Climb the Highest Mountain (11 page)

She reached out and embraced him again, this time with less fervor, afraid of hurting him. “Thank you, Jesus,” she whispered. She let go and grasped his shoulders. “I’m so sorry … about Morning Bird.”

His eyes hardened. “There are others who will be more sorry when I am through!” he hissed.

Her heart tightened. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, Mother. As soon as I am strong enough I am going north to fight with my uncle, Swift Arrow! I will not stay here among the timid southern Cheyenne who choose to fight no more!”

She shook her head, her chest painful with fear for him. “It’s a losing battle, Wolf’s Blood.”

He shook his head. “No, it is not a losing battle! And what good does it do to speak for peace? Black Kettle spoke for it! He waited faithfully at Sand Creek for instructions from the white leaders, waited for the government rations, even flew the American flag over his tipi! The day the soldiers came he even raised a white flag beside it! He stood there watching them come, telling us not to fire on them, telling us if we stood together and did not fight back the soldiers would stop shooting at us. But the soldiers did
not
stop firing! They kept coming! By the time we realized what they meant to do, it was too late to get away! The soldiers rode down on us, shooting and butchering women, old people, little babies! Some of them were scalped! The soldiers cut off their fingers to get their jewelry! They cut out the bellies of women, cut off men’s organs! I will never forget Sand Creek! Never! And I will ride in revenge until the day I die. I choose to die killing white men rather than die a shriveled old man on a reservation!”

“Wolf’s Blood, that’s enough!” Zeke ordered.

Abbie stepped back, blinking and speechless. She looked up at Zeke. He sighed and dismounted, coming around his horse and taking her into his arms. She broke into tears. He looked at his son.

“I understand exactly how you feel, Wolf’s Blood, but you’ll not raise your voice to your mother because of it. I intended to find a gentler way of telling her. And I told you to think awhile before going north.”

The boy’s eyes softened slightly. “I’m sorry,” he answered. “But I will not change my mind about going north.” He stepped closer to them and put a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “Forgive me, Mother.”

She reached behind and put a hand over his, keeping her other arm around Zeke. “At least… you’re alive,” she sobbed. “Let’s just… enjoy each other today … this moment. I don’t want to talk about you … going away.”

Wolf’s Blood looked up at his father. “I am sorry,” he repeated, realizing how protective the man was of Abbie since her abduction the year before. He pulled his hand away and touched his mother’s hair. “Mother, how did Wolf get here? I thought he was dead.”

She turned from Zeke and wiped at her eyes. “He just showed up on his own—about five days ago. He was wounded.” She sniffed. “Apparently the two of you got separated and Wolf came back here thinking he’d find you. He must have gone off to nurse his wounds first.” She sniffed and wiped at her eyes again. “I took hope when I saw him. I thought if you were … were dead, he’d stay beside you.” She half collapsed against Zeke and he held her close.

“Let’s get down to the house, son,” he said, his voice tired. “For now, let’s just be grateful that you’re alive and Wolf is alive too. Don’t be filling the children’s
heads with horror stories, and don’t tell them right away that you might leave. Margaret will be upset.”

“She will be upset, but she will understand,” the boy replied. “She is the only sister I can talk to, the only one who understands. Perhaps it is because Margaret and I are the only ones who look and think all Indian.”

He took his horse’s reins and started toward the cabin. Abbie noticed the scalp then, hanging from the horse’s mane. Her eyes widened and she grasped the horse’s bridle and stopped walking. “Where did you get that scalp?” she asked, looking from the boy to Zeke and back to Wolf’s Blood.

Wolf’s Blood only grinned. “My father lost his temper with some buffalo hunters,” he answered. “It was a good day.”

Abbie’s heart tightened. She had seen enemy scalps before on Cheyenne men’s belts and gear and in their tipis. But they were always the scalps of enemy tribes, like the Pawnee and Ute. She had never seen a white scalp before, and it frightened her. What did the future hold for her warrior son if it meant going after the white soldiers and settlers? And what of her husband? She had seen him in action many times, knew how vicious he could be. But Sand Creek had apparently had a more terrible effect on him than she realized. He himself had taken enemy scalps, but never a white man’s, at least none she had known about, and it had been years since he had done such a thing. She looked up at him in wonder.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time, Abbie girl,” he told her casually. He lifted her onto his horse as though she were a feather, and she noticed the tear in his robe where the hunter’s bullet had ripped through it. She touched it lightly.

“Are you hurt?”

He gave her a reassuring smile, though a sad one.
“Not physically. I guess it was something they said that set me off, and I won’t repeat it. Let’s just forget it.” He took the horse’s reins and walked with it, alongside Wolf’s Blood, toward the cabin, where six other Monroe children waited eagerly to greet their big brother and their mysterious father.

Chapter Seven

The Monroes all sat solemnly around the table, trying to grasp the total meaning of what had happened at Sand Creek. Abbie knew by the look in Zeke’s eyes that it was much worse than what he and Wolf’s Blood had told the children, and Wolf’s Blood’s earlier tirade had presented a picture she could hardly bear to envision. There was quiet crying, a mixture of sorrow and fear. The older ones who had been closest to their uncle, Black Elk, and to their little cousin, Bucking Horse, wept more openly. Abbie wanted to weep too, and she knew that when the full force of their deaths hit her she would indeed weep bitterly; but she could only handle so much at a time. Right now her heart was heavy for Wolf’s Blood, and for Zeke, who had been there, had seen it all, had buried his brother and his family. Wolf’s Blood had never been a boy who laughed much. Now she could see that there would be even less laughter in his life. She knew it was difficult for him not to burst out in a fit of yelling and cursing and swearing to get his revenge. He was holding back out of respect for her wish not to further upset the
others. But he was tense and sober, his eyes darting around the cabin like those of a caged animal.

The boy did not mention sinking his lance into Charles Garvey’s leg. Zeke had already ordered Wolf’s Blood not to speak of that in front of Abbie. He did not want the Garvey name brought up in her presence.

“How could they do that?” Margaret finally sobbed. “If Black Kettle flew the American flag over his dwelling, and a flag of truce, how could they attack? Black Kettle’s band was peaceful! It isn’t fair!”

Zeke thought about his first wife’s murder back in Tennessee, about the Trail of Tears, and the many other instances of unfair killings and battles prompted by hatred of the Indians.

“There are a lot of things in this life that aren’t fair,” he said quietly. He picked up a pipe from the table, one he had already stuffed. He put it to his lips and lit it, puffing it quietly while he waited for some of the sniffling to stop. Abbie watched him carefully. So tired! He looked so tired! She knew he was feeling the strain of not being able to go out and exact his own revenge, at least not by riding with warriors and raiding settlements and supply trains. She thought about the encounter with the buffalo hunters. It worried her deeply. Zeke Monroe had a wild streak that had caused him to kill many men in self-defense and in vengeance, but the land was becoming more and more civilized, was coming under the white man’s laws, although many of those could not be called civilized at all. It seemed white men could slaughter Indians and be within the law, but if an Indian laid a hand on a white man, that was an act that was punished by hanging. Zeke Monroe had a large family to consider now … and his woman. He would have to be more and more careful. Perhaps he could no longer react to some
wrongs in his murderous fashion. To a man like Zeke there was right and wrong, black and white, and wrongdoing meant an eye for an eye. Now it only mattered who did the wrongdoing, and black and white was turning to gray.

His children watched him as he slowly gazed at each one of them while he puffed the pipe. Their father was a big man, a man to be respected, a man whose reputation with his big knife was known far and wide. Many times they had listened with keen interest to the story of how he and their mother had met, and they had heard the adventures of their parents’ early years. Only Wolf’s Blood, Margaret, and LeeAnn had actually lived among the Cheyenne for a time; and LeeAnn’s memories of it were vague, for she had been very young.

“These are bad times for Indians,” Zeke was telling them. “But times have been bad for the Indian since white settlers first set foot on the Eastern shores. I’ve told all of you about the Trail of Tears. Sand Creek was just another form of that kind of senseless brutality. The white settlers want what rightfully belongs to someone else, and they have the strength of numbers and superior weapons. But the Indians won’t give up easily so there are many years of hardships ahead.” He glanced at Abbie, then at the children, while Lance looked on from where he stood across the room, feeling sorry for his brother.

“Most of you needn’t worry,” Zeke continued. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re afraid because of your Indian blood. But white men have a tendency to look only at the color of someone’s skin. I find that ridiculous. It is a person’s worth that should matter.” He puffed the pipe again. “Be that as it may, most of you don’t look Indian. Much as it hurts me to think
that some of you might deny your Indian blood, it’s bound to happen, and I’ll not blame you. You’re my children and I love all of you, but you’re all getting old enough to make your own decisions.” His eyes rested on Margaret. “Those of you who do look_Indian, I don’t want you to be afraid, and I don’t want you to be ashamed. I took a lot of abuse when I was growing up in Tennessee, but I, by God, was never ashamed of being an Indian. It made me angry, but not ashamed.” His eyes scanned all of them again. “I just want you to be proud of yourselves and to remember that if you’re strong inside, no man, no law, no army can bring you to your knees. You remember that. Don’t let people like John Chivington destroy you. Someday the truth about the Sand Creek will be known, and it will be remembered in history as a disgrace to white men.”

His underlying, seething anger could be felt throughout the room, and to all the children he looked even bigger than they had remembered him being. They had seen him at times with his Indian brothers, painted and dancing as they were participating in war games and fancy horsemanship. He bore many scars, from battles and from participating in the grueling Sun Dance ritual. He was a man of two worlds, belonging to neither, wanting one life but living another.

“What will happen now, Father?” Ellen asked.

He studied his pipe. “I expect there will be Indian raids and warring on a scale bigger than anything the white men have seen yet,” he replied. “By trying to wipe out the Indians they’re only making more trouble for themselves.”

“They are digging their own graves!” Wolf’s Blood growled. He shoved back his chair. “I am going out for fresh air,” he told them, walking slowly over to his heavy buffalo-robe coat. He took it from a hook and
winced with pain as he put it on.

“You should come back in soon, Wolf’s Blood, and lie down,” Abbie told him pleadingly, knowing how restless the boy felt. “You must rest.”

He looked at her with tears in his eyes. “When I remember lying next to Morning Bird, my arms around her dead body, it is hard to rest, Mother,” he replied, his voice choking. He walked slowly to the door and went out, and Abbie knew that if it were not for his wound, he would get on his horse and ride north. She was almost grateful for the wound. It would keep her son with them awhile longer. She looked at Zeke and saw his grief. He was losing his favorite son, and he knew it.

Zeke scanned his children, resignation in his eyes. “Your brother is going through a difficult time,” he told them, his voice sounding weary. “Be patient with him. He still isn’t healed, not just in body but in heart. Morning Bird was very special to him. Don’t be noisy around him, and give him your support. Perhaps some of you don’t look or feel Indian, but Wolf’s Blood is just the opposite. He is proud of being Indian, and he has a wildness about him that none of the rest of you have.”

“He’s like his own pa, that’s what he is,” Lance spoke up. Zeke met the man’s eyes and nodded.

“I suppose he is, at least like I was back in Tennessee—young and restless and full of revenge. I know how he’s hurting.” Zeke looked back at the children. “All of you eat a good supper now. Margaret, help your mother get the food on the table.”

“You should eat too, Zeke,” Abbie spoke up. “I’ve fixed a good supper every night, never knowing when you’d get here. And you should get Wolf’s Blood back inside and make him eat. You both need
the nourishment.”

He met her eyes. “I’ve got no appetite yet, Abbie. I know you’re right, and I’ll try to get Wolf’s Blood to eat, but he needs some time alone.” Their eyes held. There was so much to say, and they hadn’t had a chance to be alone themselves since Zeke and Wolf’s Blood had arrived.

“Will Wolf’s Blood be all right?” Jeremy asked.

Zeke looked at the son who was so different from Wolf’s Blood. He loved Jeremy as any man loved a son, but he knew the two of them would probably never think alike. He felt that Jeremy Monroe would be one of those who would run from his Indian blood. “He’ll be all right, son … in time.”

The boy swallowed and stared at the big, wild man who was his father, a man he knew he could never be like. “I helped with all the chores, Father, like you said to do before you left.” He swallowed. “I worked real hard.”

“That he did,” Lance put in, walking over to sit down at the table. “He’s a hard worker, that one.”

Zeke saw the boy’s hopeful eyes, hopeful that he had somehow pleased his father. Zeke gave him a smile, aware that the boy always felt he was being compared to Wolf’s Blood. It wasn’t Jeremy’s fault that he was more white than Indian. Each of the children was different, unique in his or her own way. “Jeremy’s the hardest worker on the ranch,” Zeke said to Lance, his eyes still on Jeremy. Jeremy’s eyes lit up and his face reddened slightly.

“I’m not afraid of Thunder anymore,” the boy told Zeke, speaking of one of the wilder Appaloosas. “I rode him twice while you were gone, Father.” The boy had always been afraid of horses, taking much longer to get used to them and to learn to ride properly than
his older brother and his two older sisters.

“Well then, we’ll have to go for a ride tomorrow and you can show me how well you’re doing,” Zeke answered.

“Really? Just the two of us, like you and Wolf’s Blood do sometimes?”

Zeke’s smile faded. He knew he was guilty of paying more attention to Wolf’s Blood than to the other children, but it hadn’t been deliberate. It was just that Wolf’s Blood was a replica of his father, not just in looks but in nature. Their closeness and keen understanding of one another had been natural and easy. “Yes, just the two of us,” he told Jeremy. “We’ll talk. Maybe we can learn to understand each other a little better. You can tell me about your studies and some of that fancy book learning your mother has taught you, and I’ll teach you more about riding.”

The boy smiled and nodded, and Zeke looked toward the door, then rose. “All of you eat now. I’m going out to try to get Wolf’s Blood to come back inside.”

“Mama killed a deer all by herself!” little Jason spoke up, his young and happy mind oblivious to the gravity of the day. “A great big one with horns!” He put his hands at the top of his head and stuck his fingers up.

Zeke looked over at his wife in surprise and she blushed. “I was just walking, carrying Pa’s Spencer for protection, and I just… came upon him … standing there looking at me. So I shot.”

Zeke flashed the handsome grin that always warmed her heart, and the mention of her “kill” seemed to break some of the tension around the table. She thought of telling him about the Englishman coming to visit that day, but she decided not to do so, suspecting it might upset him. There would be a better time to tell him.
Praying that none of the children would bring the subject up just then, she shot a warning look at Margaret and Lance.

“Well, Abbie girl, it looks like you’ve still got what it takes to survive out here, woman. First it’s Crow Indians, then outlaws, now a deer. I told you you’d quit feeling sorry for those animals someday when you thought about all the hungry mouths we have to feed.”

She rose to help Margaret put supper on the table. “He was just standing there as though God sent him to me, so I shot him. But I properly thanked his spirit.” She met Zeke’s eyes and saw a strange sadness there, as though he was sorry she had had to be a part of putting food on the table. She hoped his Indian pride was not injured. Cheyenne men took great pride in being the hunters, the providers. His dark eyes roved her lovely form. “You’re some woman, Abbie.” He winked then. “Did you save the rack?”

She blushed again and picked up a spoon. “It’s in the barn.”

“The barn! That’s no place for a woman’s first hunting souvenir. We’ll bring it inside and hang it on the wall for everybody to see.”

Their eyes held for a moment longer, then he turned to go out.

“Zeke!” Abbie spoke up. “You didn’t mention Tall Grass Woman.”

He had already told himself to be prepared for the question, for Abbie and Tall Grass Woman had been close in the days when they could frequently be among the Cheyenne. Abbie had even saved Tall Grass Woman’s daughter from drowning that first year Abbie lived among the People, but the little girl had since died from cholera.

“Tall Grass Woman was among the survivors at the
Smoky Hill,” he told her. “She and Falling Rock are all right. She said to give you her love. She and a lot of the other peaceful ones will be heading for Kansas soon.”

Abbie sighed deeply. “Thank God. I hope I can see her again.” She turned back to her cooking and Zeke quickly left. He apparently had fooled her, for he did not intend to tell her yet that he had found Tall Grass Woman at Sand Creek, slain alongside her husband and son, mutilated like the others. He would not put that burden on his wife right now. She had enough on her shoulders. There would be a better time to tell her.

Inside the cabin, Abbie sliced some bread, her heart heavy for her husband. Something was different about him since his return. It was as though some of the fight had gone out of him in spite of his encounter with the buffalo hunters. That was a single fight, but what was happening to the Cheyenne was occurring on a much larger scale. It was something one man could do nothing about. Sand Creek had had a great effect on Zeke Monroe, and it would take some time to get over it. She felt an odd apprehension that she could not put her finger on. It went deeper than the fact that Wolf’s Blood might go north, although that would be very hard on Zeke. More had been lost at Sand Creek than lives, something much more important had been trampled there … something called spirit. She felt her husband slipping away from her, even though he was present in body. Their love had survived many terrible tests. Could it survive the demise of the Cheyenne?