Disclaimer: The characters used herein, with the exception of original characters (please don't borrow) are the property of MGM and Trilogy. No profit sought or accepted.
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Language, violence
Notes: Yakoke, Adrian, for a heart deep and true; words cannot say how much you mean to me, and to my writing. And to my new friend, Lynne Smith for beta-reading and valuable suggestions.
Bibliography:
"Old and gray ..." he murmured, the answer he'd given her when that melancholy time of being awkward and heavy with child came. The fragment of a smile ghosted across his sleeping face, but inside it was a full-throated laugh that she could doubt her appeal, particularly since his appetite for her had only grown stronger. He'd even enlisted the midwife to reassure her it was alright if he was careful. And he was careful, and she delighted at his hunger. The soft burr of his hands across her swollen belly when they were both shuddering in the aftermath, that touch that meant so much more to him than the sex, that rhythmic rub that lulled her to sleep so he could watch her, entranced by the serenity of her face and the liquid ripples of his child under her skin. Marveling. Wondering.
"Til you're old and grey, girl." He'd said it so many times, "Both of us old and gray and still sneakin' off into the woods together." She'd never failed to laugh at that, even when he'd said it in desperation to keep her with him, even with her blood pouring out of her so fast her face whitened in quick degrees. She'd laughed even then and pulled him down to kiss him before it was too late. That was a kiss that still marked him, cool and dry and yet as hungry as ever for the world she was leaving and the man she loved.
He thought he opened his eyes, might have, and might have seen the painted buffalo hunt on the lodge liner beside him and been taken into the spirit of it. Dust so thick it coated the inside of a man's nose and gritted in his eyes and laid on him in a fine layer adhered by sweat, rendering him at one with the earth they hunted upon. The thunder of the herd in his bones, the pony moving strong and fleet under him sensitive to every flex of knees and heels against its body. Waiting, bow drawn hard or rifle aimed ... waiting, a patience at odds with the speed and noise of the running herd and dashing horses and billowing dust and a man's own hammering heart. Waiting until the woolly foreleg was stretched foreward in mid-stride and that small target opened up inside the elbow where the skin was thin and the heart could be pierced by a well-placed shaft or shot.
Falling like a boulder rolling downhill, heavy horns gouging into the earth, hindquarters seeming comically fragile in comparison to the hulking shoulders and neck and that rich mountainous hump. The hot sweetness of blood and the bawling of calves who were seldom taken but voiced the death-song of the herd in their young squalling.
The ones who died, whose livers were consumed in raw steaming richness on the field by triumphant hunters and jubilant women and children, whose bodies made meat for the people and robes and tools and decorations and holy objects, would have their glory danced around the night fires. Thanksgiving songs would be sung, the good hunt told again and again, even painted on some lodge or robe to record it. Bellies full to bursting, drying racks heavy, fresh skins and skulls and bones that would occupy the women for many weeks in scraping and tanning and the making of all the things that could be made, the buffalo a whole world of goods to the people. Eyes would be bright with pride in the beast that was theirs, made for them by the Great Spirit to eat and use and love.
Some worse memory made his body jerk once, though he didn't know it, nor feel the small hand rubbing up and down on his forearm sleepily.
He'd sinned against the buffalo spirit when Duley was gone and nothing living mattered to him at all, not even himself. Had hunted them for meat for white soldiers and train-men, too wild, too angry and lost to remember the spirit in those deep dark eyes or respect the sacrifice they made, the promise they were. Had killed them and killed them until he knew it could not make him forget the longing for her ripe body or make him feel any less lost in the white or native worlds both. In those days he'd become a specter haunting his own flesh and the world it walked in.
Elizabeth roused at his moan, not a sound of his body's pain but of his soul, of a wounded spirit plaintive and grieving. His eyebrows, when she turned under the robe in concern to face him, were knotted together and he panted quick and shallow between parted lips. To her amazement, her touch on his face quieted him at once. Relieved, she curled her arm under her head and let the other remain on his chest as she went back to sleep.
Little Eagle's eyes glittered in the darkness from the other pallet, her teeth gleamed in a smile that was both secretive and glad. She had long been afraid, ever since the wasichu had first come with their smiles and their gifts and the dark avarice unspoken in their pale eyes. Afraid the people would perish from the earth, despised by those who had killed them, all they were lost forever and the heart of the world dying unrecognized with them ... Though she could not say why this feeling had changed, this man and his ghosts had caused a hope to be born in her that she would not refuse. The people needed all of hope that came, all that could stiffen their spines to Stand against inevitabilities, against time itself.
She burrowed back down into her robes, these things turning in her mind as things often did in the dark hours when the people grew quiet in sleep and the voices of Creation could be heard. They would go into silence when it was over, the winter would lay long on them as they slept in poverty and ruin and despair, but they would be alive. And they would wait. They would wait and not die away from the earth they loved, and that loved them, had fed and sheltered and offered itself to them since the first man.
Some visions Little Eagle did not share, some because she did not wholly understand them, but others because she did. The white men would cover the land like the water lapping up over a stony shore - but the stones would still be there, glistening in the sun, when the water had passed.
Buck and Josiah reined in so quickly that Josiah's horse startled, head sawing side to side and breath steaming forcefully in the cold morning air. Both men were grim and haggard with exhaustion, grateful for the meager warmth of the rising sun on their faces but not for the sight that met them as they topped the rise west of the Fort.
Fetterman had grown substantially in the two days they'd been gone: Orderly ranks of tents lay like dirty snow set on the gentle upslope north of the Fort, the soldiers warming like ants among them, unit flags limp and smoke from many fires in a hazed layer above them. But soldiers were not the only populace new to Fetterman. Lodges were going up along the riverbank below the fort, Cheyenne and Arapahoe among the Lakota, and the smoke of campires from many more drifted from around the river-bend. Fort Fetterman had become a city of opposing forces, though there seemed to be more women, children and elderly men than warriors.
"Well, hell ..." Buck stretched his long legs in the stirrups and stroked his glossy mustache with his thumb and forefinger, "I can't say I like the looks of this."
Josiah's tired face was equally unhappy. "Two Badgers said there was something going on, a council to persuade them onto reservations before the spring campaign gets underway, but he didn't say it was happening now ..." Upon closer inspection through Vin's distance glass, Josiah's frown deepened. The red paint around the bottom of most of the Lakota lodges was dimmed by wear, the paintings interrupted here and there by patches and the people bundled in layers of clothes, Indian and white both, under the robes and blankets, accustomed to saving fuel for cooking at the expense of warmth. The pony herd had more bony old ones than healthy war-ponies, and some of the incoming travois were being pulled by dogs. He ground his teeth in bitter understanding of Two Badgers philosophical attitude to have some of the people yielding while he and Crazy Horse and all who followed him carried on the fight. The seven campfires were divided about the reservations, he'd said, but not in their hopes and dreams. Winter had plainly been hard on them, and Two Badgers knew this council was a frail and brittle hope that some sort of peace could be reached at least for the season so they could hunt and renew themselves for fighting in the summer. The people saw nothing strange in accepting offerings from those they would try to kill in a few months time. Neither did Josiah by now.
"We're going to have to wait until dark to get down there, Buck." He said, seeing Buck's impatience in the quick shifting pattern of his gray's hooves.
Buck considered that for a long moment, looking at the Fort, and at the Indian camps and the far specks of further bands moving toward them from the north and west. Gradually there came that smile that Josiah rolled his eyes to see, spreading slow as melting molasses across Buck's handsome face as he decided on something that was sure to be troublesome. Indigo eyes sparked in the glance he threw the Preacher's way, then Buck straightened up in the saddle with a deep anticipatory breath and said,
"I tell ya, Josiah, I'm too damned tired n' hungry to sit out here all day n' run the risk of some patrol comin' across us anyways."
Josiah was shaking his head as Buck kneed his gray close enough to reach across and smack the Preacher's beefy bicep with a wide grin,
"Come on, now, Josiah, it'll be fun! We ain't had near our quota of fun yet, now have we?"
As it turned out, the purchase of a pair of buffalo robes and a contingent of Cheyenne going in their orderly turn to collect 'gifts' of corn and beef from the Trader was all it took to get into the Fort again. They went with the robes over their heads as the people wore them when they wished to be left alone with the privacy of their own thoughts, and none interfered, nor noticed their peculiar height or the entirely incongruous mustache one sported.
"Ezraaaaa ... " Cooed sweetly seductive right near the gambler's ear; he batted at the annoyance, not ready to rise after a late night of filling his pockets with the unexpected bounty of hundreds of fresh pickings. With an irritated grunt, he burrowed deeper into his down pillow.
"Oh, Ezzzraaaaaa ..."
Now, if it had been the dulcet tones of a lady rousing him so gently, even before he was willing, he could have found the wherewithal to do so courteously, but the instant he became aware enough to recognize the voice, he also remembered where he was - which was somewhere Buck Wilmington was not supposed to be. Bleary green eyes popped open and Ezra started violently to find Buck's unshaven face and broad white-toothed grin not an inch away from his.
"Gawww ..." He cried untelligibly, thrashing in his bed to get his hands free so he could shove the filthy apparition away from him, but the lanky gunman just flopped next to him on the bed with a hard bounce that raised trail-dust off his clothes, stretching out with a deep sigh. Ezra sucked in an affronted breath and let fly, irritation rising at Buck's critical appraisal of his disheveled hair, which he realized by the breeze through the window was sticking straight up at the crown of his head. More than being surprised, being surprised and looking ridiculous!
"Where's Larabee and the rest? What in the name of God are you ..."
"Quiet down, Ezra, we don't want any commotion." Ezra's head snapped toward this new presence in increasing dismay and found Josiah lounging under a buffalo robe against the wall by the curtained window. The Preacher waggled his big thick fingers at him with a weary smile.
"Are you trying to get us all killed? Have you any idea what Gerald or Stephen Monroe would do if they knew you were here? And how in hell did you get in here, anyway? In broad daylight?"
"Oh, you noticed!" Buck said and Ezra turned toward him, red-faced, and took a breath to give him a piece of his mind. Instead, his aquiline nose wrinkled with horrified delicacy, "Lord have mercy, Mr. Wilmington, have you been cohabiting with swine? You smell like a neglected barn floor!"
Buck laughed softly, unoffended, and said, "I reckon I probably do - you can fix that, can't you? Get a bathtub sent in? But we need breakfast, first, me n' Josiah've been riding hard all night while you've been enjoyin' this fine feather bed." Settling down with a meaningful cock of dark eyebrows and a satisfied wriggle into the bedding, closing his eyes and lacing his fingers across his concave belly with the obvious intention of remaining right there despite Ezra's huffing outrage. "And as to how we got in here - well, we figgered this had to be your room since it was the only one anywhere with the drapes still drawn. Mighty accomodatin' it's on the ground floor, I don't know as we could've climbed anywhere without bein' spotted. Ain't it dandy how things just work out like they do?"
When Ezra turned to Josiah hoping for reason, he found the Preacher looking at the spot Ezra occupied with such obvious longing that Ezra threw up his hands and gave up, flinging back the covers and swinging his feet over the side, shaking his head as he abandoned his comfort. Josiah was stretched out beside Buck before the gambler had poured water from the pitcher into the basin on his bureau for his morning ablutions.
"Well, I'm assumin' you found a place to go to ground that's safe." Ezra said, splashing water onto his face.
"Yep. In a Lakota camp a day's ride southwest. Chris wanted us here t'keep an eye on you all." Josiah answered, an innocent blankness meeting Ezra's snort; 'you all', as if it wasn't Mary Travis he was concerned about. One day that contrary man would admit he had feelings for that fiery stubborn woman and may dare to take her on, and life would be ever so much more pleasant for everyone. It was like pins and daggers being around the two of them in the same place most times.
Ezra turned toward him, water dripping off his chin, and asked what they hadn't offered to tell him. What was surprisingly important to him.
"And Mr. Tanner?"
"Vin's in a bad way. Chris n' J.D. are alright, but Vin ..."
Ezra went back to the basin, his stomach plummeting, though his voice remained remarkably even. "In a bad way?"
He could feel the sudden anger in the moment's silence behind him and was afraid of it not for himself, but for that rough uncouth tracker who'd let his scorn for Ezra's ways be seen time and again, but who Ezra trusted with his life and even privately admired.
"Stephen did him some damage." Josiah finally said, "But Nathan thinks he'll pull through." Ezra's neck loosened a bit, because Nathan wouldn't say so unless he believed it. "Ezra, what's goin' on here?"
A rough bark of laughter interrupted Ezra's shaving brush and he looked at them both in the mirror over his shoulder; Buck had retrieved an auspicious bottle of good bourbon from the nightstand and made a mocking toast with it as he uncorked it and took a healthy swallow, passing it on to Josiah, who did the same. Ezra suppressed a fastidious frown - there were glasses right there they could've used!
"A population explosion, quite obviously." Neither Josiah nor Buck misunderstood why so many soldiers should make Ezra happy, he likely had half their month's pay in his boot by now, but the presence of such a daunting number of troops increased their own risk substantially, to say nothing of the Lakota out there protecting their friends.
"Gerald was delighted at first - " Ezra said, guiding his gleaming ivory-handled straight-razor over the fine cleft in his handsome chin; "You should have seen his face, I declare, it was like the Devil enjoying an unexpected influx of minions. Why, he strode on out onto the porch like a King at court with a grin as wide as could be watching that column come up the road and start pitching tents. And then, this gentleman in a frock-coat rode up to the porch on a mule and announced that he was the Commander of Platte come to oversee negotiations with the Indians." Shaking his head with a wicked smile to remember Gerald's consternation. "The Commander of the Platte on a mule, no uniform - oh, it was priceless."
"Colonel George Crook?" Josiah asked with real surprise, "When did he ... I thought he was chasin' down Geronimo in the Arizona territory."
Ezra shrugged and wiped his smooth cheeks and jaw with a towel, which he dropped negligently onto the bureau. "Brigadier General George Crook. Evidently he succeeded in corralling all but that illustrious personage and his merry band on the reservations - this command is his reward." As if mystified that any man could consider anywhere west of the Mississippi anything but dire punishment.
"Crook?" Buck parroted, looking back and forth between them for an explanation; Ezra shrugged, a gesture almost lost in the donning of a pristine white shirt, threading cufflinks through the cuffs with practiced elegance.
"He's a decent enough man for a soldier." Josiah provided, though the compliment was grudging; "He tries to deal straight with them, but he's convinced the Indians have to be forced into the white man's ways for their own good." A rolling shrug didn't quite dismiss that notion; "Guess it's better than extermination. He'll negotiate in good faith with the people, but that doesn't mean the government will uphold any treaty he manages here any more than they have in the past." Not saying there could be no negotiation that could satisfy the People with white miners crawling over the Paha Sapa, or that Crook was, even being a man of character, as misguided as every other soldier serving an increasingly corrupt master. He was loyal to the service of his country, upheld his duty with as much dignity and honor as he could, but he chased the People and used their own against them like a man staking a mare in season to catch wild stallions, as if they were wild animals needing to be confined for their own survival and not people at all. Blind obedience was not something Josiah had believed in since he'd left his father's side.
"That put a crimp in Gerald's plans?" Buck asked hopefully, but Ezra shrugged again, this time into his blue coat, tugging down a sapphire silk vest and checking his reflection critically as he brushed his light brown hair.
"We're not sure - we haven't been able to get James off alone, and he's the only one privy to their thoughts just now. Somehow I doubt it - if you consider it, gentlemen, this could even strengthen his hand, a murder being done in the middle of a peace council under Crook's nose n' all."
Josiah's pale eyes darkened at the run of Ezra's thinking, knowing at once the gambler was probably right. "We need t'talk to the Judge, Ezra; Chris is wanting to know what's going on here, what you intend to do. He wants Mary out of here." That being the most important thing to him, which no one would dare say out loud in his presence or out of it.
"Obviously - but it's a little inconvenient just now, don't you think?" He set his low-crowned black hat on his head and checked the fine curl of the brim, brushing at something no one else would've seen without a magnifying glass. "If you promise to get your spurs off my coverlet, I'll bring you some breakfast, and otherwise I'd suggest you just continue to do what you obviously already do so well - make yourselves comfortable, until dark." Not in the least pleased with the prospect of having his bedroom appropriated, but Buck and Josiah only grinned at him from their comfortable reclines.
From the small but surprisingly luxurious dining room of the Officer's quarters, Mary watched the column of Indians crossing the Parade Ground, her eyes troubled. Her slender fingers worried the fine lacy curtains in the window, and worry gnawed in her stomach for Vin and for Chris, for Elizabeth and Julianna out there in the wilderness ... Despite Stephen's insistent opinion, these Indians did not look not like people receiving charity, the women sang as they went, seeming proud as conquerors accepting tribute. Mary was increasingly frustrated with her inability to have any impact on anything happening around her, and with herself, too, for the growing uncertainty of the rightness of her convictions. She'd been so sure ... But they'd sat at dinner with Colonel Crook, a remarkably unpretentious man and fond of the Indians, respectful of their war-skills - but that was the only point of understanding he had with them, and she realized with growing dismay that this myopic paternalism was a common attitude.
She'd listened to him reply without bravado or ego to Gerald and Stephen's questions about his campaigns in the Arizona territories, his faith in the use of Apache scouts - it took an Indian to find an Indian - he said that without being troubled by it. Matter-of-factly he upheld the necessity of ruthlessly relentless pursuit to bring all Indian nations to reservations. And in his stolid belief in the rightness of his course, Mary had found the seeds of doubt about her own. She knew Orrin was troubled by what he heard as well and was reminded that her father-in-law, for all his erudition, was a man who loved and valued the wilderness as so few did. His silence was sober and thoughtful, but the looks he turned her way piercingly significant. Not quite 'told you so', but an appreciation of her beginning to think more widely about what was being accomplished in the name of white civilized progress. As Josiah wanted her to appreciate what he believed was being lost. And what Vin would never waste breath arguing against, pessimistically certain - or too experienced to think otherwise - that only war would slow the genocidal avalanche against a people he so obviously loved.
Vin would make the gestures, futile or not, he would stand for his honored principles no matter the cost, no matter if the effort went unrecognized, even unnoticed. She'd realized at that table last night with fine silver in her hand and crystal glasses sparkling with wine and a deep stabbing pang in her heart what her father-in-law had already realized. What Vin in his anger and distance had scorned them both for not knowing from the start. Nothing they did out here would stop the war against the Indians, nothing halt the predations and faithless treaties and corruption. It woke a sense of despair in her heart that made her ache with sudden insight into the dark furious shadows in Vin's eyes.
She knew what Vin would think of Colonel Crook's methods - oh, indeed, she could visualize the glower of that peaceable man to hear a people he loved spoken of as provincial savages not civilized enough to recognize the benefits of white society, and the Colonel obviously believed they must be forced into that society in order to survive. It might be true, because the only alternative seemed to be utter annihilation, but that did not make it right to Vin or best for anyone, and Vin knew that, as she had not.
The Lakota were a part of Vin's unspoken past she never would've imagined, but obviously they felt a loyalty to him - they had come to his rescue at great risk, and she did not deceive herself that they had come for anything but Vin's sake no matter how many horses they'd managed to sweep away with them. Obviously it was an affection he returned as much as he did to the other six peacekeepers, even to the town he served that she knew he'd never be truly at ease in. It frightened her to so unexpectedly glimpse some of that same selfless madness in Vin that kept her ever fearful for Chris, because she was certain Vin would do something here to keep the Black Hills' gold from Stephen and Gerald Monroe's pockets. Something that might see him hung or shot or cost him the family he'd forged, whether he realized it or not, in Four Corners. She'd never thought he could be so careless of his life as Chris was, but who was she to say their causes for it were not a valid enough reasons? All she could do for Vin was make sure whatever sacrifice he would certainly make was not in vain, and she resolved to find a way to do just that.
Vin Tanner would not love what was not worthy of that love, she was as sure of that as she was of the principles that directed his life. The Indians had lived on this land for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, yet it remained unscarred, a seemingly untouched magnificence that forced at least a moment's reverence even from the most avaricious heart. What was it in some men's character that made them determined to own what struck them with awe? Whether it be a beautiful land or a beautiful woman, a spirited horse, anything belonging to itself and beautiful in that self-possession as if it insulted them in its singularity, or took issue with their own limitations and drove them to conquer, to belittle? What was it about wildness that provoked the determined will to tame and render harmless? Oh, but she was guilty of that herself - the frontier she worked so diligently to make safe for settlers, never recognizing before what might be in the process of being destroyed to make way for it.
With a sense of shame that tightened her throat she recalled Josiah's eyes as he spoke about the people's children being taken from them, Vin's surprisingly deep fury to know miners were in the Black Hills - they knew what few white men did, what all Indians did. The frontier wasn't simply emptiness awaiting exploitation, not just wilderness needing to be brought under plow and fence to realize its potential - it was its own entity, a place that nurtured and lived and breathed and maybe even loved the people on it. A romantic notion for a pragmatic woman, but her hand rose to her breast almost defensively as she finally understood the disappointment she'd been so offended to see in Josiah's eyes, in Vin's.
It was happening now, here, by people as well-intentioned as she herself had been as much as by those lusting after the untouched treasures the civilized world valued. Gold and silver and copper and coal, lumber and water and fertile fields, fuel for humanity's progress, but to Vin and Josiah, who had dwelt among the Indians and come to know the mysteries she could hardly guess at, it was obviously much more. It was something they, and all these native peoples, understood with an intimacy that made it impossible for them to comprehend how the white man could not understand. There was the root of their offense, she thought, taking what they thought they needed, what they thought was there for the taking, without ever knowing how much more was there than what they saw.
With blunt clarity she remembered Josiah saying there were things the Indians knew of the wilderness that could be invaluable to all people, medicines and farming and husbanding of resources to preserve them for the generations to come, a responsibility to the future that was being disregarded in the short-sighted race to build a civilization here on the bones of the one that had come before. Ways and wisdoms being plowed under with callous disregard before anyone truly comprehended what was being lost, and she was as guilty as anyone.
Something occurred to her then that made her breath catch and her eyes widen - Was that why these men so eager for the gold and silver were moving wildfire quick to capture the places and eradicate the Indians? So that what was being lost would never be known? Because it would provide a rational argument against such blind disregard? Oh - this was an avenue she'd never considered, and it roused an indignation that went bone-deep - to know, and to do it anyway ...
Mary might be naïve in matters of Indians and war, but she had a sophisticated sense of the greater economic and societal forces behind this great campaign of conquest, and a heart she had learned to trust even when it was painful to her. She also possessed a skill she knew to be singular - and a resource to bring it to bear that gave her a reach she could use as ruthlessly as any man could use a gun. Her eyes narrowed, and a course wholly different from the one she'd set out upon opened up in her mind. What was a journalist's mandate but to bring the truth to the fore? To provoke thought, to expose to those distant from the fields of war the battles and their reasons? An excitement budded quick and fertile in her, swept her into it.
Orrin sat at the table over a cup of coffee, dark eyes fixed beyond the room, beyond the tight thoughtful form of his daughter-in-law, who was having her foundations shaken and cracked out in this wilderness. He was glad of that even as he worried for her safety, headstrong and impulsive as she was, because she could help in ways he doubted she'd ever considered before. If she did, if she came to realize what he was almost afraid she could do, she could lose everything she'd built, even endanger her life. Despite the risk, however, he couldn't hope she wouldn't do it. His breakfast, hardly touched, congealed on the plate before him. He was tired of worrying, but he and Ezra hadn't yet come up with a way to take advantage of what had so unexpectedly come marching up to their front door. Had his missives gotten through? Was Crook's arrival due to the intervention of one of his allies in the east, or a happy coincidence? Certainly Gerald hadn't expected it, and his dismay was reassuring.
"Good morning!" Ezra, impeccable as always, came through the door with a smile far too cheerful for him at this time of the morning, interrupting the introspection of both Mary and Orrin. Neither of them missed his surreptitious glance around the room and through the adjoining doors to see if anyone else was within earshot and both were immediately alerted.
"Ezra." Orrin replied in non-committal greeting, taking a sip from his lukewarm cup and regarding the gambler suspiciously over the rim as Ezra proceeded to load a plate with bacon and scrambled eggs, balancing an entire loaf of fresh bread on the top and picking up the crock of butter from the table with his free hand. Orrin and Mary exchanged a confused glance, eyebrows rising.
"Feeling peckish this morning, Ezra?" Orrin inquired mildly, and Ezra smiled sourly in reply and, with a final glance to ensure they were not overheard, said,
"I've acquired a pair of uninvited guests who are currently rendering my quarters uninhabitable by anyone with even the most rudimentary olfactory senses." Mary's eyebrows tweaked quizzically; "Josiah and Buck are in my room."
Their surprise was as evident as the question that leapt with a gasp to Mary's lips, and Ezra reassured her hastily; "They're all safe, Mary." Although the news was not all so unequivocally positive; "Vin has suffered some injuries that have incapacitated him at present, but Nathan feels hopeful of his recovery."
Orrin let his breath out quickly, still deeply disturbed by what had happened to Vin at Stephen's hands - it had been all he could do to keep from being openly hostile to the man, and he knew the curtness he couldn't help had been noticed. "They're camped out there ..." Ezra continued with a vague gesture with the butter crock and a dubious expression, "With the Indians."
This reassured Orrin somewhat; if they were among the Sioux, they would be safe for the time being, although not even they would be safe once this great mass of men - more on the way, according to Crook, General Terry moving with 600 mounted soldiers and 400 infantry from Ft. Lincoln and General Ellis with 450 infantry from Montana territory - arrived. He had a sense of thunderclouds stacking up with their bellies full of lightening and disaster, time running out far more quickly than he'd anticipated. Stubbornly, though, he did not yield to the sense of futility that pried at his original intentions.
"Why did they take the risk of coming in now?" Mary asked, still concerned to think of Chris, in the violent mood he'd been in for so long, among people he was openly hostile toward, particularly if Vin was badly hurt. They shared a deep and wordless bond she guessed neither fully understood and, being men, did not bother to examine, but Chris would be worried, and his reactions to worry were unpredictable at best.
This time Ezra's smile was warm, however, his eyes more understanding than Mary could appreciate. "Chris insisted; now, much as I'd like to believe my welfare was his primary concern, I rather think that concern is ... well, directed elsewhere." A flush climbed her cheeks, a confusion of embarrassment and gratification that her father-in-law pretended not to notice.
"Let's put off questions for the now and let me get this food to my guests before they begin gnawing the furniture. I've told them to remain where they are until dark."
Orrin nodded distractedly and waved Ezra on.
Both men were off the bed, guns drawn, the instant Ezra opened the door, but the plate in his hand was the immediate focus of their ravenous attention and was whisked away in a moment, the two of them tucked into it like they hadn't eaten in weeks. Ezra regarded them with mild disgust; they ate like it was a contest to see who could get more than their fair share first.
"You tell the Judge we're here?" Josiah said around a mouthful of bacon, glowering at Buck's reach for the bread he'd torn off and set safely on his far side.
"I did." Ezra paced the length of the room to the window and parted the drapes with his fingertips to check the busy soldiers outside. Without turning from that vantage, he asked, "Has Mr. Tanner been informed as to the timetable the Monroes are pursuing?"
Josiah and Buck looked at each other, and since Buck was between bites, he answered; "I don't know if Elizabeth told him, he wasn't exactly talkative when we left." With an eloquent shrug of his wide-boned shoulders and a pointed glance, he said what they all knew to be true.
"But if she has, we won't be able to stop him coming any more n' a teaspoon would bail a river."
"If he's able." Ezra said, and Buck laughed shortly with a quick shake of his head.
"Oh, he'll be able, Ezra. If he has to crawl on his hands and knees and go through Chris to do it, he'll get here."
Ezra could not disagree.
Vin came from night-dark nowhere like a drifting sea-bird unexpectedly bumping into dry land. Exhausted and bewildered by the world becoming solid under him. The night resolved to lodgepoles meeting over his head in the red glow of a banked fire, confusing, but comfortingly familiar. Time crossed back and forth in him from then to now and back again, and he didn't even try to decide where he wanted to be most. Homey braids of onions and turnips hung with the sacred objects and those that were there just for the pleasant sounds they made in movement. Morning stars out the smokehole; he stared at them in disoriented gratitude.
There was no urge to move, he was comfortable in a heavy languid way, bones fever-hollowed, a very big pain mercifully hovering at a numb remove reinforcing the urge to stillness. Part of him cast out in slow motion, a seeking that found her presence as soon as he asked for it, and then he was alright. He lived, he knew that. For now it was enough to breathe, buffalo robes and fire smoke, horses and sweet grass. Eventually he noticed the slender arm across his chest and when he creaked his head around like an old stiff man and looked ... Duley was beside him, fitting his body as she always had.
For that split second the stifled darkness he'd carried in him since she'd passed vanished into a buoyant bursting joy, light flooded the dusty long-shuttered room of his heart and he freed his arm from whatever pressed against it on the other side to reach across, disregarding a ripple of bone-deep pain in his side. Shaking fingers slid across the glossy glory of that blood-red hair and breath wasn't past the constriction in his throat to find it real, cool and alive as it had ever been to his touch. Only a moment's worth, an instant that screamed inside and flooded the world with grateful tears before a nut-brown wizened little face popped upside down over his head into his field of vision, braids wrapped in fox-fur falling to bracket his head.
"Toniktuka hwo?" She asked brightly with a breath of a throaty chuckle at his obvious confusion. Vin didn't know how to answer her, struggling with coherence and the evacuating sweep of disappointment to realize who it was beside him. Indeed, he didn't know how he felt.
Little Eagle cocked her head, bird-like, and wondered where he was in his spirit, what it was he'd been seeing that was on the other side of being alive - she knew that look well, and the emotion of it was in the grieving disappointment of his hand as it came off the white woman's hair. It was a gorgeous color, all the people had commented on it, and many knew by it that she was sister to the one who had been this man's wife. Among the people it was not uncommon for a man to marry the sister of a wife who had perished, there was a sense to it that was easy to understand - the comforting similarity of form and face, and the woman's own feelings that could, being blood, be as her sister's had been. But there was a shade over the possibility of this union - this sister was too unlike the man's wife no matter the resemblance. Worlds different. A white woman, as this man was not a white man.
Vin was saved from the sage and sorrowful understanding in Little Eagle's eyes by Elizabeth stirring, and then he had to smile at how flustered she was to find him looking at her as she woke in so compromising a position.
"Oh ... oh..." Ridiculous little word and the only one she could bring to mind as she struggled to get clear of the buffalo robe without hurting him, exalting at the life in him after so long a strange stillness but feeling as if every drop of blood in her body had shot into her face, making it hot as a coal.
"I didn't know where else ... I wasn't sure about the other pallet ... " She stammered in a rush as she got her feet free, then Julianna's head rose from Vin's other side, surprising him into a violent start that made him suck in a breath.
"Hey, you're awake!" Jules chirped, and Little Eagle laughed out loud at the expression on his face to find himself bracketed between the two relatives of his wife.
He gave Jules a flicker of a grin, slightly breathless - her hair was a wild tangle half over her face, her eyes the color of twilight and bright as a jay even right out of sleep. He swore he could see every tooth in her mouth, she was grinning that big and was smiling even as his head dropped back and his eyes closed again, infinitely tired from so little thing as lifting it up. He felt like he was falling, but it was slow and gentle this time and he let himself go.
"Go get Nathan, Julianna, if he's awake." Elizabeth said briskly to forestall the scandalized questions in her niece's grin to find her there, too, and a glower when the girl hesitated, "I'm sure he'll want to see Vin."
For the next few days he mostly slept, Little Eagle rolling up the side of the lodge when she sensed the space was becoming too close for him even if it was colder than the black medicine man liked. A man had to breathe even in sickness, she declared as she went about doing so, and though Nathan didn't understand her words, he did understand he wouldn't be able to stop her, and also that Vin lay easier with some wind on his face.
She did not know what, or why, but Little Eagle had the strong sense of significance accompanying these white people who had come among the Lakota on the brink of war between their kind. The people knew everything was connected in some way, and Little Eagle knew it better than most, so she set herself to watch and listen and find what it meant.
Every time he woke and could do so, the pejute wicasa sat him up and made him take as many deep breaths as he could manage, explaining at her quizzical expression that it was to keep his lungs clear.
Nathan knew it hurt, and was a little mystified at the old woman's protectiveness, but Vin didn't complain, so she let him be. Good thing, too - he'd already seen that she could be fierce as a harpy and even the eldest warriors gave her a wide berth. Indeed, for a man wont to creep off on his own to mend the minute he could get out of the clinic under his own steam, Vin did everything Nathan told him to do even disoriented and fevered, took every noxious concoction and obeyed every command with highly suspicious obedience.
Elizabeth tried to make him eat and drink as much as he could even when he didn't want to, but it was Little Eagle who managed to tempt him with fry-bread from the flour Buck and Josiah had brought out of the fort with them on the mules, dipped in wojapi made from dried blue-berries and water and sweetened with sugar from those same stores. All men were children when it came to sweets, she said in the face of Elizabeth's exasperation, and this one was no different.
Once, Little Eagle found the snake-thin man in black, who was seldom seen in the camp, squatting on his heels outside the rolled wall of the lodge in the twilight looking at Vin as he slept. Just looking, thinking things that troubled him. He was a brittle man who spoke to no one but the dark pejuta wicasa and the honey-eyed boy. That narrow man did not like much of anything, stalking the outskirts of the encampment at night, riding out far every day back along the trail to the Fort. This apparent rudeness angered some who felt their hospitality was being scorned, but Little Eagle advised them in her brusque way to just be quiet about it and leave him alone, only a fool prodded a rattler under a rock. Some of the young warriors, hot-blooded and eager to test themselves - as though there would not be war enough for all soon - resisted her admonishments, but their elders understood and kept them from provoking the bloodshed they suspected the narrow man avoided himself with his absence. In his own way, he was being polite.
The white woman barely left Vin's side, and Little Eagle saw love in her devotion, but of the sort not yet indulged. She was a polite woman and careful not to offend, and after the first night she seemed to find her balance and went thereafter with a graceful authority that said she was a woman of some substance among the whites. She was strange among the people in her petticoats and hard buttoned shoes and coiled hair, but seemed not to feel that strangeness herself.
The girl-child, however ... that Jules girl, oh, Little Eagle felt a profound kinship with that bold and independent creature. It was seldom easy to be so different, but the girl disregarded what was easy as much as Little Eagle ever had. Curious thing she was, and not one to let ignorance restrain her. Once it became apparent that the tracker was not going to perish nor indeed do anything much beyond sleeping, she was drawn like honey down-hill into the camp itself, in among the people, her Aunt's preoccupation giving her all the opportunity she needed to feed her curiosity unimpeded.
In this pursuit, Little Eagle and, indeed, all the people, were her willing helpers. The first hour they were there the child escaped her Aunt's searching eye just by remaining still among the trees, and none of the people looked that way to reveal her position. The woman, who they were very curious about, had turned to them a balefully humored eye, knowing there was a private game being played around her, and in exasperation had pointed at Two Badgers with the water skin she'd wanted Julianna to fill. Oh, there had gone up such a burst of laughter into the sparks and smoke as he rose, good-natured, to fill it for her. That was when the people had seen the admirable character of her, and it put them all at their ease. What would happen with these white people needed peace and cooperation in the camp, and Little Eagle was satisfied that it had been attained so quickly. Time seemed to matter.
The first day the girl set herself to watching the women of the lodges grouped nearest her Uncle's as they went about tanning or some other chore, observing with silent but polite intensity until they invited her to try herself, whereupon she applied what she'd absorbed with more vigor and determination than skill. They quickly realized she had no real interest in the domestic arts - it was them she was curious about, and since she was exercising that curiosity with great good manners, they showed her how to plait and wrap her hair, showed her their clothing and finest decorations, all the things of their lodges.
The people admired an inquisitive spirit, and her admiration and awe were so genuine that they finally spent the entire afternoon opening every parfleche and pouch and bag that could be opened and explained its contents as much as they could. Supper was late, but the women were laughing and the girl was emboldened by what she'd learned.
As Little Eagle expected, the camp lost its appeal once its mysteries had been revealed to her, and she was far too restless to stay there with the sounds of the other camps along the river beckoning faintly, and horses in the meadows where the young men rode bare-backed and fluid as otters, whooping and showing off as they exercised and trained their mounts for the battles to come.
The next morning, she tagged behind J.D. as he went to move Peso to new pasture; he'd had to tether him on his own away from the other animals, so out of sorts that Little Eagle thought that horse would pick a fight with a grizzly if it got too near. Privately, the old woman knew J.D. was avoiding her because of the endless list of tasks she had for him every time she saw him. She liked to tease him, his fine foxy face would color and he'd mutter dire things under his breath at her imperious demands and protest when she poked and pushed at him to get him to do what she wanted. He was edgy on his own among the people and seemed lost without his friends, clumsy and easily embarrassed, but she thought by his wary long-suffering acquiescence that he might have guessed she was trying to make him feel at home.
The big black horse that belonged to the tracker proved so fractious in jerking and rising against the tether that the girl had no trouble sneaking off further down the valley, running at the last through the slapping stalks of grass to that broad golden field where the young men were. Little Eagle walked sedately a shorter way, as she knew shorter ways to just about everywhere, and watched.
At first, those young men in their first war-camp, full of themselves and the great purpose they were involved in, ignored her quite scornfully until she wandered away, her head down, thinking. Little Eagle remained where she was, and when the young men started loosing arrows at a painted hide stretched around a tree, a new shaft of a different paint than theirs sprouted in their target - at one edge and wobbling uncertainly as it struck, but from a little further away than their own and in the target, at least.
Jules stood behind them and laughed out loud at their faces when they turned to see who had shot it, and they'd chased her away, waving their hands and mocking her, a girl with a bow as tall as she was herself. Though she went, she was laughing at them still, like a little sister might, and they couldn't be angry. Little Eagle let her approval be seen when one tapped her on the top of her head that afternoon as they rose to hunt, and the girl followed as if she'd done so always.
So the tracker had been teaching the girl, and it was proof of a quick mind that she'd learned so much in so short a time. After that, and with only the slightest bit of encouragement from Little Eagle, the young warriors took her along among them. They showed her the finer points of riding without the burden of a saddle and she got back up every time, dusty and scraped but undeterred, until she had the knack of tucking her legs under the plaited rope tied around the pony's barrel behind the forelegs and stayed on.
They let her handle their rifles and hand-guns, too, though no one shot them with bullets so scarce, and she took them up with such gleeful ferocity that they raised their palms in mock fear of her despite empty chambers. She was fleet and strong and fearless, full-hearted and full-throated in her enjoyment of all the people offered - and her Uncle was a legendary tracker and rifleman; the hope of his tutelage when he was well, Little Eagle had suggested in passing, would be increased by their kindness to his niece.
Little did Jules know how much of an ally she had in Little Eagle, nor the number of times the old woman played her tricks when her Aunt came looking for her, pretending to have sent her on an errand she couldn't explain in English, or looking around as though she'd just been beside her. She was moved to do so not only because the things the white girl was learning were things a person needed to know, but because of her sense that this person, in particular, needed to know them. This person had a purpose ahead of her that she felt she had to encourage, and so she did.
The third evening the girl brought a small doe to Little Eagle's lodge hopping with excitement to show her Uncle and her disappointment at finding him indisposed clear. But once Two Badgers had hung it for her, she skinned it all by herself, sweaty and bloody and flecked with gore (much to the horror of her Aunt) and proud of the tattered perforated hide she ended up with. The young warriors had looked at it and stuck their fingers through the holes as if in admiration, saying it would be a very cool garment with so many invitations to the air. It didn't matter, the smiles of the women promised help in making something fine with it.
Oh, that girl won over the entire camp in just three days, and Little Eagle thought that if such children existed among the whites, eager to know the people's ways and recognizing their rightness, hungry to name the nameless urgings of their spirits that the people knew, then the world her most terrible vision warned of might not be so terrible. It was funny that a bright copper-haired white girl gave this old Lakota woman hope that even in the darkness, there were stars that would still shine. The stars would ceaselessly shine.
Two Badgers' wife, Poor Rain, made Jules a pair of moccasins from the sturdy hide of the smokehole of an old lodge, beautifully beaded across the top and fringed at the heel to obscure her tracks, and presented them to her after supper one evening. Jules had held them in her hands a long time, turning them with delight and running her grubby fingers lovingly over the tight patterns of beads. Her thanks were in stumbling Lakota words and the eloquent shine of her eyes, and Poor Rain had been very pleased.
With some ceremony, Jules had taken off the boots, looking at them so thoughtfully that Little Eagle understood they had some significance to her, and then she'd set them aside, and thereafter appeared each day a bit more Indian in costume than white. Not a dress, considering the boyish things she liked to do, riding and climbing, but a fine shirt and then a pair of leggings she wore over her white man's trousers, proud as a pheasant in spring of the quillwork and tufts of horsehair and runs of fringe. Not even her Aunt had the heart to tell her no, because it was Vin she was waiting for, to see her and be pleased. He would be.
It was a quiet time, if not peaceful. Quiet as the land was before a storm broke, the people went contentedly enough, but all held that taut stillness in their hearts. Which among them would never know such a time again before they walked the star-road to the other side? Heh. Today was the day that was lived.
On the fourth day when Vin woke, the blue of his eyes was clear and almost lucid. He was weak as a newborn, aching from crown to soles and his chest a constant pain, but that was all right. He knew where he was, and with whom, though it was disconcerting in the first few hours of that morning when his mind drifted and he'd think he saw Duley out of the corner of his eye. She was with him in her way, and it had been enough for a long while now. If he closed his eyes awhile, he could hear her in the quiet songs the women sang as they worked. He had no doubt Duley had brought him here to mend as much as much as he could before ... he stopped himself from going down that path - he had to be well enough to get there, first.
Nathan might not have wondered too much about Vin's cooperation, the tracker was too skinny and far too pale under the bruises decorating his face and body, hardly able to make a move without wincing - he seemed determined to get healthy, and that was enough for Nathan.
It was not enough for Chris, and the first evening Vin was up, leaning against a backrest while Elizabeth and Little Eagle freshened the pallet in the lodge, Chris sat down and looked across the fire at him sidelong. The tracker seemed to be dozing, but Chris didn't buy it. When Vin opened his eyes and looked over, Chris saw that strange distraction in his eyes, a shadowed distance with barbed wire under it. Was it death still on his horizon, standing patiently awaiting the action he knew Vin would take that might be the last his body could stand? Like he heard voices and saw things in the world that no one else could see and it made Chris' spine crawl.
"You're bein' mighty cooperative with Nathan, cowboy."
Through the pinned-back door-flap of the lodge, Little Eagle heard his voice and paused to watch - it was the first time the two men had been in each other's private company since they'd arrived, and she was very curious about the friendship between them that was so powerful and yet so fragile.
An indolent shrug was the answer Chris got, a hiss of breath at the unthought motion and a wry upward glance of flashing blue. Vin seemed to be having a hard time looking Chris right in the eye, and since indirect and Vin weren't hardly acquainted, it had all of Chris' suspicions high and alert.
Vin closed his eyes and just breathed, woodsmoke and buffalo robes, bear grease and the lingering aroma of fry bread being cooked in hot animal fat.
"Can't say as I like what's on your face, Vin." Chris said so Vin would know he'd figured out exactly why Vin was being so cooperative - he had plans to go back to that Fort and do God knew what, God knows why - Chris couldn't think of a reason good enough. But Vin's eyebrows tweaked briefly with a chuff of sarcastic laughter; "Can't say as I like it either." He said, pointedly feeling the still-swollen line of a cut across his cheekbone.
"You know you ain't goin' nowhere for a good long while, right?" More a statement - even a threat - than a question, though Chris still waited for a reply.
Vin's head cocked a little, as if he'd seen something in the darkling trees that drew his attention. But Chris wanted an answer, and it took Vin a minute or so, unused to dissembling, to find one that would do.
"Looks that way." He said, hoping for enough of a note of resignation to satisfy the suspicious eyes he could feel pale and sharp on the side of his face.
Chris glanced toward Elizabeth inside the lodge and met the unexpected obstacle of Little Eagle's direct stare. He gave her back one just as direct, and cold as the heart of winter. Cold, but inside hot as a big fire, Little Eagle understood in that moment how dangerous he thought his caring was. The tracker was important to him, that much she'd already seen, but she'd thought the anger had been toward those who had hurt him - it was not. It was anger at Vin, and it was not a small thing that had gone wrong between them. Was it this white woman? Did the tracker want to take her and his friend disagree? Common as it was among the people, it was not common to take a sister to wife among the whites, and they had so many bewildering rules about things that did not need any rules at all ...
When Vin made no further overture to conversation (indeed, he closed his eyes and seemed to go to sleep as quickly as a babe), the gunslinger unfolded his long angled body and stalked away, obviously not entirely satisfied but knowing it was all the answer he'd be able to get. He took his horse, then, and he left as if the camp was not even there.
When she looked back to the tracker, he was watching his friend go and that spirit Little Eagle had seen from the corner of her eye attending him over the last few days was there again, like a trick of eye making something out of the drifting campsmoke, but with more definition than smoke should possess. With sudden prescience she realized that he knew it was there, too, and it did not frighten him. No, he held it close, still, after all this time he would not let her go. For many years now he had been between the worlds of the living and the dead, love a tether that held husband and wife trapped on opposite sides, never touching, but never parted. He did not want to be free of that spirit he loved more than this world, and she shook her head sadly. It was not good to tie a spirit to the natural world when it should be free, nor for a man to be more at ease in the shadow world than this one, and when he turned his head as if he felt her eyes, as if he would challenge her, she ducked back into the lodge and did not look anymore.
Jules squatted by a swirling pool in the stream below the camp with her Uncle Vin's fishing rod, casting the bug-baited line out carefully into the stillest part. Fish fed mornings and evenings, Uncle Vin said, and maybe he'd like some fish, maybe she could cook it up for him like he'd done for her. She turned her head now and then to look down up the slope toward that road Mr. Larabee was always scouting toward the Fort, impatient for Buck and Josiah to come back. Maybe that's what Uncle Vin was waiting for, too, because she knew he was waiting with hard-held patience for something.
He was quiet and still even when he was awake, and though he'd always been like that, it was ... different now. Before, his stillness was just the way he was, his quiet was careful and watchful, but easy. Now ... it was like he wasn't wholly there anymore, though his smile was unfailingly affectionate and he lifted the robe each night to let her crawl in beside him when her Aunt had gone to sleep. Like a big part of him was wandering around somewhere else and he was just hunkered down here waiting for it to come back, or maybe waiting to figure out a way to live without it. She thought of that big orange barnyard tomcat at home after he'd been badly injured once, eyes half-closed and fixed on empty air as if he was all collected up into himself, riding out the hurt, waiting to feel better, to be able to stand up without shaking or move without moaning.
Maybe Uncle Vin needed to be that way to gather his strength and heal, Little Eagle said it might be so, so Jules tried not to bother him too much, hard as it was to let him alone. More than anything she wanted him to right himself, to come back to the way he used to be. There wasn't a thing she had or would ever in her life have that she wouldn't gladly give to have kept what happened to him from happening, especially when she'd made J.D. tell her all he knew about what, exactly, that was.
She caught herself grinding her teeth and shook her head so fiercely it made her dizzy. Undoubtedly it was sinful and wicked of her to wish so sincerely for Uncle Steven to die a terrible and painful death, and it probably wouldn't be considered very Christian to spend long periods of time dreaming up ways to make it happen. It was probably twice as wicked to want the same thing for her own father, but Steven didn't do anything without permission. Steven was her father's dog, vicious and cruel and ever-eager to draw blood, but it was her father who'd set him loose on her Uncle Vin wanting him to suffer and be hurt - maybe badly enough to kill him. She couldn't help hating him for it, and it was only the last in an endless run of reasons. This time, though, this time she knew in her heart, wrong as it might be, that she would never feel any other way about him. It was no accident, putting her Uncle Vin into that box, oh no, he was far too cunning for accidents or coincidences, he knew it could lethal, the damage he did was seldom less than purposeful.
The worst thing was knowing it was about her, even in a small way, and that was an awful guilt she hated him even more for putting on her. Her father wanted to hurt Vin just because of how much he meant to her - and she to him, jealous of anything someone else had that he didn't even if he'd never wanted it himself until someone else did!
She blew her breath out furiously, wishing they were right in front of her right now so she could tell them what she thought of them both, so she could disown them both and revile them and lay a curse on them that they'd have to feel, she wished ...
Only because her head was turned that way did she see the horse cresting the hill; Chris Larabee was coming back, and this time he had Josiah and Buck with him.
Chris had met them, sitting horsed at the top of a rise in the road like a shadow stretched thin across the twilight, and he'd waited, still as a statue, but watching them all the way as if he was reading every sign on them, grim-faced and hard as stone.
"Vin alright?" Josiah said as soon as a quiet voice would carry far enough, and Chris nodded shortly, measuring the dry deep sound of Josiah's words and how deep both sat in their saddles, loose-legged and drop-shouldered. They'd come hard without much good news and Chris' mood blackened, a night already cold run over with stormclouds.
He turned his black as they reached him and let them pass without stopping, knowing how badly they wanted to get someplace where they could get down. He slid in behind them, his head bowed in bleak thought.
Jules ran up the slope, legs churning, arms pumping, the fishing pole whipping back and forth in her hand as relief burst wide open in her; she didn't know why, it made no sense, but Buck always made her feel better. As she got near, she saw that Buck looked tired and worried, and in fact, he was, but the spark was still there in the cocked grin that answered the sight of her. His arm was hard as a length of jointed metal under the cloth and skin, his hand so big and long that his fingers overlapped around her upper arm as he hauled her up with a tell-tale grunt of effort.
She didn't let him turn her to sit in the saddle in front of him, but threw her legs in a straddle across his thighs and hugged him so hard his hat flopped back onto the latigo, his arm curving around her back to hold her where she was determined to be and surprised by the ferocity of her gladness.
She'd never felt anything so solid as this man, so constant and true despite his seemingly fecklessness - his big flat chest was comfortingly substantial, his arms sure and easy, and the laugh she could feel in him exactly what she'd needed just then.
"Why, am I bein' attacked by a wild In'jun, here?" He drawled in mock fright, tucking his chin in hard so he could look at her incredulously, deep blue eyes weary but still merry on her Indian shirt and fringed leggings. She laughed, louder and more robustly than the comment called for, but he heard the relief in it and let her gather herself up against him again, touched and proud to have this greeting directed at him but feeling a twinge of sorrowful guilt that he had so little to offer.
Elizabeth thought he was asleep against the backrest, he seemed more comfortable sitting up lately, so she was surprised to have him reach up and take hold of her wrist as she walked past him toward the fire. He pulled, his face somber and urgent, so she sat down beside him on the robe, peering anxiously at him and acutely aware of the warm roughness of his hand on her.
"Elizabeth, does Chris know you told me about when your brothers are plannin' t'kill that trader's son?"
Fair eyebrows lowered, and she shook her head, already uneasy.
"I'm gonna ask you not t'tell him I know, then."
Looking directly into her eyes, because he wouldn't ask someone to deceive another without looking them in the eye.
"But ... " Elizabeth had too good an idea why he was asking this and it caused a zing of alarm to go through her.
"What if he asks me? He isn't shy about demanding things from me."
"Lie." Vin said bluntly, holding her eyes forcefully, the sharp angles in his jaw set with determined distaste, but sticking to the word that ran so counter to his nature.
Vin would very likely kill one of her brothers, Elizabeth knew that, he didn't try to hide the intent, though she also knew he'd try any other means first - they were Duley's brothers, too, they were his own kin by law and that had to bother him ferociously. But he would do whatever he had to do, and he let her see that, too, and plainly. His calloused fingers slid down and closed over her hand, tight and too forceful.
"He'll try to stop me, Elizabeth, he'll be doin' it for my good, and he'll be able to. Then everything I promised Duley will come to nothin'."
She heard the edge of a frantic despair under his quiet tone; if this war got started like her brothers intended ... that the war would come he seemed to have accepted, but if it happened because of her brothers ... For some reason he anticipated a future more dire than she could imagine if that was the case, he'd taken it so deeply to heart that it would ruin him to be held back from doing what he'd promised that meant more than just Duley to him - it was the people around them, the women in deerskin dresses with swaying strings of shells patting rhythms as they walked, warriors with feathers turning and winking in the slightest breeze. It was these warriors who had ridden, only ten warriors, into a Fort filled with hundreds of soldiers protected only by bows and paint and their own invincible spirits. The way of life whose quiet rhythm she'd fallen into herself with a strange sort of comfort, a timelessness of each days' work, each nights' rest, each mornings' promise. She found that she, too, lacked the heart to let it be her brothers who brought this life, and these people, to ruin. As hard as it might be to live with seeing them killed, it would be harder still to let them trample over this one last fine thing.
He had such a grip on her that the fine bones of her fingers felt like they would be turned into powder as he waited for her to agree, knowing what he was asking and the risk she would take to lie to Chris Larabee on his behalf. He didn't think the gunslinger would hurt her if he found out, but Chris was unpredictable in the best of times and had a cunning when it came to pay-backs that sometimes made Vin's spine crawl. Vengeance Chris understood.
Finally she broke her eyes down from the blue intensity of his and nodded. "Alright, Vin." Then she looked up again, and unexpectedly caught him, in his turn, in her sudden fierce focus. "But if you come to harm because Mr. Larabee wasn't there to protect you ... " More important to her than her brothers or anything he might do to them, and she wanted him to know it. "Well, you must know how it would weigh on me forever after." Such sincerity as made his chest tighten and he couldn't resist the impulse to pull her against him in gratitude, laying his cheek on the top of her bright head with a troubled uncertainty taking root. There was already so much Chris might not forgive him for - should he trust him now to understand what he had to do rather than try to prevent it?
Elizabeth's hands spread on his back, she pressed her face into his chest for the timber of his heart and the sound of his breathing, careful not to grip too tightly but needing to be as close as she could against the terror of losing him to this duty he owed her sister. She was ashamed to resent Duley bitterly in that moment, ashamed to feel so possessive of a man who did not belong to her. But she was alive and so was Vin, Duley was dead and gone and didn't need him anymore! She shouldn't be endangering him in the living world, she had no place here when there was someone alive who wanted only his happiness all the days of his life! It wasn't fair, it wasn't, and though she knew it was terribly wrong to feel that way, hot tears pricked at her eyes and she let them fall in silence where he couldn't see.
J.D. saw Buck and Josiah with Chris from the far end of the meadow; Vin would be the first place they'd go, and if he was awake, half the story would get told before he got there. They weren't men to chew their cabbage twice, as Buck liked to say, and if he wasn't there to hear he'd be playing catch-up from then on out like it was a test of how much he could figure out on his own.
For one of the few times in his life, a crazy impulse done before he could stop himself paid off. Peso was so stunned to have J.D. whip the tether around his muzzle in a sudden loop and vault onto his back that he leapt into motion, obeying the command of strong legs and a forward lean and firm hands suddenly in charge of his head, moving before he could stop himself. J.D.'s hips rode the jerking dips like he was initiating the motion himself, adjusting to the horse's graceless but extraordinary power. Then they were running flat out, hooves a rapid solid tattoo drumming the hollow earth, and with his free hand J.D. gathered up the trailing tether.
The warriors stopped at the sight of the crazy black horse tearing across the meadow, amazed by the efficient authority of that boy they'd thought little of - that boy mastering a horse they all knew would tolerate nothing less. As she walked through the camp toward her lodge, Little Eagle back-handed the arm of the leader of that band of young men in passing, a world of smugness in the single "Heh!" directed his way. The young warrior flushed and looked down at her with such a hard face and his mouth open to scold her for mocking him that she stopped and gave him all of her forceful attention. The urge to argue what he considered disrespect evaporated into unease to be the center of that ferocious focus.
"He-Dog said once," Little Eagle said coolly, "'It is well to be good to women in the strength of our manhood, because we must sit under their hands at both ends of our lives.'" She put this vague threat to him casually, but her head was tipped back and her eyes keen to his answer. Little Eagle knew well what more a man had to be than strong or fast or good at war to be a leader of the people, as this young man aimed to be. She was pleased to see him rein in a boy's proud temper and reason instead.
"A wise man, He-Dog." He said quietly, contrite, and her face broke into a laughing smile so he knew he'd been wise in that thoughtful answer. He smiled back at her, then, in thanks for the gentle lesson, and her hand waved in affectionate dismissal as she turned and walked on, the cackle of her soft laughter pleasing to hear.
The three white men came directly through the camp from the remuda, moving quickly, tired and grim so the people's eyes followed them, and Jules with them, holding on to Buck's hand; a child among dangerous men and safer there than anywhere else. The tails of that narrow man's long coat lifted off his pipestem legs and flared behind him like a restless crow mantling, and Little Eagle looked away. It never stopped the premonitions, but sometimes she just couldn't look with eyes and heart both.
Buck and Josiah grinned to see Vin's head rise from the backrest, his legs stretched out in front of him and his body in an awkward slouch, but watching them, putting a hand down to push himself further upright. His eyes were wide and clear, the angles of his face drawn tight and marred with healing cuts and bruises, his expression expecting ill tidings. He could read any living thing by its motion or posture, and he knew long before they got there that the news wasn't good.
Chris' stride hesitated as Elizabeth ducked out of the lodge, pushing loose tendrils of hair off her forehead and hesitating herself at their approach. Panic made her take in a quick breath, they were close enough for her to see their faces, dogged and unhappy.
"Vin, yer lookin' pretty as a picture - " Buck said as they drew near, a wan but sweet smile of real gladness to see the tracker up and apparently no longer in the grip of fever, "Maybe a bit too colorful a picture, though ..." With a critical cock of his head at the bruises; Vin smiled up at him, glad to see them no matter what word they brought.
Jules came around from behind Buck and let go of his hand, throwing herself down on the buffalo robe beside Vin with a beaming smile as if she'd brought Buck and Josiah herself just to please him. But Vin didn't welcome her this time; his hand slipped down the side of her head in greeting, but he said under the soft groans of relief as the three men found places to sit,
"Jules, you can't be here just now, we've got some things to work out."
Hurt followed fast by resentment knotted her face and she pushed back from him, offended.
"I'm in the middle of this too, you realize that, don't you? I should know what's going on as much as anyone else!" Angry, but quietly, too, because she knew he was trying not to embarrass her and hoped she could change his mind. But he cocked his head, his eyes regretful on her face, as if she should know why he couldn't have her beside him right now and didn't want to have to say it. Then she did know. Because it was her father and Uncle they'd be talking about.
Vin wished he could've taken his eyes away from hers as it dawned on her, maybe for the first time, that he might take lives that were her family. Then he was glad he hadn't, because he wouldn't have missed the sudden flare of possessive love that came into her face for anything in the world.
She got up to go, but bent over first, intently close, the breath of words only he could hear stroking his cheek and her eyes drilling into his as if to plant this truth in him on her will alone. "You are more my family than they are or have ever been, Uncle Vin." She said, staying near just long enough to see the amazed glimmer when he understood. Then she walked away, her back straight and her head proud, knowing he was looking after her and still seeing his heart in his eyes. If he killed them, then they needed killing, and Jules didn't flinch from that possibility.
Elizabeth had hastened to bring coffee, and when they all had cups in their hands and Buck and Josiah had a moment to sip and let down, Josiah started by saying,
"Crook is there, at Fetterman, there's a council going on."
Little Eagle, squatting comfortably in the shadow of the lodge near enough to watch them, understood that name and the unhappy surprise on their faces. She stood up at J.D's hasty approach and stopped him, motioning into the camp imperiously; "Two Badgers. Bring Two Badgers." Pushing hard into the center of his surprisingly well-muscled chest as he tried to get past her into the conversation that had begun.
"Now, look!" He protested, "I've been real cooperative with you, Ma'am, but I've got to ..."
"Go!" She said, pushing again and actually moving him back a step, her head lowered as if she planned to ram him if he didn't get moving. For a moment he was speechless with frustration, furious and breathing hard with exertion and anger both, but at her implacable face he threw his hands up and spun on his heels, raising dust as he stomped quickly back into the camp. Little Eagle grinned at the black mutterings that drifting back over his hunched shoulders and went into the lodge, emerging a moment later with ingredients for venison stew and dumplings, a thing a trapper had shown her how to make years ago that she loved and made every time she had access to flour. She proceeded to settle down by the fire to prepare as if oblivious to the knot of men, Elizabeth at Vin's shoulder, a few feet away. Pieces of venison, some parched corn and dried onions went into the pot, which tanged quietly onto the tripod over the coals. Wheat flour and dough and gradual dollops of water for dumplings went into one of Elizabeth's fine metal bowls, and she kneaded the dough, watching hawk-eyed.
"James says they're real worried about Crook being there now - the council was planned months ago and Gerald's got his workings all fixed around it, but Crook coming really throws an axe-handle into his spokes." Buck said, then he dragged his hand with a soft rasp over his face, sighing and going on with a little shake of his head. "We wondered maybe they'd just let it go, figure the war would start soon enough anyway - James says no." He looked up into Chris' eyes, glittering like agates, and said with a quick glance at Vin,
"James says Gerald is pushing even harder because Crook will bargain if he can, and Gerald doesn't want any peace made, not now, he's too worried about whatever this phony consortium of ours will do."
Josiah watched Buck dance around the edges of things, knowing how much he wasn't saying, and wouldn't while Vin was listening. And why. The only thing Chris had said to them since he'd met them on the trail was, "I don't want Vin knowin' the when." Buck had nodded silently, already knowing that'd be on Chris' mind and even heartened to know Vin was well enough for Chris to worry about him being able to do something stupid. But Josiah had said nothing, looking at the ground in front of him as he walked, purposely faceless beneath the wide sweep of hatbrim. He hadn't wanted to argue with Chris, and though part of him agreed for Vin's own good, the deeper heart said Vin was his own man and should be allowed his own choices.
A man's life was his to spend as he thought wisest, and not even a friend could say when that was - or wasn't. These matters meant more to Vin than to anyone else other than the Lakota, and if they took his chance to do what he was so set on doing from him, even well-meaning, he might never forgive them for it.
Josiah knew that no matter how matter-of-fact and subdued Buck was being right now, James had been a knot of nerves last night, pacing Ezra's little room like it was far too small and crowded for him. It had felt that way to Josiah, too, and he had no relief from that feeling to be away from that Fort.
"Gerald is pushing," James had said, "he needs it to happen now, before Crook can declare a truce and remove the chance entirely, he needs hostilities, not peace! He's counting on it, Custer is on the way, too, he managed to talk his way into Terry's column, and Gerald wants it done before Custer gets here so it looks like a rescue instead of an invasion. He's told Crook Elizabeth is dead, and his darling daughter, too ..." His face a picture of disgust, "he'll have those land grants inherited without bothering with a body - and before this supposed consortium of yours has a chance to move otherwise - that was a mistake, worrying about that is what's making him move with such haste now."
There was no useful argument, the lie about the consortium had served them at the time; Ezra had shrugged, and said ruefully, "I must admit, your senior sibling is proving to be quicker on his feet than I anticipated."
James had made a rude scoffing noise, it was evidence of his high state of nerves that he did so without a thought of who he was talking to, "And more resourceful - I told you not to underestimate him! Never underestimate him! God, he's so damned dangerous, you have no idea ... You don't get within spitting distance of the White House being incapable of adjusting quickly and effectively to forestall spoilers, Ezra! Your friends won't make it out of these mountains if he has anything to say about it - and believe me, he does!"
Josiah remembered Buck and Ezra's faces and knew his own must have been their mirror, their expressions alone all that were needed to remind James of how formidable even so few were. But James was not formidable, or at least did not think so, and Josiah had reassured him, saying,
"They're among the Lakota, James - and Vin's got some mighty loyal friends there - "
This was something that obviously still astonished James, and it was also clear that he was having a hard time accepting the fact that the Lakota had staged that raid with the sole purpose of retrieving Vin Tanner, horses be damned. He wanted them to explain that to him, Josiah knew, mystified that Tanner's friends evidently hadn't known about the tracker's attachments among the Lakota, either, and yet had accepted it without comment. Josiah hadn't tried to explain trust to a man who had far too little experience with it. He shook his head and tried to pay attention to what Buck was saying.
Chris was watching Buck intently, reading between the lines as Buck talked and probably hoping Vin wasn't doing the same, but that was a foolish hope, Josiah knew.
The preacher noticed that the name "Custer" was never mentioned - nothing more guaranteed to set Vin off than that. Nor did Buck say what James had told them - it was only by the intervention of Terry, and Gerald placing a high-level pay-off, that Custer had been rescued from President Grant's disfavor - he'd been removed from the campaign entirely, which would have been disastrous for Gerald, by arrogantly going before Congress full of hot air and hearsay about corruption in the Indian Services. James had speculated that Custer might've thought it would do Gerald some good in undermining Orrin Travis' authority, which told the three listening to James how close the communications were between Gerald and his allies. But it had back-fired, as so many of Custer's grandiose plans back-fired when he failed to take the counsel of more savvy conspirators. Gerald, James had declared with a shiver of real fear, would eat up anyone who got in his way now, he had a head of steam stoked up that James had seen roll like a runaway train over more than one seemingly invincible enemy.
Because James was so afraid, Josiah had told him the Lakota would make sure word of what the Monroe brothers were doing got out, and assured him no one, not even Custer, would be able to stop them from doing so. "This land is familiar to them in ways your brothers could never counteract." He'd said, no joy in that grim hope, but fact. But the feeling that had settled into his heart had not left since - of sad futility, unavoidable disaster. The shadow that had been laying over Vin since before they'd left Four Corners.
For all they would do, for all their hopes and prayers, the people would not prevail against white men more numerous than they could even conceive - it was said that this was why Red Cloud had brought his people to the agency, because he had been taken to Washington to meet the Great Father and had been shaken to see cities sprawling farther than his eyes could see the end of teeming with white people. Many Lakota scorned him for this apparent surrender, even Josiah did in a way, but he figured it would be a matter of history to decide which was the wiser course - give up now and live, or fight and hope for better terms of surrender, at least.
Regardless, the earth the people revered for so long would pass into hands without hearts to understand what they grasped at so greedily, and suffer that occupation as the people would suffer being shuttled from progressively more worthless reservations until they ended up destitute, broken ... but not forgotten. The legendary ones, the mythic chiefs like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, would make sure the Lakota were an indelible part of this history. They would fight, and they would paint a banner in blood so broad and high that it could never be ignored, in a cause too righteous to go forever unmourned or untold. No matter the current climate, the time would come for this truth to be seen, and Mary would make sure it wasn't silenced. This was something neither Josiah nor Buck intended to tell Chris right now, Mary was on her own there.
Mary had slipped into the room on the heels of Josiah's assuring James that they would escape these mountains and the grinding machinery of war if that was their will. She'd pressed the door shut quietly behind her and turned to them with that stubborn tilt to her chin that drove Chris crazy, and lifted Josiah's heart up off the ground. She'd said, "Yes, Josiah, that word will get out. In print from coast to coast."
She'd finally realized the potential he'd been so impatient for her to find, hoping against hope her stubborn devotion to her own causes would not blind her to the evidence of her own eyes and experiences on the frontier. As he'd hoped, Mary Travis was capable of seeing beyond her own prejudices, and too honest to deny what was right in front of her. She'd found her way to the truth and given herself to the cause - Once committed, that cause could have no louder or more determined voice. Words had power in the white man's world, and Mary Travis could make them sing too eloquently to be denied or passed off without serious consideration - she might be a woman in a man's world, in a man's war, but her reputation was already influential and the veracity of her reports was undisputed. She would find a way. Chris would be madder than a wet cat about it, too.
There was no purpose in worrying about that now, and Josiah pulled his exhausted mind out of his reverie to find Vin's eyes on him, piercing and thoughtful, as he he'd been following the track of Josiah's thoughts with far more attention than he'd given Buck's words.
"We waited as long as we could ... " Buck was saying, "But James finally had to admit Gerald wasn't holding true to form in the case of those letters - he hadn't sent them yet, n' by then James was fairly sure he wouldn't 'til the deed was actually done. We've upset his applecart seriously, here, and maybe ruined our own chances to prove anything. Travis was fit t'be tied."
J.D. broke into the circle oblivious to the dark mood he interrupted and flopped down beside grin with a welcoming nudge and a grin, breathless but ready.
"What'd I miss?" He asked brightly. It was worth a try, maybe catch them off-guard, but they ignored him as usual. It was Two Badgers - whose immediate surrender of his supper-bowl at the mention of Little Eagle's name had mollified J.D. somewhat - who drew their guarded interest as he came to Vin's right and sat down. He looked at them expectantly, and Chris went right in, saying,
"So, I guess you didn't know about this council thing? You would've warned us about that, right?"
Two Badgers shrugged, a gently sinuous little motion, his face utterly unperturbed, but very watchful. Josiah opened a pouch on his knee.
"No one asked." The warrior said, and Chris bristled. Buck saw the edge that answered come into the warrior's eyes and a tight silence fell. The notched feather tied at the crown of his head lifted in a sudden flutter of night winds coming, but before Chris' frustration found words, Josiah bent around Vin extending his pipe.
Two Badgers hesitated, not recognizing that plain little thing as a true pipe - the stem was so short, the bowl so plain and had no point for setting it into the ground, it seemed even to be of a single piece, because he'd not seen Josiah put it together - was he being mocked?
"My pipe," Josiah said quietly, "And tobacco, if you will smoke with me. With us." Two Badgers understood then and saw the hope for peace in this council. It was enough that at least one of them understood how the spirit should center their talk, the need to create that sacred space. His anger, so quick of late, eased back down again. He would speak to this one of Vin's friends, then, who understood a man could not lie with the pipe carrying his words up to the Creator. Two Badgers leaned across Vin to take the homely little pipe respectfully with both hands, feeling the tracker's anxious eyes on the side of his face. He thought it must be a hard thing to have friends on opposite sides of a war, not even speaking each other's language. He would be patient.
Vin's spine was about tied in a knot with dread and only relaxed a little when Two Badgers took the pipe - he could've kissed Josiah for interrupting the rush to hostility between Chris and Two Badgers, neither of them the most patient or cool-headed of men. Now if Chris would just take the hint and not let his temper get the best of him ... Chris couldn't accuse Two Badgers of being deceitful about the council at Fetterman, the warrior's honesty was the pride and core of his honor. His enmity here would turn many against them and Vin desperately needed the next three days to heal or he'd never be strong enough in time. Lord, he prayed quietly, keep Chris from cuttin' our throats here!
Two Badgers took the small pouch from Josiah as he held the bowl of the pipe in one hand, and carefully packed the fragrant tobacco into it. Then he took a stick from the fire and lit the pipe, taking a few short mouthfuls to make the offerings to the four directions and ignoring how unpleasantly hot the short stem made the smoke on his tongue. Toward Mother Earth and then the Strong One in the sky he gestured with the pipe, the smoke the breath of his prayer to Spirit and the visible sign of his living within that Spirit. Then he passed it to Nathan, and though it was clear the rest weren't familiar with the ritual, they understood the respect he had given it and gave it the same. Each took a long pull at the pipe and contemplated the streamers of their own exhalations as Two Badgers did, coming to understand the calm space being created in their silence and the slow curling dance of the smoke. The youngest struggled manfully against coughing, and though he turned very red and his cheeks billowed comically behind the pursed clamp of his lips, he succeeded.
In this manner, the pipe worked its way around back to Two Badgers, who studied the little thing a moment, uncertain how to set it down without laying it upon the ground, there being no point on the bowl to elevate it. He raised his shoulders and looked at Josiah, who smiled and reached out for it, took it back, cleared the bowl with the tip of his knife, and knocked the ashes out on his boot. Then he carefully rubbed it with his bandana and tucked it into his shirt pocket with a smile at Two Badger's mildly surprised face. The white man's pipe was put away whole, and carried on Josiah's person in a pocket of his clothing. They were strange.
Into the quieter atmosphere, Josiah then asked politely,
"Why are not all the Lakota at the council?"
Two Badgers replied in Lakota as if for the benefit of any in the camp who wanted to participate in the conversation, although there was only Little Eagle by the fire. Then he said it again in English: "Tashunke Witco will not. That man says there is no point to it, and too much temptation to the whites to have all the chiefs in range of so many soldier's guns. We agree. It has done no good to council with whites, there are still miners in the Pa'a Sapa, and the trade goods are missing or not good for anything, wormy flour and meat. They are trying to take the heart, now, the sacred mountains ..." He said that last with a bewildered intensity, looking into their eyes as if searching out how this could be.
Josiah nodded, agreeing with the wisdom of avoiding that council at Fetterman, and not even Chris could argue straightforward fact. But Josiah also found it interesting that the warrior wanted the old woman to know what was being said. She met the Preacher's speculative look with a white-toothed smile, black eyes disappearing into a network of wrinkles before she returned to her cooking, dropping dumplings into the bubbling pot. He could've sworn she was humming.
"Some other friends are still there," Josiah said, notably easing when it became apparent Chris was going to let him do the talking, and he fell into the dignified formality of the camps when men discussed serious matters. "In Fort Fetterman, a woman and two ... three men."
Two Badgers hadn't known that and understood at once the true purpose of their distress - had he known this, he would have spoken about the council called to 'settle' the matter of the Paha Sapa, but there had been councils dozens of times before, touching the pen to papers that blew away like they were written on wind, they were of little interest anymore. Having friends in the middle of it, though, was another matter - he had also not missed the gun-man's subtle reaction to the mention of that woman.
Two Badgers looked directly at that narrow man whose shoulders rode high and tight as an eagle in the snow, and he nodded in acknowledgement of the worry the people had mistaken for hostility. Chris' head tilted slightly, almost defensively, though his expression was unchanged. Chris couldn't be read sometimes, and Josiah couldn't read him now, but he wondered if Chris understood the courtesy that had just been done him. With a stifled sigh, Josiah went on.
"One is a high official of the Great White Father's house," Josiah explained, "And a friend to the Lakota." Vin and Two Badgers exchanged a look that asked and was answered firmly.
"We did not know so many were coming when we left them there, so many Lakota and soldiers." Josiah spread his hands, "We're not sure how to get them out with the information we hope they will have when we do."
Not knowing how, but certain that they would; Two Badger's mouth twitched in admiration. Tashunke Witco had said they were like a wall when they stood together.
"Our friends are working to expose the Monroe captain there, and stop the killing of the trader's son Vin told you about. This information, taken swiftly enough to the Great Father, might stop it."
"Hechete aloe, ohinyan, hwo?" Repeating with great impatience when he realized they didn't know what he'd said, "It is finished, forever? (a man asks)" A quiver ran through his suddenly straight body like he was an arrow shot into the ground and Little Eagle's hand hovered over the pot, the dumpling in it forgotten and steam curling around her fist.
The Preacher looked down a moment, but Little Eagle knew he was a strong-hearted man and would say what he thought was true. His pale eyes, the color of a breathless hot summer day, were an open window to a terrible darkness.
"No." He said, an unbearable weight of grief in the small sound and she felt it take her heart to the ground, saw it take Two Badgers'. And the tracker's, too. The white woman Elizabeth sat just out of the firelight, bent over with her elbows on her knees and the fingers of one hand pressed nervously to her mouth. Helpless to offer any opinion or idea, but not glad of what was being done by her brothers. She did not speak in their defense, she seemed to bear the burden of their acts and it made Little Eagle's heart soften toward her.
"But it might stop them for awhile." Josiah said, the light of that hope small, but stubborn, "A way may be found, given some time."
Dho! Little Eagle said suddenly into that air of sorrow, her thin voice coming quick and sharp among them to the only two who would understand. "He speaks what he believes because he knows his own, but he does not know what the Ocheti Shakowin (the seven Sacred campfires of the Lakota) together will make! Heh!" The tingling spark in her eyes anticipated the great camp they would soon go to, sprawling across the good pastures of the Rosebud under the sun, a place where the buffalo still rubbed the trees bare and left flags of winter hair among the branches. "They will be surprised." The dumpling dropped with a splash that sent hot soup up onto the thin skin of her hand and she never flinched, nor did her grin waver. Two Badgers ducked his head to hide a smile. She was like the heart of a fire, Tashunke Witco had said it.
Vin looked down at his hands, his jaw working. Neither man translated her words.
Then Vin spoke up for the first time, an unwilling glance saying how acutely he felt Elizabeth's presence behind him but having no choice but to say it, "Monroe'll use the council to kill the trader's son n' blame it on the Lakota, I told you this. I 'spect he'll kill as many of the chiefs and warriors as he can, and set the soldiers running after you." He repeated himself, as Two Badgers had done, in Lakota.
Again came the warrior's eloquent shrug, his smile comfortable and his eyes endlessly patient; "They will try," He said, and Vin's heart lifted at his confidence. Then Two Badgers took up another subject so they knew he had said all he would on that one. "It should not be so hard a thing to remove your friends with so many Lakota and whites around - it is an easy place to get in and out of, we find."
"Ain't that the truth!" Buck put in, grinning at Two Badgers and wanting to cement that spirit of cooperation, "Ain't got a danged wall anywhere around it, strangest thing!"
"White men are strange." Two Badgers replied, nodding, and when Buck laughed, so did the warrior.
For another quarter of an hour they discussed going to Fetterman in a week's time to retrieve Orrin, Ezra, Mary and James. The camp would be struck then so the people could travel to the Rosebud to hunt buffalo and make meat and take council. Little Eagle held that coming council of all the people in her soul with a great swelling gladness, all the scattered camps that were easier to hide from hunting soldiers coming together, she saw them in her dreams like creeks running to make a mighty lake. It had been a very long time since all the seven camps had come together in purpose, the Cheyenne and Arapahoe would circle their lodges with the Lakota and oh, it would be a fine time!
With girlish glee she looked forward to mounting her bright beaded saddle, to hearing again the rattle of beads and shells from the long stringers cruppered over her pony's shoulders and streaming around his fine white tail. Her husband had first seen her mounted on that saddle riding across the Chaka dee Wakpa, he said the water crashing up into the air was like bits of sun around her. From that moment on she'd loved him with every bit of strength and faith she had. That was many ponys ago and she was an old woman now, but she would see the grandeur of the people in their pride again before she wore the moccasins with the sky road beaded on the soles. Her smile was beautiful.
"Eat." Two Badgers said with a graceful inviting gesture of his arm as Little Eagle stood up expectantly by the pot, signaling her readiness. He didn't have to say anything more before they were up and moving, Buck and J.D. jostling to be first and Little Eagle laughing out loud at their brotherly roughhousing. It was from this tall rogue, she realized, that the boy had learned to be wary and attentive - it would probably save his life, impetuous as that boy was. For some reason she cared that someone was looking out for J.D., who had a fine bright spirit of the sort that could either burn up too fast and foolishly, or be a long-lasting light.
"Vin, you're goin' t'lay down now." Nathan said as the arrangements were set in place, the attention of hungry men being drawn to that fragrant pot and the stack of tin plates Little Eagle was placing on a stone by the fire for their use. Vin nodded, tasting blood in his mouth from biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from either passing out or moaning out loud and feeling about as pale as he knew he looked. He had no idea how he was going to get up and back into the lodge on his own, and his back hurt so badly he dreaded the thought of laying anywhere but on the ground, which nobody would let him do.
Josiah took Vin's closest hand and casually drew it up and around his own neck, matter-of-factly wrapping a burly arm around behind Vin as he stood up and brought Vin with him - almost too fast before Josiah realized how light the tracker had gotten; under his hand, Vin's hipbone was a hard plate immediate beneath the skin, but it was the easiest Vin had moved since he could remember with Josiah taking most of his weight and he was grinning when the Preacher glanced worriedly at his face. It was a helpless humor, but Josiah was glad to see it and a knot in his chest eased. Vin was thin, yes, but even pared down to the bare essentials, he was already regaining his spirit.
Josiah had his own ideas about what should be done so far as that council at Fetterman was concerned, and he didn't have to guess Vin's would be the same if he knew the time-table. But even looking for that knowledge in Vin's face, he couldn't tell whether the tracker knew more than he'd admitted to.
Elizabeth smiled at him as he approached the lodge with Vin walking pretty much on his own steam, if not bearing much of his own weight.
"You've overdone it, haven't you ..." She said to Vin with an exasperated and motherly concern, and Josiah dragged him through the lodge opening and deposited him on the edge of the pallet, his stomach growling loudly enough to make Elizabeth laugh at him and wave him on,
"Go on, before you bring rain or something! I'll take care of Vin ..."
Josiah meant to ask her if she'd told Vin about the time-table, but he couldn't with Vin there, and he figured Chris would be on her about it within the hour, so he let it go. Things would work as they were meant to, in their own time. Let God sort out the details, because he was hungrier than he remembered being for a very long time and he was betting that old woman took cooking as a matter of pride.
Elizabeth brought Vin a dish of stew and dumplings, he ate some of it, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the pallet. He didn't lay down even when she took the plate from him with a frown at how little he'd eaten, and as she walked away she saw him lean forward between his spread knees until his hands were flat on the ground in front of him. It was a toss-up which hurt worse, the ribs being compressed that way, or his back, which had tightened to such a degree over the last week of inactivity that he could feel the long muscles creak as he tried to stretch them out. His back was the major reason he was so surly a patient when injured, why he wanted to be moving even when Nathan said he shouldn't, it'd always been a problem for him but he'd learned over the years how to minimize it to some degree. Right now though ... he'd give a fairly valuable part of his body to have it stop hurting so he could rest like he needed to.
Without a word Elizabeth left the lodge and in his misery he didn't even notice she'd gone until she came back. His eyes flickered from the square bottle of cloudy liniment in her hand to her face as she returned.
"Your back hurts?" She said sympathetically, and since he couldn't straighten up quickly enough to deny it, he just laughed softly, enough of a hitch in his breath to tell her how sincerely it did hurt.
"You could say that." And it'd be an understatement, it ached constantly until he was almost nauseous with it.
She sat beside him, her hand on his shoulder pulling him upright and her fingers briskly sliding his suspenders down his arms. She could feel his wide eyes on her face, though he made no move to stop her. Quick and efficient as a mother with a child she slipped the buttons of his shirt from neck to waist, the soft bristle of whiskers on his throat against her knuckles, then the softer rasp of the hair on his chest as she unbuttoned the long-johns beneath. Her palms had flattened against the bare skin of his chest under the layers of cloth preparing to slide it open and off him before she caught herself and snatched them back with a flaming blush. She fumbled for the bottle on the floor by her feet, unable to meet his eyes and unwilling to let him see the confused mortification in her own expression.
"If I rub your back, it'll help you sleep - unless you'd rather Nathan did it for you?" She said, her voice thin and tight.
"It's alright, if you don't mind doin' it, I'd be grateful." He said blandly, very willing to have her do it - Nathan was almost too strong sometimes and had a knack of hitting knots of muscle so hard it made every other muscle around it flinch.
So she knew the muscle spasms had been keeping him awake, and by this time, Vin didn't care about shy or propriety or delicate sensibilities; he hurt, and instinctively he knew she could make him feel better. He half turned away from her on the edge of the pallet and got his cuffs unbuttoned, drawing his arms with careful winces one by one out of the sleeves. Her fingernails scraped delicately across the top of his shoulders as she helped him, stripping him to the waist and pouring the liniment into her cupped hand to warm it. He wasn't looking at her, but she was still afraid to look at him. Finally, she took a breath and noted where the worst bruises were so she could avoid them. Noted the knobs of bone topping his shoulders and the narrowing run of musculature downward, thin skin folded at his waist like a single layer of cloth and how narrow that waist was, how clear the motion of bones and muscle and sinew. He had no body fat whatever that she could see, and probably never had.
Briskly, she rubbed her hands together, then set to work with a smooth strong sweep of both hands from the top of his spine out toward his shoulders, her skin tingling from the smooth heat of his, thumbs bumping gently over the vulnerable vertebra where his neck and spine met. He sighed. Pale, but not like he never went shirtless - she imagined he did when he was far into the wilderness and alone. Scarred, as she'd noted before, and that familiarity eased her a little bit - this wasn't the first time she'd seen him shirtless nor the first time she'd touched him, she was being completely ridiculous and foolish.
Carefully she traced the slight tweak in the middle of his backbone that she guessed was the source of his aches, and then pressed the heels of her hands sympathetically up the long groups of muscles along his spine from his waist to his shoulders.
His head dropped forward, his hands flattened against the bedding, around the edge of the pallet, and he pressed back into the strong motion and groaned softly, she felt it as much as heard it. A quiet helpless sound of pure unadulterated pleasure that made all the blood in her body break into a rolling boil.
Her hands hesitated and would've stopped but for her fear he'd turn around to see what was wrong - she knew her face would show how that one small sound had her imagining things no decent woman would. Whether he'd make that sound when she touched him in other ways and what his face would be like, what other sounds he might make ... she gasped silently, finding it hard to draw a full breath as she pushed those entirely inappropriate thoughts away, deliberately being a bit too rough to distract him from her distraction and struggling for a clinical and business-like mood.
It was impossible with his warm thin skin sliding against the palms of her hands, with the play of long sinewy muscles yielding under her fingers and the pressure of him leaning into her motions like a cat increasing a sensation it liked.
Some shamefully greedy part of her, some part bolder than she'd ever imagined she could be, leaned her cheek in so close she could feel the heat of his body as she rubbed and a voice smoky and sultry rose from her throat as she asked,
"Does that feel better?"
"Ohhhhh, I can't even tell ya how much ..." His moan made her smile, a small and very womanly smile. By the time she was ready to let him lay down, he was nearly asleep, a contented look on his face and a smile in his heavy-lidded eyes that she knew belonged only to her.
Vin woke Jules before sunrise trying to get his pants buttoned so he could get out of the lodge on his own. With a wide yawn and sleep-heavy eyes, she shook her hair out of her face and propped herself up on her elbows to watch him as he sat with his back to her on the edge of the pallet. Odd for him to be so awkward, stiff as an old man and catching himself with a sharp breath now and then. She followed the line of his nervous glances across the dark lodge; Little Eagle invisible under the robe by the wall, and her Aunt Elizabeth beside her, apparently too exhausted to hear the slight wincing sounds of his effort. Good thing, too, or it would've been scolding and fussing the likes of which she was sure would drive Uncle Vin insane. Obviously he was thinking the same thing.
"Where y'goin', Uncle Vin? It's still dark out."
Vin, who'd just managed to get all but two buttons done, startled at her voice, momentarily too breathless for anything but an irritated grunt. Jules waited, her head lazy and low between her shoulders with a smile flirting around her mouth. This was the best possible thing, she'd been waiting for days for him to feel well enough to escape!
"Go back to sleep." He finally murmured, odd hesitations in that little sentence, and Jules' eyes narrowed shrewdly.
"If I do," She whispered in a tone of innocent reason, "it'll be broad daylight before you even get out of the lodge."
He didn't have to see her face to know what expression it wore, he could hear it in her voice and shook his lowered head with a slow smile, unable to deny how very right she was. He was bound and determined to get out of this lodge on his own today, but here was an ally declaring herself and he wasn't so proud he'd turn down help with something he wasn't altogether sure he could do alone anyway. He nodded, and the dry grin he turned over his shoulder was met with one that split her face. She tumbled off the top of the pallet in her long-johns, slithering into her deerskin shirt and leggings.
Like a miniature of Duley ... it made him smile, now, but his heart had leapt into his throat the first time he'd seen her in Lakota clothes. Then he'd seen her face, bright as a star, as if being among the people even in such circumstances had ignited an excitement that had waited lifelong. He still felt an abiding gratitude to the people who had embraced her, generous, wise hearts to claim this wild little soul as theirs. Just as they had once claimed him, and it was the first time in his life he'd felt so welcome anywhere, so unjudged despite his peculiarities. He'd never been capable of accepting it so wholeheartedly, unable, really, to belong anywhere, he'd stayed on the edges - but Duley had moved right into the heart of things, just like Jules had.
"All set."
She appeared at his side and slipped under his arm, smirking up at him with rueful affection, her hand curling warm and soft around his wrist.
"Come on, then. And be quiet."
He waggled his fingers at his coat and she stooped without stopping to pick it up in her free hand, as determined as he was to get away on their own after so long - she had so many things to tell him!
Together they managed to get outside, shuffling with nearly giddy breathless haste to get far enough from the lodges to be in darkness. There he stopped and inhaled long and happily, his weight pressing unevenly on her shoulder as she stood still until his knees steadied. A look between them set them walking out across the little meadow and into the trees. He was looking around with the quiet joy of a prisoner out of a dungeon, and she thought it was one of the prettiest dawns she'd ever seen herself. The trees were indigo blue in the lightening day, pale rosy gray hinting at their patient outlines and mist underfoot like the earth floated on clouds.
She let him go when he said to and stood watching after him as he made his way alone deeper into the trees, a hitch on one side and working the small of his back with his knuckles as he went, disappearing from view. After a little while she started to get worried, but just as she was about to go after him, hang his masculine need for some privacy, he emerged again, looking so happy and proud of himself that she burst out laughing.
It was a very big sound in the quiet, and many came from their sleep with smiles to hear it.
That day he did little else but walk, determined to get his legs strong under him again and feeling better even as weak as he was to be moving around again, hearing his heart beat and feeling his lungs breathe and the earth under his feet. He hadn't expected to have to pretend to be worse off than he actually was to keep Chris from becoming suspicious, and that he had to was a perverse pleasure that kept him going all that day. Chris had to keep thinking he was too bunged up to do what he was sure Chris knew he was planning.
It was a fine, fine day. His hand rested on Jules' shoulder quite a bit of the time as they made a slow constant pilgrimage around the camp, listening to her talk non-stop as if she had to tell him absolutely everything she'd learned since the last time they'd been off on their own. He finally emptied her mouth by filling her mind, taking her on a meander off into the woods here and there where he could feed her rapacious hunger for learning. A tree tufted with coarse black hair where a black bear scratched his back, a rotted log split open pale and splintered where the same bear, perhaps, had gone after fat white grubs. She actually got down to sniff at a moist pungent spot where the loamy grasses had been scraped down to bare soil on the forest floor, mule deer bucks announcing their presence to does and rivals alike, overhung with a low branch against which they'd rubbed the musk glands in their faces. She soaked it in, she listened with an eagerness that made his heart too glad to think of any day beyond this one.
In the afternoon, with Nathan reassured by Vin's good color and the stubborn spark in his eye to have matters back in his own hands again, Vin and Jules took their meal down to the river. He settled on a rock by a small deep pool shaded by trees, the river running swift a few yards out breaking bright in the pale sunlight and the breeze was warm and gentle. There they spent a few hours with her squatted in the mud at his feet, his wrist resting on her shoulder and bent low to her as he pointed out individual tracks in the welter of churned earth until she could pick them out herself. Cougar pug marks, old and at the far edge, the tip-toe tracks of white-tail does and the deeper splayed impressions of bucks, the scampering tracks of badgers and squirrels and birds. He let her figure out the story of that cougar springing at a doe, gauging by the edges and insect trails bisecting the tracks how long ago it had been, grinning at her delight to discover the doe had escaped by the distance and angle and depth of the prints.
No one interfered with them, though they got many curious looks - Vin had a legendary reputation for his skills and character among the people, and there were enough who'd known Duley to know Jules was her kin. Little Eagle distracted anyone who approached them - including his friends and Elizabeth Monroe - until it was clear she wanted them left to themselves. The old woman went around with a bittersweet smile on her face, and some understood the sense of something sacred between the man and his niece today. A sweet weaving together made more important by the possibility of being the only time they would ever have. The girl didn't know that, but the tracker did. And Little Eagle thought the preacher did, too. That one reminded her of her husband, quiet and patient but a forceful alone.
Despite Little Eagle's insistence, though, Elizabeth did everything she could to keep an eye on them, concerned about the concentrated focus of Vin's efforts to be up and moving because she knew his intentions only too well. Concerned, too, about other things when she came to understand herself why Little Eagle's eyes were so thoughtful, why Josiah's were sad.
What she saw as she watched them together made her wish for both their sakes this day would last forever, but it also brought memories of feeling outside the world her father and Duley inhabited.
The way their heads cocked toward each other as they talked, eyes keen to each other's faces, and Julianna always touching him in some way - Vin was not a man easy with being touched, but that instinct seemed not engage with Julianna. As beautiful as it was, though, it was not easy to see her niece give Vin her heart so absolutely - a thing Julianna had never given completely even to her. Her niece loved her, Elizabeth knew that, but her role in Julianna's life was the thankless task of authority and discipline, necessary to protect her and prepare her for adulthood. But necessary or not, it was guaranteed to chafe a spirit so fearless and impatient. Vin, on the other hand, was a kindred spirit who understood her craving to fly, Vin had in his eyes and his words and his dress and manner all the dreams of adventure their father had been to Duley.
And Duley had left ...
That was what frightened her, because despite his difficult and solitary life - or indeed, perhaps because of it - Vin reciprocated Julianna's devotion with the same pure and naïve faith, and his ideas about her safety and happiness were probably world's different from Elizabeth's. How could a soul so lonely part from a girl who wanted nothing but to be with him, to roam the fine frontiers and learn all he had to teach her? Her father had not been able to leave Duley, she could lose her precious girl like she'd lost Duley and her chest hurt to even imagine it, a wild terrible grief. What would happen if Julianna refused to go home, if she followed Vin off away into the wilderness and Vin let her? His heart was such a fundamental force in everything he did, and his heart was powerfully attached to Julianna - he might not be able to turn her away.
They could disappear into a life he loved as much as her father ever had, but a life Elizabeth Monroe could never hope to lead, she was brutally honest with herself. Not with the farm and the people depending on her, James would need her as he never had ...
All day she saw her father and Duley in Vin and Julianna. Looks between them of perfect wordless understanding, laughing at the same moment, even their humor in synchrony. Bright, somehow.
Her thoughts the rest of that afternoon were troubled and shot dark with fearful uncertainty as she searched for a way to keep Julianna safe without hurting Vin.
Not until supper did the solution come, from the first idea she'd had that she'd discarded immediately, in a blaze of feverish hope that nearly made her drop her plate. Of course! The attachment between Vin and Julianna, that bond she was so afraid might take Julianna away ... might it not also be what could draw him out of his mountains and home to Virginia with them both? Maybe it was manipulative to think of using his longing for family this way, but it might just be the only thing that kept him alive in the days and months to come - because if he stayed, he would be in the war up to his neck.
She had to get up, she had to walk, and she managed only the most rudimentary courtesy with her leavetaking, breathless and shaking and jubilantly terrified to have found a way to a hope she hardly dared imagine. She couldn't bear the thought of Julianna in the wilderness with war all around, nor of Vin in the thick of that war fighting his own - it would kill him, even if he survived it, it would bury him in guilt. Surely he wouldn't want his niece endangered? And maybe in a few years he could come back, when it was safe? Surely he could bide in expectation of returning?
She loved them both too much not to wish to keep both close and dear, and also wished they would always have one another as they had today, she never wanted Vin to lose that tender light Julianna brought to his face, the simple pleasure in his eyes that said what a marvel she was to him. Might it be enough? Her fingers twisted and worried at her skirt as she walked, half of her railing against the potent complications of her thinking, but the other half ... just flying.
After all her lonely years, and with all the evidence she had now, with Vin, of more than she'd even imagined with her poor husband ... She wasn't strong enough not to hope his love for Julianna might keep him with her, nor ashamed to want it, he was an extraordinary man and she had never in her life felt this way about any other. A few years in Virginia might give him the time to grieve her sister, and come to love her. She couldn't help a woman's hope for the man she loved. Every time she saw him her hands remembered his textures, her mouth that one consuming kiss above Fort Laramie that neither of them ever mentioned - it was there, though, in accidental glances and touches that sometimes took on a strange significance. He was as lonely as she was, his wounded heart plain in his eyes and his longing every bit as deep as hers ...
She stopped between the lodges and looked in at them, Julianna nestled against his side, his arm draped over her and both laughing at something J.D. was telling them. Golden in the firelight as a glowing tin-type of a moment that should never be lost. Could she hope Duley had brought them together for just this reason? Even brought them among the Lakota to remind him that a sister could be a logical and natural choice? That dream, once admitted, could no longer be extinguished by logic.
The second day, however, both Elizabeth and Jules were upset to find him gone before they woke, though he later turned up at the pony herd, which was a good long walk through the woods and down some steep terrain. Julianna was the one who found him, having guessed where he'd go. His face was a little pinched and he was sitting down on a stump with his legs loose in front of him and Peso snuffling and grinding his way through a pile of oats a few feet away. That, and the look in his eyes, told Jules he was getting the horse and himself ready to leave for Fetterman. Where he might kill her father or her Uncle, and where he might die. When she opened her mouth to protest, he set his finger to his lips so she would keep the secret nothing could change. Then he held her against him in the morning sun for a very long time, neither of them speaking, but saying to each other in the silence of the forest and the wind everything in their hearts.
The next afternoon, Jules came into the lodge first and went for his bow case and quiver, Vin after her and bending a little more easily than he had, smiling until he straightened up and saw the dark old face patiently waiting across Little Eagle's hearth.
His smile faltered, faded into a muzzy confusion, at first not recognizing the man who sat so formally there, his expression expectant and auspicious. When he did recognize him, he could neither turn and run nor drop right where he stood.
Jules heard the strange strangled breath he took and turned to look at him, alarmed by the baffled expression on his face. Before she could ask about it, Little Eagle rose and took her arm in her hand, turning her back toward the door despite her resistance; the old woman's eyes had no more yield than her grip, and Jules knew not to argue this time. The old woman shooed her out and brought the door-flap down behind her; the two men had not moved, and did not as she came back across the tent and picked up her beadwork.
"Kuwapi Mni (Is Chased by Water) has come from the Rosebud camp, he heard you were with us." She said, and then she went to the far side of the lodge to work and give them some privacy - it was cold out today, they wouldn't begrudge her the warmth of the lodge, old woman that she was.
Vin knew he was staring, knew his reaction was impolite to say the least, but he couldn't stop himself. This man was a dear friend of Duley's father. This man was the one who'd reached him first that morning he'd come, bloody and ripped free from the world into the madness that had nearly killed him in the years after. The one who'd taken Duley's wrapped body when he'd bent down off the saddle to give her up, not realizing what was being handed to him.
"You remember me?" Kuwapi Mni asked cordially, seeing how deeply his presence distressed the tracker, but the man nodded and sat down, slowly and with the gingerly care of grievous wounds healing. His blue eyes were wide and held a faint pleading refusal in them that Kuwapi Mni knew he could not accommodate. Maya owicha paka - this man's fate was upon him, and fate was also he who pushes you off a cliff. He was caught in a force that moved his spirit where it would, Little Eagle had said it, and Kuwapi Mni saw that it was so. Apparently he was a part of that fate, and he accepted the responsibility for the sake of this worthy man and the woman he'd had too little time with, and for his good friend, that woman's father.
Kuwapi Mni took his pipe bag out and joined the carved stone bowl, red for the flesh and blood of the people, and the wood stem symbolizing all living things, then he packed the bowl carefully and lit it with an ember from the fire that he plucked up and dropped into the bowl with his bare fingers. The sacred directions were honored, the earth and the sky, the cold light of afternoon laying silver on his wide handsome face from the smokehole. Then he passed it over to Vin, and his hands took it as if without his conscious will, falling into the respectful rhythm of the ceremony. He couldn't draw deeply, dread as well as pain closing up his chest and throat, but he did what he had to do, tried to honor the sacred space Kuwapi Mni invoked and helpless to stop it from filling the lodge, feeling it drawing on his skin and on his cringing soul.
He hadn't really remembered until now who he'd handed Duley to, only that he couldn't stand the heavy emptiness of her body another minute without going viciously, murderously insane. What hand had guided him to Kuwapi Mni that morning? To Duley's beloved Uncle? He'd seen him walking out from the camp, others coming behind him, and he'd kneed his horse on in an exhausted walk directly to him as if by appointment. He had passed his burden down and turned the horse without a word, or indeed even a direct look, and left the same way he'd come. He didn't know even to this day how long he and that horse had walked, night and day, before the night he'd found himself with his face in his hands sitting in the middle of a moon-sparked stream, the horse drinking and easing it's tired legs in the cold water beside him. He felt like that right now, incapable of movement, of coherent thought. Of anything at all.
Kuwapi Mni felt a deep pity when he looked at the tracker, a good man, liked and respected among the seven camps. He'd been shocked at the gaunt and bloody specter that appeared that morning, and heart-broken when he realized what, indeed, had come into his arms. The girl who had been his brother's shadow, who he'd watched grow into womanhood with a pride no less than a father's. He'd stood a very long time with the bundle in his arms staring through a wavering of tears after the white man who wore death and madness behind his blind eyes.
It was a tragedy he had carried patiently to this day. Now, perhaps, Vin Tanner was ready to do what love and faith in the Creator demanded - what should have been done many years ago, no one understood what he'd done, but white men were strange, and he'd loved her too much.
Little Eagle's eyes in her quiet corner were bright as obsidian. That spirit was near Tanner again, it had left him be for awhile, she hadn't seen it for days, and now she could see it hovering close around him. This time, too, he knew it, but this time he was afraid.
Kuwapi Mni set the point on the bowl of his pipe into the earth so the pipe itself did not touch the ground, and twisted around after something lying on the blanket behind him. A flat narrow rectangle of butter-soft doeskin as long as his arm from neck to fingertip, beautifully quilled and dyed a deep red. Fringes braided with gorgeous beads clacked soft as whispered secrets as he lifted it across both his palms and laid it across his spread thighs with the cherishing touch of a father to a sleeping child. Little Eagle's eyes widened, but Tanner went white and wide-eyed as if some horror had been thrown at his feet. Her heart thundered with sorrow for him.
Vin's lungs had locked and his heart leapt into a wild and deafening tattoo. His hands didn't know whether to reach for it or fend it off, so beloved a thing but such unexpected evidence of a fact he'd spent a long time denying.
The warrior spoke and he couldn't hear it, couldn't see anything but the beautiful strip of geometrically decorated buckskin. Couldn't see anything but that. If he touched it he'd break, he'd shatter into a hundred bleeding pieces, and at the same time the need to touch it burned like fire.
Duley. He knew what was so painstakingly preserved within, how it would feel, and he had to close his eyes on the memory that had his fingertips stroking the emptiness between them, stricken.
The warrior was alarmed at his terrible trembling stillness - it had been many years, he had almost assumed the tracker had forgotten his duty, had become truly white and left all things of the Lakota behind. But obviously he had not, and the old man's heart tightened sympathetically to see what grief still lived hard and high in that man. He kept his eyes closed, lips parted as on a word of denial, or a scream chocked off, his hands fisted on his knees. Kuwapi Mni could do nothing but look at him with patient sorrow, the long quilled length of supple leather draped like the corpse of all Vin's hopes across his knees and the palms of his dark hands.
Without warning, Vin lurched to his feet and battered through the hide door-flap as if there was something toothed and clawed at his heels, and that was just what it felt like ... there'd be pieces of him everywhere if he didn't get out now, he was going blind and couldn't draw a breath for his life until he burst out into the night and went over with his hands on his knees, elbows locked, to keep from falling. A great tearing breath broke out of his chest that left him gasping and too sick to move away from the warm rough slide of Josiah's calloused palm on the nape of his neck, a grip on his bicep that was strong and gentle and nearly cracked his desperate grip on himself. Nothing said, thank God ... he felt so breakable and breathed so very carefully, struggling to put back everything that had leapt out the dark deep box he'd long ago forced it into. His fingers were white around his knees, he breathed in and out, holding himself together, because if it got loose he'd never be able to stop it again, he'd drown this time, give up, forget everything else but that grief.
Josiah didn't try to stop him and he was glad, because he didn't know what he would've done if he had. Stay away from me, Duley, stay away from me right now and it was a prayer as heartfelt as any that had ever called her to him. Because he couldn't do what she needed him to do at Fort Fetterman any other way. Stopping her brothers - that had to be more important to her than the duty he'd handed to Kuwapi Mni so many years ago, unfulfilled. Without the hope that she'd forgive him for failing that duty Kuwapi Mni had reminded him of today ... to know for a certainty that she intended to leave him in these mountains and had brought him here to say good-bye ... if he believed that, even for a moment, his life would be over, and Fetterman would be his grave.
Vin couldn't have said how long he sat on the edge of the pallet in the darkness looking at Jules as she slept, not touching her for fear of waking her, but aching to. There hadn't been enough time for them, he wanted years of her quick laughter and inquisitive bravery, he wanted to show her everything about the wilderness as he might've taught his own child, loving her that way. It was useless to deny it. And Elizabeth ... Lord, she made him think things he was a lifetime past being able to have, her world not one he could ever abide, but loving him with a selfless grace that wound around the coldness of his heart. It was useless to deny that, either.
He closed his eyes and turned his face to the sky beyond the lodge, putting all of love away for now, shuttering over vulnerability and distraction and formless longings, any forethought but of the trail he had to ride. With the comfort of Jules' steady breathing against his hip, he quieted every instinct but those of the hunter, and ran the possibilities in his mind as far as he could with what information he had until he'd formulated as solid a plan as he could.
The Vin Tanner who slipped under the back of the lodge did so with all his old grace and stealth. Like a shadow he slipped into the edge of the trees and circumvented the group of lodges, avoiding the night watches and emerging nearly behind the lodge where his friends slept ... all but one. Chris was sitting in the shadows watching Little Eagle's lodge. That regret, too, he had to put aside, but he hoped he would have the chance to make it right with the boys, and especially with Chris. The man had been a better friend than he'd ever told him, and even now his loyalty was to Vin even if it put them on opposite sides.
But Chris wasn't the only one of his friends who was not sleeping in the lodge. The man who came up alongside Peso and took the saddle out of his hands was the only one who'd been keen enough to see him go, and know where he was going, and be ready to go with him.
J.D. swung the saddle up, fey and silent in the cold dark, pale fingers slipping buckles and band rings and finally drawing the stirrup down off the horn. His horse stood patiently, saddled and outfitted, and when he was done and on his horse and looked down at Vin, there was no asking in his face.
Mary walked along the promontory overlooking the river bend contemplating the small city of lodges below; three days ago there had been not even a fraction of their number on the wide empty expanse of river-wash and plains. The General and a half-dozen Commissioners from the Department of the Interior, who had arrived the day before (thankfully without recognizing Orrin, and considering his assignment superfluous), were certain that at least three-quarters of the plains Indian population had come to this treaty council. This number, they were elated to declare, was sufficient to abrogate the 1868 treaty - which had never been honored anyway.
Brule, Miniconjou and Oglala Sioux - Lakota, she reminded herself, Vin's sharp correction in mind - as well as Cheyenne and Arapahoe. This morning, the boys were driving the pony herds down to water in bunches and then out into the foothills to graze, thin threads of smoke riding from endless campfires to weave together into a single drift as they reached a height where the wind caught at them. Women came and went in a constant procession from the Trading post with the provisions the Commissioners had brought as gifts, from the hills with fuel on their backs and gathering sacks, some even carrying small game they'd managed to take in their foraging.
The men met among the camps in small groups during the day and came all together before sundown each evening. Even from this far edge she'd been able to see the quick gestures of disagreement and argument among them. The nights were haunted by their drums and song, supplication in angry rhythms, nasal and high-pitched and strangely hypnotic so the people of the fort woke unrested and ill at ease. At night, the translucent skins of the lodges glowed like watchful candles spread far and wide.
She couldn't figure out all these tribal connections and alliances and had been wishing for Vin's insights from the moment she'd seen them coming, and too many times since to count. This camp she looked down at now had begun as broad bands of people with horses pulling long travois, women on foot with children in cradleboards and packs on their backs, walking, even so burdened, with a stride that they all seemed to know, rhythms of fringes and hair and feathers in the wind. Mounted warriors flanked and followed rolling herds of horses ... she'd never seen so many people on the move at once, like many great rivers converging, flowing like a colorful tide into the broad shallow valley. She'd sat on this very promontory as they'd come, her feet dangling over the sloping edge forgetting to write as she watched, too rapt to be afraid of the nations gathered in their strength. She'd come here many times since, drawn.
The camp had gone up in amazingly quick good order; within an hour, the lodgepoles that had been travois were raised and wrapped in their hide covers, animals unpacked and turned out into the herds, cookfires started. Happy to be together, she heard that still in the occasional drift of women's laughter, saw it in their fierce eyes as they came for the 'gifts' of food and goods that they accepted as their due. She wondered why the Commissioners failed to notice that gladness and worry about it. Not a defeated people, no, not so poor or winter-starved, but uplifted in their joining together - only George Crook looked on their numbers with any misgivings that she could see.
She longed to make sense of all she saw, understanding only the most simplistic of the glyph-like drawings on the sides of some of the lodges but not the significance of the broad red bands around the bottom of others, the differences in costume and head-dress and necessaries. Vin would have sat with her and explained these things, and she found herself missing the spare simple poetry of his conversation as she never had. She hoped he was alright, and comforted herself in the knowledge that Chris would move heaven or hell to make it so.
She hoped Chris was alright, too. Vin, at least, was among friends with the Lakota, but Chris ... whatever had put the two men on opposite sides had also caused Chris to pull away from all of his friends, reverting to solitary wolfish snapping at anyone who dared get near the wounded heart of him. Did Vin understand how hurt Chris was to regress that way? And what could the tracker have done to cause this rift between two men who had forged an abiding friendship the instant they'd met, something she'd since realized was utterly out of character for both? That bond was crucial to Vin and Chris, to Four Corners, to the success and even survival of the seven peacekeepers the town depended on ... and to her own purposely vague hopes. So many things were coming unraveled around her, the threat of war looming over them all, of death ... yet it was the fracture of that friendship that made her saddest of all. She sighed helplessly. She'd been doing a lot of that since the first abortive treaty council three days ago.
That council was over before she'd understood that the chiefs who presented themselves were not the ones General Crook wanted to negotiate with. Not that those who had come had offered to negotiate anyway. Quite the contrary.
Gerald had been very displeased that his parade ground had been rejected by Lakota refusing to be surrounded by white men's buildings, and he'd had tents erected on the far edge of the fort nearest the prairie, the sides rolled up and set within with tables and chairs and pitchers of water, coffee on a small fire beside the tents, refreshments for the Officers and Commissioners who had arrived just after Josiah and Buck had left with wagonloads of provisions.
The Captain had sat himself down in one of those chairs as the Indians came to the council with a regal pose of supreme confidence, but she'd noticed that Crook had been respectful, and the Commissioners, although trying for a superior air, had been unable to completely hide their nervousness. In a thick semi-circle they'd gathered, all the people, walking to the treaty council with an easy unity and formality, their dark handsome faces uniformly unreadable. After them the warriors on their ponies, resplendent in war-paint and feathers, came charging down the incline in a thunder of hooves that shook the ground underfoot and sent a wave of dust lifting off the earth and rolling over the ranked soldiers behind and beside the tents. For a moment Mary had thought they meant to ride right over the white men and their tents, Gerald's foot came down off its insolent informality on his knee and his hands went to the arms of his camp-chair, a grudging alarm in his face; Stephen's mouth opened and he backed up further into the illusory protection of the tent.
As if those small gestures of uncertainty were a signal, the warriors turned aside in a great circle around the council grounds, around the soldiers in their neat ranks. The chiefs had walked through the people then and stopped, formal in red blankets and one in blue, and for a long moment the two worlds, Indian and white, faced each other in a gradually slowing drum of horse-hooves.
One of the warriors nearest her sat on a spotted pony with lightening painted down its shifting legs and red circles around its eye, a braided horsehair rope around the lower jaw hung with downy feathers that danced to the pony's breath. That warrior had stared at her with eyes black-bright as obsidian out of the glistening red mask that covered the top half of his face. And he'd stared at Crook and at Gerald and Stephen, too, at every high official, as if they were men already dead in his visions. That was when she'd first realized that there was a division among the Indians - many had no intention of negotiating for anything with white men who had never honored a treaty yet. Some were apprehensive despite the rigid dignity of all they did under the white man's eyes, but just as many burned with affronted and outraged bewilderment. Just as Vin had looked when the Judge had told him there were miners in the Black Hills. Stricken, mystified, refusing.
Her hand had cramped from writing so fast, so many impressions she wanted to record, subtle interplays she wouldn't have time to make sense of until later when she began transcribing her notes. Buffalo robes were spread and the chiefs sat down across from Crook and his Commissioners, Gerald posed insolently in his camp chair a few feet behind them under the shade of the tent exchanging snide comments with Stephen. General Crook, with every appearance of respect and consideration, smoked the pipe with those chiefs, resplendent in their beaded and long quilled shirts and painted leggings, war bonnets trailing magnificent tails of eagle feathers sometimes to the ground. Bone-pipe breast-plates and necklaces of wooden beads and eagle talons, one with the snarling teeth of a wolf protruding beyond his dark brow as if his face looked out from a cave of fangs.
She fervently wished she was even a halfway decent artist, because none of the words she'd found captured the dignity and beauty of these leaders of the Indian nations. It surprised her to find them so extraordinarily beautiful, so graceful and gracious, and gradually realized how much Vin was like them in the careful economy of word and deed, not concealing deadly capacities, but guided by a daunting intelligence. These chiefs would be underestimated at great risk, and Crook, at least, seemed to be aware of it.
One by one the chiefs had risen, wrapping their robes or blankets around their waists as if signifying their intention to speak. Each spoke a few words, their gestures eloquent and the cadence of their voices deliberate and formal. Each was given respectful attention, and though there were mutterings and uneasy shifts in the gathered people, no one interrupted. The interpreter sat close to the Officers, and Mary couldn't hear what was translated to them.
When the last had sat down again, Crook stood up and astonished her - and the Indians - by asking not only for the Black Hills, but for the Powder River and the Big Horn mountains as well.
Thereafter the council had deteriorated quickly, and she hadn't been surprised when Ezra and Orrin had shown up protectively beside her. Rank upon rank of cavalry and infantry stood in a bristling order of rifles that could have been grass for all the attention the Indians gave them. Every eye had been on Crook, and utter silence had fallen as he further declared the intention of the Great Father in Washington to pay the people fairly for the Black Hills. He told them, when they stiffened to hear of that place spoken of as if it was already gone, that the Great Father could not stop the hordes of miners flocking to the sacred mountains, but he was determined that the nations should receive a fair recompense rather than having it stolen outright.
It was a subtle distinction that was not lost on Mary, nor on the chiefs - who understood the unspoken threats with a sophistication that caused her uneasiness to rise sharply. They understood as well as she did what was being offered in this council: no matter what they agreed to, no matter that it was called a negotiation, nothing but surrender to the will of Washington would be accepted.
At the far fringe of the warriors, two turned and rode northward, as Mary had noticed happened every day even when there were far fewer lodges in the river valley. Josiah had noted it as well from Ezra's window and she'd overheard him tell Buck they were going to Crazy Horse so it was as if that legendary warrior looked into the Fort himself.
The chiefs had risen the instant Crook had finished speaking with imperiously forbidding expressions. Other chiefs would come, Crook was told, and the nations would council among themselves before returning to the treaty grounds. These were the only words spoken as the Indians turned and walked back to their camps. The mounted warriors rode in small groups, breaking out and running as if they must do that or succumb to their anger and kill every white man they saw.
For the last two days the envoys sent into the camp to reconvene the council had come back alone, and Mary could only imagine what was being said down there about the demands of ownership over lands the Indians had considered their birthright for generations. Places Vin had spoken of with reverent love, places that belonged to themselves, as he'd said, that could never be owned by any man.
Afterward, the Commissioners had nodded sagely at one another over dinner with the certainty that by now the chiefs of the nations understood the inevitability of white domination from sea to sea. Many of the Chiefs had been invited to Washington, where the might of the Great Father's people in their endless cities, the futility of fighting, was made plain. Stunned, she'd listened to them discuss the annihilation of the buffalo to force Indian dependence on white charity, programs to forcibly remove and indoctrinate Indian children into the white way of living, plans to absorb the whole of the Indian nations or simply kill them all. She had listened to them with a burgeoning helplessness and a hot sense of shame.
Before this journey, Mary had agreed that bringing the Indians onto the white man's road was the only wise course, that it would be to their benefit as much as the safety of the settlers, accepting with astonishingly naïve ease the precept that progress was often painful, and sometimes worthy things were of necessity lost in the transition. What a ridiculous judgment to have made without ever even knowing who these people were.
Indeed, now she was certain that having their sacred places spoken of as nothing but a repository for gold the whites wanted had been the final straw for many of them no matter what the Commissioners thought. Whether surrender might be all that allowed their culture to survive, many among the nations gathered here now would never yield again. This was what her father-in-law feared, and Vin, Josiah - a way of life, a resource of this frontier as precious as gold might pass entirely out of existence before it was ever understood or, indeed, even glimpsed by most whites. And no one would ever know what was being destroyed, lost, if someone didn't record it. Vin and Josiah and Orrin, three wise and deep-hearted men she respected, grieved over that eventuality, which made the task of that preservation all the more compelling to her. She sighed again, watching a way of life she'd never expected to experience herself laid like a beautiful dream before her on that dusty valley floor.
Ezra Standish was not a nanny, and he deeply resented Travis turning him into one. Mary was a full-grown woman who was supposed to have more sense than to wander around unescorted as she insisted on doing, the only white woman for hundreds of miles and apparently supremely ignorant of the rapacious eyes of the soldiers that followed her wherever she went.
He finally spotted her on the river overlook and threw his hands up with exasperation - a perfect spot to be snatched by white or red men, for heaven's sake! The fringe of her shawl in his hand dragged through the dust; of course it was too warm for it, but it was all he excuse he had for searching her out, and his temper was as frayed as that fringe. Matters were completely out of hand, Ezra had been urging Judge Travis to abandon this fort for days and they'd argued heatedly about it again this morning. That temper was still on him to the point that he was seriously considering getting his horse and riding the hell out of here, leaving all these noble idiots to their deserved fate.
He rolled his shoulders under his claret coat and set off toward her in a deeply disturbed mood. There were far too many unknown quantities surprising them all in the last few days, and he'd long since decided he was satisfied with his take and wanted nothing more than to get out of this Fort before all hell broke loose. His observations had convinced him that while the factions allied with Gerald and those with Travis were, indeed, in opposition to each other, their conflict had less to do with what was legal and morally right than with which of them ended up in possession of those Indian lands. But he couldn't convince Travis of that, and the Judge wouldn't leave without the letters, his need to prove collusion and corruption becoming dangerously obsessive in Ezra's mind - had the man never heard of cutting his losses? Legal action against the Monroes was a waste of time by this point, their position with Gerald had degraded to the point that he suspected the Captain had abandoned the international interests Orrin represented in favor of achieving his original goal, for which he already had plans in place. More and more Ezra had the extremely uncomfortable suspicion that Orrin's allies were using the Judge to hold off Gerald and his allies, and they would all be sacrificed the instant it was prudent to do so.
Ezra had no doubt whatever that the government would take this land no matter which faction prevailed, they'd take what they damned well wanted and nothing to the contrary, proven or unproven, would make a damned bit of difference. He might admire the Judge's tenacity and his dedication to justice, but by now even a blind man could see that they nothing they did would matter in the long run, they were spitting into a hurricane. If those fraudulent land development grants were somehow kept out of Monroe's hands, they would just pass to someone else equally unworthy. Lord, he despised futile nobility! What was Orrin fighting for if his own allies were no better than those they'd set him against? How many men disguised a need for vindication in principles? And what good were principles to a dead man, or one so discredited and scorned that he might as well be dead?
Uncertainty in the middle of a game as deadly as this one grated constantly, Ezra liked his ducks in an orderly row, not flapping all over the yard. The only way they'd escape this unscathed was if the Indians, indeed, surrendered and no war was ever declared. His tone as he reached Mary and startled her by thrusting the shawl at her was brusque with that admittedly sour conclusion.
"Miz Travis, will you please retain some cognizance of the danger of wandering around without me? I am not accustomed to pursuing a woman willy nilly without the expectation of more than conversation!"
Mary smiled absently as she took the shawl, which annoyed Ezra even further.
"They're divided." She commented, "I guess they would have to be ..."
"Who, the Indians?" He asked distractedly, and when she turned to look at him, her extraordinary eyes were profound with a grief that he nearly groaned to see - she had taken up the banner of the Indians, and he knew her well enough to realize she was getting ready to hoist it aloft and carry it into the teeth of these Commissioners and Officers. Ezra had no intention of allowing that, they were in a tight enough spot as it was without Mary drawing negative attention their way. Today, Ezra had no patience at all for Mary's noble sensibilities, he was tired, and weary of fruitless moral battles in his own soul.
"They aren't the only ones with diverse goals, Miz Travis." He said pointedly, "Surely you understand that."
But she made no answer, gazing thoughtfully at the army of Indians below. He blew out an impatient breath. Mary could be an amazingly foolhardy woman when her heart was engaged, and they needed to maintain as low a profile as possible if they were to get out of here alive. Not easy with a woman possessing such a lamentable propensity for expressing her opinions in public forums. There were only four of them, for heaven's sake, among thousands! Yet she thought she could change the Commissioner's minds, and Travis stubbornly clung to the notion of bringing down men with the authority and reach to set these thousands into motion, they were both impossible!
"The Indians are afraid, Ezra." Mary said, "But they're also furious. I wonder if anyone knows which will outweigh the other - everything depends on it. Do you think those Commissioners realize that?"
Ezra smirked; "My experience with governmental Officials hasn't revealed any particular propensity for empathetic insight, Madam - they have their cause to serve, and serve it they will. There is but one outcome possible, either now or later - and I prefer now, thank you, as I do not intend to end up in the middle of an Indian war! The Indians would be wise to accept whatever is offered here, and the reservations, without further conflict."
Obviously, and not surprisingly given her change of heart during the course of this apparently meaningless journey, that offended her. Ezra shook his head, not willing in his present state of mind to allow self-serving or heroic delusions in a woman who could endanger his life by giving them imprudent voice. Such naivety in an intelligent, well-educated and politically savvy woman never ceased to amaze him, and a slightly incredulous irritation colored his usual courtesy with her, green eyes bright with sarcasm.
"I declare, Miz Travis - you do throw caution to the proverbial winds when you change sides, don't you? Isn't a journalist supposed to be objective? To have some insight into the events they report? Do you really have no idea how tenuous our position is here?" A short bark of derisive laughter struck her like a scornful hand and she drew back from him, finally giving him all her attention.
Striving for a reasonable tone, he said, "You've been a vocal and widely-published proponent of settling this Godforsaken frontier, and I can hardly imagine you didn't consider in all that time the fact that it already was settled? Surely you realized that for your pioneers to come, the Indians would have to go!"
"I never intended this to happen!" She retorted with an outflung hand taking in the Indian camp below, the bustling fort, and he rolled his eyes heavenward, which made her face go tight, "Reason is what is needed here, Mr. Standish, compromise and compassion, the Commissioners must be made to ..."
"Oh! Oh, stop right there!" He said, both hands palm up to her, shaking his head, "Your ideas of reason will not change governmental intentions here, this is not Four Corners, Madame, your arguments will not be welcomed! If you want to be helpful, as I have suggested before, then insinuate your abundantly charming self amongst those Commissioners and discover whatever you might that can help your father-in-law and hasten our departure."
She colored, as he'd known she would, a proud woman who did not take criticism easily and who had again assumed his refusal to have her arguments aired stemmed from a lack of respect for her sex. She had a blindness in that regard, a fiercely stubborn refusal to accommodate endemic social attitudes and make the most of her attributes, as if doing so would somehow be cheating. His own mother had taken that battle with a hip-swaying sashay straight into the most stalwart bastions of masculine dominance; it was a pity Mary's staunch moral rectitude denied her the opportunity to benefit from that example. She could've had Gerald or Stephen or any of these powerful Commissioners eating out of her hand by now, spilling ever secret they had! Maude never apologized for her sex, nor thought her beauty the handicap Mary obviously felt hers to be. Being defensive intimated exploitable frailties, and Maude Standish had none of those! God gave a woman tools, and his mother wielded hers as effectively as Chris used his guns. Mary Travis had more than her fair share of those tools, but she refused to use them and too often martyred herself and her causes to no avail. Well, much as he admired her, Ezra was no one's martyr. A slicing gesture of his hand silenced the tirade of righteous indignation he could see coming in her opening mouth.
"Miz Travis, this one time try not to let your need to be the conscience of a nation overrule all good sense and reason! Timing, my good woman! Sometimes it is wisest to accept realities with prudent patience - it isn't always the healthiest course to be forthright no matter how strong the desire to share your epiphanies and validate them on a public scale!"
Mary was astonished at his rudeness and so stung by his caustic assessment of her attitudes that she was retorting before she'd even thought out her defense, "I am a journalist, Mr. Standish, and it is not in my nature to sit and smile at criminals and do nothing while innocent people are slaughtered!"
Ezra's impatience broke free; "Miz Travis, if the welfare of the Indians is, indeed, your concern, then you must admit, unpleasant as it is to you, that surrender is the only option they've got! Why, we're probably looking at the majority of the Indians in the whole country here, and they're a drop in an enormous white bucket! They're outnumbered, out-gunned, doomed! For God's sake, they can't even hope to stand against the U.S. government, and you will not find a receptive audience here to any other course! Do you realize what a perfect justification their resistance would be for total annhilation? Whether we're invaders or not, hell, even whether we're right or wrong, makes absolutely no difference at all, this country will be white from coast to coast and the Indians will either go along with it or disappear from the earth! Which is worse? Surrender or death?"
She was pale and trembling with anger, refusing to give way to the terrible logic of his words, to the helplessness that already loomed over her. "There is no reason why Indians and whites can't co-exist, Ezra, no justification for ignoring the liberties of the native peoples, the government must honor its treaties!"
One elegant eyebrow cocked sardonically, matched by a half-twist of Ezra's mouth and a look in his eye that made her blush with embarrassment, as if she were a child spouting useless platitudes.
"A fine sentiment." He said smoothly, "But I no longer believe there are any factions in this great and moral nation in the making that would not be delighted to have every single Indian dead and gone. My, what a relief that'd be, wouldn't it? Sweep them all tidily into their graves and never speak of them again!"
Mary was dumbfounded by this cruel insight, and she struggled to dilute the blatant truth of it by thinking his concern was purely and selfishly personal. "An entire race can't be wiped out and forgotten," She snapped, "No matter who might want it that way!"
"You think not?" The gambler queried caustically; "It seems to me that Washington has some experience in doing just that - When was the last time you heard of any tribes in the northeast, my dear? Can you name me the tribes there that have already been destroyed?"
Mary's bones grew cold to the marrow in the face of this open scorn, her eyes going wide. Ezra withstood her horrified examination unflinchingly, and she despaired to find her hopes revealed to her as utterly empty. Of all of them, she hadn't expected it would be Ezra to be so informed about the state of the Indians. He was a gambler, a man of questionable character keen to any opportunity for his own enrichment, self-serving and self-involved ... but he was also the most realistic man she'd ever met. A good con-man could never afford to con himself, he'd said, and his blandly annoyed face reminded her of that now.
A short sound somewhere between exasperation and alarm escaped her as she peered at him, wishing she could peel the elegant layers away and know for certain that it was not only his own hide he was concerned about. Once, there would've been no question, once she'd trusted nothing he said or did, certain he was the most self-absorbed, amoral scoundrel she'd ever met. But as time passed in Four Corners, she had been forced to admit that he was more a true gentleman of the south than even he might realize. He had a heart, and a very sensitive one at that, which he protected behind this smooth cavalier facade. He wasn't saying this just to protect his own hide or vent his own frustration with a little verbal swordplay, not this time. Her head tipped back as she was forced to realize he was being honest with her.
The injustice of what was being done here ate at her, her need to speak up against it only inflamed to be shown how pointless it might be ...
Ezra read a dark dawning of acceptance in her lovely and expressive face, and his temper subsided in a wash of sympathy. It wasn't easy to have your icons tarnished, your hopes dashed; he knew that better than most.
"Mary, you won't be able to write any truths if you're dead or discredited." He said it gently, with a commiseration that told her he had faith in her abilities to write those truths, and a desire to see it done no matter how jaded his arguments were.
"Preserve yourself, hold your tongue now so you'll be able to speak later. Without voices such as yours, these people will become a distant footnote in history, forever."
She looked down, then away to the valley where all those lodges were, realizing at last why it evoked such a melancholy. A sight that might never be seen again, something most whites would never see at all much less have the time to appreciate, as she had, even belatedly. She wanted to make right her own errors, she wanted to be forgiven for being so blind herself, but these were reasons too selfish to indulge now. Ezra was completely, damnably, right. She'd been a fool never to have considered the native peoples whose lands were appropriated by the settlers, she'd spent so much effort enticing those settlers with her articles out onto the frontier and never gave a thought ... naïve in ways that made her ashamed of herself for ever feeling proud of her progressive works. Where, indeed, had she expected the Indians to go as the settlers she'd labored so long and hard to make this land safe for came? Had she truly believed the land was just ... empty?
Tears gathered in her eyes, to her mortification, and Ezra spied them with a pang of regret for the sharpness of his words. He admired Mary Travis despite her prudery and judgmentalism, and just because he had no social conscience did not render Mary's any less real. It wasn't an easy life she'd chosen for herself, widowed and alone on a dangerous frontier, but she'd been brave enough to stay after her husband was killed, brave enough to face down a lynch-mob and stand up to injustice time and again. Brave enough now, he hoped, to keep her mouth shut until they got clear of the inevitable carnage coming.
Contrite, he reached out and touched her arm, ignoring her twitch away from that touch. His voice was apologetic, his eyes sincere as he said quietly,
"I apologize for being too blunt, Mary, I'm out of sorts away from my comforts for so long, pinin' for civilization. I swear that right now Four Corners looks like Paris compared to this wilderness. I know your heart is in the right place."
"It doesn't matter, though, does it." She said bitterly, her proud shoulders slumped with a defeat he didn't like to see. He took a step that put him close beside her and his hat-brim brushed the side of her head as he tilted his head close to her ear and said,
"Oh, it does matter, Mary - that you care matters. You're in a position to be of enormous help, there is a great deal of good you can do regardless of what happens here. Remember that, and I shall strive to remind you of it, because I know it as well. But we must stay alive now in order to do that good."
Though he'd never done so before, though he'd always kept a dignified distance from her, he had no qualms about putting his arm around her shoulder, inexplicably touched when she leaned into him for a brief moment.
She picked up her head, then, and looked Ezra in the eyes. She could write, and she could publish, and she could withstand the attacks that would undoubtedly come for taking the part of a people who were convenient enemies. And one day, God willing, what she wrote might be read with open eyes and hearts. Ezra shook his head with relieved admiration at her determination and smiled encouragingly.
"The Judge needs to speak with us." He said, and she nodded, returning his smile with a wry but forgiving one of her own that lifted his heart with an unexpected hope. He placed her hand in the crook of his arm and she allowed herself to be drawn back toward the compound.
Orrin was waiting for them in the small parlor of the Officer's quarters. That building had become so crowded with Commissioners and military officers that Ezra and Orrin were now sharing a room, and a bed. And Orrin, as Ezra complained bitterly, snored.
James sat by the window disconsolately watching the parade ground as if he just couldn't grasp the sheer numbers of soldiers and Indians. He was pale, and had dark circles under his eyes made lopsided by the fading bruise left by Chris' fist. He'd become a bundle of jittering nerves that nothing would reassure - he knew his brothers, and he knew there could be no reassurance where they were concerned, especially when so much was happening that had not been anticipated or planned for. Gerald ground his teeth with a regularity that had him seeking headache powders and worked in secret to salvage his plans. And Stephen ... he was a jumpy as a teased fighting dog, which made him unpredictable and sometimes uncontrollable - never a good thing.
"If our allies in Washington sent Crook out here," Orrin began without preamble, "The General has shown no indication he knows it; the orders probably originated further up the chain of command than he'd be privy to. Probably prudent to conceal their involvement. But it's a certainty these damned Commissioners have been sent by Delano, they're Interior Department, his bailiwick. Which can only mean that whatever moves are being made by my allies, however prudent, are being countered. Custer being on his way proves that - someone got to the President, and very convincingly."
"Gerald didn't expect George so soon." James mused darkly, fingertips tapping incessantly on the window-sill. "Everything has gotten so complicated, going so far beyond any contingencies we conceived at the outset ... I've urged him to let it go, to let this damned Indian war start without us and be patient, the land will come to us anyway, the grants are recorded, the agents responsible for their registering stand to make too much money to do otherwise. But he won't. He's sick of this place and wants to go home where he can be important again. He's sick of waiting for his inheritance." With a groan, James dropped his ruddy head into his hands, shaking it slowly back and forth. "I never realized before how important it was to him to actually start this war himself."
He fell gloomily silent and didn't turn from his vantage, hiding his shame at the undeniable evidence of his own clever hand in these soulless machinations. And it wasn't even the gold, though that had once been the justification and a sweet irony to the brothers. He was forced to admit now what burned in their hearts, an unquenchable lifelong need for revenge against a father no longer alive to suffer it. His sons were so bitter that they would kill what their father had loved more than he loved them, and James could no longer delude himself otherwise. Such spitefully deadly sons that the entire Indian nation would suffer their need for vengeance, and the course of American history would be directed into merciless brutalities just to assuage that need. Even their sister could be sacrificed to that cause, Gerald and Stephen didn't care one way or the other. Gerald had said that she was either dead and the grants would pass to them, or Travis' friends would attempt to claim them and be accused as kidnappers, murderers, and even spies. His brother's desire to align himself with the cabal Orrin purported to represent had fallen by the wayside in the more important possibility of Crook achieving peace where Gerald and his allies intended war. Travis was right; Gerald was far too smug in the swift arrival of the Commissioners to doubt they'd been sent to bolster his plans against anything Crook might achieve.
He was sure he wasn't the only one to feel himself swept up like a twig in this churning flood of unexpected events that he, himself, had helped set in motion. It made him sick to consider it, made him feel miles and years past forgiveness.
Ezra poured himself a brandy, brought glasses and the decanter to the table and poured for the Judge and Mary, taking one to James as he paced past him. Monroe's hand shook when he took it. Ezra kept moving around the small room. He was having a very hard time sitting still, and though he certainly wouldn't say so, he was considerably worried about his fellow peacekeepers. The last word he'd had on the state of Vin's health hadn't been entirely encouraging, and they'd had no word since Josiah and Buck had left. Nor had they come to any useful conclusions about their course of action other than to wait for Gerald to write the letters, get their hands on them, and then get out of the fort and away toward that distant Lakota encampment in the hopes that the others were watching for them. From there the plans were a vague intention of getting the Judge onto a train to Washington, but whether he could do anything once there was not a matter he had any faith in any longer. It would serve no purpose to say so, though.
"Obviously someone is intercepting our messages," Orrin said glumly, "Or at least passing the information along so counter-measures can be put in place. These Commissioners haven't questioned my assignment yet, but it's only a matter of time until they discover it isn't just a case of beaurocratic oversight, one agency unaware of the assignments of others."
Ezra finally sat down, crossing his legs comfortably, but his foot assumed a quick nervous rhythm. "Gerald must know there's an investigation at their heels. He's got to assume that by Crook's timely arrival, he's far too clever to take the chance it's coincidence. Yet he seems remarkably confident, I've noticed. Something is making him certain that war will erupt as he intends and their crimes will go unnoticed in the heat of battle. He faltered when Crook arrived, but it didn't last long. I declare, the man is quick as a cat."
Orrin pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment before speaking, his voice heavy. "Crook being here won't stop them from assassinating the trader's son - or any other convenient target." This with a dire look at his companions, none of whom were happy with the thought of being an ironic sacrificial lamb. "Our allies might have sent Crook to stymie his intent to start a war, but I'm afraid it's just made him all the more determined to get it under way before any other roadblocks can be thrown up against him. He needs that murder to strike the spark, and the Commissioners will give him the opportunity."
"And war will be a justified retaliation." Ezra carried the logic on, as they all had before, hoping to find another way, anything they'd overlooked that would help.
Mary softly finished the thought for them all. "The published reports will be designed to incite nationalism under the banner of manifest destiny ..."
"Therefore, and at the risk of being redundant, Mr. Travis ..." Ezra said, "I believe the time is right to hie us hence as if the hounds of hell were at our heels - which, in a manner of speaking, they are. Your allies may believe they've forestalled Gerald's scheme by sending Crook here, but obviously Gerald's allies are quite capable of counter-measures, and I have no doubt that Gerald is clever enough to adapt any change in circumstance to his own advantage."
There was a grudging respect in Ezra's tone that made Orrin frown disapprovingly, but Ezra had intuitions Orrin did not and the Judge had learned to consider them carefully. However, Orrin had insights of his own, and he hadn't given up on accomplishing their mission despite the increasing odds against them.
"We don't have the letters yet, Ezra, I remind you of how crucial they are, the only hard evidence we'll have to bring charges against the three men Gerald named to us and anyone else involved." Travis steepled his fingers against his lips. They were all on edge, not knowing what the next hour might bring, and Gerald and Stephen both had reverted to arms-length in the unexpected circumstance of this council and a General they couldn't bribe or threaten or bend. Between Crook and the Commissioners, it was a constant minuet of intimations and gilded threats and uncertainty that none of those gathered in this room could not afford to seem bothered by.
But Orrin could no longer deny the evidence of his government's eagerness to engage in all-out war. Grant would never have committed these numbers of soldiers without expecting to use them, and whether Grant had been misled as to the necessity or not, he had granted authority to commence hostilities to men who desired nothing more. Even his allies in Washington would be unable to thwart that. His dark eyebrows met over his nose in unpleasant thought. Could Ezra be right? Had his allies, indeed, simply determined that they would not be able to stop the war and turned their efforts to obtaining the resources the Monroe brothers, Custer, and who knew who else were trying to get their hands on? Ezra was so sure of it.
"A great crime threatens here." Mary said, her hands fisted in impotent worry, "A terrible crime." She stopped, seeing in Orrin's dark eyes a weary but growing certainty that she'd also in Ezra's eyes today, in Josiah's and Vin's from the very beginning.
Yes, a great crime. But more than threatened. This great crime could not be stopped, though they might delay it and perhaps even have some small satisfaction in preventing the Monroes from profiting from it. It would not be stopped, though. Forces had been set in motion that would grind ahead on their own momentum, a breach of ethics and humanity that would be sugar-coated and sublimated in noble rhetoric about the birth of a great democracy. She hadn't the heart to repeat Ezra's jaded suspicions about the hidden motives of her father-in-law's allies, but she was certain he was already weighing those possibilities himself. Even if she escaped to write the truth of this particular Fort, these particular men, it would not be heard until much, much later, and it would not stop any of it.
"More than a crime." She murmured, tears standing in her eyes, "A sin. A terrible sin. No wonder Vin hated the Monroes from the start." She glanced apologetically at James, but this truth could not be gentled.
Orrin didn't want to be reminded of that, but Ezra mused blackly, "Indeed ..." Standing up again, but stopping his restless pacing at James' shoulder to look out at the over-abundant humanity. "I confess to wondering of late at the wisdom of becoming so intimately enmeshed in this situation ... forgive me, Mr. Travis, I mean no offense - but I am coming to believe that Vin very likely would have stopped all of this on his own weeks ago, and all we've done is get in his way and put ourselves in the middle of something he was wise enough to try to keep us out of."
Oh, that struck hard at Orrin, though it brought Ezra no pleasure to know it. The Judge's cleft chin snapped back against his chest and his eyes were full of resentment, but he was unable to deny having thought that himself. "I can't condone killing no matter how large a good it serves, Ezra." He said, but in so defensive a tone that his guilty agreement could not be misunderstood.
Ezra shrugged, green eyes hard above a charmingly agreeable smile; "Some men, as Vin has said, go rabid and need to be put down before they infect too many lives."
James' shoulders hunched defensively, but Ezra made no apology and there was nothing that could be said in defense of brothers who would plot to kill their own sister. And he was far from safe himself, that much James knew - Gerald and Stephen had taken to conducting private counsels that excluded him, a practice that, while not new, now had frightening overtones.
"That wasn't ever an option. Even if Vin was defending himself and had every moral and legal right to kill them, he'd be hunted down under a first degree murder indictment, no lesser charge would be accepted. Would you sacrifice him to make your life simpler?"
Ezra laughed out loud at that, shrewdly knowing Travis was repeating an argument he'd already had to use with himself.
Vin would've killed both Gerald and Stephen Monroe without hesitation if he'd been told about their scheme for the Black Hills, it was why Orrin had insisted the tracker be kept unaware. Orrin was a federal Judge charged with the service of blind justice, and that charge would never allow him to knowingly disregard the sanctity of human life or due process - even the lives of criminals of the caliber of Gerald and his co-conspirators. He didn't have the luxury of acting on his own instincts of justice nor allowing anyone else to, either.
Vin, however, would have disregarded those civil strictures with the pragmatic ease of someone who'd been disregarded himself many times, at great cost. Whatever had happened to the tracker after his mother had perished had left him with a basic unrepentant detachment that Orrin had seen in his court-room many times, but in Vin it was not freedom from conscience, not sociopathic. It was a deeply principled respect for brutal necessity, and it was an attitude common on the lawless frontier. Though Vin could kill without regret, he would no more take a man's life unweighed than Chris would, something he knew despite the gunslinger's reputation.
Even if Ezra was right and all they'd done was complicate matters by trying to see justice carried out, even if they hadn't a snowball's chance in hell of stopping the Indian War, at least Vin wouldn't be facing a murder charge. That was something Vin probably didn't care about at all, but the tracker had no idea how much more that would mean than being wanted for the murder of an unknown farmer. He would be hunted mercilessly, ruthlessly, and he would die long before he reached any court of law where he might reveal things influential men wanted suppressed.
Never in all his life had Judge Orrin Travis felt the nation he loved so close to the brink of collapse into chaos and corruption. It made him feel antiquated and useless, but he had too much respect for the rule of law not to stand up against such despicable misuses of power. He refused to see his country blindly follow so selfish and short-sighted a course without doing whatever he could to stop it.
Not until many miles from the camp, Vin breaking a trail quite different from the one that had brought them from Fort Fetterman, did Vin finally speak to J.D.
"How'd you figure out I was goin'?" He asked, paying close attention to the close-set trees around them that marched off into the moon-lit shadows. He was presently following a faint deer-track, back-leaned against the incline with one hand flat on Peso's rocking croup.
J.D. snorted incredulously through his nose, whispering in the close darkness and wondering how the hell Vin could see where he was going. "Oh, come on now, Vin! You think everybody and his brother didn't already know you would? Cch, we've known you awhile, remember?"
That blunt statement spoke volumes about their familiarity with him that settled into Vin uneasily. He'd never been around anyone long enough to become predictable, it was dangerous to a man like him ... yet as strange as it was to have his habits and instincts known so well, it wasn't an altogether unpleasant feeling now.
His ribs and back hurt like blue blazes and Peso wasn't happy about having him lean off balance like he was to relieve it; damned horse kept rolling an eye back at him like he was waiting for him to fall off. Looking forward to it, too. Usually when they'd been idle a few days Vin knew to let him loose to run awhile, and Peso kept yanking at the reins and trying to get into a canter that Vin wouldn't let him have.
"So, how'd you know when?" Curious, now, as J.D. came up even with him when the trees thinned enough to allow it, his grin smug and self-satisfied.
"Peso's droppings turned up grain ..." Vin's teeth gleamed with a lazily admiring smile in the darkness and J.D. grinned with pleasure. "I didn't say anything to anyone. They don't know I'm gone, probably'll miss you way before they notice me, I'm usually out in the fields with the horses, you know."
Vin looked over at him consideringly, the affection he'd long harbored for the kid rising too quick to deny. J.D., impetuous, foolhardy and headlong as a boy who'd always had his Ma there to pick him up, had this time considered his actions carefully enough to track a tracker determined to escape unnoticed. He had to admit it was good to have company right now. Things seemed to be moving in fits and starts, he kept drifting off and startling himself, portentious shadows shifting and whispering on all sides of him like ghosts harrying him along to do this thing he refused to think too hard about until it was on him.
Duley wasn't with him, he couldn't have her with him now, but it made him feel untethered from himself and hollowed out, like she'd left an empty place so big in him that his body faltered around it.
J.D. eyed Vin critically, worried about how odd his voice seemed, his eyes quick as ever around them but with a kind of blankness J.D. couldn't figure out. In the dark the bruises seemed less important, but sure as hell he shouldn't be on a horse yet. J.D. was deeply anxious about Chris' reaction to finding out he'd helped Vin on his way, but there was nothing to be done for it now. He sighed and tried not to think about that.
"I figure it'll take Josiah and Buck both to keep Chris from explodin' like a stick of dynamite once he finds out you're gone." J.D. said, looking around at the terrain as if he could feel that incipient danger even this far away. He was surprised by Vin's dry little laugh, the tracker shook his head with a wry fade of a smile that J.D. didn't entirely understand. Peso took a sudden jolting step down and Vin sat upright again, curling the fingers of his right hand around the pommel cap and drawing the reins up to his chest for a moment to reassert his dominance before letting the horse have his head for the steepening descent.
What J.D. did understand, and all he cared about right now, was that Vin wasn't sending him back, and though he was a little anxious to realize that was a tacit admission that Vin couldn't do whatever he intended to do alone, it was still a fine point of pride that the tracker had that kind of faith in him. Buck said he was in danger of making a career out of looking foolish, but J.D. had concluded long ago that Buck wouldn't have bothered with him if he didn't think he had what it took to learn better. Vin had never made a secret of thinking that, even though J.D. knew he exasperated the tracker sometimes. Today, J.D. felt like his time had come to be a man who could stand at a friend's back, and he intended to do just that, no matter what. No matter Chris Larabee, either. He rolled his eyes at his own bravado - as if he wouldn't half-piss himself if Larabee came at him with fire in his eye.
"Why didn't you tell 'em?" Vin asked, very quiet and hesitant, but also keenly interested in the answer. J.D.'s amber eyes met his with a look that was faintly insulted.
"That's a dumb question." He said, and Vin ducked his head like he was sorry he'd asked. Vin had always answered every question J.D. put forth and never once made him feel stupid for asking, but sometimes Vin asked questions J.D. figured he should already know the answers to. He'd halfway suspected Vin was testing him by acting ignorant about things that were pretty obvious to everyone else, Buck did it all the time and the reaction was so automatic by now ... But Josiah had said that Vin didn't always understand the reasons folks did some things, and he had a particularly hard time with people being nice to him. J.D. remembered that had made him pretty sad to hear. He couldn't imagine being so alone that humankind was a mystery, or being treated so badly by the folks you did know that the first instinct to kindness was to look for the trickery.
"Sorry, Vin." He said. Vin made no reply, and J.D. felt bound to fill the awkward silence. "I didn't tell 'em because this is important to you, and trying to stop you so far has only made things worse for everyone. Because I'm sick to death of feeling like you're on the outs with everybody, Chris mad and you and everybody keeping secrets ... " He realized he was getting wound up and stopped, but Vin didn't seem to notice.
J.D. searched for words that wouldn't sound like he was blaming the others for anything - after all, maybe Vin didn't understand that they cared about him and didn't want any harm to come to him, that was why they'd held things back from him and tried to keep him from going back to Fetterman. He finally gave up with an exasperated shake of his head and waited until Vin looked his way so he could catch his eye and make him know he was being as honest as he could be.
"Because you're my friend, and you'd do it for me. You're probably the only one who would." Vin's eyes searched his face like he was trying to grasp a concept foreign to him, and J.D. tried to explain it. "A man can be wrong-headed, but if he can't be talked out of something, then his friends are supposed to stand by him and try to make sure he doesn't get himself killed. That's what friends do, right?"
Vin looked at him quizzically, as if he'd said something that made no sense.
"Buck tell you that?" He asked, and J.D. nodded shortly.
Vin turned back to the trail with an odd smile and a little shake of his head. "'N you think he's a pretty smart feller, right?"
"Yeah, well, don't be tellin' him that or I'll never hear the end of it."
A slow smile remained on Vin's face and he nodded, a shine to his eyes that made J.D. think he could see straight to his heart.
After awhile, J.D. leaned toward Vin with another glance at their backtrail and said quietly, "Besides, that old woman was drivin' me crazy - why, every time I turned around she was after me about something, poking at me with those sharp little fingers of hers! Half the time I didn't have any idea what she wanted, but that didn't make a damn bit of difference to her. Crazy old thing ..."
This time Vin's laugh was true and lifted J.D.'s spirit to hear. "She likes you, J.D." He said with a grin at the astonished disbelief on the kid's face. "No, really, she does - if she ignores you, then you're in trouble, she was tryin' t'make you feel welcome, teasin' you and scoldin' you like a child of her own village."
"You're kidding me." J.D. said, trying to get a hold on that idea and finding it a bit too slippery. Dubiously he recalled his endless run-ins with Little Eagle and struggled to find a moment of welcome in any of it. It certainly put things in a different light. He wondered what else he might've missed by feeling so picked-on that he avoided the camp whenever possible. Much as he loved the west and wanted to be part of it, Indians still scared him a little, he just didn't understand much of anything when it came to Indians.
They rode quietly awhile, the silence between them comfortable as silence seldom was for J.D. with anyone but Vin. The going got rougher, following a twisting gulch between two down-reaching arms of the mountain, the plains opening up in the silvered night below. J.D. noticed the heel of Vin's hand on the pommel sometimes taking his weight; Vin was in considerable discomfort, but he wouldn't stop, so J.D. didn't ask him to. If Vin fell off Peso, then he might say something, but until then it wasn't any of his business.
When they came to the moon-lit expanse of the plain at the last thin line of trees, Vin eased the pace to let the horses walk the kinks of so long a downward walk out of their legs.
"You know the lay of the land?" Vin's hatbrim tilted and J.D. could feel his eyes, knew he wasn't talking about the terrain. Vin could ask a lot of things in a very few words, and J.D. considered his answer as he tried always to do with Vin. He guessed he was about to find out just what they were riding into. Finally he answered as best he could.
"I know Miz Monroe's brothers want her out of the way so they can get their hands on some land grants in Indian territory, n' I know they're planning to start a war at Fetterman so the treaty won't count anymore." He shrugged, knowing it wasn't much and tossing a bit of humor after it. "And I sure as hell know Chris wanted you out of it as far as he could get you."
Vin seemed satisfied with that, and he looked J.D. right in the eye and said, "I aim t'stop 'em any way I can. You alright with that?"
Giving him the chance to leave if he wanted and J.D.'s first instinct was to protest, but he didn't. He held Vin's direct gaze and declared himself; "Yeah, I'm alright with it."
Even knowing he could get killed, Vin's eyes made no secret of that deadly possibility and J.D.'s didn't flinch from it.
After awhile digesting how good having Vin's respect felt, J.D. cocked his head toward the tracker, who was a narrow dark silence beside him, and took a chance he decided men would take with each other, that friends could risk.
"Vin ... can I ask you something personal?"
Vin's eyes flickered over to him for a moment before returning to the broad darkness around them. One shoulder rose noncommittally.
"You can ask, J.D. Don't mean I'll answer."
Terms J.D. could live with, the question didn't have much relevance to where they were going anyway. Still, he figured it was important to all of them, and the matter seemed to be the pivot point of all the trouble between Vin and Chris.
"Are you ... y'know ... in love with Elizabeth Monroe?"
J.D. actually laid back in the saddle and brought his mount up short when Vin snapped around to him like he was afraid Vin was going to hit him, the tracker's face was hard and pale as alabaster and every angle seemed cut-edged. J.D. was almost glad not to be able to see Vin's eyes clearly in the shadow of his hat-brim, and his nervousness rose when Vin stopped dead on the trail, looking only at him.
"You think that's your business, kid? Somebody put you up to askin' me that?"
J.D.'s face got hot as fire, and as much as he wanted to tear his eyes away from Vin's, it was like the tracker had a line on him pulled tight. Uncertain as he was that he could get a word past the sudden block in his throat, J.D. knew Vin was waiting for an answer, and none too patiently, either. Why was he surprised? Every time the damn woman's name came up, somebody went hostile!
"Well ... maybe it's not exactly ... " Stammering like an idiot, which made him mad at himself, and then mad at all of them for pussy-footing around things that had somehow split them into fragments of the team they were supposed to be.
"Dammit, Vin!" Burst out of his mouth before he could stop it, and then it was hell with it, say what was on his mind like he wished the rest of them would.
"Maybe it's none of my business nor anybody else's, but we aren't the only one keeping secrets! You been actin' like you don't trust a one of us any more, and I can't see any reason for it but her! I like her just fine, you know, she's a nice lady n' you've got as much right as anyone to want that, but why in hell ... " He sputtered, losing the words to express how lost he felt in their distance from one another, how scared he was that it would all end and nothing would ever be like it was. Scared, maybe, with how much he counted on what the seven of them had created, and mad because it made him feel like such a kid to thunk of losing it.
"We're your friends, Vin! Even if Chris doesn't like her for some reason, he'd back you if you decided to keep her n' you should know that! It's like you have to push us all away in order to get close to her, that doesn't make any sense to me! We all came out here for you, Vin, not just because Judge Travis wanted us to - it bein' important to you made it important to us, but you've been acting like you're out here all alone, doing things you won't tell us about, not talkin' to us or even seeing us half the time! We don't ..."
He fell abruptly silent when Vin turned and legged Peso forward, coldly silent. J.D. didn't know if he should follow on. If he'd made Vin mad enough to leave him, he had no idea whether he could find his way back to the Lakota camp alone. His mount danced under him, expressing that uncertainty.
Vin barely felt Peso moving under him, didn't see the broken plain before him, gripped in a sudden horrible epiphany he wanted no part of. His heart thudded hard and uneven in his chest as a veil was lifted in him that he'd never known was there. Was it because Duley wasn't with him here? Duley had always been with him before, always ... was it because she was gone that J.D.'s unwitting words had torn open this thought he'd never had before? He didn't want that thought, but he couldn't unthink it now no matter how much he needed to. Things learned could not be unlearned ... God, please ... I don't want to know this, not this ...
The questions had to ask themselves, he couldn't stop them, he tried to stop them and he couldn't ... Had he hewed so close to Duley all these years, paid such keen attention to her voice, that he'd failed to hear any others? Held so hard to that bond he couldn't bear to lose with her that he never allowed or even understood that he had them living world, too? Was it because she was gone from him right now, pushed far and hard away so he could kill her brothers if he had to without the hesitation she would have to feel for her own blood, that this thought had finally broken free? Just feeling lonesome and alone and needing ... something? What responsibilities to the living had he been ignoring all this time in holding to his duty to Duley?
Denial grabbed him hard inside because it felt like a betrayal to think this, to imagine what he'd missed of the living world by cleaving so close to her in the place she dwelt. Waiting for her on his side as she waited for him on hers, just biding his time and not ... not living. He had a superstitious sense that the mere act of thinking these thoughts gave her the final justification to do what he suspected she'd intended from the first, beyond stopping her brothers from using her letters to destroy the people. To leave him, to push him the final distance away from her so the barrier between death and life finally parted them and emptied the place that was hers in him. She'd think it a mercy and never know surely shrivel up and blow away inside. He'd never found anything else in this living world to match her ... maybe he'd never looked. Maybe it'd been right in front of him time after time and he'd never seen. Maybe it was, now, six men who knew he was lying to them, knew he wasn't trusting them, but who saddled up and came right along with him into mortal danger.
"Vin?" J.D.'s voice reached him from far behind him. A living voice, a living soul, a boy bound to him by loyalty and friendship that he'd felt himself and never acknowledged the depth of. J.D. had come with him into whatever would happen, J.D. would put himself in harm's way for him even if he believed Vin was making a terrible mistake. Chris would try to stop him, but for the same reason J.D. was here, now. The same devotion. He'd never doubted Chris' loyalty for a second, yet he'd made them all doubt his. Six men at his back whenever he needed them and damn if he hadn't insulted them all just by being unable to see it for what it was. Damned if it wasn't a binding to the living world laid on a man accustomed to dreaming with the dead, to being on his own and going where the wind blew him without a word to anyone ...
He stopped, Peso craning around irritably when he made no move at all, just sat there in a stillness completely divorced from the turmoil within. His shoulders bowed and he leaned over so far that his forehead nearly touched Peso's mane. He never felt the protesting pain of compressing ribs or scabs breaking in folding on his hip. All he could feel was the pain in his heart, the errors he'd made and how badly he did not want to look at them now, nor believe that she was making him see them so she could let him go.
"Vin?" J.D.'s living voice, hushed and hesitant, his living hand, tentative and tender, touching lightly at his back.
"You alright, Vin?" There was no answer he could give that wouldn't break him. And he couldn't break yet. Not yet.
To be continued...
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