Climb the Highest Mountain (17 page)

“No. Not me. Only you. You’re inventing things in your mind that are not true, Zeke.”

He studied her honest, loving brown eyes. “Perhaps. But I don’t think so.” He pulled the dress down to expose her breasts, touched them with the back of his hand, lingering for a moment on the scar at one breast left by the arrow wound she’d received when she was only fifteen. He remembered removing the arrow himself. “I have always loved you, Abbie, but perhaps
we have lost too much this time.”

He put both hands to her face then, grasping it firmly and leaning up to kiss her, devouring her mouth hungrily, searching with his tongue, suddenly kissing her almost painfully as he laid her back and began moving more urgently, as though he might never make love to her again.

He kissed her over and over, moving his lips from her mouth to her cheek, her throat, her breasts; tasting the full pink fruits willingly offered only to Zeke Monroe. Bringing his lips back to meet her mouth and stifle her whimpers of sorrow and to quell all objections, he kissed the tears that flowed gently across her temples and into her ears. He continued to kiss and caress her and to whisper her name until he felt her relax; then he sat up and quickly removed her clothes. After he worked his way out of the buckskin leggings and loosened his loincloth, he pulled her farther onto the luxurious bed, pressing against her, grasping her tightly, and kissing her almost savagely as he bent one leg up to force hers apart.

She was barely able to breathe as he pressed her breasts against his bare chest with firm possessiveness, seemingly unaware of his injuries or of the pain they brought him.

“Abbie, my Abbie! What have I done to you!” he groaned, his hands and lips seeming to be everywhere, searching, gently loving, tasting, caressing, as though he must enjoy every inch of her and do everything possible with her so that he could remember her forever.

How long they ravaged one another she wasn’t sure. Visions of him clinging to LeeAnn and fighting desperately for his daughter tore at her heart. Her mind seemed ready to explode, so laden was it with fear of
what might happen to her precious LeeAnn, named after her own sister who had died at the hands of cruel renegades. It didn’t seem right to be making love now, yet this man had suffered terribly over the abduction, both physically and mentally. He needed this one last moment. She knew he would draw strength from it, but more than that, she sensed a terrible desperation about him as he moved over her, a sense of finality that made her give in to him simply because she, too, knew this could be the last time. He could die at the hands of the Comanches, yet she knew that was not the real threat. The real threat was that something had already died inside this man. His son was gone, all of his brothers except Dan and Swift Arrow were dead, and his daughter had been stolen away, along with his precious Appaloosas, his very livelihood. A great deal of his pride had also been stolen, and Sir Edwin S. Tynes posed a threat to him much greater than that of the land and its elements. She felt almost as though he were saying good-bye. He could not seem to get enough of her, and when he planted himself inside of her it was with painful force.

Minutes after he’d finished with her, it started all over again. Very little was said, but his own tears fell on her cheeks as he took her again, this time more gently. Then he simply held her, pulling up the luxurious quilts around them and holding her close while outside a gentle but cold rain splashed against the windows.

She wasn’t sure how long she lay there in the comforting warmth of his arms before she fell into a deep, badly needed sleep, and only a few hours later she awoke. At first she snuggled down under the warm quilts. It took a moment for her mind to come back to reality. Then the horrible vision returned—LeeAnn!
Her beautiful LeeAnn being whisked away by the cruel Comanches. What would happen to her lovely daughter? LeeAnn! She sat bolt upright, calling for Zeke, realizing with even harsher reality that he was not in the bed, not even in the room.

She quickly rose, hurrying to the nearby washbowl to wash herself before dressing. She picked up the brush lying on the washstand and ran it through her long, thick hair; then she twisted the locks into a bun, securing it with the combs that had lain scattered on the pillows and sheets since Zeke had undone her hair while making love to her. She put her hands to her still-flushed cheeks and was embarrassed to go out. Surely Sir Tynes would know what had taken place. She breathed deeply for composure. What did it matter? She and Zeke were husband and wife and they had a right to say good-bye in whatever fashion they chose. Zeke was probably ready to go, and she must see him once more before he left. She was devastated that she had not awakened when he’d gotten up.

She hurried out the door and down the stairs, calling his name. But the house was still and cold. She looked around the large entranceway in confusion, unsure where to find her husband in the huge house. Then Sir Tynes came rushing in from one of the many rooms.

“Mrs. Monroe!”

“Where is he? Where is Zeke?”

The man’s eyes softened with pity and he frowned. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Monroe. Zeke is gone.”

She grasped her stomach. “Gone!”

Tynes’s eyes ran over her body. He longed to have been the one to have so recently bedded her, but only Zeke Monroe enjoyed that privilege.

“Yes. He came down perhaps an hour and a half ago
and told me I must not wake you under any circumstances, that you needed your rest and that… that it was better this way. It was his wish, Mrs. Monroe.”

Her face paled and she shook her head. “No!” she whispered.

His heart ached for her. “I’m sorry. It was his wish. He did tell each of the children good-bye. I took all of them upstairs and insisted they all lie down and rest. The little girl—Lillian I believe you call her—she’s feverish and should stay in bed I think.”

Abbie wondered how much longer she would be able to breathe. Her throat was so tight from the need to scream and cry that she felt she was being strangled, and her heart hurt. She ran to the huge oak door that led outside and opened it, walking out onto a porch that overlooked the vast expanse of prairie that led south, an endless horizon into which Zeke Monroe had ridden. In her last memory of him, she lay in the warmth of his protective arms. Now he was gone, perhaps forever, and for some reason he had decided not to wake her, as though to say that this time it was too hard to say good-bye, perhaps because something had been lost between them that might never be regained.

She stared out at the cold, rainy horizon. Poor Zeke! He had ridden off alone into the dreary November day to risk his life, and just before he’d left his precious pride had been broken.

“He’s not even … healed yet,” she said desperately as Sir Tynes came up and stood beside her. “And he’s so … alone! So alone!”

“Please come inside,” Tynes told her. “You’ll take sick, Mrs. Monroe. I’m sure he’ll be back. Men like Zeke are survivors, are they not?”

She stared into the gray mist. If only she could have
held him once more, just once more, and told him how much she loved him … She hung her head and wearily walked back inside. Miles away Zeke Monroe was well on his way south, the cruel, stinging sleet mixing with the warm tears on his face and making the red war paint run and smear.

Chapter Ten

Wolf’s Blood bit off a piece of cooked beef and threw a fatty piece to Wolf. The animal swallowed it so swiftly he seemed to inhale it.

“This white man’s beef is not so good as buffalo meat,” Wolf’s Blood complained. “Not even as good as deer meat. There is too much fat, and no flavor.”

Swift Arrow nodded and swallowed, taking his knife then and slicing another piece off the large roast that hung over their tipi fire. “The flavor is better when you remember it is free, my nephew,” he answered.

Wolf’s Blood met his eyes and they both laughed. “It was a good day!” Wolf’s Blood then said between bites. He swallowed. “By the time the miners’ wagon train gets to Montana, there will be no cattle left at all. Our bellies will be full and theirs will be empty—or they will die of Cheyenne and Sioux arrows and bullets before they get there!”

Both chuckled again, and Swift Arrow threw a bone to Wolf. “This is a good time for the Sioux and Cheyenne,” he told the boy. “Together we are almost eight thousand strong. With leaders like Roman Nose—his great medicine helps him from being killed—and Red Cloud and Sitting Bull and Dull
Knife, we will not lose this fight for Paha-Sapa, Wolf’s Blood. The Black Hills are all we have left. Here is the center of the world. Here is where we belong. I have been so long with the Sioux that I feel I am Sioux somtimes. This is how it is for many of the northern Cheyenne. We are strong now. Those Bluecoats at Fort Connor are dying of starvation and sickness because we have them surrounded, and while they waste away, we fill our bellies with white man’s cattle and feed on the buffalo and antelope that they cannot escape the fort to find. By next spring they will give up this country. If not, even more will die.”

“That is why I am here, Uncle. To see soldiers die makes my heart happy. It feels good in my blood. After Sand Creek I will never get enough vengeance.” He threw his own bone to Wolf and wiped his hands on the knees of his pants, recalling with amusement that his mother would chide him for doing such a thing. The thought brought a longing to his heart, for he missed his mother and father fiercely. Still, his mission here was more important, and it felt good to live in the Indian way.

Swift Arrow watched the boy. He looked so much like Zeke that it made Swift Arrow miss his brother very much, yet there was an element of Abbie in the boy too, an element that Wolf’s Blood struggled against constantly, a soft, mannerly side that sometimes surfaced in little ways. Swift Arrow had no doubts about Wolf’s Blood’s ability as a warrior. Zeke had taught him well, and Swift Arrow himself had taught his nephew many things. Right now, the boy’s heart was hurting badly. That made it easier for him to raid and kill, but Swift Arrow wondered if the boy would go back to his home, once time healed some of the wounds. The boy refused to recognize that he had any white blood, but the fact remained that he did. He
could not forever deny it. For now, Swift Arrow was happy to have the boy with him. He was good company, and family. And he was struggling to become a man.

Swift Arrow wiped his own hands and stretched out against a pile of robes. He was a handsome man, forty years old now but still a strong, fighting man, hard-muscled and powerful, but shorter than Zeke. Yet he was a lonely man. His Cheyenne wife and son had died many years ago of a white man’s disease, and Swift Arrow had not chosen to marry another. Instead he’d put all his energy into fighting the white man. He was an honored Dog Soldier. Dog Soldiers did not marry.

The fire crackled quietly while Wolf’s Blood lit a thin cigar and puffed it, feeling manly as he did so. He breathed deeply of the smoky smell of the tipi and leaned against a backrest of chairlike design, made of woven willow shoots laced together with buffalo sinew and covered with skins. Wolf curled up and sighed, closing his eyes in sweet happiness, his wild belly full and his master close by. Outside there was laughter. Some of the men were recounting tales of battles, others gambled, and a few drank whiskey.

“I think tomorrow we will go on a buffalo hunt,” Swift Arrow spoke up. “It is good here. We are still free. Would you like to go out tomorrow and ride down a buffalo? It is very dangerous, but exciting for a man who enjoys danger.”

Wolf’s Blood grinned. “I will go.” He sighed and puffed the cigar again. “Father took me sometimes. He loved riding down the biggest cow he could find. He would talk about how her wild eyes looked up at him when he got to her side and they were running full out. Father always said to look into the eyes of a buffalo when she is right beside you, her great bushy head almost even with your own, is like looking death right
in the face and laughing. I have felt the same. It took me five hunts to finally kill my first buffalo. Once I shot one and she kept right on running, as though the bullet were no more than a rock being thrown at her.”

“You did well. It takes many a man more than five hunts to get his first buffalo. The buffalo is the greatest beast in the land. He belongs to the Gods. He was put here to sustain God’s People of the Plains.” The man sat up then. Picking up a stick and poking at the coals of the fire, he reached for more wood to build it up. “But now the white man is destroying the buffalo, Wolf’s Blood. I remember the first time I saw a great bull lying dead on the prairie, only a little of the meat taken, and the hide and head and all the usable parts left there to rot. It was a bad sign. I never forgot it. Now the white hunters come with their big guns to take more, and the iron horses are creeping across the land, scaring away the herds. Those that are not frightened away are shot by the white hunters to feed the men who build the roads for the iron horses. It is a sad thing to see. But we will fight to keep the whites from spreading into this land.” He tossed his long, black hair behind his shoulders, and a tiny bell tied into a hair ornament tinkled. He crossed his legs and stared at the fire. Wolf’s Blood smoked and watched his uncle, a handsome man, still hard and strong.

“Why did you not marry all these years, Uncle?” the boy asked. “I mean, I like girls.” He frowned. “I loved Morning Bird. I would have married her one day. I would have given many horses for her. Never will my heart stop hurting for her. Yet I know that one day I will probably love again, as my father said I would. I want to be a good warrior, but one day I would like to have sons. And I do not wish to go forever without a woman.”

Swift Arrow grinned. “There are plenty of loose
Arapaho women in camp, and some Cheyenne widows are willing to give a brave warrior his pleasure in return for food he has brought from a hunt or from a raid. There are ways for a man to find satisfaction without marrying. Good Dog Soldiers do not marry.”

“But what about a family? After your first wife died, did you never love another woman, never want sons?”

Swift Arrow’s smile faded and he stared at the fire, thinking of Abbie. Beautiful Abbie … The first year Zeke had brought her to live among the Cheyenne, Zeke had left for a while, and Abbie had been placed in Swift Arrow’s care. He had taught her many things about the Cheyenne that summer, had taken her along to the north for the Sun Dance, had protected her. At first he had highly resented Zeke bringing her to the People, for he’d hated all whites even then, especially white women. But Abbie was different. She was strong, determined, brave. She had already killed three Crow Indians, and later she had saved Tall Grass Woman’s daughter from the deep waters. Slowly his attitude toward her had changed, but too much the other way. For he had learned to love his brother’s white woman, secretly, respectfully, but with great passion, passion that could never be fed. Never would he speak of his love or do anything about it. Abigail Monroe belonged to his half brother and she had eyes for no other man.

“You are my son,” Swift Arrow said to Wolf’s Blood. “You are my family. Yes, I have wanted sons, but my desire to wipe out the whites is greater. Once in a while a widowed woman or one who likes all men comes and lives with me for a while, but I have not wanted to take a wife.” His dark eyes met Wolf’s Blood’s, and the boy saw a strange sorrow there, not just sadness because of the wife he had lost so many years ago. “Tell me, Nephew, how is your mother … truly? You said when you and your father found her, after those white men
took her, she was very sick in body and mind. Is she truly recovered?”

The boy took the cigar from his mouth and studied it. “She seems to be, but only my father could really tell you. I think it was hard for him to … touch her. He was afraid he would frighten her after what those men did to her. I think it was … a long time.”

The boy was surprised to see that his uncle’s hands were trembling. Suddenly, the man gripped the fat stick he was holding and snapped it in two. “Bastards!” the man growled, throwing the stick into the fire. Wolf’s Blood watched the stick burn, thinking how fat it was and how difficult it would be for any man to break it with his hands unless he was enraged. “I wish I had been there to help you kill those men!” Swift Arrow hissed. “Tell me again how they suffered!”

Wolf’s Blood grinned. “All I had to do was think about my mother being touched by them, and it was easy. Father and I tasted the sweetest revenge. We cut them many times, laughing at their screams. They died slowly, Uncle. Their filthy manparts went first, and we stuffed them into their own mouths to stop their screaming. Neither of us has ever regretted what we did to those men. And you know my father, what he can do with his knife. I learned many ways to torture a man that night. Winston Garvey’s body lies in many pieces, buried deep in the mountains north of Denver. He will never be found, nor will the two men who helped him torture my mother. For many weeks the Denver papers spoke of the disappearance of the rich man Winston Garvey.”

“And you are sure it was Garvey’s son you saw at Sand Creek?”

Wolf’s Blood nodded. “I have seen him before. He is ugly, and an Indian hater. He rode with Chivington that day. He injured me, but before I went down I sunk
my lance deep into his thigh. It scraped the bone so loudly I could hear the sound above the noise of the fighting, and as I fell myself I could hear his terrible screams. It was a good sound. I hope that he died, but I do not know.”

Swift Arrow reached over and picked up a rawhide shield with a beaded fringe and arrows painted on it. It looked very old and was quite faded. “Your mother made this for me, years ago,” he told the boy. “She made it so well that I can still use it.” He held the shield out to Wolf’s Blood, who took it, wondering how the conversation had changed so quickly from his encounter at Sand Creek to his mother. “Your mother is an honored white woman among the Cheyenne,” Swift Arrow was telling him. “Some of the younger ones do not understand why, and I worry that she might be hurt by some of the very Cheyenne she loves. But perhaps not. She speaks our language, understands us, and she has a goodness that shows in her eyes, a love that shines there for all men. She is without the hatred and scorn most white women show those who do not have white skin. And she is brave, strong. She is not like any white woman I have ever known. The first year your father brought her to us, I taught her many things, and Tall Grass Woman gave her a beautiful white tunic and my mother, Gentle Woman, painted your mother for the Sun Dance ceremony. Her lovely white skin was covered with many colors. Flowers were painted on her arms; a tiny horse was painted on one side of her face, an eagle on the other—your father’s signs. Her hair was braided, and she sat through the Sun Dance and did not faint as other white women would do if they witnessed that ritual. I was proud of her that day. I—”

He stopped suddenly when his dancing eyes met Wolf’s Blood’s. The younger man was staring at him knowingly. Swift Arrow had allowed himself to get
carried away, and now his smile faded at the look in Wolf’s Blood’s eyes.

“You love my mother,” the boy said quietly. “That is why you never married, isn’t it?”

Swift Arrow held the boy’s eyes steadily. “It is true. This is why I came north so many years ago. It was better that I was not near her. It only made the hurt in my heart much worse.”

“My father knows?”

Swift Arrow nodded. “He knows. We talked of it many years ago, when he saw the look in my eyes that you have just seen. Your mother is sweet and honorable. There were never any such thoughts in her heart for me. I was simply her husband’s brother, and I would not hurt her by telling her my true feelings. I think she suspects, just a little, but she does not know how deep the feelings are.”

Wolf’s Blood studied the faded war shield. “Now I understand many things—why you did not come and see us more often, why you seemed to abandon the southern Cheyenne. I thought you just loved to make war.” He handed the shield back to his uncle.

“That part is true, Wolf’s Blood. I have fought the white men settling in this land all my life, and I will continue to fight them. I have many wounds, but I will not be stopped unless a white man’s bullet enters my heart or my head. But I pray and fast and feel no fear. I will fight for many years to come.”

Their eyes held. “I… do not know how to feel, Uncle. She is my mother.”

Swift Arrow raised his chin. “And a beautiful and honorable woman. There is no reason for you to feel any different about her, or me. Abigail is the same as she has always been … and so am I. The only difference is now you know that I love her. That changes nothing. It will be our secret, my Nephew.
Now we both understand why we are here. We both have a love to forget and a vengeance to take, for we both hate the white man. That is all that is important now, to be good warriors and to die like men—in battle—not like women, not on the hated reservations.” His eyes were watery. “She is … happy now? She is well?”

The boy nodded. This was Swift Arrow, his favorite uncle. He loved him nearly as much as his father. “I think she is. My father is good to her. He was kind and patient after what happened to her, and their love is very strong.”

Swift Arrow smiled sadly. “
Ai.
This is true. Everyone can see their love, and my brother is a good man, also honored among the Cheyenne, one of the most skilled, one of the bravest. And he is a very lucky man to have found such a woman. But it has been hard for him, for sometimes he wants to ride with his red brothers.”