Sioux Slave (36 page)

She looked into Pierce's eyes, back to Rand's pale blue one. She saw the truth in their eyes. She knew Lenore better than anyone. Lenore wasn't the heroine type. No doubt she had tried to push Rand off the balcony for jilting her and had gone over the rail herself. “Does anyone else but we three know the truth?”

Rand shook his head. “My father knows just that I'd made a decision to marry Laurel, if she'll have me.”

So Jon Erikson had finally told his son about his own lost love. Would that affect the way young Rand looked at life?

Elizabeth sighed. “We'll not smear Lenore then. Let everyone think she was a noble heroine, a true Carstairs.” She exchanged glances with Pierce, saw the puzzlement in Rand's pale eyes.

“Mrs. Carstairs,” he knelt by her side. “I know this isn't the proper time, with this great tragedy and all, but I need to talk to Laurel.”

She sighed, shook her head sadly.

“I love her,” he insisted. “You must let me see her, explain.”

“Somehow I think you really mean that,” she whispered. “My James loved me that much. Such love is rare, young man, and for some people, it only happens once.”

She looked into Pierce's eyes and saw the tears there. He had loved her as she loved James.

“Mrs. Carstairs,” Rand said again, “I demand you let me see Laurel, or I'm going to go upstairs and break her door down. I won't leave here until I talk with her.”

She looked at him a long moment, listening to the clock tick and wondering if Rand loved her granddaughter enough. Not that it mattered now. It would have been a difficult choice for him to make, giving up his whole world, turning his back on everything he'd ever known for a woman's love.

She shook her head. “It wasn't my decision, young man.” A sudden look of comprehension crossed Pierce's face, and she nodded. This was the way Laurel had wanted it and it was not her grandmother's place to question that choice. She put her hand on Rand's arm. “You're too late; she's gone forever.”

Kimi sat on a windswept rise under a barren tree, staring out across the rolling prairies of the Dakotas. November. Moon of the Falling Leaves. The warm, cozy winter she had looked forward to sleeping in Hinzi's arms now stretched ahead of her as bleak and cold.

It was beginning to snow and she should go back to the Lakota village. Soon it would be dark and the snow would be falling harder. She shivered, pulling her buffalo robe closer around her and thinking tenderly of Rand Erikson. To her, he would always be the white warrior, Hinzi, Yellow Hair.

Had she made a mistake, returning to the Sioux? She had arrived yesterday and been greeted warmly. No, these were her people. She would never have fitted in with the wealthy, snooty friends of the Eriksons. They might have accepted her because of her grandmother's money, but they would have always laughed at her behind her back.

She could only pity them for their shallowness and lack of empathy. Kimi folded her arms on her knees, rested her small chin on them, remembering. She would miss Nana and the judge and old Nero. Most of all, she would miss Rand, the man who had once been her slave and then had made a captive of her heart.

Her soul ached at the thought of him, remembering his ardent kisses. Once she had been an innocent girl, and his passion had turned her into a woman. She didn't regret that. She regretted that she would have to spend the rest of her life without him. When she had returned yesterday on the black mare, Onyx, with gifts of flour and coffee and sugar bought with Grandmother's money, the whole camp had turned out for her. Many had asked about Hinzi, especially his friends, One Eye, Gopher, and Saved By the Wolf.

“Hinzi has chosen to remain with the whites.” She had blinked back a tear. “His heart is there as mine is here.”

One Eye nodded in understanding. “The easy white life is hard to give up.”

“Yes,” Kimi said, “I could not ask him to make that sacrifice, so I came alone.”

Young Saved by the Wolf frowned. “You did not even give him a chance to choose?”

She shook her head. “There is a beautiful white woman with much money, who wants him. I made it easy for him by leaving without saying good-bye.”

Gopher looked at her gravely. “Perhaps Hinzi will think you didn't want to be his woman.”

“Perhaps. I think he will be happier without me, so I made that sacrifice.”

Had she been wrong to do so? What was her future going to be? Tomorrow she would face all that. Possibly she would accept Gopher's offer to be his second wife. Tonight she could sit out here and watch the snow beginning to fall and think of Hinzi.

Was it snowing in Kentucky? She knew now that a part of her heart had been left there with her man, but she would manage somehow. After a while maybe she would finally stop hurting when she thought of him.

It was growing dark and the snow fell faster. Behind her, Onyx whinnied and stamped her feet. It was time to return to her lonely tipi fire, even the mare knew that. Still Kimi hesitated, remembering the times when he had been there waiting for her and she had run into the protective embrace of his big arms.

From the camp in the distance she heard children running and playing, dogs barking. The scent of camp fires and cooking meat drifted on the cold wind. Yes, she must return. Kimi stood up slowly. The mare whinnied again and a horse close by whinnied back.

Surprised, Kimi whirled around. In the shadows only a few yards away a big man sat a buckskin horse. The last of the daylight caught the gleam of yellow hair.

It was a ghost, she thought. She had wanted him so bad, she had conjured up a spirit. Her hand flew to the charm around her neck and she took a step backward.

And then the figure slid off the horse and walked toward her. “Kimi? They told me I would find you here.”

For a long moment, she stared at him. “Hinzi?” She forced herself to disobey her impulse to run into his arms. He had only come to take her back to the white man's country, and she would never return there. When he knew that, he would leave again. No, she couldn't stand the pain of losing him a second time.

“Kimi, come to me,” he commanded. And then he smiled ever so slowly and held out his arms. She forgot everything but the fact that she loved him and he was here. With a cry she went into his embrace, and he crushed her against him, holding her close, kissing her face, her eyes, her lips. “Kimi, oh, sweet butterfly, I don't intend to ever let you out of my sight again!”

His mouth was sweet and hot on hers, the feel of him warm and protective as he enveloped her. Only then did she realize he was dressed as a warrior, not a white man. She looked up at him, a question in her eyes.

He kissed the tip of her nose, holding her against his virile body. “Yes, I'm back for good, Kimi.”

“But Lenore, all your wealth, your parents—”

“There's a lot to tell, but not right now.” He kissed her again, deeply, lingeringly. “All you need to know is that your white warrior is back and I will never never leave you again.”

She felt the tears on her cheeks. “Hinzi, you don't know what you're doing! There's been new trouble between my people and yours. They say the wasicu build new forts. They say Red Cloud will start a war—”

“Then we'll take whatever time we have left and be thankful to be together.” He swung her up in his strong arms. “Even if we only have a few months, it will be worth it. Love is all that matters in this world, and I love you, Kimi, more than wealth or family or even life, I love you!”

“Oh, Hinzi, if you only knew how I've longed to hear you say that.” She kissed him deeply and lingeringly as he carried her to his horse. He swung up on the buckskin, still cradling her against his broad chest. Snowflakes clung to his lashes over eyes pale as mountain streams. “Yes,” she whispered, “if we only had tonight, it would be worth it!”

Leading the mare, Hinzi nudged Scout forward. Kimi clung to him, thinking of the ecstasy to come in their warm tipi. They rode through the snowy darkness toward the village of their people. The white warrior and his woman had finally come home.

Did a white soldier ever really turn his back on his own civilization and ride with the Indians of the old West? I did a lot of research in this area and found Comancheros, “squaw” men, trappers, and hunters, but the only white soldier I found is a vague legend among the Kiowas. There is a possibility that a black “buffalo” soldier rode with the Indians attacking Adobe Walls in 1874. I've already mentioned that in an earlier novel,
Comanche Cowboy.

I know many of you have seen or read:
Dances With Wolves,
but may be surprised to know that the landmark novel on the subject of a soldier joining up with the Indians is an old novel published in 1950. It is called:
No Survivors,
by Will Henry, and was voted one of the best Western novels of all time by the Western Writers of America, of which I am a member.

What of white women, kidnapped as children and reared by Plains tribes who chose to stay with the Indians? I know of at least four and I'm still researching. The first was the well-known Cynthia Ann Parker, mother of the great half-breed Comanche chief, Quanah Parker. Both are buried here in Oklahoma at Fort Sill. Less widely known was little Millie Durgan, carried off during the Great Outbreak of 1864 which I wrote about in
Cheyenne Princess
. Millie spent her whole life as a Kiowa and is also buried here in my home state.

A third was Lizzie Fletcher, stolen along with her sister, Amanda Mary, by Arapaho Indians from Wyoming in 1865. Her sister was later freed, but when she tried to reclaim Lizzie, now fifteen years old, the girl denied being white and would not leave the tribe that had reared her.

Yet another was a Spanish girl by the name of Tomassa. Recaptured and returned to Mexico, she ran away and went back to the Comanche. She married a half-breed Cherokee and spent the rest of her life in Oklahoma.

I've heard from some readers telling me that some of you are catching scorn from scoffers who say that Indian romances are “fantasy,” and never really happened. Tell them about the four girls I mentioned or suggest two research books on the subject that back me up. One is
Comanche and Kiowa Captives
by Hugh. D. Corwin, privately printed in 1959. The Oklahoma Public Libraries have several copies. The other book is:
Women and Indians on the Frontier,
1825-1915, by Glenda Riley, University of New Mexico Press.

If you'd like to do further reading about the Sioux Indians, there are many research books on the subject. Begin with one of my favorite authors, Mari Sandoz, and her classic:
Crazy Horse.

As for the abandoned wagon train, it is one of those true and still unsolved mysteries of the old West. According to Captain Eugene F. Ware, in his book,
The Indian War of 1864,
he and an army patrol really did find a deserted wagon train of sixteen wagons all circled up in a desolate area about thirty-five miles above Julesburg, Colorado Territory. According to then Lieutenant Ware, the wagons appeared to have been there for years. There was no sign of violence, no skeletons of either people or animals. Although there was a lot of publicity concerning the discovery, no one ever solved the mystery.

The Crow and the Pawnee were indeed enemies of the Sioux and scouted for the soldiers. You've met Terry's younger brother, Asataka, as army scout Johnny Ace in my earlier novel,
Cheyenne Caress.

Some of the other characters mentioned in the book you've just read also had their own novels. Rand's cousin, Quint Randolph, came from
Nevada Nights,
the Cheyenne Dog Soldier, Iron Knife, from
Cheyenne Captive,
and Cherokee Evans, the Galvanized Yankee who escaped from the
Effie Deans,
was the hero of
Quicksilver Passion.

Some of you will wonder about the handsome Pawnee scout, Terry, or Wagnuka's missing half-breed son, or what happened to the beautiful slave girl that Jon Erikson's mother sold. They'll all turn up in future books of this very long saga.

You may be more familiar with the song, “Greensleeves,” as the Christmas carol, “What Child Is This?” How old is the song? Shakespeare mentions it in
The Merry Wives of Winsor,
and it was ancient then.

As far as our country's most beloved national cemetery, Arlington, where both the Unknown Soldier and President John F. Kennedy are buried, it was indeed General Robert E. Lee's Virginia estate.

When the
Sultana
riverboat sank on the Mississippi in April, 1865, more people died than on the
Titanic,
but the tragedy is not nearly as well-known.

Yes, the Union army did get desperate enough in 1864 to recruit six thousand captured Southern troops into joining their army and going West to fight Indians. There's an excellent research book on the subject by Dee Brown:
The Galvanized Yankees
. The most famous of these soldiers was Henry M. Stanley, who would later become a reporter and go to Africa looking for a missing white man, and upon finding him, utter these famous words, “Doctor Livingston, I presume?”

As for the ship that carried the Galvanized Yankees to New York to catch their trains West, the
Continental,
history was not yet finished with her. In 1866, the
Continental
would again carry a unique cargo; a shipload of mail-order brides from the East coast on the long journey to distant Washington Territory. Washington at that time was wild frontier country, full of danger, hostile Indians, very few white men, and almost no white women.

The
Continental
and her cargo are the subject of my next Zebra novel. What kind of man would send for a bride he'd never met? Our hero was rich, moody, and darkly handsome; a half-breed bastard who craved respectability. He also wanted sons and an aristocratic lady to preside over his frontier empire. He didn't expect a love match and he didn't even care if she were pretty. What he did require was that she be from a fine family, have a spotless reputation, and be capable of producing children. In return, she would have wealth, position, and his name.

That's what he ordered. What he got was a pretty Irish whore, on the run in fear for her life. Only sheer desperation forced her to take another woman's identity and board the
Continental
for a place she'd never heard of to marry a man she'd never met.

Her name was Sassy Malone. For all you who loved my short story in Zebra's 1991 holiday collection,
Christmas Rendezvous
, and wrote to ask what happened to Ginny's missing uncle, Mike Malone, and his family, this is their story.

Half-breed's bride. For Sassy, will this be a devil's bargain or a marriage made in heaven? One thing is certain, their passionate conflict will set those Washington woods blazing like wildfire. Should a woman try to hide her past from the man she loves? And if he learns the truth, can a proud man ever love her enough to forgive and forget?

I invite you to board the
Continental
with Sassy and share frontier adventure and fiery passion in the wilderness of Washington. That handsome, dark half-breed is waiting for you both.

To all you readers who have cared enough to write me or the Zebra editor asking for more of my stories ...

 

 

 

 

Georgina Gentry