Chapter Four
Summer waited until old Clouds Above and the cousins had left the makeshift lodge, and then she went to sit by Iron Knife’s pallet. “I have been thinking about Angry Wolf.”
He didn’t look at her. “I have, too.”
She felt almost a wall between them. “You are thinking that all this bad luck to your people might have been brought about by his death?”
“The thought occurs to me now and again.”
She put her hand on his arm. “Don’t blame yourself; after all, I was the one who killed him, not you.”
He shook her hand off. “Yes, but I helped keep the deed a secret instead of going to the council. You are my woman, so I am responsible for your actions.”
She was angry that she felt so defensive. “He was killing you; what else could I do?”
“I know; I owe you my life.” His dark eyes softened. “But covering up the deed was cowardly of me; not worthy of a carrier of the Dog Rope.”
“The council might have ordered my death,” she reminded him.
He reached out and caught a lock of her pale hair and fingered it as his fingers followed it down her throat to where he touched the swell of her full breast. “I know, and I would have done anything, no matter how dishonorable, to protect you. It is not good that a warrior should be so obsessed by a woman. Men think of females as a convenience to warm their beds and bear their sons.”
“You arrogant savage! Is that all I am to you?” She started to get up, but he caught her hand, turned it over, kissed her palm.
“Would you be more than that in your white civilization?”
She thought of the women she knew in Boston with their tight corsets and few legal rights. “I will not settle for that.”
He kissed her palm again. “Little One, at times I can think of nothing else except lying on your white belly, pumping my seed into you while you offer me your breasts and claw my back. There, I have lowered myself by admitting what an obsession you are. Does that satisfy you?”
His expression was grim, almost as if he resented the power she held over him. He had spoken of lust and coupling, not love. What she had wanted to hear was that he loved her, but the gentleness of him was gone as if he could not close the door on the horrors his eyes had seen the soldiers inflict at Sand Creek. It was almost as if he had just noticed the color of her skin.
“Are you afraid your people will now no longer accept me?” She wished she could read the emotion in his dark eyes.
“I have given up a chance to be a chief in my father’s place because I was determined to keep you by my side.”
“But it looks bad for a dog soldier to have a white wife?”
“Many braves across the plains keep a white captive to warm their beds.” His voice was cold.
“A wife has a place of honor, while a captive is a slave. Do you think to replace me with a Cheyenne girl and keep me to pleasure yourself with?”
“Let us talk of this no more; you talk foolishness,” he snapped.
What she wanted was reassurance and she was not getting it. He lusted after her, he had admitted that, but did he no longer love her? She had given him children: sons. Surely no warrior would throw away a woman who had given him such fine sons. Could he be thinking of taking a second wife to share his tipi so that he would be better thought of among the Cheyenne warriors? No one really knows what another is thinking, she thought sadly as she watched his face. She wanted nothing more than his happiness, even if it meant going away so that he could take a Cheyenne wife.
“The people will be moving out,” he said. “They fear the army will track them here if they stay too long.”
He struggled to sit up, and she cried out, “Be careful; you’ll hurt yourself!”
“I am useless to the warriors until I heal,” he said bitterly. “My cousins tell me they have found Cherokee Evans and his woman in a cabin in the mountains. They have offered to give me shelter for a few days until I am fit to ride.”
Was that the only reason he had been so short-tempered?
“It will be good for you to rest a little longer without worrying that the soldiers may run across us.”
“And you, do you look forward to living among whites again, having a roof over your head instead of a tipi?”
She took his big, rough hand in hers and kissed his knuckles. “I am happy to be where ever you are, my love, you know that.”
He looked deep into her eyes. “What is happening to us, Summer Sky? Once I never thought we could argue or say bitter words.”
“We must try not to let the trouble between our two people become trouble between us.”
He still seemed distant. “You are right. Perhaps it is only because I was so used to coupling with you several times a day, and now, I look at you and cannot have you. I think about it constantly. That is why the other warriors have been urging me to take a second woman, or at least a captive. It is not meant for a virile warrior to live like the black-robed priests who come to tell us of their virgin and their God.”
Summer winced. “I am not Cheyenne, my warrior; I can’t live with the thought of you touching another woman.”
“Neither can I,” he admitted, “yet seeing you, touching you, yet not being able to possess you is driving me loco.” He seemed to clench his fists for a long moment.
What was she going to do? Summer blinked back unshed tears. He needed the pleasure and relief her body could give him, yet she dared not risk having another baby now with so little food. Little Garnet might starve as Summer’s milk dried up, even though she was now trying to wean the toddler.
Summer Sky sighed and began preparations to bathe her man. Iron Knife was still too weak to desire a woman; but as she washed him, his manhood swelled and throbbed, and he pulled her to him, kissed her. She forgot caution then and answered in kind, rubbing her swollen breasts against his hard chest, putting her tongue deep in his mouth. Only when he pushed up her doeskin shift and put his hand on her mound did she force herself to pull away.
“Please . . .”
She saw the hunger and the naked desire in his eyes as she forced herself to take a deep breath, fight for control. “We—we must not surrender to this again.” Summer didn’t know whether she was reminding him or herself. Cheyenne splendor—a passionate climax like nothing she had ever experienced.
Now she saw the heat of anger and repressed passion in his smoldering gaze. He had reduced himself to begging and thus humbled himself while she had found herself in the role of a nagging wife, denying him the pleasure of her body.
“All right,” he snapped, “I keep forgetting, but I suppose I can always count on you to remind me.”
“Iron Knife, please!”
Now it was his turn to pull away, turn over and ignore her entreaties.
What was she to do with this impossible situation? With a shuddering sigh, Summer rose and went outside. In the camp, children laughed and ran about. She watched her own strong sons chasing each other, a mongrel puppy barking at their heels.
Little Garnet played in the dirt next to Pretty Flower, Two Arrows’ wife, who sat rocking her baby in its cradleboard. “Summer Sky, is something wrong?”
Summer didn’t answer for a long moment as she sat down by the fire and picked up her own fat toddler. What was wrong was the difference and the clash of two cultures. Most of the other warriors had two wives. Two Arrows had also married Pretty Flower’s younger sister, and her belly was beginning to swell with child. Summer asked Pretty Flower, “Doesn’t it bother you to think of your man taking another girl in his blankets, even if she is your sister?”
The other girl gently rocked her baby’s cradleboard. “It is the way of things,” she answered softly. “If he gets me with child before my little boy is big enough to eat meat, my son will starve. A man can not be expected to do without a woman in his bed, so they take a second wife.”
“Iron Knife will never do that.”
“Won’t he?” The lovely Indian girl looked at her. “It means nothing if he should select a captive for his pleasure; you would still be first wife.”
“I want to be his only woman.”
“He is very unusual if he will do without.”
Summer felt defensive. “White men only have one woman.”
Pretty Flower shrugged. “Do not many of them keep a second woman that maybe the wife doesn’t know about?”
A mistress, Summer thought as she held her pretty little girl and stroked her black hair. She wondered if her father had one? Certainly there was no passion between her parents. “Iron Knife will never do that; he loves me too much. Besides, I suppose in that way, I am white, not Cheyenne. If he took a second wife, I would leave him.”
As the days passed, Iron Knife improved rapidly, and the elders of the tribe had sent out calls to all the ten bands of the Tsistsistas to come in for the Renewal of the Sacred Arrows. They feared to ready an attack against the whites without the good luck of the ceremony.
Although they did not speak of it, Summer felt a wall between them now built of both sexual tension and misunderstanding. When they spoke, each seemed careful to judge every word. She began to wonder if they would find the old feelings for each other once Iron Knife’s wound had healed? Neither mentioned the bitter dispute over whether Iron Knife would fight against the whites. Perhaps, Summer thought, if I don’t bring it up, the problem will resolve itself.
Now they all waited for the tribes to gather. It was a great hardship to bring the people together in the cold weather when it was difficult to travel, but the old chiefs thought it important enough to send out camp criers to carry word from camp to camp. Summer told herself again and again that it was all ignorant superstition, that when the bundle was finally opened, all they would find would be four ancient arrows. But Iron Knife believed in the arrows with all his heart.
He sat in front of the fire, staring into the flames while Summer nursed her baby. “When they open the bundle and the arrows are bloody, how can I keep quiet? I fear to bring bad luck to my people.”
She watched him, her heart aching with his anxiety. “Maybe they won’t be bloody.”
He scowled. “You think it is all nonsense, don’t you?”
She didn’t know herself. “I see no reason to fear and worry until the bundle is opened. I want to see these sacred objects for myself.”
He shook his head. “Women are not allowed to see these. Two are painted red and two black, and our people have had them many, many years. The hated Pawnee stole them once, and we only managed to get two of them returned. The substitutes we have made for the others don’t seem to have the same magic.”
“You really believe that the Cheyenne will not regain their position of power until the originals are recovered?”
He nodded. “That may seem ridiculous to you, but it makes sense to us. We see that our people have been in a gradual decline ever since it happened.”
“That’s silly,” she burst out before she thought. “Maybe all the things that have happened would have happened anyway. Maybe part of it is the power of suggestion.”
He turned away from her. “In other words, Summer Sky, what you are saying is that we are only simple savages who don’t understand civilization. I cannot help but worry about the arrows being covered with blood when they are opened and what I will do then.”
She didn’t answer. Perhaps there was a greater gap between the two civilizations than she had ever realized.
The ten bands of the Cheyenne gathered in over the next several weeks for the renewal. Iron Knife was healing rapidly and able to get around; but he wasn’t resting well, and he seemed as tense as a bow string. He didn’t touch Summer, although he played with their children. It was almost, it seemed to her, that the sight of her reminded him of the recent slaughter of his people.
She began to have nightmares about the bloody arrows and what would happen if the council found out she had killed Angry Wolf. The penalty for murder was exile for four years. If she were exiled, would they let her take her children and would Iron Knife be willing to go with her? If not, in four years, the children would no longer remember her, and her beloved would find another woman.
Some nights as she lay staring into the darkness, it almost seemed as though the wind cried with her. She tried to keep her anxiety a secret from Iron Knife because she knew he worried, too, and he needed to rest and let his wound heal. She began to wonder if she should solve everyone’s problem by returning to her own family, or at least, leaving the Cheyenne. However, she was certain Iron Knife would not let her take his adored children away, and she couldn’t bear to leave without them. She wasn’t sure she could live without him, either, but conscious of the tension, her fear of pregnancy and his injury, she did not make any affectionate overtures to him. What unnerved her even more was that while they still shared a blanket, he no longer wanted to hold her and caress her as he had done continually before the massacre at Sand Creek. Was she now more a white person than as his little love?
Finally, several weeks later, came the cold winter day they had waited for and dreaded. The Cheyenne had arrived from all over the plains, some of them wading deep snow or dodging soldiers to attend the meeting. The usual custom was to have the renewal in the summer. The men of the tribe had gone through elaborate ceremonies and finally today would unwrap the arrows in the lodge with the warriors looking on.
Summer waited in her tipi, holding her breath while her small children played around her feet. Little Lance, blue-eyed and black-haired with skin as fair as Summer’s. The baby girl, Garnet, looked like Lance except for. her beautiful dark velvet eyes. It was the middle child, the husky boy who looked more Indian than his father, that she wondered about. Lance and Garnet could blend in back in Boston, but Storm Gathering could have passed for a full-blood Cheyenne.
The time seemed to be dragging, and Summer was ready to scream, wishing it would all be over. She looked toward the big lodge where the warriors were performing their arrow ceremony. It was all nonsense, Summer assured herself, primitive superstition. Surely when they opened the bundle and nothing happened, Iron Knife would realize that. Otherwise, to take the bad luck away from the tribe, she would have to exile herself.
Abruptly, shouts and confusion echoed across the camp. What had happened? Men were running about, shouting and gesturing. Were there soldiers attacking the camp again? Summer gathered up her baby and the two little boys, ready to run if need be. She started out into the cold morning. Then Iron Knife was striding toward her, face set and white.
“What has happened?” ,
He brushed past her, and she followed him into the lodge where he slumped down by the small fire, face taut and pale.
“What has happened?” she asked again.
“Don’t you know?” His mouth was set in a grim line.
It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t think about it. She shook her head.
“The arrows,” he muttered and put his head in his hands, “we bring my people bad luck. The Medicine Arrows were gleaming with fresh blood!”
She put the sleeping baby down on a blanket, then shooed the little boys outside to play. “I—I don’t believe it!”
He grabbed her arm. “Believe it, woman, believe this bit of savage superstition. It is our fault; we have brought this bad luck down upon my people!”
The shouting and cries of dismay still echoed across the camp outside. “What—what shall we do? Did you tell them?”
He stared into the fire and shook his head. “May our God, Heammawihio, help me, I cannot bear to see you stoned from this camp; so I have told no one. Admitted nothing.”
She knelt and put her arm around his wide shoulders, but he remained stiff in her embrace. “What shall we do?”
He seemed to be speaking to himself. “We must take ourselves away from this camp; far away, where we will bring my people no more bad luck.”
“But they’re your people,” she protested, “and they need you! I stabbed him; I will own up and let them exile me.”
“And how long would you last out there in the wilderness with no one to help you kill or cook food, fight off wild animals or enemies?” He looked at her. “You would be in some enemy warrior’s blankets before a week was out, whether you liked it or not.”
What he said was true, but she would make this sacrifice for him; she loved him so. “I will go before the council, admit my guilt. You and the children will not be made to suffer because of me.”
“Listen to me, Summer.” He caught her arm and jerked her down to where he could look into her face. “You are my woman, and I am held responsible for what you do. I have made my decision.”
The old spunkiness flared up, and she pulled out of his grasp. “You decided? I forget how arrogant and typically male you are. What about consulting me?”
“You are mine to protect and care for,” he snapped, “and my children need their mother.”
She waited for him to say he needed her, too, but his face was set and drawn as if he mulled over the great problems of the universe.
“Here is what I have decided,” he said. “Cherokee Evans has offered me his hospitality any time I am near his cabin because I once saved his life. We will go stay with his family until I decide what to do; at least, during that time, I won’t have any more massacres on my conscience.”
“So now what happened at Sand Creek is our fault because we kept quiet about defending ourselves? Why don’t you just throw me to the mob and let them kill me since I’m an outsider anyway!” She was raging and hurt.
He pulled her to him, looked down into her face. “Once I thought you might someday become one of us, now I wonder if you will ever be anything but a rich society girl who has made a bad choice that she regrets more and more!”
“I didn’t say that! You are the one having regrets and seeing me as white!” She tried to twist from his hands, but he held her.
“You are my woman, Summer Sky, and God help me, I would turn my back on my whole tribe to keep you in my arms, even though I am no longer sure that we can overcome the gulf between our two civilizations. We will go to Cherokee for the time being.”
“And what will you tell your people?”
He tangled his fingers in her hair, turning her small, heart-shaped face up to his. “The tribes are ready to move out, but everyone knows my wounds are not yet completely healed and I will only slow the march.”
He was looking down into her face with an intensity that frightened her. She took a deep gulp of air and ran the tip of her tongue across her bottom lip. “You—you promised you would never hurt me.”
His grip on her relaxed and his eyes grew moist. “You fear me? I don’t know what’s gotten into me. The only thing that could make me hurt you is if I caught you with another man; for that I would kill you and you know it.”
He was so very troubled, and she realized it when she saw his shoulders shaking. “I will go with you, dearest, no matter where you go or whatever it is you want us to do.”
He slipped his arm around her and held her against his wide chest as he gently stroked her hair. “I am sorry, Little One; it is the stress of all this, of having lost Spotted Blanket, the unknown future, the horrors that may be awaiting my people. Most of all, maybe it is the stress of doing without your beautiful body when I was so used to making love to you often.”
That abstinence was stressing her, too. Summer couldn’t even kiss him or feel him stroke her without wanting to make hot, passionate love to him. “I’ll go tell Pretty Flower and the others,” she murmured. “Maybe the tribe’s luck will change while we are self-exiled.”
His cousins seemed puzzled; but they assumed it was something his white woman wanted to do, so they helped them gather a few things, a horse or two. Once, Iron Knife had been rich in horses, but the soldiers at Sand Creek had rounded up most of the good ones for themselves. No one had dared venture back to the massacre site to see if Spotted Blanket had turned up there; they were all afraid soldiers might see them. Next time, the warriors said as they gathered around the big fire in the snowy winter cold and talked, next time, they would choose the place of battle, and the outcome would be very different. So Summer Sky, Iron Knife and their children rode away from the Cheyenne camp with vague words about when they would rejoin the tribe as it roamed the frozen plains and hills.
Iron Knife felt his spirits rise as the pair rode through the crusty snow toward that isolated little cabin in the Rockies where Cherokee, his woman, the former dance hall girl, Silver, and their two adopted children, Wannie and Keso, did a little gold panning and lived at peace with the Indians.
Maybe things would get better now, Summer thought as they hailed the cosy cabin and a tall half-breed and a pretty blonde with hair even lighter than her own came out to greet them. Summer carried her baby, Garnet, in a cradleboard, but handsome young Lance and the sturdy, solemn Storm Gathering pressed forward on their little paint ponies to stare with curious eyes at the foursome coming out on the cabin porch. Summer waved with a big smile, and said as an aside to Iron Knife, “They have children? I thought they had just married?”
Iron Knife dismounted carefully, still cautious about his healing wound. He held up his arms to assist her down. “I had forgotten about them. Keso, the boy who looks to be ten or twelve winter counts old is Ute, but he thinks he’s Cheyenne, and—”
“Why would—?”
“Never mind,” he said. “Keso spent the first years of his life among the Cheyenne, so Cherokee, Silver and the little girl have probably learned enough language from him to be able to talk to our children.”
“Good,” Summer said, “although I have been teaching our children a little English.” She knew that sooner or later, they might need it; especially if the unthinkable happened and she ever returned to white civilization.
They smiled and waited for the couple to cross the snowy ground to them.
Summer couldn’t stop looking at the pretty little girl with her black hair done up in braids on her head. Summer thought she must be about five years old. “What an adorable child! Why, she looks like a half-breed herself!”
A shadow crossed Iron Knife’s face and Summer wondered about it, but then the couple joined them. The two men shook hands.
“Iron Knife, we’ve been worried about you!” Cherokee drawled in a deep Southern accent. “I’ve got your stallion in my barn.”
“Spotted Blanket? How—?”
“Todd Shaw bought the stallion from some soldier who had caught it just outside Sand Creek. Spotted Blanket wouldn’t let anyone on his back, so he was useless to them. Todd brought us word about what happened. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, my friend.” Iron Knife seemed to sigh with relief over his horse. “This is my woman, Summer Sky, and my children.”
Summer smiled awkwardly and held out her hand. For the first time, she noticed the slight smallpox scars on the other girl’s lovely face. “You must be Silver. You certainly have a beautiful daughter.”
“Oh, she’s not mine, she’s, well—” The silver-haired girl looked down at the inquisitive child. “Here, Wannie, why don’t you and Keso take these two boys and show them around?”
The strapping Indian boy called Keso was eyeing Lance’s pony. “Is that yours?”
Lance nodded. “I will someday be a dog soldier like my father so I must have a mount.”
His brother Storm said, “No, me be the dog soldier.”
Keso squared his thin shoulders. “I am Cheyenne myself.”
The grown-ups exchanged glances.
Lance said, “In that case, Keso, you may ride my pony.”
Garnet pointed. “Pony—ride pony.”
“No,” Lance objected grandly, “you are a girl and can’t ride a war pony.”
The beautiful little girl, Wannie, reached up to touch the baby’s hand. “Never mind, Silvery and me have pretty clothes and things, we’ll play dress-up.”
The adults headed to the porch.
“I want to see my horse,” Iron Knife said, and walked with the three boys and the ponies across the pasture toward the barn.
Little Wannie led Summer’s toddler girl into the cabin, leaving the three grown-ups smiling after them.
Summer watched them disappear into the house. “She’s darling, unusual name, Wannie.”
“It’s really Waanibe,” Silver said, “it’s Arapaho, means ‘Singing Wind.’ Come in, I’ve got some coffee made.”
Summer nodded and followed her. In a moment, they were joined by a smiling Iron Knife. “Spotted Blanket is fine and glad to see me.”
While the men talked about horses and whether it would be a bad winter, Summer watched Wannie. Something about the child troubled Summer, but she couldn’t be sure what it was. She had noticed an unusual birthmark on Wannie’s chubby hand as the little girl had reached to take Garnet’s. Funny, it stirred a memory; what was it?
Silver put her arm around Summer’s shoulders and smiled. “You’ve come a long way and must be exhausted. I’ve got a Christmas cake, too.”
“Christmas?” Abruptly Summer saw a picture in her mind of the big tree all decorated back in her parents’ home, the food and music, and felt terribly homesick. She sighed, and when she glanced at Iron Knife, he was watching her as if he realized her thoughts. “Had we better check on the boys?”
Cherokee lit his pipe and laughed. “Keso will take care of them.”
“But they’re all so young,” Summer protested.
“Except Keso,” Cherokee laughed, “he’s a street kid who looked after himself for years until I found him, and now that he’s got a little sister, he seems bent on looking after Wannie, too. She’s spoiled rotten, and loves pretty clothes and jewelry, unusual for a kid. Keso adores her even though he pretends to be annoyed to have her following him around.”
They went inside by the roaring fire of the cozy log cabin. It had been a long time since Summer had had a real roof over her head. Maybe this time with the Evans would be good for them; certainly Iron Knife needed time to heal, and Summer was looking forward to visiting with Silver and getting the news of civilization. Maybe she had missed it more than she had realized. She didn’t even want to think about the broken taboo and the bloody Medicine Arrows. What if they could never return to the Cheyenne?