Meet the New Dawn (3 page)

The girl sighed. “I honestly don’t know right now what I will do, Mother. It will just be fun going someplace new, going to school.” She finally met the woman’s eyes. “I’ll write often, I promise.” She swallowed. “I love you, Mother. I can’t imagine that there is anyone in the whole world as strong and wonderful as you are. Look at all you’ve been through out here, and still you endure. I wish I could be as strong as you. I don’t know how you do it.”

“I have Zeke,” was the simple reply. She took two of the stones and handed them out. “Here. You keep a couple of these with you. Use them in the way your father said to use them. And remember him when you do. You have the sweater I knitted for you. We set a little aside to buy you some more clothes in Julesberg. We’ll get there a day or two early so we’ll have some time together to shop.”

The girl’s eyes teared again and she suddenly hugged her mother tightly. “Thank you, Mother. I know it hasn’t been
easy to come up with the money.”

“It was worth it,” the woman answered, patting her shoulder. “We’ll manage just fine. With Morgan’s financial help your father is back on his feet again and has already paid him back, with a tidy savings ahead for you and any other children who might want further schooling.”

“But what about you. You’ve always wanted to make the house bigger, get some nice furniture and …”

Abbie waved her off. “Why have a bigger house now, when half the children are leaving us? I’ll have only Ellen and Jason, and they both sleep in a loft that once held all seven of you. What little furniture we have is sufficient.” She looked at the brass bed. “And I have my fine bed.”

The door to the kitchen—also considered the main room of the small cabin—opened then, and Zeke’s voice boomed out. “I have that rabbit cleaned and ready for you, Abbie-girl.”

Abbie closed the trunk and both of them went out of the bedroom. Zeke stood at the table, laying a skinned rabbit on a piece of burlap, the huge, infamous blade still in his hand. The Indians called his knife “great medicine.” His enemies never lived long enough to call it anything. Many men had suffered a dire fate by Zeke Monroe’s blade—any who threatened him or his family—beginning with the men back in Tennessee who raped and murdered his first wife. Zeke had long ago lost count of how many had met their deaths by the knife, a huge blade embedded into the jawbone of a buffalo, which served as the handle. It was old, but it did its job. LeeAnn knew firsthand. She had witnessed his one-man rampage against the Comancheros who held her captive. He had actually frightened her that night, for although she had heard many tales about her own father, she had never seen in such explicit detail and reality just how he could wield a knife against his enemies.

She stared at him now, and he stared back, realizing that soon she would be gone—his LeeAnn. Never would he forgive himself for being unable to stop the Comanches from tearing the screaming girl from his arms. LeeAnn walked up to him then, hugging him around the middle.

“I love you, Father,” she told the man. Then she pulled away. “I’m going up to the loft to finish my packing.”

She hurried up the ladder to the loft, and Abbie walked closer to her husband. “She’ll be all right, Zeke. And so will Jeremy. They may stray from home, but they’re still Monroes.” She walked over to the hearth. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Not right now. I have some chores to finish,” he said quietly.

She turned to see him looking up at the loft. What a handsome man he still was! But something was bothering him—something more than Jeremy and LeeAnn leaving. She could not say just what, and knew he would not tell her until he was good and ready. That’s the way he was. There was no sense questioning him too much. But she suspected part of the problem, and had made up her mind to try to do something about it.

“Have some coffee anyway, Zeke. Surely you can spare another minute or two. I want to talk to you about something.”

He met her eyes and finally grinned a little. “What are you cooking up now, woman?”

She came to the table and sat down. “Please sit down just for a minute.”

He chuckled and shook his head, sitting down at the end of the table. “What is it, Abbie?”

She set the cup down. “I think that if we’re going all the way up to Julesberg, we might as well keep going—to Fort Laramie. Why don’t we go see Dan and Bonnie? And hopefully Joshua. I haven’t seen him since he was a baby.” He frowned, and she reached out and took a hand. “Zeke, if we go to Fort Laramie, you could go on from there—into Powder River country. You could look for Wolf’s Blood and make sure he’s all right. You could find Swift Arrow and have a good visit with him. You haven’t seen your brother in years, and it’s been almost three years since Wolf’s Blood left home to go back north. My God, Zeke, everyone knows how you love that boy. And I know better than most. You need to see him, talk to him, make sure he’s all right. I know it would be too dangerous for me to go along, things being the way they are now with the Sioux, but at least I would know if he’s all right. You can ride right into the midst of them. You’re Indian.”

He leaned toward her, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. “Abbie you come up with some of the damnedest ideas. To tell you the truth, I’d considered that a time or two, but I wasn’t sure what you’d think of it.”

“You should have known I wouldn’t care. I’ll worry about you. There is a different spirit among the Indians now. It would be impossible for me to go. But you know them, and you’re Cheyenne. You shouldn’t have any trouble.” She squeezed his hand. “And knowing you, you’ll spend a few days there once you find them, and you should. It would give you a chance to be Indian again. I know the ranch gets to you sometimes—the settledness of it, the routine schedules. We could both get away and visit with people we care about. Morgan and Margaret can take care of things here. We’ll leave Ellen and Jason here, too. And after we leave Julesberg, it will be just you and me.”

Their eyes held, and her blood felt warmer at the look he gave her. “It’s been a long time since it’s been just you and me, Abbie-girl, out under the open skies,” he told her with a wink.

She smiled and actually blushed some, and he laughed lightly. He leaned forward then, meeting her lips in a sweet kiss, loving her more for the way she always understood him. It would be good for both of them to take a trip, and he would like nothing better than to ride into the villages of the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne and find his brother and son. The fact that they were literally at war with the miners and settlers in the Dakotas and Montana mattered little to him, for he was Indian like they were and did not fear them.

Abbie knew that she would lose her Tennessee man for a while when they reached Fort Laramie and he left her to ride into Indian territory. But she was used to that other side of him—the side that sometimes called him away. He stood up then, coming around and putting his hands on her waist, suddenly grabbing up his small wife and pulling her close, embracing her in powerful arms and holding her there so that her feet were off the floor. She laughed lightly as he nuzzled her neck.

“Zeke, LeeAnn is up in the loft, and Margaret will be here any minute.”

“So? Do they think their parents don’t do these things anymore?” He leaned back slightly, and she studied the dark, handsome face, the deep dark eyes that never failed to literally hypnotize her to his command. “I’ll say one thing for that brass bed,” he said with a handsome grin, “I don’t like it much for sleeping, but it’s damned comfortable for other things.” She reddened and he quickly met her lips then, in a long, hungry kiss.

They would go north to see his only living white brother, Dan, who was an officer in the western army stationed at Fort Laramie. And he would find his only living Indian brother, Swift Arrow. But most important, he would find his son, his precious son, Wolf’s Blood. He was tempted to tell her the real reason he needed to see Wolf’s Blood again, the real reason he hoped that maybe the boy would come home with him. But he would not burden her with that. Besides, the pain was better now that the weather was warmer.

Chapter Two

Steam billowed in white clouds from the monstrous Union Pacific engine, where it sat waiting for passengers to board the several cars it pulled. More people than usual crowded the station, for this was a special day. It was May 10, 1869, and excitement penetrated the air as all waited for the telegraph message to come through.

Zeke and Abbie stood with their son and daughter on the platform, the older man’s commanding appearance in bleached, beaded buckskins drawing stares from others. Men wondered if he might be dangerous; women simply were curious over the wild but handsome look about him. The thin scar down his left cheek detracted little from his rugged good looks; rather it told of a well-used man, one familiar with violence and hard living. But Colorado was becoming settled and civilized now. In the towns, men wearing buckskins were not often seen anymore, instead keeping to the more remote areas and around the army forts.

Zeke was determined that LeeAnn and Jeremy would remember him for what he was and somehow remember their own heritage and not be ashamed. His moccasins were brightly beaded, his fringed leggings and deerskin shirt painted in colorful designs. He wore a long necklace of small turquoise stones, and a wide bone choker necklace that graced his muscular throat. His black hair was plaited into a thick braid down his back, with colorful beads wound into it and a hair ornament decorated with a tiny bell at the side.

The stares came not just because of his own appearance, but because a beautiful white woman stood beside him, wearing a lovely green day dress and cape, a puff bonnet sitting daintily on her head and tied under her chin, adorning thick, reddish-brown hair that was braided and looped behind her ears. Why was the Indian man standing with a white woman, and a young blond girl and white boy? Abbie ignored the stares. She was used to them by now.

The announcement came then, as a man ran out of the station’s telegraph office. “It’s done!” he shouted. “They drove the last spike!”

The crowd broke into cheers, hats flying into the air, people hugging. The black engine bellowed out more steam and the engineer began wildly clanging the bell. In an open area near the station a band began playing and somewhere in the distance firecrackers were set off, causing horses to whinny and rear, some bolting away.

“By God, there’s no stopping us now!” one man yelled to another. “First the Atlantic and the Pacific—next the world!”

“I’d like to be in Promontory City right now!” another laughed. “I’ll bet it’s wild today!”

“The whole country will be wild today! I heard they’ve got parades planned in all the big cities. And Wall Street is closing for the day!”

Zeke and Abbie just looked at each other, unsmiling. Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad meant more than just the uniting of a country. It meant the end of a people already being quickly forgotten, kicked by the wayside in the name of progress. It meant the demise of the Indian, just one more symbol of the red man’s final days.

“If I had known what was going on today, I’d have picked a different time to be here,” Zeke grumbled.

Abbie touched his arm and squeezed it gently. “I’m sorry, Zeke.” She swallowed back her own tears. “Here we are saying good-bye to our daughter, and now this.”

He sighed and patted her hand. “Well, that’s what we get for living so far from civilization. There are things going on we don’t even know about.”

LeeAnn touched her mother’s shoulder. “I should get on the
train, Mother,” she told the woman. Her eyes were watery, and the two women suddenly hugged, hard and long.

“LeeAnn, are you sure—”

“I have to go, Mother. Aunt Bonnie told you what a good school it is, and it’s just for girls. There will be someone waiting for me at the station in New York. I’ll be fine.”

The crowd continued cheering, oblivious to the sad parting that was taking place. Jeremy shook his father’s hand, and could not hide the excitement in his own eyes, despite the sadness of this final parting from the only life he’d ever known. As soon as they had arrived at Julesberg, he’d run off to talk with railroad people, and in no time at all had gotten himself a job loading and unloading baggage cars. They even allowed him to stay with this particular train all the way to New York, so he could watch over his sister.

The boy was ecstatic over his new “career,” as he called it, and Zeke knew that once the parting was done, it would be a long time before he saw Jeremy Monroe again—maybe never. Their eyes met and Zeke kept hold of the boy’s hand. “I’ve taught you truth and honesty and hard work, Jeremy,” he told his son. “Don’t forget those things.”

“You know I won’t, Father.”

“You just remember that some of the men in the railroad business are far from truthful and honest. It’s easy to get caught up in a hunger for power, Jeremy.”

“Father, all I’m doing is loading baggage cars!”

Zeke kept a firm hold of his hand. “You’re a bright boy. You won’t be doing just that for long. You have energy and a desire to grow. Just remember your roots, Jeremy.”

Their eyes held, both of them wanting to say things they could not express. Their worlds were simply too far apart, yet they were father and son. The boy swallowed. “I … do love you, Father. I just can’t be what you want me to be.”

Zeke’s eyes teared. “I love you, too, Jeremy.”

They suddenly hugged. “I hope you find Wolf’s Blood,” the boy said quietly. “Tell my brother I think of him often. I’m sorry we could never be close.”

Zeke hugged him tightly, unable to speak. In the next moment mother and father were trading children and Zeke was
hugging LeeAnn, who wept openly now. Then Jeremy picked up LeeAnn’s baggage and his own small carpetbag, quickly turning away and boarding the train with his arms loaded. LeeAnn clung to her father’s hands for one last moment.

“I’ll regret to my dying day the fact that I couldn’t keep those Comanches from taking you, LeeAnn,” the man told her, his voice husky with sorrow.

“Oh, Father, I’ve never seen anyone fight so savagely! What more could you have done? And you came after me and got me back. I wish you wouldn’t think about it so much. I’m all right now. I’ll be even better when I get to New York and start a new life.”

The man nodded. “I won’t see either of you again, will I?”

“Father, don’t be silly!”

“I won’t. Once you get a taste of cities and the fine life—once Jeremy gets involved in moving up in the white man’s world—neither of you will come back.”

“Of course we will! It might not be right away, Father, but we’ll be back.”

But you won’t come back in time!
he wanted to shout at her. They had walked around in rain the night before, and all night his elbows and finger joints had ached fiercely. The damned, unknown disease that plagued him was determined not to go away.

“All aboard!” a conductor called out. “North Platte, Grand Island, Omaha, Council Bluffs, Iowa City, Chicago! All aboard!”

There was a last hug from LeeAnn before the girl turned then and ran to the train. Jeremy grasped her hand and helped her aboard, and both turned and waved once more. The train began to slowly move out, and Zeke and Abbie walked rapidly alongside it for a short way, waving. Abbie was blowing kisses, her eyes so full of tears that she couldn’t really see her son and daughter very well. The train moved faster then, and they stopped walking. LeeAnn and Jeremy leaned farther out, waving more, until they were two small dots in the distance. Abbie put a hand on her husband’s arm.

“They’ll be back,” she tried to assure him, hoping to convince herself at the same time.

He looked down at her with tragic eyes. “I don’t think so, Abbie—not for a good long time.” He breathed deeply. “Why has it always been so hard for me to tell him I love him? It’s always been so easy for me to tell Wolf’s Blood.”

“Wolf’s Blood is just like you and Jeremy isn’t. Wolf’s Blood refused to even take a white name, and Jeremy in turn would rather forget that he has an Indian name. Perhaps you resented him—just a little—because I almost died when he was born. Who knows why these things happen, Zeke?”

He saw her struggling to keep her own composure and knew she was only trying to make him feel better. People around them were still cheering and celebrating the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, yet neither of them could hear the screaming and laughter. They stood in their own world, seeing only each other. Her own mother’s heart was bleeding. A moment ago two of her precious children were with her, now they were gone, for months, maybe longer.

She took his hand. “Let’s go back to the hotel and rest. We still have to head for Fort Laramie tomorrow. Maybe you’ll be able to find Wolf’s Blood, Zeke. You’ll feel better when you see him. You’re always happier when you’ve seen him. Maybe he’ll come back with you.”

He sighed deeply and took her arm, leading her through the crowd. “The boy is as wild as the wolves he’s named after. I don’t know if I can ever get him to come home again.”

Abbie started awake, her first thoughts of LeeAnn and Jeremy. Her chest felt tight from worry, and the exhausted sleep she had fallen into had been a restless one. She had a terrible feeling that it was not just the recent departure of her children that had brought on this odd feeling of dread. She rubbed at her eyes. The room was dark. Apparently the afternoon nap she had intended to take had turned into something longer than that, for she had cried herself to sleep, and that always exhausted her. It was apparently early evening. She turned to see if Zeke had also slept, but he was not there.

She frowned, getting out of bed then and putting on her
robe. Abbie went to the window and looked out. Lamps were lit in the street below, and it was raining again. Where could Zeke have gone? He had been acting so strange lately, as though he was disturbed about something more than the children. But she didn’t know what it was and knew he was too stubborn to tell her anything that might upset her more, so it would be useless to ask. Whatever was bothering him, he would tell her in his own time. But it worried her. She heard footsteps outside the door then, and someone turned a key. The door opened and Zeke walked inside. She stood up, watching him carefully.

“Where were you?”

He turned so she could not see his eyes, closing the door. “I went to have a couple of drinks. I needed a good shot of whiskey after seeing two children off and hearing that news about the damned railroad. You were sleeping so well I didn’t want to disturb you.” He put on a smile and turned to face her. He would not tell her he had been to see a doctor. “Feeling better?” he asked her.

She wanted to question him. He didn’t usually go into taverns in civilized places, where his Indian looks and quick temper usually brought trouble. But he must have gone. Where else would he go in a town where he knew no one?

“A little,” she answered. She looked toward the window. “I see it’s raining. I hope it quits before we leave in the morning. What time is it anyway?”

“About eight.” He walked to a chair and began removing his weapons belt and the big knife attached to it. His long, shiny black hair was still twisted into one thick braid at his back, beads wound into it. A beaded headband circled his forehead, and in the dimly lit room he looked more handsome than usual. “I thought we’d go out for a nice supper, if we can find a decent place that will allow me inside.” The words were spoken bitterly and he met her eyes. “I’m sorry, Abbie, for not always being able to take you to the right places, for the children—all of it.”

She watched him closely. Yes, something was wrong. “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to talk like that anymore. I’ve been your woman for twenty-four years and never regretted one moment of it. I love you, Zeke Monroe, and I
wish you would tell me what is bothering you.”

He hesitated as he removed his buckskin shirt. “Just the kids leaving, that’s all. I’ll change into white man’s clothing. At least that will give us a better chance of getting in someplace decent.” He turned to face her, his broad, muscular chest denying his years. She saw him as she saw him when she was only fifteen and he came to offer his services as scout for her father’s wagon train. He was the same handsome, dark, mysterious man she had seen then, and she loved him and wanted him as much now as ever.

His dark eyes roved over her lovely curves beneath the soft flannel gown she wore. Always he had been able to bring excitement to her blood, stirring desires in private places only Zeke Monroe had touched and explored at her consent. “I want to make love to you, Abbie.”

Her eyebrows arched and she smiled lightly. “You certainly don’t need to tell me first. Just come and hold me.”

He grinned, and as he approached her she wondered why there was an urgency about him, as though someone had told him he must do this quickly or never get the chance again. He came closer and embraced her, his muscular arms encircling her tiny form. She rested her head against the broad chest that bore the scars of wounds and battles. She ran her fingers over the hard muscle of his arms, her skin looking so very white against his Indian coloring even though she was tanned from living on the plains of Colorado for so many years. He kissed her hair and she turned her face up to him. His lips met her mouth then, tenderly but almost urgently. He seemed to be trembling. She reached around his neck and returned the kiss. Whatever was bothering him, if this helped, then Abbie was glad.

He picked her up and carried her to the bed, laying her down on it, then quickly removed his leggings and moccasins, then the loincloth that hid his most manly part. He was a grand specimen of man, seeming to only improve with age. And, after all, they had been together for twenty-four years, ever since that first time he took her as a fifteen-year-old girl who was alone and afraid and who wanted only one man to make a woman of her. In those years their bodies had become attuned
to each other so much that each seemed to be able to read the other’s every need, each knowing just what excited the other the most. All the years and all the children had not lessened the excitement of these moments, for their love had endured war and separation, death and heartache. They had been through too much to let anything ever come between them now. Four years ago he had almost given it all up, when a wealthy Englishman who had bought land next to their own had fallen in love with Abbie and had offered her the world on a silver platter. Because he had always felt guilty about what she had given up to live in this reckless land with him, Zeke had been tempted to ride out of her life and leave her to the Englishman, letting her live her last years in peace and luxury. But she would have none of it. She wanted no other man but her Zeke, and had turned down wealth and comfort to stay with the only man she truly loved.