Westward Dreams (21 page)

              With every tick of the alarm clock by her bed, Hannah’s misery grew worse.  Her sadness was so profound that she couldn’t cry.  She was numb from the shock of Marcus’ news that Owl had just picked up and left as if she had never mattered to him.  She’d been so sure that they had a future together.  Hannah had known that it wouldn’t be easy, but she felt that they could have kept on weathering whatever storm came.

              She saw how foolish she’d been to believe that he would ever embrace a life with her.  He'd warned her that he would make no promises about the future, so she couldn’t fault him there.  What she could fault him for was not telling her that he was never going to be able to stay whether it was because of all the harassment or because he would go south with his family for the winter.

              It would have wounded her to her soul, but she would have preferred to hear it from him instead of from his brother.  She closed her eyes as she wondered how she would go to work every day.  Marcus looked very much like Owl and seeing him all the time was going to be unbearable.  Then she thought of how much good Marcus and she could do for their community and knew that although it would hurt, she wasn’t going to run away the way Owl had.

              He’d always been so brave that she never would have thought he’d choose to not fight.  How had she been so wrong about him?  Suddenly she got out of the bed and took the sheets off.  They carried his scent and she couldn’t stand it.  She put them with the other dirty laundry and then went to the kitchen and looked at the floor.  The woven rug he’d given her had suffered some burns, but she’d kept it anyway and put the worse spots under the table.

              Now she moved the table off it and rolled it up.  She carried it outside and tossed it by the horse shed.  Her horse stood looking at her and Hannah began to cry as she remembered the day that Owl had given the horse to her.  Memories assaulted her and she fell to her knees.  Their first date when he’d cooked for her, their first kiss in the examination room, the day he’d taught her how to ride; all of those things flashed through her mind.  Had none of it meant anything to him?  Wasn’t everything they’d shared enough to make him want to fight for their future?

              Anger joined her grief and she got up again and stomped into the house.  She ripped the dream catcher from the wall over her bed and grabbed the moccasins Owl had given her and threw them on top of the rug from the kitchen.  She took every single thing he’d given her and put them all on the pile.  Then she lit a match and touched it to the rug.  It didn’t take long to catch and soon all of it burned.

              Hannah watched the fire and tried to pretend that all of those memories could be burned from her mind the way his gifts were being burned.  She wished that the memory of
him
could be burned away, too, but knew that would never happen.  Every word he’d ever spoken to her, every touch of his hands, and every kiss of his lips would be forever seared into her brain.

              Dean did everything that Joe had advised him to do to get the most speed and stamina from Hamlet.  The big stallion pounded away at the miles during the night when it was cooler.  As he travelled, Dean began to understand why Joe was so fond of the Thoroughbred breed.  Even when Dean could tell that Hamlet was getting tired, it was hard to rein in the stallion.  Hamlet was not used to anyone but Joe riding him and had fought Dean at first, but Dean had soon gotten the message through to the horse that he was the one in charge.

              Now, Dean raced along at speeds at which he’d never travelled and was enthralled.  This was all a backdrop to his mission.  He was going to be damned if he’d let Owl get away with running away.  Dean had to make him see that he would never be happy if he ran.  He wasn’t sure when he’d come to care so much about Owl, but he had and he was doing for Owl what he would have done for his brothers; stop him from making the biggest mistake of his life.

              While he rested Hamlet during the day, Dean didn’t sleep much.  He was impatient to be on his way and as soon as sundown came, he pressed Hamlet onward again.  It took Dean four days, but he finally saw two horses ahead of him one night towards morning.  He thought one of them looked like Swift.  As he neared the horses, he saw Owl stand up.  Dean pulled Hamlet to a halt by the two horses and reveled in the stunned expression on Owl’s face.

              “Hello, jackass.  Bet you never thought you’d see me again,” Dean said and dismounted.

              Hannah went to work the day after Marcus had given her the news of Owl’s departure.  Seeing Marcus was going to be hard, but she felt it was better to get it over with.  Before going in to the clinic, Hannah steeled herself and entered the building.  She found Marcus in his office reading a medical journal.

              He looked up at her and a shaft of pain pierced her heart.  She forced herself to smile at him.  “Good morning.  You’re always here early,” Hannah said.

              He smiled back at her and said, “You can blame Aiyana for that.  She doesn’t require much sleep.  She’s up by dawn wanting to play.  She starts chattering at me before I’m even really alert.”

              Hannah said, “She definitely has your personality.”

              Marcus narrowed his eyes at her and asked, “Are you saying I talk too much?”

              She chuckled.  “Well, not too much, but a lot.”

              He pretended to be offended.  “You know, I thought you were different than everyone else.  I thought you were on my side.”

              She smiled and thanked him.

              “For what?” Marcus asked.

              Hannah said, “For not telling me to go home or asking me how I am.”

              Marcus sighed and said, “Keeping busy is best and I already know how you are.  Why make you say it?”

              “You’re a good man, Dr. Samuels,” Hannah said and left his office.

              She went into the supply closet because she to do an inventory of various items that would need to be ordered.  As she counted bandages, Hannah’s eyes filled with tears and silent sobs wracked her body.  After a few minutes, she was able to dry her eyes and finish her task.  By noon Hannah was able to look at Marcus without feeling so much pain.  She focused on the differences in the two men, like Marcus having gray eyes instead of midnight black.

              Hannah went to the Grady House to get lunch for her and Marcus.  A man followed her and began his harassment.  Fury overtook Hannah.  She turned around suddenly and slapped him so hard that he backed up a few steps.

              He put a hand to his burning cheek as she said, “Leave me alone!  You got what you wanted.  He’s gone.  You and all those other bastards ruined my life.  Every time you bother me, you’re going to get the same treatment.  Pass it on.”

              Hannah continued on her way then and the man did not follow her.

              At night, Hannah slept on her sofa because she couldn’t stand sleeping in her bed.  There were too many memories of passion and love associated with it.  Every day at work she kept busy.  The clinic became her refuge.  She stayed as late as she could.  There were some nights she went to the Watering Hole so she could postpone going home until she was exhausted.

              Hannah wasn’t the only one missing Owl.  Sammi had taken his abrupt leaving from her life very hard and though she tried not to, she became more aggressive than necessary at work.  One of her best friends had left her without a word.  Sammi had to admit that Owl had been smart in a way not to come say goodbye to her.  She would have tried to talk him out of going and it was obvious he had been intent on leaving.

              It was the same reason he hadn’t said goodbye to anyone.  Everyone would have tried to do the same thing.  Joe had told Sammi that Dean had gone after Owl to bring him home.  Sammi said nothing to Hannah because she didn’t want to get her hopes up.  Listening to Hannah talk about how much Owl had hurt her and how foolish she felt for falling in love with him also made Sammi think that even if Owl did come home, Hannah was not going to take him back.

              The day that Dean caught up with Owl, the brave thought he was seeing things.  He recognized Hamlet and thought Joe was the rider.  He never expected to see Dean.  After Dean’s rude greeting, he had dismounted and walked right up to Owl and punched him in the mouth.  Owl staggered back and looked at Dean in astonishment. 

              Dean said, “You deserved that and hell of a lot more, but I’m tired from chasing your ass.”

              Owl rubbed his jaw.  “Why are you chasing me?”

              “To take you back home where you belong,” Dean said.

              “I’m not going back,” Owl said with a stony expression.

              “Oh, yes, you are.  Now sit down.  We’re gonna talk about this.”

              Owl sat.  He had no intention of going back with Dean, but he would let him have his say and then Dean could go on his way.

              Dean sat near him and said, “Do you know how many people you hurt by leaving like that?  I’m included in that, you know.  Hannah’s the one hurt the most, though.  She loves you, Owl.  She stood by you the whole time you were in jail and during the trial.  She’s a hell of a woman and you’re stupid for letting her go.”

              “It was best for her,” Owl said.  “They tried to burn down her house.  They constantly harassed her and that one guy took ahold of her.  It was only going to get worse if I stayed.  I couldn’t stand to see her hurt because of me.”

              Dean’s laugh was sarcastic.  “I think you did a better job of hurting her than any of those jerks ever could.  Listen, you’ve hurt a lot of people that love you, but more than that you’ve hurt yourself the most.”

              Owl looked into Dean’s sky blue eyes and said, “What do you mean?”

              “You’re not the same man you were before you got hurt last fall, Owl.  How could you be?”

              Owl nodded.  He knew it was the truth.

              “You became part of our family and learned a lot of our ways over the winter.  Let me ask you a few questions and be honest about your answers.”

              “Ok.”

              “If you were the same man you were in the fall, would you have started seeing Hannah?  Would you have agreed to work for me?  Would you have gotten used to being inside a house overnight?  I’m guessing that you also like sleeping in a bed now, too,” Dean said with a smile.

              Owl smiled at that last part, too, and then thought about Dean’s questions.  The old Owl might have been friendly to Hannah if he saw her in passing, but a relationship with her would have been the last thing on his mind.  Dating a white woman would have been unthinkable, but because of his newfound friendships with all of the women at the ranch and Sammi, he’d begun to see them as just women.  Not red, not white, just women.

              His attraction to Hannah had been swift and didn’t have anything to do with race.  It was Hannah herself that drew him to her.  Therefore, he hadn’t thought twice about seeing her.

              When Owl’s tipi had been set up, Owl had planned on spending the winter healing and then when his Lakota family had returned and he was better, he would pack up, return to camp and that would be that.  Marcus would bring Mikey like he always had and Owl would go see Marcus and Sammi, but no one else.

              He hadn’t counted on becoming attached to the people who lived on the ranch, let alone Dean.  He’d watched the way Dean took care of his family and ran the ranch and had gained a new respect for the man.  He came to see why Marcus loved him and looked up to Dean.  Owl felt a kinship with Dean in that they had both lost a wife and child.  It was just one more thing that drove home the point of grief and tragedy knowing no color.

              Looking deeper, Owl realized that while his injuries kept him from doing some of the things he used to, he had come to enjoy working on the ranch and would miss it.  He closed his eyes as he thought about Hannah and how he had ached for her since he’d left.  Owl desperately wanted to hold her and see her smile.  He wanted to the one to make her smile.  Looking at himself through Dean’s eyes, Owl saw how foolish he’d been to think he could survive without all of the people he loved, without the woman he loved and with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life.

              Dean waited patiently as he saw Owl seriously thinking through all of the questions he’d asked.  He wasn’t in a hurry and wanted Owl to see the truth.

              Owl opened his eyes and Dean saw a resolute light in Owl’s eyes.

              Owl said, “You’re right.  I have to go back.  It’s where I belong.”

              “Thatta boy!” Dean said and clapped Owl on the back.  “So, we gotta rest today because Hamlet has had it.  But, tonight we leave.”

              “Dean, do you think Hannah will forgive me?” Owl asked.

              “I don’t know.  I think you better be prepared to do a lot of groveling.  You’re gonna have to show her that you’re serious and that you’ll never leave her again.  She’s going to need a lot of reassuring,” Dean said.