Wild Thunder (27 page)

She clung to Strong Wolf and brushed those worries aside as she became lost in the moment of his lingering kiss.

Oh, is it not enough to be
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.

—S
ARA
T
EASDALE

 

 

 

The October autumn sky was sapphire-clear. Crimson thickets lined the creeks under parasols of tall golden cottonwoods. The angry, thin cry of a red-tailed hawk could be heard from downriver. And flying higher than Strong Wolf had ever seen them fly, was a flock of circling buzzards, probably migrating.

Strong Wolf noticed the buzzards ever closer now, drifting south. Somber creatures, they drew big circles in the sky, sometimes going back north, but always ending in each swing a few yards farther south.

Astride their horses and wagons laden with their belongings tucked in deerskin pouches, Strong Wolf and Hannah rode at the lead, Swallow Song riding her gentle mare at Strong Wolf's left side, the Potawatomis people trudged onward, their Kansas Territory village now in sight.

Touched by those who had braved the long journey, no matter their age, Hannah looked over her shoulder one last time before entering the village. One bent old grandmother trudged along on foot, leaning heavily against a crooked cane. Toothless warriors, like the old women, came more slowly, though mounted on lively ponies.

Warriors the same age as Strong Wolf sat proudly erect on their horses. Some wore their eagle plumes and waved their various trophies of former wars as they saw their friends and relatives at the village catch sight of them, now coming in a fast run toward them on the road.

As they entered the village, Hannah saw that several large black kettles of venison were suspended over the great outdoor fire, for Strong Wolf had sent a party of warriors on ahead to pass along the news to his people that he and those who followed him from Wisconsin would soon be arriving.

The tantalizing aroma of other foods cooking in the coals of the fire wafted through the air, causing Hannah's stomach to growl. She placed a hand on her stomach, smiling, to know that she had made it just fine on the journey from Wisconsin. Her child was still safely tucked within her womb. Soon she would be able to feel its soft kicks.

Hannah rode proudly beside her husband as his people flocked around him and the travelers.

They reached up and touched.

They cried and shouted.

They clung and kissed.

It was a happy reunion, one that had been too long in coming.

But there were those who saw the importance of finishing their labors in the cornfields before the sun set in the west. They stopped and stared, their faces beaming with happiness, then returned to their labors that would feed their people, as a whole, during the cold winter.

Hannah looked in the distance and saw these men and women resume harvesting the corn, husking it, pulling the husks down so that the ears could be braided together. Those wide braids of corn, along with squash cut in circles, would be strung to dry from the rafters of their lodges.

As they rode farther into the village, Hannah saw large canvases spread upon the grass, where sweet corn was drying on it. Small children guarded it from birds and animals.

Hannah smiled as she watched one little girl playing with a doll made from an ear of corn. She was braiding the soft fine silk for hair, and gave it a blanket from the scraps found in her mother's workbag.

Hannah was reminded of the little girl who gave her doll to her as a token of friendship. If Hannah had a daughter, this doll would be her very first toy.

Then Hannah's gaze was taken elsewhere, when she heard some warriors talking loudly and excitedly to Strong Wolf as Strong Wolf drew tight rein before his lodge. Hannah stopped beside him, giving Swallow Song a soft smile as she also drew her mare to a gentle stop on Hannah's left side.

Hannah listened as the men spoke in part Potawatomis tongue, and then in English. She gathered from what they said, that in Strang Wolf's absence, several settlers had moved in on land that belonged to the Potawatomis.

Strong Wolf quickly dismounted. Hannah slid slowly from her saddle and went to Swallow Song and helped her down to the ground.

“And why did you do nothing to stop them?” Strong Wolf said, trying to keep his voice steady, when in truth, his insides were a burning inferno of frustration.

“We went and told them to leave,” White Beaver said, clutching fast to his rifle. “They looked at us as though they did not see us and resumed building their lodges. And now they are in our fields! They are harvesting corn from the patch of land they claim now as theirs!”

“And what did you do when they looked at you as though they saw nothing?” Strong Wolf said, angrily folding his arms across his chest.

“We warned them again that they were trespassing, and that no good would come from it,” White Beaver said, his eyes narrowed with hate. “But we did not actually threaten them. We did not see it as our place to start a war with whites. We did not want to feel responsible for the deaths of any of our people. We waited for you to make this decision since you are now chief and the wisest of us all.”

“And did you not go to Colonel Deshong?” Strong Wolf said, glaring from warrior to warrior.

“He is no longer at Fort Leavenworth,” White Beaver said. “He has been replaced by a much younger white man. This younger man listens, but does nothing about this invasion on our land. You can tell that he is a man of prejudice. He will see us all leave and be happy for it!”

“This land is ours by treaty,” Strong Wolf stated. “And no one, especially not a young colonel, is going to remove us from it.”

Hannah and Swallow Song's hands were clutched tightly as they stood back and listened to Strong Wolf's building rage.

“Nor will we allow trespassers on land that is ours by treaty!” Strong Wolf shouted, waving a fist in the air. “We will remove them and if the young colonel comes to us with threats, I will personally escort him from our land!”

“But this might bring us into a war that none of us wants,” another warrior shouted. “And do you not see, Strong Wolf? You have only today brought our beloved relatives to their new home! Must we already be thinking about moving them to another? If we retaliate against the whites, they might, in turn, retaliate against us.”

“We will fight for what is ours, and if warring is required, so be it!” Strong Wolf cried.

He looked around him, at the throng of people, old and young, weak and strong, and knew that this was the only way. He must make a stand now, or never be able to again. If he and his people were forced from this land by an act of cowardice on their parts, then they would never be a people of pride again!

“Gather up your weapons,” Strong Wolf shouted. “We shall go now and send the whites from our land.” He laughed sarcastically. “They think they can have a crop that was nurtured by Potawatomis hands? They are foolish to think so little about the Potawatomis's pride and strength! We will burn their homes! We will take what they have harvested!”

He laughed throatily. “We might even thank them for the effort they saved our people!”

Hannah went to Strong Wolf. “Please don't do this,” she said desperately. “So much is at stake, darling.” She placed her hand on her abdomen. “Our child, Strong Wolf. If anything happened to you . . .”

He placed a gentle hand across her mouth. “My woman, it is because of the child that I do what I must today to make a safe place for our child's future,” he said solemnly. “Please go inside our lodge with Mother. I will return home soon. You will see then that there was no reason to doubt the abilities of your husband.”

Hannah paled. “I don't doubt you,” she murmured, easing his hand from her lips. “It's just that . . .”

Again he interrupted her. “I will return home soon and then we can all celebrate coming together as one with my people,” he said reassuringly. “It has been a long time since my people have all been together under one umbrella of sky.”

He cast a sharp glance at the darkening heavens. Then he looked around him. “Let us leave now before the inky black of night will distort what we wish to achieve,” he shouted, swinging himself into his saddle.

He gave Hannah a lingering gaze, and then his mother, then he grabbed his rifle from the gun boot at the side of his horse and waved it in the air.
“Aieee,”
he cried, the war cry sending spasms of fear up and down Hannah's spine.

She watched him ride away until he was lost from sight, then she took Swallow Song's hand and led her inside their lodge. Someone had come ahead of them and had gotten a comforting fire started, that which was needed on these cool days of October.

Hannah trembled as she sat down on a pallet of furs before the fire with Swallow Song at her side, but not so much from being chilled, as it was from being afraid. “Our future was so beautifully etched out, until tonight,” she murmured as she gave Swallow Song a wavering look. “Swallow Song, you haven't said anything. Please tell me how you feel about everything.”

“I trust my son's judgment in all things,” Swallow Song said softly. She reached a comforting hand to Hannah's arm. “Please relax and do not worry so much. You must think of the child.” She smiled sweetly. “I have had only one child in my lifetime, and it has been so long since I held that child in my arms. I so look forward to holding my grandchild. It will be like heaven on earth for this woman who never married again, and whose womb has been long barren.”

“It is good to have you here,” Hannah said, suddenly pulling Swallow Song into her arms. “We will be such fast friends. Your grandchild will adore you.”

Hannah never once mentioned her fears of her child having the dreaded seizures. And she was going to guard the secret well, so that her child would never know such seizures existed, unless the child experienced the seizures himself.

“Perhaps we should eat,” Swallow Song said. “It has been awhile since we have. It is not good for the child if you do not eat at regular intervals.”

“I don't think I can stomach food right now, not while I am concerned over Strong Wolf's welfare,” Hannah said, settling back down on the pallet, her eyes watching the fire caressing the logs.

“I will go and get something,” Swallow Song said, rising to her feet. “You
must
try to eat.”

Hannah gave Swallow Song a weak nod.

When Swallow Song left, Hannah looked slowly around the cabin. Ever since she had known that she was with child, she had thought of how wonderful it would be for the child to be there, to share life with them.

Now if anything happened to Strong Wolf . . . !

Though bright her eyes' bewildering gleams,
Fair tremulous lips and shining hair,
A something born of mournful dream,
Breathes round her sad enchanted air.

—P
AUL
H
AMILTON
H
AYNE

 

 

 

As the setting sun cast an orange glow along the horizon in the west, Strong Wolf and his warriors surrounded the cornfield where several white people were plucking corn from the cornstalks.

Strong Wolf sent several other warriors to the settler's houses that had been built on Potawatomis soil. He had instructed them to hold those white people as prisoners. He would come, as chief of his people, to each cabin, and set the law down himself. He would personally see that they left, and if they dared not to, it would be up to him to decide what their fate might be.

But he had smugly known that the show of force on the part of the Potawatomis should frighten the whites into fleeing.

Strong Wolf held onto his rifle and rode up to the men and women who had been harvesting corn until they had caught sight of the Potawatomis warriors.

They now cowered together, their eyes filled with fright, as Strong Wolf drew rein before them.

“You are illegally on land of the Potawatomis,” he said, his voice tight with anger. “Why do you think you have the right to harvest corn that was planted by someone besides yourselves?”

“This land belongs to whomever squats on it,” a bulbous-nosed, middle-aged man said as he stepped forth in bib overalls, his face bronzed by the wind and sun. “Now git!”

“You speak bravely, yet your voice reveals the fear behind the words that you speak,” Strong Wolf said, his lips tugging into a tight smile.

Strong Wolf shifted his gaze to the two women and the children clinging to their skirts.

Then he turned cold eyes back to the man whom had seemingly appointed himself the spokesman.

“If you value the lives of these women and children, you will turn your eyes and voice from me, gather them protectively within your arms, and usher them from land that belongs to the Potawatomis by treaty!” Strong Wolf said with force, chuckling when the man obviously understood now that Strong Wolf meant business.

Slowly the man stepped back away from Strong Wolf, through the rows of stalks of corn, his eyes wide.

“I am chief of my people and whatever I choose to do with you, will be done,” Strong Wolf threatened as he edged his horse closer with each of the man's steps backward. “Had I not been gone to guide the rest of my people to this land that is now ours, I would have been here to stop you from building your lodges and taking the land as though it was yours. You would have not cut down that first tree, and you would have not taken our first ear of corn.”

Strong Wolf continued to hound the man as he edged his horse still closer while the man stumbled and clawed his way back to his family. “This chief is here to stay, and I will make sure that once you are gone, you will not return,” he growled. “Take your families. Run. And do not look back at your lodges. I will take care of that for you. I will burn them and all of your possessions to the ground.”

When the man paled and gasped, Strong Wolf smiled slowly again. “Now do you see why it would have been best had you heeded the warnings of my warriors when they first came to you and told you that you were trespassing? At that time you could have saved all but your houses when you left,” he said somberly. “Now you lose everything but yourselves and the steeds that carry you away.”

“Please don't. . . .” the man pleaded. “It has taken a lifetime to build up our possessions into something worthwhile. Please let us get them before we leave.”

“It has taken the Potawatomis a lifetime to gain respect from the whites, and still we do not have it. Why should this Potawatomis chief be generous to you who would again take from us what is ours?” Strong Wolf said, raising his rifle threateningly into the air.

“No!” Strong Wolf then shouted. “Nothing but your skin and bones and your steeds will be saved. Feel blessed for even that, for at this moment I feel vengeance inside my heart more than I have ever felt it before in my life. It sickens me to think that you, just because you are white, feel that you can take from us, whose skin is red. You have been misguided in that logic, white man. Now leave! And do not go to the fort with your complaints. I soon will be there myself to tell them what happened here today. You are thieves. Do you wish to be hanged over this land that was not yours?”

“No, I . . . we . . . don't wish anything now but to be able to go on our way,
alive,
” the man stammered. He turned and ran to his children and swept one up in each of his arms. He shouted at his wife to follow him. The other man and woman and children also ran off in a panic.

Strong Wolf's heart ached to know that he had been placed in the position to treat people so unfairly, for he knew that he should have allowed them to take their possessions.

But lessons must be taught so that these white people might not try to repeat their thievery elsewhere.

He rode slowly behind the people, his warriors following him. When he reached their small plots of land, where they had built neat cabins side by side, Strong Wolf stopped and waited for them to leave.

After they were gone, he gestured toward the cabins with his rifle. “Burn them to the ground!” he shouted as he looked over his shoulder at his warriors.

He sat glumly quiet in his saddle until the cabins were only smoldering ashes, then rode on to the next squatter's land and again supervised the burning of the lodge, until all of the whites were gone, and all of their lodges were destroyed.

“It is done except for facing the colonel at Fort Leavenworth!” Strong Wolf shouted, again waving his rifle in the air. “Let us go and introduce ourselves to him in the right way!”

His warriors whooping and hollering on all sides of him. Strong Wolf rode off toward the fort.

Just before arriving, he drew his reins tight and wheeled himself around to face his men. “Place your rifles in their gun boots,” he said somberly. “We must arrive at the fort with dignity. We also do not wish to enter the fort's gates with war cries on our breath! We must remember, at all costs, that the young colonel sees us as peacemakers. We must make him understand why the settlers' homes were destroyed, and why they were forced from our land!”

His men nodded. Then they rode onward.

When they reached the fort, there was a commotion of activity, for the soldiers had seen the fires in the distance and were prepared to go and see what had caused them.

Strong Wolf and his men blocked the gate so the soldiers could not leave.

The young colonel, all spruced up in full uniform, his pant legs creased neatly, rode up to Strong Wolf on a beautiful white stallion. “And what is the meaning of this?” he asked, his hand resting on his sheathed saber.

“I am Chief Strong Wolf,” Strong Wolf said, his voice void of emotion. “I have recently returned from a long journey from Wisconsin. When I arrived home, I found settlers squatting on land of the Potawatomis. These people were even bold enough to harvest Potawatomis corn, to be used in the pots of the white people.”

Strong Wolf nodded over his shoulder at the smoke in the distance. “Strong Wolf sent the people away, set fire to the lodges that were illegally on Potawatomis land that is ours by treaty, and have come now to set things right with you,” he said in a dignified yet threatening tone. “I was told that Colonel Deshong is no longer in charge here.”

“That is so,” Colonel Mooney said, nodding stiffly. “And I regret having to make your acquaintance under such uncomfortable conditions.” He reached a cautious handshake out for Strong Wolf. “I am Colonel Mooney.”

“Is it true that you refused to send the whites from our land when my warriors came and asked your assistance in my absence?” Strong Wolf said blandly, ignoring the proffered hand.

“Yes, I was not quite sure about this land that you claim as yours.” Colonel Mooney said, swallowing back a fear that was creeping up his spine, a fear he had always had of Indians. He slowly eased his hand down to his side.

“Why did it have to be proven to you in such a harsh way?” Strong Wolf said, sidling his horse closer to the colonel's. “Surely you were instructed by Colonel Deshong about this land that is ours by treaty. Did you not listen, or did you not care to? Are you a man of prejudice?”

“Why, no, certainly not,” the young colonel uttered. He looked past Strong Wolf and saw just how many Indians had accompanied him to the fort. He cursed his orders from Washington, lessening the number of soldiers at Fort Leavenworth since there was peace between the white and red man. Now he wished that he had refused this post! He was being forced to allow the Indians to have the upper hand, for their number was twice that of the fort's.

“Then I can return to my people and tell them that there will be no more intrusions on our land?” Strong Wolf said, smiling to himself when he saw the young colonel's frustration.

“Yes, I will see that nothing like this happens again,” Colonel Mooney said, nervously raking a forefinger between his tight collar and scrawny neck. “No more settlers will take land that is yours.
And
there will be no retaliation over you having burned the settlers' cabins.”

“You are a wise man,” Strong Wolf said, then reached a hand of friendship toward the young colonel. “Come soon and make council with Strong Wolf.”

The young colonel hesitated, then his hand shook as he clasped it around Strong Wolf's. “I would be delighted to have council with you,” he said evenly.

Strong Wolf clasped Colonel Mooney's hand for a moment longer, then released it, wheeled his horse around and rode from the fort, his warriors following close behind. Strong Wolf sank his heels into the flanks of his horse and sent his steed into a hard gallop, anxious to resume what had been sidetracked by the news of the whites having settled on his land.

The inky black of night hung over the land like a dark shroud when he rode into his village.

Hannah heard the approach of the horses. She ran from the cabin, and tears splashed from her eyes when she saw Strong Wolf in the lead of the warriors who had come home victoriously.

Strong Wolf saw her standing there. He reined in quickly and slid from his saddle, then went to Hannah and grabbed her up into his arms and swung her around, laughing.

“We showed them!” he shouted. “There will be no more trouble from the whites! They know better than to trespass on our land again!”

Hannah held her head back and laughed, so happy, so relieved!