Meet the New Dawn (38 page)

“State your business, or I’ll have you thrown out,” Charles spoke up.

Joshua nodded. “You’re wondering if I am the young man who argued with you once about Indians,” he answered. “The answer is yes. And I never told you my name that day. I will tell you now. It is Joshua Lewis.”

Garvey’s eyes lit up. “You!” He rose. “Every article you write in the
Times
destroys everything I write about the Indians!” He looked sneeringly at Joshua, his eyes ugly, his lips almost curled with hatred. “You’ve made quite a name for yourself with your lies about those lice-ridden, stinking, drunken bastards!” he snarled. “And you even admit in your articles that you are part Indian! How can you look people in the eye and say that? You get out of my office, Joshua Lewis! I’ll have no half-breed scum in here!”

Joshua just grinned. “Even if you’re related to him?” he asked.

Garvey just stared at him, turning a ghastly white. He trembled noticeably and all but fell back into his chair. He gripped the arms of it until his knuckles were white. “You had better have a good reason for speaking such lies!” he growled.

Joshua frowned. “Come now, Garvey. You know a reputable reporter like myself would never lie.” He puffed the cigar again. “Yes, sir, when I tell the whole story in the
Times,
you, my dear brother, will be laughed out of Washington. Imagine! After all your hard work at lambasting the Indians—to find out you yourself have a half-breed brother.” He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “That will create some gossip that will hang around Washington for a long time.”

The look in Charles Garvey’s eyes was insane, as their dark, smouldering depths bore into Joshua Lewis, who refused to let the man frighten him. He had planned this sweet moment for too long.

“Tell me, Charles, do I get half the fortune?” He knocked some ashes from the cigar onto the floor. “Oh, no matter. You can have it. The pleasure of the look on your face right now is payment enough for missing out on what was rightfully mine. Besides, I’m a successful man in my own right, and most of your money has been earned illegally, much of it at the expense of the poor Indian. I wouldn’t really want to touch such filthy money. And I’m told you’re going broke anyway—poor management or something like that.”

“Shut up!” Garvey roared. “Shut your stinking mouth!”

Joshua frowned, pursing his lips and putting a finger to them. “Charles, you must keep it down. After all, if you’re good about all this, I’ll not say a word. Don’t make me angry, Charles, and don’t get violent. Don’t you want to know how we came to be brothers?”

“That’s a filthy lie! A lie! Are you insane, Lewis? Coming in here and claiming such nonsense! Explain yourself!” he snarled. “And then I will have you arrested!”

Joshua puffed the cigar for a moment. “All right. But perhaps you’d like to pour yourself a drink first. I know I could use one.”

Garvey breathed deeply, his whole body bathed in perspiration. He struggled to control himself as he rose stiffly from his chair and walked to a buffet where he kept liquor. He poured two glasses of whiskey, turning and handing one out to Joshua Lewis, his lips curled in the ugly snarl again. “Enjoy your last drink, Lewis!” he growled.

Joshua took it and nodded a thank you. He leaned forward and put out the cigar, while Garvey sat back behind his desk. “Why are you doing this, Lewis? You can’t just walk into a man’s office and say he’s your brother! You must be a crazy man! What are you after?”

Joshua sipped the drink. “Only one thing, Charles. The truth. I want you to stop cheating Indians, both in your business practices and in your writing.”

Charles gripped the glass tightly. “Why?”

“Because if you don’t, I’m going public with the truth about you—and your father.”

Charles glared at him through hateful slits. “And what is
the truth?”

Joshua leaned back. “Do you remember back many years ago, when you and your father lived in Santa Fe, and your father had a … servant? An Indian woman called Yellow Moon?”

Charles’s blood began to turn colder. “I remember.”

“Good!” Joshua said with a grin. “Perhaps you also remember that a man came to your house one day, an Indian man—quite tall and striking—a powerfully built man who carried a big knife. And he took the Indian woman away.”

Charles frowned. This man must be telling the truth. How would he know of things that happened before he could even have been born? “Yes. I never knew who the man was.”

Joshua nodded. “Well, I do. He’s my uncle—by marriage, not by blood. You see, Yellow Moon was an Arapaho woman who was married to the man’s brother, Red Eagle. Red Eagle sold his wife for whiskey and later shot himself. Their small son was murdered by the outlaws who bought the woman. She was then sold to a prostitute named Anna Gale, who in turn gave the woman to your father—to use as he wished. And you can guess that she was more than a servant. Your illustrious, prominent father kept her tied in an attic room and used her to satisfy his sexual fantasies, until she was rescued by Red Eagle’s half brother, Zeke Monroe.”

Charles frowned, too curious now to go into a tantrum. Zeke Monroe. It was a familiar name, but Charles himself had never known the man, except to now be aware that it was Monroe who had come to his house and taken Yellow Moon away. “Go on,” he said quietly.

Joshua sipped more whiskey. “Well, Zeke took his sister-in-law home with him, and gave her to another Cheyenne brother to care for. His name was Swift Arrow. He took her north with him. But when he took her, she was already with child—Winston Garvey’s child, a half-breed.”

He watched the changes in Charles Garvey’s eyes—first curiosity and confusion, then a slow but sure understanding until they widened with dread. “You?”

Joshua nodded. “The same, dear brother.”

Charles began shaking again. “It … it can’t be true!”

“But it is. Yellow Moon was killed in an Indian battle at Blue Water Creek, not long after I was born. I was called Crooked Foot because I had a clubfoot. Swift Arrow could not keep me. He was a Dog Soldier and intended to spend his life fighting for freedom. He could not be burdened with a crippled child that wasn’t even his own. So he gave me to Zeke and Abigail Monroe, who in turn took me to a missionary couple they knew—Bonnie and Rodney Lewis. Bonnie’s father was a doctor, and Bonnie and Rodney agreed to take me in—adopted me. They saw to it I had several operations that enabled me to walk eventually, although I still wear a brace.”

Charles gripped his glass so tightly Joshua wondered if he might break it right in his hand. “If this is all true, why didn’t someone come out with it a long time ago?”

Joshua snickered. “The timing was never right. My uncle Zeke and my adoptive parents all feared that if your father found out he had a half-breed son, he’d have me killed, and all those who knew about me. I don’t doubt he suspected a time or two, maybe tried in some way to find out. But the secret was well kept, for my safety, and for Zeke’s and his family’s. After all, your father was a very powerful man. Besides, my parents couldn’t even tell me until I was much older, of an age that I would understand all of it.” He rose. “But I’ve had my fill of you, Charles Garvey. And I decided there is only one way to stop you. I am powerful in my own right now. And Zeke Monroe was killed over a year ago at Fort Robinson. There is really no one left you can harm, and if you tried, I would make sure the public knows who was bringing harm to Zeke’s family, or to me or mine.”

Charles rose himself, glaring at Joshua Lewis, beginning to shake violently. “What do you want, Lewis!” he hissed. “Money?”

Joshua smiled sadly. “No. I want nothing from you but the satisfaction I am getting right now at the look on your face—and to tell you to stop raping the Indians. I want all your articles stopped and all your illegal activities stopped. I know about some of them, too. I am a good investigator, Charles. So put a halt to the whiskey running and reservation cheating, or I will expose you—not just your relationship to me, but the
other things you are up to.”

The young man turned to leave, when Charles called out to him. “Stop!”

Joshua turned to see the man standing there pointing a handgun at him. “Don’t be a fool, Garvey!” he sneered. “I left an envelope and strict instructions with a friend of mine that it be opened and published if I should be found dead. You’d hang.”

There were actual tears in Charles Garvey’s eyes, as his body shook with rage. “You mother-loving son of a bitch!” he growled. “I’ll find a way to get you! I’ll find a way!”

Joshua shrugged. “I hope you try, Charles. I’m itching to expose you for what you really are. You should be locked up.”

He turned and walked out, closing the door softly. Charles dropped the gun, then whacked the glass of whiskey across the room and fell to his knees, sobbing like a little boy.

It was deep in the night when someone pounded on the door of Joshua’s hotel room, where he’d been staying while in Washington on special assignment. He stirred in his sleep, roused more when the pounding came again. He frowned, throwing back the covers of his bed and rubbing his eyes. He glanced at a clock. It was two A.M. He rose, pulling on a robe and stopping to pick up a small handgun. His visitor could be a drunken Charles Garvey. He walked to the door. “Who’s there?” he demanded.

“Please … let me come in!” came a woman’s voice. She was obviously crying.

Joshua opened the door cautiously, and a young woman rushed inside, clinging to a dark-haired child of perhaps two years of age. The woman sank to the floor, weeping, her clothes partially torn. Joshua quickly closed the door and set the gun aside. He knelt beside the blond-haired woman, taking her arm. When she looked up at him, her face was so battered it was difficult to tell what she looked like.

“Good God, woman! Let me get you a doctor!”

“No!” she pleaded, shaking with shock and sorrow. “I … I am Mrs. Charles Garvey!”

Joshua’s eyes widened in shock, remembering now the pretty young woman he had seen with Garvey a time or two. “What’s happened to you?”

“He … beat me. I thought he’d … kill me … but he passed out drunk finally. Thank God … I got out with our son. He was … going to kill my baby!”

Joshua frowned, totally confused. He looked at the little boy, who sat staring at his mother with wide, innocent eyes. He looked very Indian, a beautiful boy with large brown eyes and straight black hair. But why would Charles Garvey’s own son look Indian? He turned his eyes back to the boy’s mother, then picked her up in his arms and carried her to his bed, laying her on it gently.

“You calm down, ma’am. Let me get a cool rag to bathe your face.”

She grasped his arm. “Is it true? Is my father really dead?” she whimpered.

He frowned and shook his head. “Your father?”

“Zeke Monroe! He was my father! Charles came home with some insane story about … about you being his half brother … and that your uncle was Zeke Monroe and Zeke Monroe is dead!”

Joshua felt light-headed. He had not known—had not expected this. “My God!” he whispered, sitting down on the bed beside her. “You’re … you’re that LeeAnn? LeeAnn Monroe?”

She clung to him. “Is it true?”

He touched her hair. “I’m afraid so.”

She broke into renewed sobbing, nearly hysterical. He pulled her up into his arms, embracing her tightly. So this was the wayward LeeAnn that Zeke and Abbie had not heard from in years. If he was so good at investigating things, why hadn’t he figured this one out? That explained the boy looking so Indian. He took after his grandfather. This girl must have never told her husband who she really was, and whatever her reason, she was consumed now with a terrible guilt at finding out in such a cruel way that her father was dead. He rocked her gently as she wept and mumbled about her husband coming home with the story Joshua had brought to him, sobbing that
when he mentioned Zeke Monroe being dead she could no longer hide her own identity, finally telling him who she was. He had beaten her severely, and she had fled for her life, taking their son with her. He had declared he would kill the boy, now that he knew for certain the child carried Indian blood. She had remembered someone mentioning that Joshua Lewis was staying at this hotel while in Washington, and she had taken the chance that she could find him here.

“Please … help me!” she sobbed. “Don’t let him … hurt me or my son!”

He stroked her hair, smelling a delightful scent. In spite of her present condition, he knew how beautiful she was. And this was Zeke and Abbie’s daughter. Of course he would help her. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’m so sorry, LeeAnn. I had no idea. I … I never really knew you … and I guess no one ever told you the connection. It was kept such a secret. Only Wolf’s Blood knew, besides your parents and mine.”

She broke into heavier sobbing, shaking violently. “Oh, God, how can I ever be forgiven for what I’ve done! I married the son … of a man my father must have hated! And I turned my back … on my own flesh and blood! Now I’ll never see my father again … never be able to tell him I love him … ask him to forgive me! He … risked his life … to save me once from Comanches … and I threw it all in his face!”

“Hush now,” Joshua said softly. “I’m sure that even in death your father knows, LeeAnn. And I’m sure he never stopped loving you. I think he understood.”

“I want to go home! I want to see my mother!”

He kissed her hair. Why had he felt compelled to do that? Why did he suddenly feel so protective of her? “Then I will take you myself. It’s the least I can do for bringing you this trouble. I’m so very sorry.”

He gently laid her back on the pillow. “It would have come out … some other way,” she sobbed. “Our son … looks more and more Indian … every day.”

Joshua turned to look at the boy, who was toddling toward them. “He’s Indian, all right. What is his name?”

“Matthew,” she told him. All her words were spoken
painfully through swollen lips. He reached out and set Matthew on the bed beside his mother, ordering the boy to stay put. He hurriedly wet down a rag and gently applied it to her badly bruised face and bleeding lips.

“I’d better get you a doctor.”