Edward preached about Jesus to three old men and two middle-aged women, who all spoke and understood just enough English to have some conception of what he was telling them, but who also looked at him with rather blank faces. He knew he was fast losing their attention, and he lost it completely when a commotion stirred to his right and a little behind him. He turned to see several Cheyenne gathered around something or someone. They were mostly women and children, but there were also a few men there. They were all carrying on in their own tongue, the women apparently very excited about something. There was some laughter as they passed something around among them, and the few people who had been listening to him got up and abruptly walked away to join in the excitement.
Disgusted, Edward closed his Bible and donned his hat. He marched over to the babbling group of Indians, hoping to get all their attention away from whatever was so interesting. He was beginning to wonder why he bothered to come here. Maybe Maggie was right. Maybe they should go to some white settlement where there were good, Christian people hungry to hear God’s word. Besides, his wife had been so changed since coming here that he hardly knew her. He thought that perhaps if he got her away from here, where she would be around women more like herself, he might get the old Maggie back. The only other women here were the major’s wife, who was cold and not much of a visitor, and the new lieutenant’s wife. He was glad the lieutenant had a little girl Evy could play with, but the lieutenant’s wife also did not intend to stay long. Evy would again need other children with whom to play, and Maggie certainly needed the company of other Christian white women.
He quietly moved into the crowd of Indians to see what had gotten their attention, and there spread out on the grass he recognized one of Maggie’s prettiest quilts, a colorful star pattern that the Indian women were ogling as though it were gold. Displaying it was his own wife! While several of the women eyed the quilt, Maggie was handing out pieces of ribbon in many colors, as well as buttons and some cloth. “Who among you speaks English?” she asked with a smile.
“Maggie! What in God’s name are you doing here!”
Margaret lost her smile as her husband pushed his way through to stand in front of her. Before she could answer, he noticed Evy playing in the distance with some Indian children. Because the weather had grown hotter again, the Indian children ran naked, including the little boys! Evy herself wore a dress, but her feet were bare.
“I am trying to win these people’s friendship,” Margaret answered.
He met her eyes, his own showing rage. “How did you get here!”
“I walked. It’s a nice day.”
“The agency is a whole mile from the fort! You walked here alone, with our daughter, exposing yourself and her to the dangers of savages?”
Margaret faced him, unflinching. “I simply took a walk on a beautiful day to come here and make some friends, which will ultimately help you in your work, Edward. I felt no risk and no fear. Perhaps if you would stop thinking of these people as savages, you would see them for who they really are—lost souls, a lonely, displaced people. They have a wonderful sense of humor and dignity. I have brought them gifts. I want to show them I care and that I trust them enough to let my child play with their children! Now stand aside. I want to give my quilt to someone. Do you know if any of these people here speaks English?”
Edward stared in disbelief.
“I speak some white man tongue,” an old woman told her. She was skinny and almost toothless, and her thinning, gray hair was tied in two tails at either shoulder. In spite of her age and size, she was obviously strong, as she marched up to Margaret and literally pushed Edward aside. “Who gets pretty blanket?”
Margaret smiled. “Who among you is most recently married? She will need a warm blanket this winter for her and her husband.”
Edward reddened, but the Indians laughed when the old woman interpreted Margaret’s statement. A shy young woman who looked to Margaret as though she could not be more than fifteen, stepped forward. She was chubby, and her face showed marks from either measles or smallpox, but she was still pretty.
“This is Summer Storm,” the old woman told Margaret. “She took a husband only five suns ago.”
Margaret picked up the quilt and handed it out to the girl. “Then please accept this from me and my husband as a wedding present.”
The old lady told the girl what Margaret said, and Summer Storm’s eyes widened with delight. She took the quilt with a wide smile. Ha-ho, she told Margaret in a quiet voice.
“She says thank you,” the old woman told Margaret.
Several women who had been given ribbons and buttons also thanked Margaret. One stood holding a rolling pin. She touched it as though it were a most wonderful thing, then said something to Margaret. The old woman interpreted for her. “She says she will use the wooden instrument you gave her to crush corn for flour and berries for juice and to use in making pemmican.”
“What is pemmican?” Margaret asked.
“It is a special food we make from meat and berries and fat. They are dried and crushed together and cut into strips. It lasts long time. Our warriors carry pemmican when out on hunt or in battle.” The words were spoken as though the woman still expected life to be that way for her people again.
“I see,” Margaret told her.
“Margaret!” Edward interrupted. “How dare you tell that girl we’ve given her a wedding gift! Don’t you realize none of these people gets married the Christian way? That girl is living in sin, and you have encouraged it!”
Margaret held her chin high. “Most of these people marry for the same reasons we do—for love, and to have children. The women remain chaste until they take a husband, and they do not cheat on their husbands. Where is the difference, Edward? They have their ways of marrying, with a special ceremony and all, just like we do. Who is to say our own people are any more married than theirs, just because we marry in a church and have a piece of paper that supposedly makes it legitimate? In fact, I don’t doubt there is more love in some of the marriages among the Cheyenne than there is in some of our own marriages!”
Edward paled. Was she referring to their marriage? Had his wife lost her mind? “How do you know anything about the feelings of the Cheyenne or their marriage ceremonies?”
She turned away, thinking, Because I am in love with one. Because I have been meeting with the notorious Wild Horse, and he has taught me many things. Poor Edward would probably have a heart attack if she told him the truth. “I studied about them before we came here. I wanted to know.”
Edward put his hands on his hips. “I am very disappointed in you, Margaret.”
She finally met his eyes again. “Did you ever stop to wonder if sometimes maybe I am disappointed in you?” She turned to the old woman. “Tell the women that they may keep their presents only if they listen to my husband talk to them for a few minutes. Tell them he and I truly care about them and wish to share our God with them. We understand they have a God, and he is called Maheo. Tell them we believe Maheo is the same as our God.”
The old woman smiled and called out to some of those who had started to leave. She told them what Margaret said, and most of them wandered back. In spite of the heat, Summer Storm had the lovely quilt wrapped around her shoulders. A few of them had some words for Margaret, and the old woman turned to her. “They say they will listen, only if you stay. They do not much like your husband, but because he has such a good and kind woman, they say he must be a good man, too. They will listen about his God. I will tell them what he says.”
“Promise to tell them true,” Margaret said to the old woman. “We have to trust you to say exactly what my husband says.”
The woman nodded. “I will do this.” She looked at Edward and smiled, and Edward turned to Margaret with confusion in his eyes. She realized he didn’t know whether to be angry or grateful.
“Please get Evy away from those naked boys,” he told her quietly.
Margaret stood her ground. “Evy is just fine. She is a child, Edward. She does not see their nakedness. What better way to learn about such things than through innocent eyes, through joyfulness and playing? There isn’t one sinful or evil thought among those children. All you have to concern yourself with is preaching God’s word to these people who have promised to listen. Tell them you are grateful for their attention. Tell them you know about their prophet, Sweet Medicine. Tell them you believe he is the same as our Christ.”
“What?”
“Just do it, Edward. I will explain later. If you tell them that, they will listen to you, because you will be relating to something they know about and believe in. There is no sin in that, Edward. God will understand why you compared Jesus to Sweet Medicine.”
Edward blinked, looking down at his Bible. Margaret put her hand over his. “Do it, Edward. You came here to preach to them. I have found a way to make them listen, at least for today.”
Edward turned to them and opened his Bible. He began hesitantly, his astonishment at his wife’s behavior making it difficult for him to concentrate.
Margaret glanced over to where Evy was playing. She had taken off her dress and underclothes and was running naked with the rest of the children, her long, blond hair dancing in the wind. She grabbed a little Indian girl’s hand and they began picking wildflowers together.
“So, tell us, Maggie, some of the men here told my husband you walked off to the Indian agency alone, you and Evy. Why in the world did you do a thing like that? And why didn’t you just go with Edward?”
The pointed questions came from Gloria Doleman. The woman served Margaret a glass of lemonade. She had invited Margaret and Lieutenant Hart’s wife, Josie, to the major’s quarters to visit, and Evy played with Rose in the courtyard in front of the building.
Margaret thanked Gloria for the lemonade. She relaxed into the wicker chair on the front porch of the building, the overhanging roof protecting all three women from the hot sun. “Edward has never allowed me to go with him to the reservation,” she answered Gloria. She sipped some of the lemonade, hating talking with someone like Gloria about what she had done. The woman could never understand it in a hundred years.
“Then why did you go?” Gloria persisted. “Surely you know you did a very dangerous thing, Maggie.”
“Yes. I would never dream of going there alone,” Josie Hart put in. “Let alone subject Rose to those savages. God only knows what you and Evy could pick up there; lice, for one thing.”
“The Cheyenne are very clean,” Margaret answered. “I was not afraid. People only fear what they don’t understand, and I have studied the Cheyenne enough not to be afraid of them. Actually, it was quite a nice experience.” She met Gloria’s discerning green eyes. “I went without Edward’s permission because I wanted to prove to him that I could help him in his work. I think I proved my point.”
Gloria’s eyes narrowed. “And how is that, dear?”
Margaret tried to appear unaffected by that gaze, but she felt as though Gloria Doleman could see right through her. Maybe it was her own guilty conscience over meeting Wild Horse at the pond so many times that made her imagine everyone else knew what was going on. “I took gifts,” she replied. “They were very receptive to that. I found an old woman who speaks English, and I had her tell the others I understood about their God and their prophet, Sweet Medicine. I compared Sweet Medicine to our Christ, and they seemed to understand then what my husband had been trying to tell them.”
Edward had been very quiet in the two days since she went to the reservation. His feelings were hurt to realize his wife had been able to reach the Indians when he had not; yet Margaret knew that deep inside he was grateful for giving him a way to approach the Cheyenne. He didn’t quite know what to make of her, and she didn’t know what to make of herself. She felt removed from her body. The person others saw was the same Margaret Gibbons she had always been, but the Margaret on the inside was confused, feeling a new power, new desires.
“And how is it you know so much about the Cheyenne religion?” Gloria pressed. “You learned all of that in books?”
Margaret felt the unwanted flush come into her cheeks. “Yes.” No. I learned it from a man, a spiritual and very handsome man who makes me feel like a beautiful, wanted woman just by the way he looks at me.
“Quite a wonder,” Gloria answered. “One would think you have been talking with one of those Cheyenne. I doubt there are many books that go very deeply into the religion of the Plains Indians. What is this book that you read, Maggie?”
“What?” Margaret had been hardly aware the woman was speaking. Her thoughts had drifted to a dark vision hovering over her…to a quiet pond…
“I said, what is this book you read in which you learned so much about the Cheyenne?”
“And why would you care?” Josie added.
Margaret watched Evy and Rose play, unable at the moment to meet either woman’s eyes. “I have forgotten the name of it. I borrowed it from a library in Massachusetts before we left to come here. I took a lot of notes,” she answered, hoping God would not strike her down for the partial lie. She had taken notes, but they were straight from Wild Horse’s mouth. She finally looked at Josie Hart. “I care because Edward cares. I care because he came here to bring God’s word to the Cheyenne, and I wanted to find a way to help him do that.”
Evy and Rose came up on the porch then. “Wild Horse says we used to be tadpoles,” Rose told her mother.
“Wild Horse?” Josie frowned. “Rose, wherever did you get such an idea, and why would you make up such a story? You have never seen that bad Indian called Wild Horse.”
“Evy has. She said he helped her get tadpoles one day at a pond, and he told her they were baby frogs, and we used to be babies like that.”
Josie looked in dismay at Margaret. “Margaret, where does your daughter come up with such stories?”
Margaret felt the heat in her face, but she managed a look of deep concern. “I can’t imagine. I’ll have a talk with her. She has had this idea lately that she knows Wild Horse. I suppose it’s because there has been so much talk about him.”
“I suppose,” Gloria put in, her eyes drilling into Margaret. “Such an imagination.”
Margaret finished her lemonade. “I really must get home. Edward will be coming back soon, and I have to start supper.”
“Why didn’t you go with him today to the agency?” Josie asked.
“I don’t want to interfere too much. I just went the other day to see if I could find a way to help make them listen to him. I don’t need to go with him every time.” She could have gone to the pond. Wild Horse had probably gone there looking for her, but she had vowed to stay away. She must not go back, not ever! She had nearly lost her heart the last time, and something more. If Wild Horse touched her again, she would do something she would regret for the rest of her life. She was Edward Gibbons’s wife, and Wild Horse was a man doomed to flee or die. Nothing could change either of those situations, and she was a fool to carelessly submit herself to terrible sin and worse heartache.
Margaret rose and bid her good-bye, taking Evy’s hand and walking off with her. Gloria watched them. She did not believe for one second that Evy was making up her stories. She was a sweet child, very open…and children had a habit of usually speaking the truth. “Out of the mouths of babes,” she muttered.
“What did you say, Gloria?” Josie spoke up.
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking.” Should she tell her husband her thoughts? Would he laugh at her for suggesting she believed Wild Horse might be right here under his nose? It certainly couldn’t hurt to make a search at the agency. If he was here, what on earth did Margaret Gibbons have to do with any of it? The woman had guilt written all over her pretty face. How delicious to think that the good minister’s wife might be secretly meeting with a wild Cheyenne man!
Margaret could keep her vow no longer. Surely Wild Horse would leave soon, and she could not let him go without seeing him once more, if for nothing more than to thank him for sharing so much with her, for showing her a joy she had never known before. The heat today was miserable and stifling, but she would not let it keep her from walking to the pond. Evy was with Rose, and Edward was at the agency. She did not bring a blanket, for she did not plan to stay long, and she did not dare sit or lie back on a blanket again with Wild Horse sitting near her.
His kiss had burned into her like a brand. For the rest of her life she would not forget the taste of it, the feel of his full lips opening to her. It had been thrilling for that little moment to be the one in control. She had been the teacher then, showing Wild Horse something pleasurable and exciting. Never did she think she could be so bold, but he brought out a wildness in her she had not even known was there, a dangerous passion that after today must be reserved for no one but Edward. If only her husband recognized that passion and allowed her to share it.
She knew it had hurt him when she went to the agency, but she had not meant to make her proud husband feel inadequate. She had only meant to help, and through helping, perhaps find a way to be closer to Edward. So far it had not worked. She had tried so many times to get him to talk to her, to tell her of any feelings, dreams, fears he wanted to share, but right now they seemed farther apart than they had ever been. She knew it was partly because of this secret love she shared with another, and it must end. After today…
“So, at last you come again.”
The words interrupted her thoughts, and she turned to see Wild Horse standing behind her. She put a hand to her chest to still her heart. He looked magnificent, wearing only a loincloth, his hair clean and shining, hanging loose, down past his shoulders. “How do you do that, Wild Horse? I never hear you.”
He grinned. “You are not supposed to hear me. When one lives off the land, one must know how to stalk the enemy and how to track his prey without being seen or heard or smelled.”
“Is that what I am to you? Your prey?”
He smiled sadly. “Maybe.” He walked closer, and she wondered if a more perfect specimen of man existed. “You have come to say good-bye. Tonight I leave, but that is not why you would say good-bye. You belong to another, but your heart is beginning to betray you, so you came to tell me you will no longer meet me here.”
She looked away, always surprised at how he knew everything she was thinking. “It’s wrong for me to feel this way.” She felt a strong hand on her shoulder then, and she shivered at the touch.
“It is never wrong to love, Maggie, and if you did not belong to another, if our worlds were not so far apart…” He ran a thumb into the bun at the nape of her neck. “Why do you always wear your hair so plain and tight? I want to see it hanging long, just once, before I go. Take these combs from your hair, Maggie.”
She still could not look at him, yet already she was under his commanding spell. Why could she never say no to this man? She reached up and pulled out the combs that held the bun in a twist, then undid the barrette that held it pulled together. She shook out her long, blond tresses and trembled when she felt his hand run through them.
“You have the most beautiful hair I have ever seen. Does your husband like it this way?”
She swallowed. “Please, Wild Horse, I came here to thank you for everything you have shared with me…and for showing me a way of life I never realized was so beautiful. I will never forget—”
“Maggie.”
The name was spoken with such tenderness that she could not finish. The tears came then, and she turned. In the next moment she was in his arms, a wonderful, strong, warm embrace that made her move her own arms around him. She had never rested her face against a man’s bare chest before. It was comforting. There was nothing to be said, for they understood that it could not be put into words. He rubbed one hand over her back, used the other to grasp her thick hair and force her to tilt back her head.
“I want to kiss again,” he said softly.
“We can’t—”
His mouth met hers in a warm, delicious kiss that set her aflame. She moved her arms up around his neck and returned the kiss with groaning passion. Never had Edward shown such desperate need, such near worship of her. He moved his lips to her hair then. “Maggie, my beautiful Maggie,” he whispered. Suddenly he moved a foot behind her ankle that made her fall back, but he kept hold of her, lowering her gently onto the grass. For the moment she was lost in him, unable to think rationally, pent-up needs burgeoning forth as she returned more kisses with eagerness. His hand moved along her side, to a breast. She cried out at the touch. Edward never touched her this way. He pulled at the shoulder of her dress, tearing off buttons when he suddenly ripped it downward and moved his lips to her bare shoulder, to the white softness of her breast.
“Wild Horse, we can’t—”
“Take off your clothes, Maggie. Come into the water with me.” He licked at her breast, pulled her dress and camisole farther away to expose a nipple.
“Wild Horse,” she whimpered, grasping his hair, gasping in utter ecstasy when his lips found the pink fruit of her breast. He sucked gently, groaning with the want of her. “Please, stop, Wild Horse.”
He moved his lips back to her throat. “Your husband has never done this. You have never been so free, have you?” He raised up on his elbows. “I told you I had one more thing to show you. This is what I wanted you to know, how to give yourself freely to a man, that it is not wrong to feel this way. Come and swim naked with me, Maggie. See how it feels to have the cool water caress your body. Then we will make love. It will not be like anything you have ever felt before. Let me show you, Maggie. No one else ever needs to know. It is right. You know that it is right.”
Oh, how she wanted him inside of her! She wanted to be Wild Horse’s woman, but she knew it was wrong. In his eyes he saw no wrong with it. He came from a people who acted freely on their feelings. When a Cheyenne man and woman felt this way about each other, they simply went off and acted on their passion, and they were then man and wife. If a Cheyenne woman was disgusted with her husband and wanted out of the marriage, she simply cut their blanket in two and set his half outside the tipi with his moccasins and other belongings, and that was the end of it. If only life could be that simple for her own people, but at this moment she realized just how different they were.
“You must let me go, Wild Horse,” she whispered. “Don’t make me do something that will leave me feeling unhappy for the rest of my life.”
He raised up a little, his dark eyes studying her face. “It would make you unhappy to be one with Wild Horse?”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “No.” She reached up and touched his face. “It’s the regrets I would have later, the regrets and the guilt that would make me unhappy. I have never wanted to give myself to a man the way I want to give myself to you right now, but I can’t let it happen. That is the difference between us.” She breathed a deep sob. “I wish I could be as free as you. You’re stuck on a reservation…soldiers looking for you, and yet you are more free than I. Maybe if I had more time, but I can’t change overnight what I have been brought up to believe is right, no more than you and your people can change in just a few days. Can you understand that?”
His own eyes teared. “I understand that I love you. If you did not belong to another and you were my captive, I think perhaps you would not want to go back to your people. You would want to stay with Wild Horse and be his woman.”
She sniffed and sobbed. “I love you,” she told him through tears. “But I can’t do this.”
His eyes moved over her, and one tear dripped onto her chest. He leaned down and kissed her breast once more, then rolled away from her. “Go,” he said flatly. “Go quickly.”
There was so much more she wanted to say. Her whole body screamed for satisfaction. She knew now that there was a beauty and a wonderful joy in giving herself to a man with passion, with wanton desire. She longed to know the full extent of that pleasure, but it simply could not be this way. She choked in a sob and got up, pulling her dress back over her shoulder. “Good-bye, Wild Horse,” she sobbed. “I shall never forget you.”
She hurried off into the trees, hardly able to see where she was going. She cried harder with the aching need to go back and let him have his way with her, to experience just once such wonderful freedom of her womanhood, but she had to think of Evy. If such a thing were discovered, it would be bad for her little girl, who would have to grow up among whispers about her “soiled, bad mother.” She didn’t care for herself, or even for Edward. It was Evy who mattered. Why destroy her child’s future for one brief moment of passion with a man she could never have. Still, she knew this hurt would not leave her for a long time, and the worst part was, she would have to suffer it alone. She could never tell a soul.