Meet the New Dawn (12 page)

“I will buy her!” Wolf’s Blood said quickly.

Zeke and the girl both looked at him in surprise, the girl feeling flames in her blood.

The storekeeper just laughed. “You don’t have enough, boy.”

“How do you know? How much do you want?”

The storekeeper eyed the girl again, then walked over and pulled her off the ladder with a jerk, running a hand over her breasts. Wolf’s Blood felt hot with rage and the girl hung her head. “Well, boy, I can get three hundred dollars for her. You got that much?”

Wolf’s Blood looked up at his father and knew his answer. He looked back at the storekeeper. “I will get it. I have horses that are my own that I can sell.”

The storekeeper chuckled. “That would take time. I don’t know how much longer I can go without exploring that pretty thing’s insides.”

Wolf’s Blood whipped out the huge Bowie knife his father had bought him as a gift after suffering the ordeal of the Sun Dance Ritual. “Touch her and I will kill you!” he snarled. “Even if I hang for it!”

The storekeeper backed up, looking from the boy to Zeke, who looked just as menacing as his son. “I was only going to make a suggestion, Indian,” he told the boy. “You good at wrestling—Indian wrestling?”

“As good as any.” Wolf’s Blood lowered the knife a little but
kept it out.

“Well, then, stick around a couple of days. A bunch of Pawnees are coming here for some sporting games with the soldiers.” He grinned, knowing the Pawnee were a hated enemy of the Cheyenne. “The Pawnee have helped the soldiers hunt down Cheyenne a time or two, you know. They’re generally welcome here. We have some good games—betting games. You look like a strong young man—a scrapper. And I’ll bet you don’t hold no love for the Pawnee. I’ll sponsor you in the wrestling games and anything else you’re good at, and if you win me the three hundred bucks, the girl is yours.”

Wolf’s Blood looked up at his father again, who scowled at him. “Come outside and we’ll discuss it,” he told his son.

The boy stormed out and Zeke followed, corralling his son outside. “Wolf’s Blood, you don’t even know that girl,” he warned him. “This is the first time you’ve ever even seen her.”

“I don’t care! You saw what he did to her—saw the look in her eyes. I want to buy her, Father. If I do not buy her, I will steal her! I cannot bear to see that white bastard touching her and hurting her! I want to take her home with us.”

Zeke grinned and shook his head. “What if she doesn’t want to go?”

The boy held his eyes. “You saw how she looked at me. She will go.”

Zeke’s eyebrows arched. “And you intend to make her your wife?”

“I don’t know yet. I only know I want to get her out of there. We could take care of her, couldn’t we, Father? Even if I didn’t marry her? Maybe we could take her back to her people if she wants to go.”

Zeke sighed. “Sure. What’s one more mouth to feed? But you’d better join with me in scouting. We’ll need your share of the earnings, and I want no trouble. It will be hard for you, Wolf’s Blood.”

“I will go. For you and for the girl. And I will take part in these games, Father. I can win! I know I can. And you could enter, too. Between the two of us, we could make enough. It would be fun, Father, fighting the Pawnee and beating them!”

The boy’s eyes flashed, and Zeke felt his own excitement.

“It would at that,” he answered. “All right, my son, we will join in the Pawnee games. Just be careful how you talk to that storekeeper.”

“If he hurts her he will die!”

Zeke grinned. “Of course he will. What you have to learn is to do in a white man without being caught. Just like we did with Winston Garvey. Go easy, Wolf’s Blood. We’ll tell him how it must be and that we’ll enter the games. And if you’re going to buy the girl, you could at least find out what her name is!”

The boy grinned, his blood hot for the slender legs he had seen, the wide, innocent eyes of the virgin Apache girl he suddenly wanted for himself. “I will find out her name. We will buy her and take her home where she can be safe.”

Wolf’s Blood dashed back inside and Zeke shook his head. He, too, felt sorry for the girl and would probably have done the same thing if he’d had first chance—just to keep her safe. He’d seen his fill of the abuse of Indian women. He grinned to himself at the thought of the look on Abbie’s face when they came riding home with more than just supplies.

LeeAnn pushed at one of the combs that helped hold up her beautifully coiffured hair, its thick blond curls gracing her exquisite face. Just the right amount of coloring accented the lids of her wide blue eyes. She had learned much about the ways of being a proper lady—how to dress and act. Not that her own mother hadn’t taught her, but here in the East all the latest fashions were available; and with so many things to do and places to go, a woman had to be current with fashions and manners.

She smoothed a wrinkle in her baby blue
Dolly Varden
dress, the latest rage. The garment was named after the heroine in Charles Dickens’s novel
Barnaby Rudge,
and had a blue and white flowered overskirt that was very short in front but very bunched in the back, made of chintz and accenting the plain blue silk skirt of the dress. The color only accented her creamy beauty, making her eyes look bluer, her skin softer.

She shifted on the wooden bench where she sat waiting for the lecture to begin. It was a warm, lovely day, and after the
lecture someone was giving about the West, there would be a band concert, while investors and railroad people circulated among the crowd telling people all about the wonderful advantages of the American West. LeeAnn had come out of pure curiosity, for she knew probably better than any of them what the West was really like. Why she had felt drawn to the occasion, she wasn’t sure, for she had spent the last two years or better trying to forget she had ever lived there. If she could just forget her family, everything would be perfect. But missing them was not enough to make her go back.

LeeAnn was secretary to an attorney now, making good money but still attending college on the side and planning to be a teacher, preferably at a university. She lived in Washington, D.C., to her a most interesting and exciting place to be. She had already met many prominent men, always introducing herself as simply LeeAnn Whittaker from New York, telling others her parents were dead and never letting on to anyone that she was really from Colorado and her father was a half-breed Indian. Why should she tell them? They would only shun her. She had come here to forget, and the only way to do that was to turn her back on the life she had once led. There was no ranch, no family. And her ordeal with the Comanches had never happened. But occasionally she would suffer the pain of guilt and sweet love at the memory of her father risking his life to save her. Still, Zeke Monroe was a part of that wild land that she wanted nothing more to do with. He fit the land. She did not. And no one she knew here in the East would ever understand or accept her if they knew.

LeeAnn turned to a girl friend who sat reading a dime novel about the West, and she grinned at the drawing of an Indian spearing a buffalo. The buffalo was drawn far out of proportion, many times taller than the Indian. Sometimes she was tempted to shock Sharon by telling her she knew firsthand about buffalo hunting and Indians—had even lived with Indians a time or two. But no. She would never tell. She was from New York. Her parents were dead.

A band marched by, and balloons danced in the wind from where they were tied to a speaker’s stand.

“There are always young men interested in the West,”
Sharon spoke up, putting the book down and looking around. “We’ll surely meet some of them today. Isn’t this exciting, LeeAnn?”

“It’s something to do. But I don’t really care about any young man who has an interest in the West. I do not intend to go to that lawless land.”

“It sounds wonderfully exciting to me. Just look at the picture of a buffalo in this book!” She opened the page again to the drawing and LeeAnn frowned.

“I am sure the buffalo are very big animals, Sharon, but surely you don’t believe they’re several heads taller than a man on a horse!”

“How do you know until you see one? They might be that big. I’ve seen an elephant, and an elephant is that big.”

LeeAnn quelled an urge to say she knew exactly what a buffalo looked like. A young man limped up to the speaker’s stand then, using a cane, while nearby a white man walked around dressed in buckskins, his face painted, a long headdress of feathers on his head. It made LeeAnn think of her father again, and she smiled at how ridiculous the white man dressed as an Indian looked. How handsome her father would look next to the ridiculous fake who stood nearby!

The young man with the cane positioned himself at the podium, and a heavyset man climbed up beside him, raising his arms and bellowing out in a loud voice for the crowd to quiet down. People stopped talking and more sat down, waiting for the speaker’s next words. The majority of the crowd were men, and Sharon scanned the sea of choices eagerly, her eyes telling them that she was single and available. Several of them eyed her back and smiled, some tipping their hats. But LeeAnn stared ahead, at the young man who had limped to the podium. He was not what anyone could call handsome, nor was he ugly. He had a look of sureness and power about him, and he was watching her, an odd, hungry look to his eyes that stirred something inside of her. His eyes both frightened and fascinated her. He was obviously someone important or he wouldn’t be on the speaker’s stand. And he was watching her, singling her out from Sharon or any other women there. It made her feel important too.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce you to Mr. Charles Garvey,” the fat man bellowed.

LeeAnn frowned. The name was somewhat familiar, but she wasn’t sure why. To ensure total secrecy, none of the Monroe children had been told the details of their mother’s abduction and rape, who had done it, and why. Only Wolf’s Blood knew the details. Nor had the others been told that their cousin Joshua Lewis was the half-breed son of Winston Garvey. The fewer who knew, the better, for their own safety, for Joshua’s safety, and to ensure no one ever pieced things together and linked Winston Garvey’s disappearance with Zeke Monroe.

“Young Mr. Garvey is here representing his real estate interests in the great territory of Colorado,” the announcer went on. “His father was a senator for many years, and later a prominent businessman in Colorado, owning property not only in that territory but also in New Mexico territory. He and his representatives will gladly work with any of you interested in investing in property in the golden West—and golden is the word, folks, for it’s a known fact that the gold that lies in the mountains of Colorado has only been lightly tapped. There is more, folks! Enough to enable every man here to fulfill his dreams!”

The crowd cheered, and the fat man stepped aside. Charles Garvey scanned the crowd, his dark eyes commanding attention, his wealthy power having an almost hypnotizing effect on his audience, who quickly quieted down. He looked at LeeAnn again before beginning his speech, his eyes taking in her fair beauty and full figure.

He began speaking then, his grammar excellent, his voice clear, the words well enunciated and well chosen. He carried on about the beauty of the West, the money that could be made if people settled along the railroad rights-of-way, the money that could be made just supplying gold camps, let alone the possibility of discovering gold themselves. He talked of rolling green plains and purple mountains with such eloquence that LeeAnn began missing home. He claimed that he missed it all himself so much that as soon as he was finished with his law apprenticeship here in Washington, he would go back home, even though deep inside he had no intentions of going back. He
liked the East, the easy living, the cities and progress. Why should he want to go back to his father’s stinking ranch, to dust and cows, to rudely built towns with their dirt streets? He’d wait a few years. Let these people go and do the dirty work. Let them settle and build and civilize the West. Then he would go back. But aloud he carried on about all the benefits of looking to the setting sun, for he would make a lot of money off these people, selling them worthless land for a tidy sum, promising them gold and success.

Then came the question about Indians, and LeeAnn’s heart tightened. Garvey’s eyes darkened, and his hands gripped the podium more tightly. “We have virtually wiped the Indians out of the Territory of Colorado,” he told them. “I rode with Chivington myself back in ’64. We showed them at Sand Creek the hopelessness of trying to stay in our territory. I walk with a cane this very day because of Sand Creek!”

“You were there?” someone asked behind LeeAnn.

Garvey’s eyes narrowed. “I was there. And I can tell you that after Sand Creek the Cheyenne were taken down a notch or two. Now most of them are in Indian Territory, far to the Southeast. We have a few renegades who continue to stir up trouble, but nothing that can’t be handled.”

“But what about Kansas, New Mexico, Nebraska?” another asked. “We have to go through those places to get to Colorado. Word is the Indians are raiding worse than ever in those places.”

“Exaggerations!” Garvey told the man. “But of course there are some encounters. Until we gouge every stinking red man out of the creases of the land, there will be problems. But the more of you who come out, the better. We’ll simply smother them with whites. On top of that, buffalo hunters and the railroad are doing their own good job of bringing the Indian to their knees. Buffalo are being killed by the thousands, and the Indian can’t survive without the beasts. All of you would do well to support the slaughter of the buffalo—preferably until every last one of them is gone. Kill the buffalo, and you kill the Indian!”

LeeAnn felt an urge to argue, to stand up in support of the Indian. But something stopped her—an inner determination
to wipe out her past. Besides, she dared not stand and speak for them in a crowd like this one. How would it look, a blond-haired, blue-eyed, sophisticated young lady standing up and defending Indians? It was ridiculous.