“What are you going to do about your father?”
Sarah glanced up from the deerhide shirt she was sewing for the baby. Magpie had helped her soften the hide and she and Raven had shown great interest in teaching her how to fashion the softened hide into a comfortable garment. She paused for a moment before she answered Jason’s question. “I don’t know,” she stated simply.
“You know you’ve been gone a year now and he hasn’t heard a word from you. Surely he knows by now that you didn’t go back East.” Jason was concerned that the colonel would have already sent out patrols in search of his daughter, convinced that she had never reached Fort Cobb. Sarah had been confident that he would not pursue the matter once she had gone. She reasoned that they had rarely corresponded before, when she was in school in Baltimore. So she didn’t expect her father to worry about her at all. Jason knew that Sarah’s mother had been dead for more than four years, and since her death Colonel Holder had turned to the army for solace. His daughter had been left to his sister to educate and provide the family a young girl required. Maybe Sarah was right, he concluded. Maybe her aunt in Baltimore was content to believe her niece was still in Oklahoma Territory while her father thought she was back East.
“Maybe I’ll go back to Baltimore before winter sets in. I guess I can still teach at the school.” She paused as if to reconsider. “They probably think I died,” she said, smiling at the irony of it. “If they could see me sitting here, sewing a deerhide shirt, they’d think I had lost my mind.”
“I reckon you’ll leave the baby with Raven when you go back.”
“I don’t know,” she quickly answered. “Maybe, maybe not.”
This surprised him. “You thinking about taking him with you? Back to Baltimore?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated curtly.
He could see that the decision had evidently been weighing heavily on her mind. He turned to look at the baby, sleeping now. “I reckon he’d be a big hit with your proper friends back in Baltimore.” As soon as he said it, he realized how it must have sounded to her. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean it to sound like that.”
At once her face flushed with anger and then after a moment her features relaxed into the calm facade she most often presented. “It’s all right. You’re right, though. My little bastard wouldn’t fit in very well where I’m going. I guess I’ll leave him with Raven. I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind about what I’ll do.” She gazed at Jason for a long moment as if deciding whether or not she was going to say more. “Jason, I owe you a lot. I’m very grateful for your thoughtfulness and the help you gave me.” She paused when she saw his puzzled expression. “I guess I’m just trying to tell you that I know I’ve been difficult to live with some of the time. But you never got mad or even complained.”
He shrugged. “I think you’re being a tad hard on yourself. I know this life is mighty hard on someone of your upbringing.”
“I just want you to know how much I appreciate your help.”
He laughed. “You’re talking like you’re getting ready to go somewhere.”
She smiled and nodded her head. “I think I’m ready to go back home if I can call on you one more time to help me.” She sighed. “I’m gonna miss that baby. I still might change my mind about leaving him. God, I never thought it would be such a hard decision.”
“When do you want to go?”
“Not for two or three more weeks, while I’m still feeding the baby.”
So, he thought on his way out to tend to his horses, she’s going back East after all. It would seem kind of empty around here without her, but the baby would still be here to keep things lively. In the long run, back East was where Sarah ought to be. Then he wondered if Magpie and Raven and Long Foot would stay on. Whatever suits ’em, he decided.
* * *
Summer was nearing an end. Raven and Magpie were busy drying meat for the winter now that the tipi was completed. Sarah waited now for Jason and Long Foot to return from a hunting trip in the mountains. Jason had agreed to take her to Denver to arrange for her trip back East before the snows came. She was ready to go. Life on the frontier no longer appealed to her and she yearned to see civilization again, and not just trading post civilization, real civilization with dances and teas and Sunday socials…real houses with tables and chairs…and beds with clean sheets. She wanted to wear dresses with slips and ruffles and dance with men in waistcoats and ties. And she was sick of venison and elk. Oh how she wished Jason would hurry so she could leave his valley.
A shadow fell across the baby blanket she was working on, causing her to turn toward the open doorway. At last, Jason had returned, she thought. But the figure that blocked the afternoon sunlight was not as tall as Jason. Long Foot? she thought, her eyes squinting from the sunlight that all but blinded her as it created a glaring aura that outlined the figure standing in the door. As her eyes adjusted to the glare, she could see that it was an Indian but it was not Long Foot. Then, in one horrifying second, she recognized him. Stone Hand!
Frozen with fear upon encountering a demon returned from the grave, Sarah gasped. She was unable to make any other sound. The terror that filled her entire being was threatening to strangle her and she suddenly felt dizzy. The room started to spin around her, and she feared she was about to faint. She closed her eyes and opened them again, desperately hoping the specter was an illusion. It was not. Now she wished she could faint but she could not.
The Indian grunted something in Cheyenne and reached down behind him and dragged an object through the open doorway. When her eyes were able to focus again, she realized the object was Raven. She was bleeding from her mouth. The blood covered the front of her deerskin bodice. One of her front teeth was missing. Another dangled, broken, barely attached by a root. The sight made Sarah suddenly nauseated. She would never forget the look in Raven’s eyes as she gazed vacantly into space. Stone Hand growled something to the helpless woman and punctuated it with a slap across her face.
“Baby,” Raven forced through her broken mouth. “He come for baby.” She turned her gaze to stare at Sarah, who was still approaching a state of shock. “His son.”
Raven’s head slumped forward but Stone Hand reached down and roughly jerked her chin back up. He shouted something at her, at the same time gesturing in Sarah’s direction. Raven dutifully, though painfully, repeated his words in English.
“You baby’s mother. You go with him, take care of baby. His son.” Raven was silent for a moment then added in a low voice, “You must feed baby. When baby quit nursing he kill you.”
Sarah realized this last was a warning and not a translation of Stone Hand’s words. She was gripped by a numbing fear that seemed to paralyze her. Stone Hand watched her face closely to see if she understood. Then he placed his foot between Raven’s shoulder blades and forced her facedown on the earthen floor. Without hesitating, he reached down with one hand and grabbed a handful of her hair, forcing her head back. With the other he drew a long knife from his belt and in one quick move reached down and cut her throat. There was but a rasping gurgle, like a person makes clearing his throat, and Raven was gone.
Sarah did not know she was screaming until the renegade slapped her hard across her face, again and again, until she was quiet. Then he grabbed her by the arm and threw her across the room toward the baby’s cradle. She whirled around to face him, defiant for a brief moment. He stood before her. With one hand, he grabbed his crotch and gestured, taunting, as if inviting her to try it again. Then he slapped her with the back of his hand and pointed to the baby. Gesturing, he made her understand he was ordering her to pick up the baby and go with him. She did as she was told, no longer defiant, for she remembered Raven’s warning and realized the same fate awaited her if she did not prove herself useful. When they started through the door, Stone Hand paused to look down at the still warm body that had been Long Foot’s wife. He stood for a moment as if evaluating a piece of work he had just completed. Satisfied, he bent down and with the knife that had taken her life he sliced off her left eyebrow. Sarah quickly turned her head, sick with terror.