Meet the New Dawn (15 page)

She smoothed the long, dark hair, so soft and shining, with only a hint of gray around his temples and forehead. “You … you are all right, aren’t you, Zeke? I mean … there isn’t anything seriously wrong, other than you realize you’re getting older … and I guess we do need the money. Tell me there’s nothing else wrong, Zeke!”

He leaned back and placed his hands at either side of her face, squeezing gently. “There’s nothing else wrong. And I’ll only go out on short patrols, I promise. You know I don’t like being away from you. The longest I’ll be away at a time will be a month, if I can help it, and sometimes it will only be a week or two. And sometimes Wolf’s Blood will stay here. But I’ll be here more than I’m gone. So relax, Abbie-girl.” He kissed her cheek and walked out into the main room, where Margaret was clearing the table.

Some were still giggling, and Wolf’s Blood was happy to see that his parents were no longer angry with each other. He took Sonora’s hand.

“Come with me to my tipi for awhile. We will talk,” he told her eagerly. She hesitated, pulling back her hand. “It is all right. I mean you no harm, Sonora. I only want to talk—to learn about the Apache ways. Just for a while. Then I will take you to Margaret’s cabin.”

Zeke grinned to himself, turning to poke at nearly dead coals in the potbellied heating stove. The nights were always cool on the plains, even in summer. A small fire was usually kept going. When he looked up again, Sonora was following Wolf’s Blood out the door. He thought about Abbie—only fifteen when he made a woman of her, and he was twenty-five. It seemed like perhaps a month ago, not twenty-six years. He didn’t really feel any different, except for the damned pain in his joints. At least it was summer again, and he enjoyed some relief. He looked at his daughter, Margaret, an Indian beauty, as lovely as Wolf’s Blood was handsome. Her dark hair hung long and loose,
reaching almost to the roundness of her hips. She and Morgan were happy. That was good. That gave him some relief.

These two oldest children of his were the most Indian, and closest to their parents. He wondered for a moment about LeeAnn. She had been on his mind so often. What did she look like now? What was she doing now? Should he go east and try to find her? No. What would be the use? He would only embarrass her, and that brought great pain to his heart. Again came the wave of terror that he would never see her again before he died. And perhaps he would never see Jeremy either. They heard little from either of them now, just occasional letters to verify that they were doing fine.

But then there were Ellen and Jason. They were good children, a grand mixture of Indian and white, looking mostly white. He enjoyed Jason. Jason was a good son—a hard worker, too. Jason would always be dependable.

The house was suddenly quiet, as everyone had left but Margaret. She dried her hands and walked over to her father, putting a hand on his shoulder as he closed and latched the stove door. He looked up at her, then rose. How sorry she was about the time he’d had to go to Denver to try to drag her out of a brothel. But that terrible time was over. She was home now.

“I love you, Father,” she said quietly.

He kissed her forehead. “Thanks for taking everybody in for the night.”

She smiled and left, and the only sound was the ticking of a mantle clock that Zeke had bought for Abbie many years ago in Santa Fe. She treasured the clock. The first time she used it, it sat on a log inside a tipi. How swiftly the years had gone by! He looked at the curtained doorway to their bedroom. How many times had he passed through it and shared her body on the bed of robes? Now it was a brass bed. They had started out with only a few personal belongings and horses they rode into his family’s village. It seemed a lifetime ago, and in this land twenty-six years very often was a lifetime at that. What if the arthritis did kill him? He had already lived much longer than some men lived in this lawless land. Poor little Lillian had only lived to be seven. All his brothers but Swift Arrow and Dan were dead. All of Abbie’s family was gone by the time she was
fifteen. And here they still were, alive, together.

He walked through the doorway, but she was not in the brass bed. She sat on the bed of robes in the corner of the room, a furry robe pulled over her nakedness, her hair brushed out long. “This bed fits you better,” she told him. “And I hope you know how utterly embarrassed I’m going to be at breakfast in the morning.”

He grinned and removed his shirt. “Why? They all know we’re still lovers.”

“Of course they do. But we don’t usually announce when we’re going to make love.”

He removed his leggings and moccasins, chuckling to himself. “Actually I had more chores to do. But since I was already cleaned up for supper, and since they can wait till morning, I decided to hell with it.”

There was some other reason, she knew. The same reason he always made love to her more urgently now, why their lovemaking over the last couple of years had actually heightened rather than lessened, had become more beautiful and fulfilling if that were possible, for it had always been so.

He walked to the bed of robes and dropped to his knees. “Some things can wait,” he added, pulling the robe away from her. The lamp was dimly lit in the room, and her full breasts looked softly enticing. She reached out and untied his loincloth, always blushing when she did something so bold, even though she’d been with this man for so long. They had done these things many times, yet there were certain moments, special moments like this one, when the passion was more intense, the need greater than normal. She lightly touched that part of him that revealed his manhood, and she wondered what her life would have been like if she had not met this man on that fateful wagon train so long ago.

His breathing quickened, and he leaned down and lightly tasted the fruits of her breasts, his long hair brushing against her nakedness, a big hand moving teasingly over her thigh and bottom, around to her stomach and that secret place that belonged only to him, as he laid her back and kissed her hungrily. He felt her passion building as he explored the moist depths of her womanhood, making her weak and willing under
his touch, as she had always been at the hands of Zeke Monroe. His lips left her mouth, traveling down over her throat, her breasts, her stomach, lightly brushing the love nest that belonged only to Zeke Monroe and making her whisper his name.

He moved back up then, nuzzling her breasts, moving to her lips and embracing her, pulling her close and rolling onto his back. She looked down at him, her breasts touching his chest, her long, thick hair that still showed no gray framing her face. He studied the dark eyes that still glittered like a little girl in love. This time it was she who came down to meet his lips. He grasped her hair, holding her there and searching her mouth. Then he closed his eyes, as this time she moved over him, kissing the broad chest, the flat stomach, that part of him that had branded her his woman.

“Nemehotatse,”
she said softly, using the Cheyenne word for “I love you.” He grasped her hair again, gently pulling her back to his mouth and rolling her over, kissing her almost savagely then, moving between her still-slender legs. A moment later he was invading her, devouring her, reclaiming her, suddenly overwhelmed at the thought of the possibility she would have many more years left after he was gone. Would she live those years alone? Would she find another man eventually? She was so well preserved, still so pretty and desirable for her age. And she was such a beautiful woman in other ways—all the ways that pleased a man. Surely she would need … No! Not for a long time, anyway. Not for a long time! And he would make sure no other man matched him in her bed—make sure no other man would ever satisfy her in the ways Zeke Monroe could satisfy her. He would always be her first love, her favorite, her treasured one. She would hold no other man as dear, love no other man with the same passion!

They moved rhythmically, and it seemed to Abbie she could hear music—singing. It was an Indian love song the people had chanted at times around campfires. How long ago was that? She couldn’t remember. She could only see their smiling faces, see the young girls dancing for the men, some throwing their blankets over their favorite man, signifying that favoritism. She breathed deeply of her husband’s familiar scent, wanting
to remember it forever. She could see a tipi, its painted interior swirling around her—horses and buffalo, arrows and warriors. When she was with him this way, sharing not just bodies but soul and spirit, she could hear drums and war whoops. She was his captive woman and he had complete control over her, as he had always had from the first moment she set eyes on him and saw the loneliness in his own eyes.

They pushed against each other with such rhythm and emotion that when he finally finished with her they were both exhausted and perspiring. For several minutes they lay there saying nothing, only enjoying each other’s arms. She kissed his chest then.

“Tell me you won’t go for a while yet.”

“Not for a while. There’s always more to do around here in the summer. Don’t worry about it, Abbie.” He sighed deeply. “I’ve been thinking a lot again about LeeAnn. Do you think we should do anything more? Maybe I should go find her?”

Her throat tightened. How she wanted to scold LeeAnn for being so delinquent with her letters—for not coming to see them. She knew how it hurt Zeke. “I don’t think so, Zeke. The fact that she uses a post office box for a return address tells us what we need to know. She doesn’t want to be found, Zeke. When she is ready, she’ll come home.”

He kissed her hair. “I guess we can’t expect every child to turn out just the way we want. At least we have Margaret and the grandchildren. And Wolf’s Blood is here.” He frowned. “I just remembered. Wolf’s Blood took Sonora to his tipi—to talk, he claimed. That young man had better not take advantage of that pretty little thing.”

Abbie smiled. “I wouldn’t go over there thinking she needs rescuing, my husband. You saw how she looked at Wolf’s Blood. She worships him. But I sense a very honorable young lady—and Wolf’s Blood is an honorable young man. He won’t take advantage of her. I sense he doesn’t want to until he knows her better and he makes up his mind if he wants to make her his wife. He won’t just use that one, Zeke. I’m hoping she’s the answer to keeping him here and settling him even more. If they do marry, you’ll have to talk him into taking a legal white name, Zeke, and doing the same for his children—establishing
them as having white blood so there’s no worry with officials over making them go to a reservation or taking the children away and putting them in schools. I always worried about that with our own, and I was white. Wolf’s Blood looks all Indian and Sonora is definitely Indian, so they’ll have to be careful.”

He pulled her closer. “I don’t want to think about those things tonight. I just want to think about you, Mrs. Monroe. We don’t take enough time to think about just each other.”

“It’s hard to find that kind of time.”

He moved on top of her, kissing her hungrily again. “Well, we have the time tonight, and that’s just what we’re going to do—think about just each other and nothing else. And I am going to make love to you again before this night is over, maybe twice more. Who knows? I’m feeling very energetic tonight for an old man.”

She laughed lightly. “I dare anyone to call you an old man. You’ll never be old, Zeke Monroe.”

Their eyes held, and she wondered if the statement held more meaning than she meant it to. She remembered the eagle again and the way he had looked at it, remembered his promise many years ago that if anything happened to him, he would always be with her in the spirit of the eagle—that he would come to her and she would know.

“Make love to me again—right now,” she whispered. “I’m still full of passion, my husband. Why does it always last longer for the woman?”

He grinned. “So the man can take her twice without having to go through all the preparations again,” he answered, pushing his hardness against her flat stomach.

She reddened, but she did not argue the point. For however long she had him, they would do this, for it was right and good.

“Our nation is melting away like the snow on the sides of the hills where the sun is warm, while your people are like the blades of grass in the spring when the summer is coming.”

Charles Garvey threw the newspaper in the corner angrily. Imagine it! Red Cloud himself in New York, speaking to hundreds of eastern sympathizers! It was ridiculous! What
peeved him most was the eloquent way the damned Indian leaders had of speaking, as though they knew just the right things to say to curious easterners who were beginning to romanticize about the stinking red men of the plains. His job was cut out for him now. He would have to hit the papers with both barrels, stepping up his own articles and balancing off this ridiculous following that was building in sympathy for the Indians.

He rose and walked to a window, looking down on the quiet street below where fancy carriages transported all sorts of important dignitaries. He liked it here in Washington, liked the feel of it, the power that hung in the air. Let Red Cloud come to New York and make his pleas for help. It would never really work. It was only a matter of time before the Indians committed more depredations that would turn the public against them again. It was easy to arrange with men like greedy whiskey traders and dishonest agents to cheat the Indians just enough to keep the anger and vengeance going. He had the money for that. Go ahead and put them on reservations, but sell the good meat and provisions for a profit, and give the Indians sugared whiskey, rotten meat, and used provisions. The only good part about the Indian sympathizers was that although they raised a cry against cheating Indians and breaking treaties, they still agreed that Indians must be given land of their own.

Charles smiled. Sure. Give them land. Little did these eastern greenhorns know that in some places out west eighty acres would not support even one family. How could they know such things if they’d never been out there? Yes, the government would give the Indians land, thousands of acres—hundreds of thousands. That sounded good to the sympathizers. Little did they know the kind of useless land that would go to the red man. Nor did they realize that some Indians couldn’t survive out of their normal habitat. So much the better. Between the killing off of the buffalo and hot, mosquito-ridden reservation land, the Indian would die off quickly enough, and the government and cheating agents and traders would reap the rewards.