Wild Thunder (4 page)

She seemed to hear my silent voice!

—J
OHN
C
LARE

 

 

 

Doe Eyes, a beautiful Chippewa maiden, and the daughter of White Wolf and Dawnmarie, had learned of Hawk's journey to the Kansas Territory. Against her parents' wishes and ignoring their protests, she had found warriors to accompany her to the Kansas Territory in search of Hawk.

Riding on a gentle mare, she was on Hawk's trail even now. No one seemed to know why Hawk had just suddenly left Wisconsin. She only suspected why, and had planned to try and get to him before he did something he would regret for the rest of his life. Her parents believed that he was seeking his own destiny away from a demanding, unreasonable mother.

She
believed he was following the orders of this cruel, heartless mother. And she shivered inside to even think of what this might be.

Though troubled, Doe Eyes looked beautiful, serene, and confident as she rode her horse through tall, blowing grass. She wore a belted dress of animal skins left open on both sides to make her ride on the horse more comfortable. She wore a necklace of deer and panther teeth.

Her skin had a smooth copper sheen, her facial features were perfect. A single braid hung down her back.

As evening drew nigh, the sky in the west was red. Suddenly Doe Eyes heard a faint rumble of wild thunder in the faraway hills.

“Hawk, where are you?” she cried to the heavens.

Did you ever see a woman,
for whom your soul you'd give?
If so, 'twas she, for there never
was another so half fair.

—H. A
NTOINE
D'A
RCY

 

 

 

With a panther's tread, Strong Wolf moved noiselessly through the thick grass and placed the last stick of dynamite amid the rocks and rubble that still lay in place across the stream.

“The paleface lied,” Strong Wolf said as he stood back with his friend Proud Heart and gazed at the dam that had not been removed. It was noon, the next day after the visit to Chuck Kody's ranch.

“The rancher must have waited until I was gone, then told his foreman
not
to destroy the dam,” Strong Wolf growled out between clenched teeth. “How could I trust so easily?”

Since sunup today Strong Wolf and Proud Heart had waited and watched for the white men to come and tear down the dam, as promised, since it had not been torn down already.

When they realized that the dam was not going to be removed, they had gone to a shack that sat far back from the rancher's lodge, where they had seen Tiny store many sticks of dynamite. They had stolen several sticks of the dynamite and had returned determinedly to the dam.

“Do we have enough of the white man's power sticks in place?” Proud Heart asked, himself studying the dam. “Perhaps we should have removed the dam with our hatchets. There would be less danger involved, and noise.”

“We do not have the time to waste hacking away at limbs and debris with our hatchets,” Strong Wolf said flatly. “And, yes, we have enough dynamite sticks in place.”

“But the noise that dynamite makes is as powerful as the sticks are effective,” Proud Heart said. “It will draw the white men from the ranch.”

“Let them come,” Strong Wolf said, his eyes filled with an angry fire. “We have done what should have been done already.” He gave Proud Heart a smug smile. “And will we not be gone when the white men get here? We will leave this place as soon as we see that the dynamite has done its business.”

He placed a hand on Proud Heart's shoulder. “My friend, it is my plan to make things right for our people in all ways,” he said thickly. “What we do today assures our people water and fish without them having to travel so far to the river to get what is required for survival. And we gave the white men a chance to take back what they had placed on our own land. The man whose land lies adjacent with ours is deceitful. He only pretended to give the orders for his foreman to destroy the dam. But it will soon be done. That is all that matters.”

He dropped his hand to his side. “And, my friend,” Strong Wolf said, walking toward his horse, “let us finish what we have started. The sooner we have this chore behind us, the sooner you can return to your wife Singing Wind.”

“You should have a wife to go home to also,” Proud Heart said, walking beside Strong Wolf, but not to mount his horse. It was
his
duty to set the dynamite off, while Strong Wolf saw that no one was near who might get harmed by the blast.

“In time, Proud Heart,” Strong Wolf said, swinging himself into his saddle.

Proud Heart gazed up at him and cocked an eyebrow. “There seems to be something in the way you said that, that teases me into wanting to know if you may have met a woman,” he said. “Have you met a woman who tugs at the strings of your heart?”

“My friend, I would not urge you to travel this far from your own people, the Chippewa, whom you left behind in Wisconsin, to be with me as I searched for land for
my
people, the Potawatomis, only to keep secrets from you,” Strong Wolf said, grabbing up his reins. “I was not certain myself until yesterday that I had something to share with you. I did not tell you yet what transpired yesterday between myself and a woman because we have been occupied by other things besides idle chatter.”

“Than you
have
found a woman?” Proud Heart asked, eyes wide.

“There
is
a woman, and I have not had to travel far to look upon her loveliness,” Strong Wolf said.

“Then
who
?” Proud Heart prodded. “Where did you see her?”

“Her skin is fair, her hair is golden, her eyes are the color of grass,” Strong Wolf said, his insides afire at the mere thought of Hannah.

“You . . . are . . . in love with a white woman?” Proud Heart stammered out.

“Yes, and do not act as though you are appalled at my choice,” Strong Wolf said. “Is your mother not, in part, also white?”

“Yes, that is so,” Proud Heart said, nodding. “My mother is part white and part Kickapoo. But she claims the Kickapoo side of her heritage much stronger than her white. As you know, she plans to travel to Mexico to search for her Kickapoo people. She promised her mother long ago, before her mother passed on to the other side, that she would find her people before
she
grew too old to travel. That proves mother's dedication to the Indian side of her heritage, does it not? This woman who tugs at your heartstrings. Is she able to boast of being part Indian?”

“I have not been given the opportunity to question her about anything that I wish to know,” Strong Wolf said. “But I know without asking that, yes, she is all white by blood kin. Never have I seen anyone as fair as she.”

“Who, Strong Wolf?” Proud Heart said, leaning closer to Strong Wolf. “Tell me her name. Do I know her myself?”

“Yes, you know
of
her,” Strong Wolf said, his eyes dancing into Proud Heart's. “You have watched her as I have watched her ever since she arrived on the great white boat on the river a few sunrises ago.”

“The woman who now lives at the white man's ranch?” Proud Heart said, now recalling Strong Wolf having watched the woman from afar when they had seen her horseback riding with the skills and bravery of a man.

“She is the one,” Strong Wolf said, nodding.

“But is she not kin to the man who deceived us today?” Proud Heart persisted.

“Yes, she is his sister,” Strong Wolf said. “But that will not matter to me. I want her, not her brother. And I will have her.”

Strong Wolf wheeled his horse around. “Now, let us finish here what we have started so that perhaps I may see her again today,” he said thickly. “She so pleasures my eyes.”

“She
is
different in appearance than most women,” Proud Heart said, stepping back from Strong Wolf's steed. “She is tall. She is free-spirited, a woman who rides a horse like a man and who seems to know her mind as
well
as any man.”

“And that is what intrigues me about her,” Strong Wolf said, smiling down at his friend. “Now, prepare to set off the dynamite.”

He gave Proud Heart a steady stare. “Make sure I am far enough away,” he said somberly. “And also make sure you are safely hidden before the dynamite explodes.”

Proud Heart nodded, then turned and walked back toward the dam.

Strong Wolf watched his friend for a moment longer, then rode off in a soft lope, his eyes ever searching for anyone who might happen by on horseback.

As he looked, he went back over in his mind that which he and Proud Heart had just been discussing.

The woman!

In his mind's eye he saw her now, as though it were yesterday, and how there seemed to have been some magical force reaching between them, making them aware of their feelings for each other.

Until now he had never thought about falling in love this quickly, this intensely.

His head seemingly in the clouds, he rode onward, unable to think past Hannah's lovely smile, her beautiful hair, and how statuesque she was!

And he had seemed to have won a vote of approval from his best friend, for, except for those brief moments when Proud Heart had questioned him about Hannah's skin color, Proud Heart had not discouraged his interest in the white woman.

That made Strong Wolf smile, for Proud Heart was to him like a twin. All things good and bad they shared together. Their long affection had made them kin—brothers!

At first I viewed the lovely maid,
In silent, soft surprise.

—R
OBERT
D
ODSLEY

 

 

 

Dressed in a long riding skirt, a calico blouse, well-fitting boots, and wearing three-quarter length butter soft gloves, Hannah rode in a soft trot on a fine pinto horse. Silver earrings dangled from her pierced ears, and her long, luxuriant hair was held back from her face with small combs.

She rested a hand on the knife sheathed at her waist as she rode onward. Hannah felt dispirited, for she had been unable to sleep all night. She couldn't get Strong Wolf off her mind, or the dam. She had told her brother that she was going horseback riding this morning, while hiding the truth from him that she was actually going to see for herself if Tiny had followed her brother's orders and destroyed the dam.

She also hoped that she might see Strong Wolf again. He had awakened feelings inside her that she had never known were there. She hoped to be with him again, to test these feelings, these wondrous sensations that warmed her through and through.

And what was absolutely perfect, was that her brother and the Indian were friends. That would make her relationship with him, should he feel the same about her, less forbidden. She recalled how women were mocked and ridiculed back in Saint Louis when they had married an Indian brave.

Well, this wasn't Saint Louis, she thought stubbornly to herself. This was Kansas, where she was free to do as she
pleased
!

Smiling, confident of her feelings and with whom she wished to share them, Hannah rode onward.

It was summer on the plains. Fields of golden sunflowers faced eastward. Colonies of plants wandered across the hillsides.

When she reached the river, she rode slowly beside it and watched for the stream that forked away from it, where Tiny had placed the dam. The river was carried along on a weak current green with algae. Sometimes rocks and sometimes rich green moss fringed the riverbank. But for the most part, cottonwoods and sycamores held back the banks and probed the sky with their canopies.

Farther away, the oaks, hickory, and maple trees claimed the higher ground. In their shade grew the inner forest of pawpaws, buckeyes, and occasionally crab apple trees.

Most of the sunny places were dominated by walls of horseweeds. Some were left with a permanent lean in their growth, a reminder of the spring's higher water.

Finally she came to the stream that she was looking for. Slowly she rode beside it, her eyes searching for the dam, hoping she did not find it. If Tiny hadn't removed it, that would be a blatant show of disobedience of her brother's orders, which could cause her brother undue stress.

“I do so hope it's gone,” she whispered to herself as she edged her horse around a cluster of white birch trees. “Not only for my brother, but also for Strong Wolf. I would hate to think that he might blame my brother if Tiny . . . ?”

She got distracted for a moment by two groundhogs that were playing and chasing one another. She followed them into the trees and rode within the thick foliage beside the stream, where she could only now barely see the water.

Suddenly the groundhogs darted into small holes in the ground. Hannah shrugged and turned her horse back in the direction of the water, just in time to see the dam through a break in the trees a short distance away.

Anger filled her heart in hot splashes. “The damn nitwit,” she whispered to herself. “Tiny
didn't
do as Chuck told him.
Damn him
.”

Then when she came out of the cover of the trees and she was on the banks of the stream again, something else grabbed her attention. What she saw caused her heart to skip several beats and a cold sweat of fear to cover her.

She could hear the pounding of her blood in her ears as her eyes looked in jerks at the many sticks of dynamite that she saw positioned in various places in the dam. Then a cry of panic filled her throat when she saw the wick that crawled along the ground like a snake to a thick stand of rock and brush.

Proud Heart suddenly rose from behind his protective hiding place. He waved frantically at her. “The fuse has been lit!” he shouted. “I cannot stop it! Leave! Ride away quickly!”

Strong Wolf had rode up one side of the stream and down the other, his eyes watching.

When he heard Proud Heart shouting, his heart leapt with alarm.

Someone was dangerously near the dam.

And it was time for the dynamite to explode!

Who was near the dam?

Was it the rancher's men?

If so, should he even warn them?

Wouldn't it be a welcome loss if they died?

But not wanting to think such things, even if he did despise the small white man, he nudged his horse's flanks with the heels of his moccasins and raced along the banks of the creek to warn them.

When he saw Hannah ahead, seemingly disoriented from fear, his insides grew weak with panic. He had not even thought about the possibilities of her coming this far from the ranch, alone.

But she had!

And if he did not reach her in time, if she didn't regain her senses and ride away, she . . . could . . . be killed!

He knew the chances were great that even he could be killed if he tried to save Hannah, but nothing would keep him from trying!

He drove himself onward in desperation, fear having quickened his heartbeat. His flesh crawled at the thought of what might happen to Hannah
and
himself, if he wasn't quick enough.

When he reached her, he swept an arm out for her and grabbed her from her horse.

Just as he slid her onto his lap and rode away in a fast gallop only a short distance, the explosion erupted behind them. Debris flew everywhere. Hannah's horse reared and rode away. Strong Wolf held his own horse steady.

A dislodged rock flew through the air and hit Hannah in the forehead. Knocked unconscious, she grew limp in Strong Wolf's arms.

Strong Wolf rode quickly into the thickness of the trees. When he felt that he was safely away from danger, he drew tight rein and slid from his horse, Hannah in his arms.

Strong Wolf carried Hannah to an overhang of rock and lay her on a bed of moss beneath it. He knelt over her, inspected her wound, and discovered only a small contusion rising on her forehead, the skin not even broken.

As he cradled her head on his lap, and had her so close that he could smell the sweet fragrance of her skin and hair, he was suddenly overwhelmed with fears that had been forgotten while he had only watched her from afar.

But now with her so close, with her unaware that he was able to hold her and study her, the fears that had plagued him always in his past, haunted him again.

While watching this woman these past days, knowing that destiny had drawn her here for him to love, how could he have forgotten his secret past?

The secret was so dark, how could he ever think that this woman could be told?

Surely no woman would understand!

Because
of his ugly secret, Strong Wolf had centered his life around his people. He had made his people the main focus of his life.

Not women!

Even now he knew that he should turn his eyes from this woman and never think of her again!

With this particular woman, it should be even easier to fight off feelings of needing her, for in a sense, she was his enemy. Her very own brother had lied to him! Had betrayed him!

Weary of allowing himself to remember why he shouldn't love this woman, or any woman
ever,
and knowing that the blast would bring the rancher's foreman, Strong Wolf lifted Hannah into his arms and carried her toward his horse. Before he placed her in the saddle, Proud Heart rode up.

“Are you well, my brother?” Proud Heart asked anxiously. “Were you injured?”

Then Proud Heart's eyes moved to the woman.

“I am not injured, only she is,” Strong Wolf said, placing her on his horse, swinging himself in the saddle behind her. “But it is only a flesh wound. She will soon awaken.”

“
Then
what, my brother?” Proud Heart asked warily. “What will you do with her then? Take her with us? Or return her to her lying brother?”

“I am not certain just yet what I should do with her,” Strong Wolf said, his insides torn with needs and wants. “Go on to the village without me. The deed is done here. The dam is no more.”

“You could have been killed because of that woman,” Proud Heart mumbled out as he gazed with contempt at Hannah.

“But my lungs still draw breath into them, do they not?” Strong Wolf said, glowering at Proud Heart. “My brother, do not allow this woman to come between us. I shall do what I must. It is truly no concern of yours.”

“Anything or anyone who enters your life is my concern because my friendship to you is forever,” Proud Heart said, then turned and rode away.

Strong Wolf watched Proud Heart until he could see him no more, then rode in the opposite direction.

Hannah slowly awakened. She was first aware of the horse's movements, then opened her eyes and saw that she was not in control of the horse. She was on someone else's steed, being held there by someone's muscled arm.

She turned with a start as she gazed with wide and questioning eyes at Strong Wolf.

Strong Wolf's eyes locked with hers, then he drew tight rein and stopped his horse.

“What happened?” Hannah asked, reaching a hand to her throbbing brow. She didn't remember how she had gotten on Strong Wolf's horse with him. The last few minutes seemed altogether blocked from her memory.

“Strong Wolf, why am I with
you
?” she asked, stunned by so many things. Why was she there? How had she gotten injured? Why was Strong Wolf so . . . so . . . strangely quiet and withdrawn?

When he helped her from the horse, still he said nothing.

Hannah tried to steady herself, to stand alone, but her knees buckled beneath her.

She was surprised when Strong Wolf offered no help and allowed her to fall to the ground. When she gazed up at him, she froze inside, for he no longer seemed friendly. Instead she felt that by the way he was glaring at her so contemptuously, it was as though she were his ardent enemy!

“Strong Wolf?” she said, reaching a trembling hand toward him. “Please . . . ?”

But . . . still . . . he ignored her!