sibley wanted a seasoned man at Fort Ridgely as long as there was danger of hostile Sioux breaking back into Minnesota from the West. That man, General Sibley had said unequivocably, was John Willets. And so John had come, convincing himself that perhaps they were right, perhaps the string of scout camps along the frontier was not quite enough.

The need for extra vigilance had been brought home to Willets just this past May when a group of hostiles broke through the frontier defenses and murdered four members of a homesteader’s family. It had sent panic all across Minnesota again, and for a while the garrison was alive with activity. But then the half-breed responsible for the murders was caught and imprisoned at Mankato—and subsequently lynched and hung by a mob. That ended any significant Indian trouble, and it had been months since anything of interest’ had happened at Fort Ridgely—unless, of course, one considered the arrival of Miss Charlotte Parker of interest. Which, to be quite honest, Captain Willets did. Just now, as he sat behind his oversized desk inside the stone building that served as a combination headquarters and surgeon’s residence, John gave himself over to the contemplation of Miss Charlotte’s warm brown eyes and tiny hands. Something about a small woman called out the protector in him. Always had. And Miss Charlotte was not only small, but she gazed up at him with the trusting, liquid-brown eyes of a gentle doe.

In the contemplation of Miss Charlotte Parker, John Willets temporarily forgot his boredom. But then the fire burned low and a cold wind blew down the chimney and sent the map sliding off the desk onto the floor. When John bent to retrieve it he once again followed the line of the Missouri River west to where all things interesting were happening possibly at this very moment, and the lovely image of Miss Charlotte Parker was replaced by even more tempting images of supply trains and maneuvers and negotiations in the dusky light of campfires attended by men with names like Little Thunder and Bad Wound, Swift Bear and Spotted Antelope. As he put another log on the fire in his office, Captain Willets crouched down to warm his hands, thinking that it was going to be a very long winter—a few cotillions with the fleet-footed Miss Charlotte Parker notwithstanding.

“Cap’n Willets.” A familiar voice sounded from the door.

“You got supper already, Pope?” Willets asked without getting up.

“No, sir. It’s not that, sir. I was over at the sutler’s store and—,” Edward Pope cleared his throat. “Well, there’s a settler over there and he’s hoppin’ mad. I heard him say somethin’ about Indians. Just thought you might want to know, sir.”

Willets stood up and turned around. Smoothing his unfashionably long blond hair with one hand, he reached for his hat with the other. He smiled. “Thank you, Pope. I’ll see to it.” He made his way across the parade ground and had just rounded the officers’ quarters when he was nearly bowled over by a giant of a man who looked oddly familiar but whom Willets did not recognize even when the man introduced himself as “Marsh. Abner Marsh. Got to talk to you about some Injuns.”

“Indian trouble? Here?” With a look in Edward Pope’s direction, Willets lowered his voice. “We’ll talk at headquarters,” and without waiting for Marsh to reply, he headed back across the parade ground and inside.

When Abner Marsh ducked to clear the top of Willets’s office door, he remembered. This was the man who had had some horses stolen before the outbreak and had come to the fort for help. Willets had led a company of men to the Marsh homestead where they found a dead Dakota warrior in Marsh’s barn. As it turned out, Marsh had already recaptured his horses from the thieves in an act at once so daring and stupid Willets had been unsure whether to admire or chastise the man. He had ended up doing neither, returning to Fort Ridgely to bury the unidentified warrior in a corner of the fort cemetery plot.

“You had a place up by Acton,” Willets said, motioning Abner Marsh into a chair. At Marsh’s surprised expression, Willets smiled and passed a hand over his blond goatee. “I’ve changed—had a full beard back then. But I’m the one who came up to your place after your horses were stolen.”

Marsh squinted at Willets momentarily, then nodded and grunted. “Hope I get more help this time than I did then.” He leaned forward. “Got me a new place down by New Ulm. Nice place. Good water. Rich soil. Only problem is, still got Injun trouble.” Looking around the room for a spittoon and finding none, Marsh sent a brown stream of liquid into the corner behind Willets’s desk before continuing. “Neighbor named Jeb Grant. He’s got four of ‘em livin’ on his place. Two bucks.”

Willets smiled. “As it happens, Mr. Marsh, I know Daniel Two Stars and Robert Lawrence. They scouted for the Army. And they both did excellent service on behalf of whites during the outbreak. You have nothing to be concerned about with Daniel and Robert.”

Marsh’s jaw set momentarily, then he spit tobacco again.

With a glance into the corner, Willets said abruptly, “Would you mind if we finished this conversation outside?” Without waiting for a reply, he headed for the door.

Marsh followed Willets outside. Clenching his fists at his sides, he stepped toward Willets and stared down at him. “I want those Injuns off Grant’s place. I got a wife and two young daughters. They was scairt half to death in that other mess. I ain’t gonna’ have ‘em worried again.”

Willets looked away and stared across the parade ground toward the place where his Dakota scouts had once camped. Looking back up at Marsh, he forced another smile. “All those two men want is a place to peacefully raise a family. Which is, I gather, what you want as well. They’ve both paid quite a price for just being Indians. And in my humble opinion, they both deserve to be left in peace for the rest of their days. If you want to know the truth, you’d sooner have to worry about Sitting Bull riding a thousand miles and personally attacking your place than any trouble from Two Stars or Lawrence.”

Marsh raised his voice. “You tellin’ me the United States Army ain’t gonna lift a finger to protect lawful citizens?”

“No sir, I’m not saying that. The Army will always protect citizens,” Willets said, forcing reasonableness into his voice. “I’m just telling you that you don’t have a problem. And the Army cannot just ride onto private property and remove people who were invited to live there. Jeb Grant obviously wants them. And with all due respect, Mr. Marsh, I remind you that Mr. Grant’s rights are on an equal par with yours. He has the right to hire farm hands of his choosing.”

“Now you listen here,” Marsh said, shoving Willets back against the stone wall of the building. “You may think that uniform of yours gives you permission to order me around. It don’t. I pay your salary, and—”

A half-foot shorter than Abner Marsh and at least fifty pounds lighter, John Willets was no threat physically—at least that was what Marsh reckoned. Except that one minute he was pressing Willets against the wall and the next minute he had landed in the dirt on his backside.

From where he stood peering out from behind the barracks, Edward Pope laughed. “I told you Cap’n would handle ‘im,” he said to the two other privates with him. “I seen him whip a prisoner bigger’n Abner Marsh once. He’s got moves so quick you don’t know what hit you. No sirree, you better think again before you mess with Cap’n Willets.” Pope laughed and headed off to fix a mess of his famous soup for the captain. The other two soldiers continued to watch.

“Here’s a word of advice, Mr. Marsh,” John said from the doorway of his office. “It does not help your case when you try to smash the face of the man you want help from.” As Marsh scrambled to get up, Willets repeated, “Daniel Two Stars and Robert Lawrence are good men. I would take it personally if anything happened to them.” He tugged on the brim of his hat. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have housekeeping to do. Someone used the corner of my office for a spittoon.” Behind him, he heard Abner Marsh muttering under his breath about Injun lovers and cowards. He straightened his shoulders and went inside.

“Mornin’, Abner.” Jeb Grant nodded to his neighbor and climbed down from his wagon. With a farmer’s inherent interest in the weather, he commented on the season’s early snow even as he limped to the front of the wagon and hitched his team before heading toward Ludlow’s Variety Store.

But Abner Marsh was not about to engage in meaningless small talk about the weather. “Got somethin’ to talk to you about,” he said. “Thought you’d be in town, it bein’ Saturday and all.”

Jeb hesitated before following Marsh to the side of the building. He nodded toward where a group of men were unloading bricks. “Good to see the town gettin’ built up. Bodes well for the future.”

Abner cast a brief glance toward the pile of bricks. He could hear the sounds of hammering and sawing from somewhere nearby. But where Jeb saw progress, Abner saw a need to rebuild a town that had been a prime target of Sioux attacks in the uprising of 1862. “How long you gonna keep Injuns on your place?” Abner asked abruptly.