Savage Beloved (4 page)

“Two Eagles, it would be easy to attack the fort, but I encourage you not to, for vengeance is a low
law that weakens the soul,” Short Robe said. “Two Eagles, you must resist the temptation of vengeance. It is something that will bring more
wakan,
bad, to our people, than good. Think past what happened to me and concentrate only on the future of our people. Forget . . . what . . . happened to this one old man.”

Two Eagles looked at his uncle’s scarred, bloody feet and ankles.

He then looked at his uncle’s bloody wrists, where the irons had cut mercilessly into his flesh.

And he knew that as long as Two Eagles lived, he would never be able to put the sight of his uncle’s scarred back from his mind.

“Uncle, how can I not hunger for vengeance against those who did this to my father’s brother?” he said thickly.

“You . . . will . . . only play into their hands if you pursue the vengeance that is eating away at your gut,” Short Robe breathed out, each word now becoming harder to say.

He was so weak, so tired, but he forced himself not to drift off into unconsciousness again. He must not, not until he had said everything to his nephew that he knew must be said.

“They must be made to pay,” Two Eagles hissed out between clenched teeth. “Do not ask me to forget this thing that must be done. I must avenge you, or our Eagle band of Wichita will lose honor as a people.”

“Worse has happened to others than what happened to me, yet they remain unavenged,” Short Robe said softly.

He patted his nephew’s arm. “At least my head was not removed and put on display in a jar as a trophy as is our friend Chief Night Horse’s head. It is being shown to any white who wants to see it,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion. “The . . . the . . . colonel boasted of his triumph over Chief Night Horse and showed me his . . . his . . . head.”

He closed his eyes as tears spilled from them, down over his leathery cheeks.

Then he gazed into Two Eagles’s eyes. “You see, nephew,” he said, wiping tears from his cheeks. “I was nothing to the colonel since I was no chief or shaman. The colonel said that he would not even waste a bullet on someone as useless as me.”

Again, hot rage flooded Two Eagles. He was not certain he could hear any more of what had been done to his uncle or others of their skin color.

He stroked Short Robe’s brow. “Uncle, have you had anything to eat since you were taken from your people?” he asked softly, trying to change the subject that pained him so. “You are terribly thin.”

“A few times I was given a handful of raw meal alive with weevils,” Short Robe said. “And I was fed stringy and half-rotted meat.”

Hearing this was the last straw for Two Eagles. Despite Short Robe’s words to the contrary, Two Eagles could not let this go. He and his chieftain father had practiced patience and restraint for too long now. He must show the white pony soldiers that they could not treat an old man like Short Robe as though he were less than human.

Ho
, yes, Two Eagles must . . .
would
. . . make the
pony soldiers pay, especially Colonel Creighton, who had given the orders to do these humiliating things to his beloved uncle!

“I will get you food,” he said as he rose. The shaman was still treating Short Robe’s worst wounds, while saying prayers beneath his breath.

Short Robe nodded, then again floated away into a restful sleep.

After Two Eagles got outside his uncle’s lodge, he had to stop and inhale deeply, over and over again, in order to get control of his fury.

He was already planning his vengeance.

This time he would not just stand aside and let such things happen to his people. He had nothing to lose by attacking the fort. He was probably already on the list of “savages” to be taken and punished, or killed, by the white pony soldiers. Now that the evil colonel knew Two Eagles was chief, surely he would try to capture him.

As shadows lengthened all around him and the air grew cooler, Two Eagles went to a maiden and requested she bring broth to his uncle; then he returned to his uncle’s tepee and sat down cross-legged beside Short Robe’s bed.

He was alarmed when he found his uncle asleep again, for Short Robe looked as though he had fallen into a deep unconscious state, possibly never to awaken.

It seemed that Short Robe had stayed alert only long enough to tell Two Eagles what he knew, and to ask his chieftain nephew not to seek revenge for what had been done to him.

To ward off the chill of the night, Crying Wolf lit a fire in the fire pit, then sat down on the opposite side of the fire from Two Eagles.

The shaman saw how the flickering of the fire sent light and shadows playing over the young chief’s face, and how his eyes held great sadness.

He did not like what he must say to his chief, but it had to be done. His chief had to be prepared for the worst.

When Crying Wolf spoke, he drew Two Eagles’s eyes quickly to him.

“My chief, your uncle’s heart is very weak,” Crying Wolf said softly.

He paused, when from somewhere afar, wolves howled at the rising moon.

He continued to speak after the wolves went suddenly silent.

“My chief, your uncle’s old body has suffered terribly at the hands of the pony soldiers,” he said solemnly. “Short Robe . . . is . . . dying.”

Those words renewed the rage that had earlier filled Two Eagles’s being. Recently he had lost not only his father, but also his only cousin, his mother, and sister.

And now his father’s brother?

Before his family had begun leaving him, one by one, he could not have imagined life without one, much less all of them.

Two Eagles knew he would have had his uncle with him for at least a few more moons had the white eyes not come and taken him away to torture him.

Ho
, Two Eagles thought to himself, he
must
avenge this injustice. He could not bear the thought that soon he would not have his uncle to sit with him beside the night fires; never again would they speak of things long past that no one else would know to tell Two Eagles.

His eyes glittered when he recalled what his uncle had said about there being only a few white pony soldiers left at the fort. Surely among them was Colonel Creighton, who had given the orders that brought such harm to Two Eagles’s uncle.

This colonel, and those who remained at the fort with him, would pay.

They would pay for their sins against humanity with their lives!

To the Wichita, war was sacred, Two Eagles reminded himself, trying to find justification for what he planned to do, when for so long he had used only peaceful means to achieve his goals.

Long ago, before his father and grandfather reigned as peace chiefs, war was what had gained the Wichita all that they had.

It was time for warring again.

Ho
, yes, it was time.

It was time for Two Eagles to take his place in that long line of warring chiefs.

“My chief, I read much in your eyes that frightens me,” Crying Wolf said. “Is it the need for vengeance that I see?”

“Do you not also feel the same cry inside your own heart?” Two Eagles demanded. Then he turned and sat facing his uncle once again.

Outside he could hear his people congregating before Short Robe’s tepee. Prayers were being offered to the God of the Wind, which was breath, hence life.

Two Eagles heard the prayers, then spoke one aloud, himself, as he gazed lovingly down at his uncle. “Now, good wind, I ask you to come and breathe on my uncle, so that he may be healed and feel comfortable,” he cried. “I pray you, good wind, enter my uncle, so that he may breathe and be healed.”

When he was finished with his prayer, he nodded a silent farewell to the shaman, who continued his vigil at Short Robe’s side.

Just as Two Eagles stepped outside, he saw a red-tailed hawk flying from a tree, screaming as it rose upward into the star-speckled sky. The moonlight cast a white sheen on its outstretched wings.

A shiver raced across Two Eagles’s flesh, for he could not help believing that what he had just seen and heard was an omen.

But was it a good omen?

Or . . .
wakan
, bad?

Only in time would he receive his answer.

The little leaves hold you

as soft as a child,

The little path loves you,

the path that runs wild.

—Max Eastman

A full day and night had passed since Candy had watched the old Indian walk listlessly from the fort as chains rubbed against his raw flesh.

Dressed today in a fully gathered cotton skirt of a soft green color, and a white drawstring blouse, Candy shivered again at the memory as she stood at that same window in the dining room. Out on the parade grounds, the haunting notes of a bugle sounding taps floated in the air.

Candy watched the familiar ritual, one that had always touched her from the time she’d understood what an American flag was, and what it stood for. A soldier was lowering the flag; then several carefully
folded it. Soon one soldier would carry the flag, marching stiffly, slowly, and formally across the parade grounds toward her father’s study in their cabin. It was this fort’s main headquarters even though it was also where she and her father lived.

Candy turned and gazed at the grand oak dining table where a white linen tablecloth was spread out neatly.

Tall tapers burned at each end of the table, and a turkey, all browned and smelling delicious, sat on a large platter in the center. It was surrounded by dishes of mashed potatoes, gravy, and even green beans that her mother had grown and canned.

Tears came to Candy’s eyes as she recalled her mother outside planting the beans, her skirt dirty with the black Kansas soil, and even some smudges of dirt on her cheeks.

Never in a million years would Candy have believed that her mother would soil even one finger to plant a garden.

But that had been a warning to Candy that things were not right with her mother, that she was bored to tears with military life. Filled with restless energy, she had found as many ways as possible to fill up the lonesome hours of her day.

“Even going as far as canning beans,” Candy whispered to herself, recalling, too, how patient their family’s black servant, Malvina, had been while teaching her mother how to do it.

Just as she was thinking about Malvina, the tiny black woman came into the room.

Malvina gazed at her in a troubled fashion, glanced at the table, where the food was cooling much too quickly for Malvina’s liking.

“Where is your father?” Malvina asked, going to the table and smoothing out a wrinkle in the tablecloth. “The food won’t stay warm forever, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Candy murmured, loving Malvina almost as much as she did her own mother, for Malvina had been there for Candy since she was a small girl longing for someone to rock and sing to her.

Malvina had done those special things.

Not Candy’s mother.

Candy hurried to Malvina and hugged her, feeling the familiar stiffness of the starched black dress against her arms, for Malvina was as exact in her washing and ironing as she was in her cooking and keeping house for the Creighton family.

“I’ll go see what is delaying Father,” Candy said, hurrying from the dining room.

She walked down a narrow corridor that opened up to various rooms in this large log cabin, which had been the family’s quarters since her father had been transferred to this fort from one not far away in Missouri.

Candy would never forget that particular fort, which sat atop a huge bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. Jefferson Barracks Fort had been lovely and was never threatened by Indians.

Candy’s family’s home had been on the parade grounds of that fort, too, but it was much more
elaborate than this cabin at Fort Hope. It had been a tall, two-storied plantation-type house, with beautiful furniture, draperies, and many servants besides Malvina.

When they had departed, Malvina was the only one who joined them, for they knew the sort of house they were moving into, and it was barely enough for the family, much less a dozen servants.

Candy missed Missouri, for she had loved exploring along the Mississippi River, even paddling out into it with friends in canoes. Her mother had been horrified once she heard about such escapades.

Candy believed it was those escapades that had caused her father to leave Jefferson Barracks and take his position at Fort Hope.

“Oh, well, just another piece of my life that is gone,” Candy whispered to herself as she stepped up to the closed door of her father’s private study.

Before knocking and disturbing her father, Candy gazed at the closed door. As long as she could remember, there had always been two rooms forbidden to her, from base to base, home to home: her parents’ bedroom and her father’s private study.

Her father had said there were things negotiated in both rooms that had nothing to do with Candy.

Of course she understood why the bedroom was off limits when her mother still lived with them. But never would she understand why she couldn’t at least enter her father’s private study.

What . . . could . . . he be hiding?

What rankled her nerves was the fact that the military staff entered her father’s study freely through
the door that led outside to the parade grounds. All official business was transacted there in his study. Perhaps her father just hadn’t wanted Candy to get involved.

That had to be the reason she was not allowed there. She was a part of her father’s other world, which had nothing to do with the orders being handed out in his study.

Surely it had been in that very room that he had made the decision to abduct the Wichita chief . . . a decision that had gone badly awry.

Realizing how more impatient Malvina must be getting as she watched the steam spiral from the food she had labored so hard over in the day’s heat, Candy knocked gingerly on the door.

“Father, Malvina has made your favorite meal,” she said. “It’s getting cold.”

When there was no response, even though she knew her father was there, probably packing his important papers in his briefcases, Candy softly spoke his name again.