Bittner, Rosanne (33 page)

Luke motioned to Tex and Sven. The two men dismounted and came to stand guard at the door while Luke called to Runner to follow him inside. Sheriff Tracy stood at the door to the jail cells, nodded to Luke. "She's already in there."

Luke set his rifle against the sheriff's desk. "Thanks for keeping those people out there at bay." He rushed past the man and into the back room, followed by Runner, who knew the Sioux tongue and had come along to act as an interpreter. Lettie stood staring at the "white Indian" in one of the jail cells. If it was Nathan, he would be fourteen. In the eyes of the Sioux, that was old enough to go on the warpath, and this boy was painted like the wildest of warriors. Luke stepped cautiously up beside Lettie, and the boy stared back at them... light hair... blue eyes. Luke inhaled sharply, recognizing the boy he'd seen the morning after he'd been shot, the one who had given him water. "Nathan," he said.

The boy showed no signs of recognition. He breathed heavily from a bullet wound in his side, which he had not let Dr. Manning remove. His wrists and feet were tied to the side rails of the cot on which he lay, so that he could not escape.

"We had a time getting him calmed down," Tracy told them. He unlocked the cell door. "He's wild as a bobcat, amazingly strong for his age and condition. Is he your son, Mrs. Fontaine?"

Lettie could hardly move or speak. He was older. All the baby fat was gone; but she would know her Nathan anyplace. "Yes," she finally answered. "He got that little scar under his left eye one day when he fell. He was only about a year and a half old. He cut his left knee badly in that same fall." She stepped inside the cell, moved a little closer, wondering how she was going to keep her knees from collapsing. The boy lay there panting, dirty, bloody, his eyes wide with fear and hatred. He watched her carefully as she leaned to look closer. He lay there wearing only a breechcloth, apron, and breastplate, his legs and arms bare. "There it is," Lettie told Luke. "The scar on his left knee." She closed her eyes. "My God," she moaned. Luke could see her begin to sink. He grabbed hold of her as she broke into tears.

The boy, who only knew himself as White Bear, watched them both in surprise and confusion. Why was the woman crying? There was something about her that was faintly familiar, but he was not sure what it was. Did these white people know him from when he was a small boy? Half Nose had told him he had found him abandoned along the white man's trail to the gold fields. The tall man with the very blue eyes also looked familiar. Wasn't he the one he'd seen badly wounded a few winters ago, lying among the dead buffalo hunters? Nathan. The man had spoken that same word that morning, when he had given him water.

What did Nathan mean? Was it a name? Here and there he had understood a word or two of what people were saying, and he supposed it was because somewhere deep in his mind he remembered those words from when he was very little, before his white parents had either died or deserted him. He wished he could remember more.

Luke kept an arm around Lettie, who wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief and turned to look at her son. "So grown up!" she said through a shivering sob. "Oh, Luke, it's Nathan. I know it's him. Why did Half Nose lie to you? Why couldn't he have just bargained with you, given our son back to us?"

Luke blinked back tears of his own. "A son for a son. He wanted us to feel the pain of his loss, but at the same time he wanted us to stop hounding him, stop searching for Nathan. Jesus, Lettie, I'm so sorry. If there had been more of an army out here then, I could have attacked, forced his hand—"

"No." She squeezed his arm. "He probably would have just killed Nathan for spite. At least he's alive." She left him to move closer and kneel beside the cot.

"Be careful, Lettie. He's as wild and full of hate as any full-blood. You can see it in his eyes."

Lettie sniffed. "He's my son... my boy. He wouldn't—" She touched his arm, and the minute she did so Nathan's whole body jerked. He gritted his teeth and spit words at her. Lettie pulled her hand away. "Oh, Nathan, my precious Nathan!"

The boy wondered at the look the white woman was giving him. It was so loving, so agonizingly sad. Why did she care about him? He looked at the other man who had come into the cell behind the white man. He was a Crow Indian! He could tell by the way the man wore the feathers in his hair, and by the way he was dressed mostly like a white man. The Crow people had given up long ago, had turned to the white man's ways, many of them even accepting the white man's religion. Some Crow even scouted now for the blue-coat soldiers, helped them find the Sioux who did not want to live on the reservation. He spit at him, furious when the man only smiled and said something to the tall white man with the blue eyes.

"Whoa! He is a wild one!" Runner told Luke. "What do you wish me to tell him, Mrs. Fontaine?"

Lettie breathed deeply to compose herself. "I want you to tell him I am his mother. Please explain why we're here, that we've saved his life by coming. Tell him I want him to let our white doctor help him, and that I want him to come home with us."

Runner, who wore his own long black hair in a tail at his neck, kept his distance. White or not, this boy had been taught to hate the Crow. He carefully explained who Lettie was, what she had told him.

White Bear listened in disbelief. He shook his head, told Runner his real parents were dead. His adoptive Indian father, Half Nose, had told him so. And his name was not Nathan. It was White Bear. He had already suffered the Sun Dance sacrifice, had seen the vision that made him a man. He was Sioux. He could not go with these white people.

He watched Runner explain, watched the woman shake her head. Her reply was firm.

"She says Half Nose lied to you. She is your mother. Half Nose stole you away from her when you were four years old." Runner spoke to him in the Sioux tongue. "His own son had been shot by the tall white man here because he attacked him. Half Nose wanted revenge and wanted to replace his son, so he took you. The tall white man is called Luke, Luke Fontaine. The woman is called Lettie. Your real father was killed in a white man's war many years ago, and your mother took Luke for a husband. He adopted you and loved you. After you were taken, he searched for you for many months. Finally Half Nose told him you were dead. He and your mother were deeply grieved."

White Bear could hardly believe the story, but the way the woman looked at him... "How does she know? I am grown now," he told Runner. "Perhaps she is mistaken."

He waited. The woman spoke, and Runner translated that she knew where his scars were and what caused them.

"It is easy to talk of scars. She can easily see them,"

White Bear answered. "Other whites have been captured over the years. Perhaps I came from some other white family."

As Runner translated, a lump rose in Letty's throat. Though she had just saved his life, her son was looking at her now as if he might kill her as easily as a rabbit or a deer. "Tell him I know his horse and belongings were taken by the Indians who got away," she told Runner. "Tell him I think that among those belongings is something I am betting he has kept all these years. Perhaps he thinks it is an omen, some kind of charm that brings him luck." She looked at Nathan. "Ask him if he carries a small brown stuffed horse with him. It had one eye made from a button. The other eye was missing."

When Runner had interpreted her words, White Bear was astonished. He had had the horse ever since he could remember, and even now it was inside a parfleche that was tied to the neck of his horse.

"Your mother made the horse for you. She sewed it with her own hands," Runner told him, "many years ago, when you were only one summer."

White Bear stared at the woman with the fascinating green eyes. There was a look there that told him not to be afraid. "Yes," he answered. "I have a stuffed horse. Now both eyes are missing."

When Runner translated his words, the white woman covered her face and wept. The white man with her put his arms around her. She said something to him through her tears, and the white man in turn spoke to the Crow Indian.

"The white man wants you to let a doctor fix your wound. He is a good doctor. You can trust him. I would not lie to you, even though I know you hate me because I am Crow," Runner told Nathan. "Your mother wants to take you from here so that you will not be harmed. She wishes to take you to her home, where those people outside will not bother you. You have brothers and sisters there, people who would take care of you. Your mother would like you to stay there with them forever, but she says that when you are well, you will be free to choose, to stay with them, or go back to Half Nose and the Sioux."

White Bear watched the woman cry. Considering what she knew about him, she must be his white mother. If this was true, she surely would not lie to him. He moved his gaze to the man holding her, studied his blue eyes, saw honesty there, and something else. The man looked at him lovingly, as a man would look at his son. Something told him he could trust these people. He did not like the idea of staying with a whole family of whites, but for the moment he had no choice. The bullet in his side burned fiercely. He knew he needed help. He told Runner he would go with them... for now. As soon as he was well, he was returning to his people, and to Half Nose, the only man he knew as father. He saw pain in Luke Fontaine's eyes when the Crow interpreted his words.

Luke turned to the sheriff. "Go get Doc Manning."

Tracy nodded and left. Luke gave Lettie a hug. "You keep your distance until the doc gets him sedated," he told her. "Keep in mind that in his mind and heart he's still Sioux. I'm going to take care of that crowd outside."

He left her then, and Lettie could hear him arguing with the people outside the jail. If anyone could straighten them out and make them leave, it was Luke and his men. How sad that now she had to defend her precious son against those who accused him of killing innocent whites. She felt so sorry for Jim Woodward's orphaned daughters. Could her Nathan have done such a horrible thing? She refused to believe it.

She ached to hold him, embrace him. What did he think of her? That she had abandoned him? That she had given up on him? Where had her bright, smiling little Nathan gone, the little boy who clung to that bear so tightly when Half Nose tore him away from her? He lay there painted and half-naked, his hair grown long. There was so much she wanted to know and learn, and so much he needed to learn in return. She closed her eyes and thanked God for bringing her son back to her. Surely he didn't mean it when he said he would go back to his people when he was well. The Sioux were not his people. She and Luke, Katie, Ty, Pearl, Robbie, and Paul—
they
were his people.

"I love you, Nathan. I never stopped loving, or hoping, or praying. We're taking you home, son."

She knew he didn't understand, but the words sounded good, words she had begun to think she would never be able to say. She stepped closer to the cot, knelt beside it. Again she touched his arm, and this time he did not try to jerk it away. He just watched her in wonder. She rested her head against his arm and wept.

CHAPTER 17

Luke carried Nathan out of the jail in his arms, to a waiting wagon Henny had brought to take him home in. Dr. Manning had sedated him with laudanum before removing the bullet from his side, and he was still groggy enough not to put up a fight or to notice the crowd of onlookers. Will helped Luke get the boy into the wagon, laying him on a bed of straw covered with blankets.

Luke worried that none of this would end the way Let-tie hoped it would. She herself had helped Doc Manning operate on the boy, and while he was being stitched up and bandaged, Lettie took advantage of his sedated condition, stroking his hair, kissing his cheek, talking to him as though he were four years old again. The doctor had said Nathan would be all right, but what about Lettie? Her wounds ran much deeper. What if she lost him again? What would it do to their marriage, and how was he going to handle his own guilt?

He helped Lettie climb into the wagon so she could sit beside her son. He was irritated at the gawking, whispering onlookers, some of the men still bent on hanging the boy. His men surrounded the wagon, keeping people at bay. He put a blanket over Nathan, then stood up in the wagon bed and looked out at the townspeople.

"This young man is our son, and we're taking him home," he told them. "He was only four when he was stolen from us, back when Billings could hardly even be called a town, and when most of you hadn't even come here yet! The boy can't be blamed for the way he is, and no one can prove he killed
anybody.
I'm damn sorry for what happened to Jim Woodward. He was a good friend of mine, but I'm not going to let you hang my son, not just for his sake, but for my
wife's.
I'll kill any man who tries to hurt him!"

As he climbed down from the wagon, people stepped back.

"You're askin' for trouble, Luke," one man warned. "His people will come after him, maybe kill all of you."

"I have too much help at the Double L to worry about Indians. And any of
you
thinking of coming and getting my boy will have to go through my men first!"

"Once you breed wild ways into a man, he can't be changed," another called out. "You keep that boy on the Double L, Fontaine. We can't guarantee what will happen to him if he shows up in town."

Luke turned to see who had spoken. It was Clarence Goodman, a farmer who two years ago had decided to squat on government land rather than file a legal claim. He had put barbed wire around his place, causing injury to several of Luke's steers. Goodman had vacated his farm after Luke and his men tore down the fence and had deliberately allowed Fontaine cattle to graze on Goodman's corn. Luke hated the man for his cockiness, and for not trying to build his farm the right way. He had little use for farmers in general, but he tried to be fair with the ones who were respectful of other peoples' property.

Luke approached Goodman, towering over him. "I
can
guarantee what will happen to
you
if you lay a hand on my son!" he growled.