Meet the New Dawn (30 page)

She sat down slowly. “Wiped out?”

“Massacred. Every Indian leader we’ve ever heard of took part: Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gall, Red Horse, White Bull, Dull Knife.” He sighed deeply. “I have no doubt Swift Arrow was there, too.”

She waited a moment, trying to let it sink in. “Where did it happen?” she asked.

“On the Little Bighorn River. I guess just a few days before that, soldiers had attacked a peaceful Cheyenne village on Rosebud Creek, getting them really riled.”

“How did you find out?”

“I rode into Fort Lyon to get some things for Hal and Ellen. Everybody was talking about it there. The stories are wild and mixed up. The only thing that is sure is that Custer and his men were all killed. The Indians were together in great force, and red-hot because their treaty was broken. I guess they’d been ordered onto smaller reservations over the winter and refused to go, so Custer and others were sent into the field to force them to go. No one is sure why or how the man rode right into the middle of such a huge gathering of Indians. They say that including women and children there must have been a good ten thousand Indians in the area. They panicked when they saw Custer coming. The warriors gathered, and that was that. When an Indian is mad, no prisoners are taken. The enemy must die.”

Abbie looked at her lap. She wore a tunic that day, and she picked at the rawhide fringes of the dress. “Things will be very bad for them now, won’t they? The government won’t let this go lightly.”

He rose, turning and slamming a fist against the wall. “They had a right! They had a right to kill the bastards! The soldiers
shouldn’t have been there! The miners shouldn’t be there. None of them should be there! There’s a treaty! But the goddamned whites are so gold-hungry they’re blinded by it! Sure, give the Indians some land, until you find out there’s something valuable on it! Then they can’t have it any more. Then the government comes and says they’re sorry but the poor Indian will have to move on.” He turned to face her, his eyes blazing. “And the soldiers have no idea the terror that fills the hearts of the women and children when they see soldiers coming. The Cheyenne especially have memories—of Blue Water Creek and Sand Creek and Washita. They saw Custer and his men and the warriors moved quickly. They weren’t about to let that happen again. And it’s the Indian way to kill his enemy and spare none, but the government doesn’t understand that! Don’t you see, Abbie? If they’d just take the time to understand how the Indian thinks, why he behaves as he does, to remember the Indians have memories of unprovoked slaughters of their own women and children; if they would just try to think the way the Indian thinks, they could work with them, be at peace with them. The Indian doesn’t understand a man who will make a promise and then break it over and over again. He doesn’t understand what the white man wants, why it’s so important to go after the gold. Gold doesn’t mean a damned thing to them!”

“Zeke, you don’t have to explain those things to me. I understand just as much as you do.”

His breathing was quick, his eyes teared. “Then you must understand that this is the end, Abbie! It’s the end. The government and soldiers won’t let up now. Not just the Sioux, but the Apache and the Utes and the Nez Perce—all of them! Already most Indians have been swept under the rug, buried on putrid reservations to rot and die, and none of them give a damn!” His teeth were gritted and he threw his head back, breathing deeply. “They won at the Little Bighorn,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “But they’ve sentenced themselves to death. I said myself I’d like to see Custer get his due, but this will go badly. They’re dying, Abbie, just as surely as if someone were slowly sinking swords into their hearts. They’re dying … and I’m dying. There is no future now—not
for them … and not for me.”

He turned and walked out, and her heart shattered at the words. She felt the need to run after him, but knew he did not want her to. She sat frozen in the chair. “Zeke,” she whispered. Her heart pounded wildly. She was not foolish enough to think she was his only reason for living, although she meant the world to him. But there was something else that had been important to him, something that was a part of him; and now that something was dying, and part of Zeke Monroe was dying with it.

The government and Army swore revenge. The Black Hills, with their billions in gold, were declared the property of the U.S. government, whether the Indians liked it or not. After a savage campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne, who had only fought for something they thought belonged to them because the government had promised it would, the Indians were finally severely beaten and surrendered from starvation and broken spirits, signing a new treaty they did not understand, giving up the sacred Black Hills. None knew then that for well over the next hundred years there would continue to be bitter fighting over the legality of that treaty, signed by the Indians because of trickery, false promises, and threats. But the damage was done. Five months after the Little Bighorn, the great Cheyenne chiefs, Dull Knife and Little Wolf, were defeated, many of their people killed, their villages plundered and burned, everything destroyed.

It seemed war had broken out everywhere, and the saddest part was that the soldiers were pitting Indian against Indian, bribing and frightening Indians to turn on their own kind and help the soldiers find and attack hostiles. And after surrendering the Black Hills, the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne were forced into humiliation when their guns and ponies were taken, their tipis searched, the men put under arrest and not even allowed to ride horses. Every place they went they had to walk. There was nothing more important to an Indian warrior than his horses. To walk was to be a woman, and they were broken and disgraced.

And so indeed the battle at the Little Bighorn had brought a reprisal from Washington that cost the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne all that was most important to them, even though they had been right to fight for what was theirs. But the white man wanted the gold, and if not the Little Bighorn, Washington would have found some other excuse to sweep through
Paha-Sapa
and kill and destroy.

In 1877 the great Sioux Chief, Crazy Horse, was bayoneted by a Sioux scout, while peacefully surrendered at Fort Robinson. He was unarmed, a prisoner, yet still a hero to the young warriors. He was killed by another Sioux, one of the many who had allowed themselves to be bought off by the soldiers, who had lost their pride and their fighting spirit.

Not long after, the Northern Cheyenne who had surrendered with Crazy Horse at Fort Robinson were ordered south, to join their relatives on their reservation in Oklahoma. None of them wanted to go. All thought they would be allowed to stay on the Red Cloud reservation with the Sioux, for their leaders, Dull Knife and Little Wolf, had signed the treaty along with the Sioux in 1868, verifying that the Northern Cheyenne could stay in the Black Hills. But the orders came from Washington: They must go south. And so in still another way that treaty of 1868 had been broken, and through the summer of 1877 a thousand Cheyenne made the sad walk south to a land they hated. The trip took three months, and many old people died along the way. A few stubborn warriors slipped quietly through the soldiers and turned back north, refusing to go to the hated new reservation. Among them was Swift Arrow.

In that same year the Nez Perce, a totally cooperative and peaceful tribe in Oregon, were brutally chased from their promised land by whites who simply did not want them there anymore. After a thirteen-hundred-mile struggle, the Nez Perces, under Old Chief Joseph, the eloquent, peace-loving leader who had tried so hard to get along with the whites and abide by their treaty, gave up the fight. But that had not been good enough for the settlers. And in his own poignant words the old chief summed up the way nearly all the old chiefs of all the nations were feeling in their hearts:

“Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad.
From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”

As predicted by the Cheyenne woman at Fort Lyon, Lieutenant Henely did die. He drowned in Arizona. The woman’s prediction had come true; the white soldier paid his price for taking sacred objects from the dead bodies of Indians he had killed.

It seemed during those years of the final demise of the Indian, the very earth and wind were crying out for the People, carrying their mournful wails through the mountains and across the plains. There were death songs in the air, and the rain was their tears. And through it all Abbie saw a restlessness in her husband, and death in his own eyes.

The big black engine belched and hissed as it pulled to a halt. Twenty-five-year-old Jeremy Monroe disembarked, walking to the end of the platform and staring out at Fort Lyon. This was familiar territory—and very close to the ranch. The train whistle blew, and more people came off while others climbed aboard. Soldiers dallied here and there, as well as a few Indians, some apparently working on the loading docks, others just sitting and staring. One looked up at Jeremy, his eyes red from whiskey, droopy bags under them from too many tears. Jeremy felt a pain in his chest. The small amount of Indian he had felt in his blood had disappeared completely. He had been a part of orders to kill Indians who interfered with the railroad, and was also behind much of the slaughtering of the buffalo to feed railroad workers. Now, just as he had predicted, the railroad went all the way to Denver, across the plains of Kansas, through the heart of what was once Indian country.

He straightened his silk vest. At twenty-five, he was extremely successful. His keen mind for business, his loyalty, his eagerness, and his intelligence had brought him a long way fast, and he was proud of himself. He had a fine house in Denver, and a perfect wife. He had a strength of his own, but did not stop to think of where that strength came from; nor did he think about the fact that it was his mother who had taught him so faithfully and so well right at home when he was small, insisting that all her children learn to read and write and do
figures. Jeremy had needed little prompting, for he was eager to learn, and now it was paying off.

He walked around the train station, needing to stretch his legs. He had just come all the way from St. Louis, where railroad talks had taken place just as in many other cities. The past year had been one of bitter strikes and physical clashes between railroad workers and soldiers. It seemed that with the Indian problems and the railroad strike, the whole country had been at war. But things were calmer now. The strikes were over, and most of the Indians were on reservations where they belonged. And he had no doubt that because of his own hand in helping solve the strikes, he would move up even faster now, perhaps become a president of the Kansas-Pacific some day. If a man was going to dream, why not dream big?

He gazed out at the horizon again. West of this place lay a ranch—the Monroe ranch. It had been many years since he’d seen it—nearly nine. And it had been that long since he’d seen his mother and brothers and sisters, except … was his father still alive? He was afraid to find out. Besides, what did it matter anymore? Surely he would not be welcome there. He had waited too long. It was too late to make amends, and even if he did, he would have to admit to his friends and his wife that he was part Indian.

The whistle blew again and he boarded, taking a seat by a window. He had deliberately taken the Atchison-Topeka line, wanting to check out the competition. A few minutes later the train chugged away, past Colorado plains dotted with snow. It was February of 1878, and there had been a welcome thaw from the harsh winter, but a lot of snow still lay on the ground in patches where it had drifted deeper than other places. Several hours later he spotted a familiar hill, a gnarled old pine sitting alone at the top of it. He pressed his face closer to the window. The ranch! It was part of the ranch! The train rumbled on, and he realized for the first time that a railroad had been built right through the northern section of his father’s ranch, something that must have both angered and saddened his parents. He remembered when he was very small, and his mother swore a railroad would never go through their land.

He felt a lump in his throat. He’d been a part of something
his parents hated. No. He could not go back. But maybe they wouldn’t care. Maybe they would be so glad to see him that it wouldn’t matter. But he couldn’t take the risk of their chastisement—nor the risk of his friends and new family finding out he was part Indian.

The train rumbled by familiar places. He was too far north to see the house and outbuildings. Perhaps it was just as well. Seeing this much brought more sentiment than he cared to feel. He pressed his lips tightly together as his car lurched and swayed past a herd of beautiful Appaloosas, running free, manes and tails flying in the wind. He stared at them. They were beautiful—perfect—the only kind of horses his father would raise. He watched them for as long as he could before the train rounded a hill and the animals disappeared behind it.

“Good-bye, Father,” he whispered. A tear slipped down his cheek, and he quickly wiped it away.

Chapter Eighteen

Charles Garvey stood studying his two-month-old son, Matthew Winston, born in June of 1878. He did not like what he saw lying in the crib, for the child was dark, its skin reddish and it’s thick shock of hair straight and black. He toyed with the tiny fist. His son was healthy and strong, something any man should be glad about. But Charles Garvey did not care for people who were too dark. How could his fair wife have had such a child?

He could not stop the unnatural resentment he was feeling for his own son. He had wanted a son—someone to take over the Garvey wealth—someone he could train to be powerful and respected, as he and his own father had been. But this was not the son he had expected, and a suspicion was boiling inside of him that surely his wife had been laying with some other man. After all, she never seemed receptive to her own husband in bed. Perhaps she had found that gentle swooning man she had always seemed to want her husband to be. His own mother had been untrue to his father. Perhaps his wife had been untrue to him.

He didn’t want to believe it. LeeAnn was such a meek and proper woman, and he had always thought her true to him, in spite of her coldness in bed and the times he had had to hurt her to make her submit to him. After all, she was his wife, and a man had a right to use his wife however he wished.

She came into the nursery then, rushing to the crib as though she thought her husband might harm her son. “Is
something wrong, Charles?” she asked, checking the sleeping child over.

He studied her, watching her eyes when they met his. “I’m not sure yet,” he answered. His own eyes hardened. “Perhaps you can tell me why my son is so dark.”

He saw fear in her eyes, and she looked back at the baby. “He’s just a baby. You can’t tell how a child will look when he is this young. Some children are born with dark hair that turns lighter. And sometimes light hair turns darker. What does it matter? He’s your son, and he’s healthy and strong. You should be glad of that.”

“Is he my son?”

She frowned, meeting his eyes again. “Of course he is.”

His eyes scanned her, studying the gentle curves beneath the silk robe she wore. “I am fully aware you don’t care for some of my bedroom tactics, my dear. Why, I can’t imagine. The whores like it, why shouldn’t you?”

She blinked. “I am not a whore, Charles. I cannot accept fully the way you treat me as a wife. But neither have I been untrue to you. Surely you must realize that if I have trouble enjoying sex, I am certainly not the type to go running to some other man to find it.” She turned back to the baby. “Frankly, I think I could go the rest of my life without it, unless you want more children.”

He grasped her arm then, squeezing it painfully. “No woman goes without it. If you can say that then it only means you’ve found it someplace else and think you can fool me into believing you don’t want it at all, so that I’ll stay out of your bed while you share it with someone else!”

She tried to wrench herself away. “You’re crazy!” she hissed.

He jerked her close, pressing her tight against him, while holding her hair in a painful grip. “Am I? My mother tried the same thing with my father! She didn’t want sex anymore either, but she was spreading her legs for someone else just the same! He told me about her! Told me to never trust any woman! My father never lied to me about anything.” He kissed her savagely and her heart pounded with dread. Since the baby was born and before, she’d been able to use that excuse to keep him
out of her bed. But she was healed now, and he well knew it.

She turned her face sideways, grimacing at his painful grip and the dread of what he intended to do. “Charles, I’ve never been untrue to you!” she pleaded.

“That baby isn’t mine!” he growled. “I’ll give him a few months to start looking like he ought to look. But if he doesn’t, you’ll never convince me it’s mine! What did you do—lay with some nigger? An Indian, maybe? God knows there aren’t any around here, but if there were you’d find one just to spite me!”

She pushed at him, starting to cry. “Charles, you’re inventing things in your mind. He’s yours! He’s our baby! Ours!”

He pushed her away then, backhanding her hard and causing her to fall to the floor. He yanked her up before she could get up herself. “Maybe you’re telling the truth!” he growled. “I will decide eventually. In the meantime, I will show you who you belong to, LeeAnn Garvey!”

He began dragging her out of the nursery, and the baby started crying from all the shouting. She protested that she should tend to her child.

“Let the bastard cry!” he shouted, shoving her into their own bedroom and slamming the door.

LeeAnn dragged her sore body out of bed, stumbling to the bathroom, where she drew some hot water. She stared at herself in the mirror, her face badly bruised. She would have to come up with excuses for the next week as to why she could not attend planned social functions. She had had to do so before, feigning sickness. She wondered how many of their friends suspected the truth.

She studied her face, the blond hair and blue eyes. She tried to see something of her father there. She looked no more like she belonged to Zeke Monroe than her own son looked like he belonged to her.

She blinked back tears. Her greatest fear had been realized. She had given birth to a child who would look predominantly Indian. She knew the day would come when she could no longer deny her own heritage, and she wondered if her
husband would only banish her, or perhaps kill her. Maybe he would kill them both. She felt a cunning defense rising in her blood. Perhaps it was a trace of her Indian senses. She only knew that she would never let Charles Garvey hurt her son. He was hers, and she had never loved anyone more than she loved her son. For now she would simply be careful, and she would never allow Charles to be alone with the baby. She had to think. What should she do? Where could she go? She was too proud and stubborn to ask her father for help now. He had helped her once—risked his life to save her from the Comanches. And for that she had virtually ignored him all these years, turned her back on her heritage and acted ashamed of her own father. How could she go crawling to him now begging for help? After all, she had knowingly married an Indian hater. What bigger hurt could she have brought to her father?

She bathed, glad her husband was gone from the house. The nurse would watch over little Matthew. She would sit in the hot water for hours if she wanted. Then she would have to face the servants again. They all knew what a maniac Charles Garvey was and of the bitter bedroom problems they had, no doubt hearing the beatings and the harsh words, fully aware that the mistress of the house was literally raped periodically.

She sighed, her eyes filling with tears. She had married a crazy man, and he was getting crazier every year. She understood some of the roots of his problem, and if he would just talk to her, if she could just reason with him, if he had one ounce of goodness and mercy in him, she could still love him. But he would not let her love him, nor was he capable of loving someone back. She could see now that he had married her simply to have a pretty wife on his arm. How often he went to the whores she didn’t know—and didn’t care. It was just as well, for her sake.

She finished her bath and spent the rest of the day sitting beside her son. It suddenly didn’t matter anymore that he looked Indian. He was beautiful and healthy, and a good baby. He was her son, and that was all that LeeAnn cared about. And she would make sure no harm came to him, even if she eventually had to leave Charles Garvey. To do so would be a
social disgrace to both of them, but her son’s welfare was most important.

She heard her husband come home then, and her chest tightened again. How she dreaded hearing him come through the door! She quickly left the nursery, not wanting him to find her there, afraid he would start an argument all over again about the child. She rushed out of the room and to the head of the grand red-carpeted stairway of their mansion. He stood at the foot of the stairs and glanced up at her, studying the bruised face and the hurt in her blue eyes.

“I’m sorry, LeeAnn. I’m just … a very jealous man.”

She frowned. Every time she was ready to hate him again, he softened. She wondered how much longer she could put up with his dual personality. Something was very wrong with this man and she didn’t know how to help him.

“Did you cancel our engagements for the week?” she asked quietly.

He nodded, coming up the stairs. “Are you all right? Shall I get a doctor?”

Her eyes were cold as ice. “You never got one before. Why should you do so now? I’m just fine.” She moved past him and down the stairs to the kitchen, and he quickly followed. Somewhere down deep inside he truly did love and desire her. Why did he always end up being cruel to her? If not for the damned baby! Why did the child have to be born so dark? He stood and watched her pour herself some tea.

“I’ve started a new series of articles about the Indians,” he told her, trying to start up a conversation.

She met his eyes. “Have you? What blood-curdling tales do you have to tell about them now?”

He clenched his fists, forcing himself not to get angry again. “Well, now that they are thoroughly whipped, all I can tell my readers is that the agents on the reservations are discovering just what filthy, lice-ridden people they really are. Their habits are deplorable, so I’m told. I think the general public should know that, so that the sympathy that damned Joshua Lewis has aroused will be banished.”

She held his eyes squarely. “Perhaps Joshua Lewis is telling the truth, and not the sources you have. Did you ever think
of that?”

His eyes flashed and she didn’t even care. She wasn’t afraid of him anymore, and somehow he sensed it. It threw off his thinking, and she realized that if she were bold and strong with him, it just might actually keep him from beating her. It confused him. He was accustomed to a cringing milksop for a wife. She felt an inner pride building. Was it the same pride her father carried? The same stubbornness of her mother’s nature? The same bravery they both carried? Was she more Indian than she realized?

“I … my sources are very good,” he told her. He sighed and turned away. “I am going to my study. I have a court case to work on for tomorrow.”

He walked out without another word, and she smiled. She wondered about this young man called Joshua Lewis, who at twenty-four was already making a name for himself as a journalist. She would like to meet him some day.

The Northern Cheyenne who were now in Oklahoma soon decided they did not want to be there. They longed for the Black Hills, the thick pines and the rushing waters of what they considered their home. In their new and barren reservation, the summer heat was unbearable, and mosquitoes plagued them mercilessly. They choked on dust and the water was stagnant. The government did not issue enough food to go around, and whatever was given out was bad. The flour was nearly black, and almost useless for cooking. The beef was either tough or rotten, usually both. The Indian was accustomed to buffalo meat, a much leaner and more nutritious meat. Their systems could not tolerate the bad meat issued to them, nor was there enough; often the adults did not eat at all, giving what little they had to their children.

It was not long before malaria raged through the reservation, pulling down women, children, and warriors in its ugly death. Their bodies shook with chills, then burned with hot fevers; their bones ached as they wasted away in pain until the life went out of them.

The white doctor was soon out of quinine, which sometimes
helped the sick ones, and he locked his office and left. There was nothing more he could do.

The Northern Cheyenne fell into despair. They had understood, incorrectly, that they were to come south just to see if they would like it there, and that they were free to go back north if they did not. They soon discovered that was a lie, that they were expected to stay in the hot, dusty southern reservation—forever. A keen desire began to build in their hearts to return home—to the Black Hills, to their Sioux friends.

During the winter of 1877-78, their agent finally granted permission for some of the Northern Cheyenne to be given rifles so they could hunt buffalo, but that venture proved to only feed their desires to return home, for all the hunters found were piles of bones scattered over the southern plains, left there by white buffalo hunters. The buffalo were gone. Gone. The hunters ended up killing coyotes for food, and by the spring of 1878 they had even eaten all their dogs. They even considered eating their horses, but this was unacceptable to an Indian; and besides, the horses might be needed—for an escape to the North.

The reservation agent pleaded with Washington for more rations, but Washington was turning a cold shoulder on the original Americans. Let them suffer and die. Everyone would be better off. As spring warmed the land, mosquitoes again swarmed, and the malaria returned to take still more lives, so that it seemed that ultimately every last Cheyenne would die. Then came measles, wiping out many of the precious children, their only hope for the future. Little Wolf and Dull Knife, now old men, decided they must do something. Their first effort was to plead once more with the agent for something to be done to save the children.

The two old chiefs explained that they wished to return to their home in the northern mountains, declaring that they would not stay south another winter, perhaps not even another month. Their wish was, of course, denied. In August those choosing to go north, under Wild Hog, Tangle Hair, Little Wolf, and Dull Knife broke away from those not choosing to go home; the renegades held councils, preparing to escape
Oklahoma forever.

Zeke coaxed the young mare out of the corral. He had spent several days gently taming her until he could ride her. He did not agree with the way white men broke horses, considering it stupid and cruel, let alone the fact that sometimes the horse hurt itself. The beautiful Appaloosa pranced gingerly, stepping sideways, still not totally convinced she should allow this, yet trusting her master and wanting now to please him. At his gentle Cheyenne command she calmed down. He had been careful to use the proper bit so as not to harm her tender mouth, and for now he rode her bareback.