Meet the New Dawn (18 page)

“And is that what you do?” he asked her. “Dream?”

She breathed deeply. Why not tell him? What did she have to lose? “I dream every night,” she answered. “About you, Wolf’s Blood.” She turned and walked to Margaret’s cabin, and he watched her. Why had he put it off so long? He wanted her, that was sure. In fact, he loved her. But he was afraid to love and then have what he loved taken from him. Yet could that be any worse than never having that which he wanted so badly?

He hurried up behind her then, getting to the door just as Margaret opened it. Morgan sat at the table, his muscular arms and shoulders bare. Margaret wore a robe, obviously quickly wrapped around a naked body. She reached for Nathan. “Thank you so much, Sonora,” she told the girl. Wolf’s Blood lifted Little Zeke down from his shoulders, and the boy ran inside to his father. Margaret looked at him and back at Sonora, then to her brother again. “Thank you both,” she told them. “You’d better go get your own rest.”

Sonora nodded and turned, heading back to the main house. Margaret frowned at her brother. “It’s a lovely night, don’t you think?”

He looked up at the sky and shrugged. “I suppose.”

She looked out at Sonora. “If I were you, I’d make use of it, my brother. With your handsome looks, you need no deer tails or any other charms to have the woman you want.” She took the baby inside and shut the door, and he turned to watch after Sonora, who was several yards away. His sister was right. Why waste the night? A man had to make a decision one way or the other eventually, and his body ached for a woman, but not just any woman. He had wanted Sonora since the first day he
saw her in the supply store. For a brief moment he thought about Jennifer. There had been other occasions he’d thought of her, but only in a curious way, for her white beauty was rare indeed. But she was a little girl and far away, and a half cousin besides. Worse than that, she was white. He had little use for white women other than his own mother and sisters and Dan’s wife Bonnie. It was just that on rare occasions Jennifer’s wide, green eyes would come to mind, as well as her girlish curiosity about Indians. He’d never seen hair so red nor skin quite so white. Not even LeeAnn had skin as white as Jennifer’s. But then the vision left him as quickly as it had come, and he decided it was only due to the fact that two bloods ran in his veins, and there were times when the white blood would come to tease and annoy him. But he was Indian, and his passion was for Indians and Indian ways.

“Sonora!” he called out, running to catch up with her then. She stopped, turning and waiting for him. He came up to her then, just staring at her in the moonlight.

“What is it, Wolf’s Blood?” she asked.

He came closer, his breathing heavy. He reached out and touched her hair. “I want …” He swallowed. “Stay with me tonight—in the tipi. It is the Indian way. Stay with me tonight, and you will be my wife. My mother says people need a white preacher to marry them, but you and I do not need such things. We are Indian. You need only to give yourself to me, and you are mine.”

Her eyes feared, and her breathing quickened. “You want me to be your wife?”

He came closer, moving his hands to her hips and pressing her against him. “I love you, Sonora. I have loved you for a long time, but was afraid. I am not afraid anymore.”

She felt weak at the manly scent of him, the closeness of the broad shoulders, the feel of his manhood pressing hard against her belly. He could feel her trembling. “I … I would like to be your wife, Wolf’s Blood. I … want you for my man. But … it frightens me.”

He kissed her hair. “Do not ever be afraid of me, Sonora. I would not hurt you.” His lips found hers then, and she felt on fire, her passion so great she lost all fear. If being his woman
brought pain, so be it. It would be pleasurable pain. He moved his lips to her neck and she reached up to embrace him, her breathing coming in short gasps. He picked her up in his arms and carried her inside the tipi, setting her on her feet and closing the deerskin flap over the entranceway, tying it so no one could come in unexpectedly. She stood before him, shivering, half crying, wondering how her legs still worked.

He walked around her then, eyeing her up and down as he removed his own clothing. When the loincloth came off she looked at the ground shyly and he smiled. He came closer and took her chin in his hand. “Don’t be afraid of it,” he told her. “All of me belongs to you, Sonora, and all of you belongs to me.”

He unlaced her tunic at the shoulders and pulled her arms open so that it fell to the ground. She stood there in naked splendor, looking at him boldly as he gazed at full, firm breasts and milky brown skin.

“You are … the most beautiful creature I have ever seen,” he told her sincerely. “You make me tremble, Sonora.”

She reached out with a shaking hand and touched his chest. “And you are the most beautiful man I have ever seen.”

He took her hand and led her to his bed of robes. He sat down, gently pulling her down beside him. “You are shaking. I want you to be relaxed, Sonora.” He gently pushed her down onto the bed of robes. “I will relax you, and you will want me so much that it will not hurt you.” He moved away for a moment, carrying over a wooden bowl. “It is a sweet-smelling oil. I have been … saving it. When I lived with the widowed Sioux woman in the North, she taught me the secret of oil, and how it helps a woman not be afraid.” He took her arms and laid them up over her head. “Do not be afraid to let me look at you, Sonora. You are so very beautiful. I could not have a more pleasurable wife.” He dipped his hands into the oil and rubbed it on his palms, then began massaging her, moving from her wrists down her arms to her throat. She gasped when his hands gently moved over the full breasts. “I will massage all of you—every muscle, every hidden place,” he told her. “And then I will make you my woman.”

He smiled. This was going to be the most glorious night he’d
ever experienced. Perhaps they would not even leave the next day. He would lie next to her all day and make love to her again and again. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman, and this one was going to be his wife.

Wolf lay at the other side of the dwelling, totally unconcerned over what his master was doing. The big gray beast yawned and turned over, curling into a new position, ignoring the gasps of pleasure and whispered words of love.

The next morning found everyone at the breakfast table but Wolf’s Blood and Sonora.

“Where are they?” Abbie fussed. “Maybe Sonora stayed at Margaret’s. Jason said she never slept in the loft last night.”

Zeke grinned and sat down. “I wouldn’t go looking for her at Margaret’s, Abbie-girl. I saw our son carrying her into his tipi last night. They didn’t know I was outside.”

He met her surprised eyes. “But they aren’t … I mean we need to get a preacher here. Maybe they didn’t even—”

“Abbie, you know as well as I that when it comes to being in love, nobody needs a damned preacher. And yes, I’m sure they did do exactly what you’re thinking. I say it’s about time.”

She began to redden, cursing her injuries, for she suddenly wanted her own husband. No, when it came to passion, a preacher made little difference. After all, hadn’t Zeke Monroe made her his woman without a preacher? The formalities had come later, but they were already married in heart and soul and body, of that there was no doubt.

Their eyes held and she smiled, both of them remembering a night in Wyoming when a half-breed scout grasped and held a grief-stricken young girl named Abigail Trent. She had lost her family, and there had been only one way to comfort her—to love her in the only way she wanted to be loved and to put his own brand on her. He had to be her first man and show her she was not alone but that someone loved her and wanted to protect her. He’d been doing this ever since.

Abbie looked at Ellen and Jason. “I don’t want anyone
disturbing Wolf’s Blood today,” she told them. “I know there is a lot of work to be done, but let him come and help when he is ready. Tell Margaret and Morgan as soon as you’re through with breakfast.”

Ellen giggled and picked up her fork, and Jason frowned, not totally sure what was going on. But everyone seemed happy enough, so he guessed it didn’t much matter.

Chapter Ten

Settling in on the reservation in Oklahoma was no easy accomplishment for the freedom-loving Cheyenne, but during the years of 1871 and 1872 there was relative peace, with even the wayward Big Jake, Bull Bear, Red Moon, and Medicine Arrows bringing their people south to the reservation. But the Cheyenne made little effort to take up the ways of agriculture or education. Schedules, learning, plowing, and planting were all things totally foreign to the proud Cheyenne. A man must hunt or make war against his enemies. But walk behind a plow? Sit on a hard bench learning useless scribblings? It made no sense. In 1872 only eight Cheyenne children had shown up in the Quaker school on the reservation, and they were the offspring of mixed bloods, none of them full-blooded Cheyennes.

With the relative peace during the winter of ’71-’72, Zeke’s services were not needed to any great extent, much to Abbie’s relief. It was a hard winter for them, as it was spent cutting wood, trudging around for supplies, and trying to get a barn built.

In that same winter Wolf disappeared, and Wolf’s Blood knew in his heart that the animal had gone off to die, for his beloved pet, which had been found and adopted as a pup, had been acting listless and sick. Wolf’s Blood spent nearly a week looking for the animal, returning without him. His heart felt great sorrow at the thought of things getting old and dying, like the Indians and like what was happening to his father. He knew
Wolf’s death was a sign that his own life must change also. One more wild thing had gone out of it.

During that long winter Abbie could see her husband silently suffering. Every movement seemed to bring him pain, and his hands and wrists were often swollen. But he worked as much as the others, saying nothing about his own agony. Abbie could see that his affliction was obviously worse in the winter, and by spring the barn was built and her husband was noticeably better.

In May of 1872 Wolf’s Blood’s spirits were lifted when Sonora gave birth to a son, named Kicking Boy because he was so lively inside his mother’s stomach before he was born, and continued kicking wildly after birth. Some day Wolf’s Blood hoped his son would be able to go to the mountains and fast and pray until he had a vision, in that way knowing what his name should be when he became a man. Wolf’s Blood had once been called Little Rock, but had shed the name when he had his own vision, and had lived with a pack of wolves in the Rockies at the age of twelve. He was the only one of Zeke’s sons who had followed all the customs of the Cheyenne. He wanted his own son to do the same, but feared the boy would never get the chance. He was fiercely proud of Kicking Boy, determined to teach him everything he could about both the Cheyenne and the Apache, hoping the child would carry on the Indian ways and teach them to his own children. Like his father, Wolf’s Blood feared the old ways and language would die out once reservation Indians began to slowly adjust to white man’s ways and schooling.

Reservation life in Oklahoma remained precarious. With nearly all the Cheyenne nation finally in one place, the powerful force they felt in being together brought back thoughts of again being free. The buffalo hunts had been good. There were many robes dressed and readied for the whiskey and gun traders, who always found ways to illegally enter the reservation, which sprawled across thousands of acres of open land impossible to guard night and day. With whiskey and guns and the ability to gather together in council, rumors of a
planned outbreak began spreading. And at the same time Kicking Boy was born, Brinton Darlington, agent on the Cheyenne reservation and respected by the Indians, died. In honor of the elderly Quaker, the Cheyenne made sure there were several days of quiet during his illness and immediately following his death.

A new agent, John D. Miles, was appointed, and not long thereafter the Kiowas began raiding anew. Many of their raids were blamed on the Cheyenne, for there was again unrest among the young warriors, and it was well known that the Kiowas were constantly after the Cheyenne to join them in the raiding. Those Cheyenne who stayed at Camp Supply according to treaty, drawing rations from the government, still refused to consider settling into white man’s ways. They wanted to wait and watch their kin, the Arapaho, to see how they fared at farming, still considering such things woman’s work.

A few Kiowa chiefs, such as Lone Wolf and Kicking Bird, worked hard at restraining their young men. But they had little control. The constant goading of the warring Kiowas toward the Cheyenne, calling them cowards and squaws, had its effect, and some of the younger men joined in more raiding. Still, the fighting was sporadic and could not be called an all-out war. The major portion of the Cheyenne remained on the reservation and still favored peace. But they continued to refuse to send their children to the Quaker schools, to farm, or to listen to Christain teachings—for all these things were against the Cheyenne way.

If the whites in charge of running the reservation and “educating” the Indians could have tried harder to understand Indian ways, perhaps the peace would have lasted forever. But their attitude did little to help keep the peace. In the words of one white agent, the one main obstacle to more rapid advance in Indian morals and religion was the Indians’ reluctance to “acknowledge the superiority of the whites.” Such attitudes could not have been more damaging when used against such a proud people as the Cheyenne and most other tribes. To the Indian the white man was not superior at all—stronger in force and weapons and numbers, perhaps, but not superior as men.
It was this constant spiritual and social abuse that kept the fires of hatred and misunderstanding burning and prohibited any real understanding from either side.

In late summer of 1872 a few Southern Cheyenne and a part of the Northern Cheyenne who had finally come south to the reservation, headed back north from Camp Supply to hunt buffalo. When approaching a group of buffalo hunters, one warrior laid down his gun in a sign of peace, only to be shot in cold blood. Shortly thereafter, Indians raided a settler family and killed all of them. The Cheyenne hunting party was blamed, although they vehemently denied committing the act, saying Kiowas had done it. Such confusion kept the pot constantly boiling, and by the end of 1872, the young men were becoming restless again, and control of those who opted for peace became difficult if not impossible. Slowly but surely, the relative peace that had been enjoyed was crumbling.

It was late February, 1873, when the small company of soldiers rode onto Monroe property and halted in front of the main house. Abbie stayed at the table while Zeke went to the door. Her heart felt like it was shattering, for she knew why they had come before they even spoke. A sergeant removed his hat.

“You by any chance Zeke Monroe?” he asked, already sure of the answer just by looking at the Indian in the doorway.

“I am.”

“I’m Sergeant Hal Daniels, from Fort Lyon. May I come inside?”

Zeke stepped back, and Daniels came inside, walking to stand near the stove. It was cold, very cold, but there was not a lot of snow on the ground. Abbie knew Zeke had been suffering again, and she resented the sergeant’s appearance, unable to give him an entirely friendly look when his eyes met hers. At first he stared in surprise, looking from her to Zeke.

“My wife, Abigail,” Zeke told him.

Daniels could not hide his shock. She was beautiful—a rare sight in these parts—but more than that, she was white. He glanced up at the loft, and saw a pretty girl of perhaps eighteen
and a boy in his early teens looking down at him, both white.

“Our daughter and son, Ellen and Jason,” Abbie told him, amused by the surprised look on the man’s face. “There are more, but they aren’t here at the moment.”

Daniels nodded to her. “Hello, ma’am.” He looked back at Zeke, wondering if he could trust the tall, powerful-looking man who was obviously more Indian than white, at least in looks. “Lieutenant-Colonel Petersen sent me, Mr. Monroe. Says he needs your services, if you’ve a mind.”

Zeke motioned for him to sit down. “Coffee?” he asked.

“I’d appreciate it. And I’m wondering if my men can hold up in your barn. They’d not harm anything.”

Zeke nodded, looking up at Jason. “Go show the sergeant’s men where they can bed down, Jason. And get Wolf’s Blood.”

The boy nodded and climbed down to put on his coat and winter moccasins. Sergeant Daniels frowned. “Wolf’s Blood?”

Zeke grinned and began rolling a cigarette, while Abbie rose to pour the coffee. “My son. This is a slow time of year and I have a son-in-law to run the place. Wolf’s Blood has expressed a desire to go with me if the Army should ask. Do you know what it’s all about? I’ll not go along to hunt down my own people if they’re going to be slaughtered.”

Daniels cleared his throat. He was young and good-looking, but seemed out of place with fair skin and curly red hair and a red mustache. His eyes were bright blue. He was just under six feet, of stocky build, with a true friendliness to his eyes. Zeke had a knack for studying and deciphering people quickly, and so far he liked the sergeant.

“Nothing like that, Mr. Monroe. That’s why the lieutenant thought you might like to have a hand in this one.” His eyes dropped to the knife at Zeke’s waist. “He … uh … he talked to a lot of men, heard a lot about your skills in fighting, especially with your knife.” He cleared his throat again and Zeke took a drag on the cigarette.

“Go on,” he told Daniels. Abbie set a cup of coffee in front of each man.

“Thank you, ma’am,” the sergeant spoke up.

“Certainly,” she replied. Her voice and manner surprised
him. He simply had not expected to find such a lovely, refined woman living in a log house with a half-breed Indian. He turned back to Zeke, full of personal questions he knew he dared not ask.

“Well, sir,” he continued, “Petersen would like your help in digging out some whiskey traders. They’re the scum of the frontier, sir, causing all sorts of trouble. The agents and soldiers just can’t keep the peace as long as the illegal whiskey peddlers keep coming into the reservation. Sometimes they trade through other Indians, like the Seminoles and Delawares, claiming that because they’re Indian the soldiers can’t do anything about it. Some traders are more open about it, hauling whole wagonloads of whiskey out of Dodge City into Oklahoma. The reservation being so big and all, and with the Indians helping the traders, the soldiers just can’t keep up with it all. Petersen was hoping maybe there was some way you could filter in—maybe go to Dodge City and offer your services to the traders, find out who the biggest dealers are, what routes they take and all, then report back to Petersen so he’d know when and where to intercept them.”

Zeke smoked quietly, looking at Abbie, who frowned. “It sounds very dangerous,” she warned. “Men who do such things certainly are not going to care about a human life, especially an Indian’s. If they find out what Zeke is up to, they’ll kill him.”

Daniels ran a hand through his hair. “You’re probably right, ma’am. But from all the reports my commanding officer has received about your husband, killing him is not an easy thing to do. He’s a clever, skilled man. Petersen seems to think he would be good for this job and it wouldn’t be all that dangerous for him.”

She half grinned at her husband. “You’re right about the first part. Killing him is not easy. Plenty have tried.” She sighed deeply, her eyes still on her husband. “I just worry about one of them succeeding someday.” She could see the excitement in his eyes and already knew he’d do it. Her biggest worry was not the danger, but rather whether he would decide this was his time to die. If Zeke Monroe did not choose to die, it was unlikely anyone could harm him. But how bad was his
pain? Was he ready to give it all up? Would he use this mission as his excuse?

He gave her a wink then, taking another drag on the cigarette. “Don’t worry, Abbie-girl. I’ll see this one through.”

Her eyes teared. He had read her thoughts, as he always seemed to do.

Ellen came down then and sat at the table, blushing slightly under the gaze of Sergeant Daniels. She was attracted to his burly shoulders and the blue uniform. He was soft-spoken and mannerly, and the way he looked at her, with great admiration and appreciation of her beauty, made her skin tingle. She smiled shyly and nodded to him.

“Refill the sergeant’s cup,” Abbie told her daughter. The girl gladly obeyed. Wolf’s Blood came through the door then, and again Daniels’ eyes widened in surprise. The younger Monroe looked even more menacing than his father, if that was possible. And the two of them held a striking resemblance. Practically the only difference was age lines in Zeke’s face and the thin white scar down Zeke’s left cheek. At first Wolf’s Blood stared rather haughtily at the sergeant. He had never liked soldiers and never would, but he had promised his father he would help in scouting, partly because he knew the pain Zeke suffered and did not want him to be alone.

“This is my son,” Zeke spoke up. “Wolf’s Blood, this is Sergeant Daniels, from Fort Lyon.”

Daniels put out his hand, but Wolf’s Blood just stared at him.

“Shake the man’s hand, Wolf’s Blood. He’s not an enemy at the moment. I trust him.”

Wolf’s Blood put out his hand, gripping Daniels’s firmly as they shook, telling him by his grip what he would do if tricked. Daniels nodded to him.

“The sergeant here was sent to bring us back to the fort to see about routing out some illegal whiskey traders. What do you think?”

Wolf’s Blood frowned and leaned against the wall. “I think since it is white whiskey traders, I would like the job,” he answered. “It is bastards like that who destroy the Indian’s strength and pride, with their rotgut whiskey that makes a man
weak and stupid! I would gladly wipe out any whiskey trader I could get my hands on.”

Zeke grinned. “That’s what I thought.”

“Just remember,” Daniels spoke up. “We only want to know who and where. Leave the arresting to the soldiers. They will be tried and sentenced in court.”

Wolf’s Blood hissed out a sarcastic laugh. “And be turned loose again to do the same thing. My father and I can make the job easier by killing them ourselves.”