Bittner, Rosanne (35 page)

Luke let out a long sigh. "What is it, Ty?"

"Do you and Mother like Nathan better than the rest of us? Will he get to run the ranch someday instead of me?"

"Oh, Tyler, why do you ask such a foolish question?" Lettie asked, dabbing at tears.

"It's not a foolish question," Luke told her, a ring of anger in his voice. "I know the feeling of wondering if one brother is favored over another."

Lettie could not look at him, knowing what she would see in his eyes. Ever since bringing Nathan home, they had disagreed over what to do about him. Luke loved him as much as ever, but he was not so sure as she was that the boy would or even should stay, that he could be changed. She knew he was only trying to buffer the pain she would feel if he left again, but at the same time she refused to take such a hopeless attitude.

"Tyler, my own father favored my brother over me, for reasons I will explain when you're older," Luke was telling his eldest son. "I will never forget how that felt. I can only tell you that when I married Lettie, I accepted Nathan as my son, with all the rights to my love and my possessions as any children we might have together. I will never go back on that promise, and I could never stop loving him as my own. But that has nothing to do with how I feel about the rest of my children. When you have sons of your own, you'll understand that no one child is loved more than the next, but each child is loved in a different way, for different reasons. Every child here is loved equally and will be treated equally, including Nathan, but you will get your just rewards, Ty. You've worked hard to show me you want to run the Double L someday. Such things don't go unnoticed." He looked around at all the children. "Nathan is your brother, just as surely as if I had fathered him. You should treat him with the same respect as you do each other, as a Fontaine."

They all mumbled "Yes, Father," but deep inside Tyler resented Nathan's coming home. He hoped he would run away again. Until now he had enjoyed what seemed a favored position with his father, whom he worshiped. He did not like all the attention Nathan was getting. The boy didn't even want to be here, so why didn't they just let him go?

Robbie in turn felt less favored than Ty. He knew his father was disappointed that he was not interested in riding and roping and branding, that he had never asked to go on roundup or on the cattle drive. He wished he cared more about those things, but it just wasn't in him. He supposed maybe when he was older those feelings would change. For now, he stayed away from his father.

"Pearl, when we're through with supper, I want you to play the piano for Nathan," Lettie was saying. "He likes to hear you play. It seems to calm him."

"Yes, Mother."

Outside, Nathan finished the piece of roast, licked his fingers, then wiped them on the front of the shirt Luke had given him. It belonged to the man called Billy, who was built small, but it was still a little big on him. He did not like these white man clothes, especially the britches, which chafed his legs because he was not accustomed to such harsh cloth rubbing against his skin. He longed for soft buckskins. He had refused to wear the white man's hard boots, preferring his own moccasins.

He stood up and gazed at the mountains in the distance, longing to ride free, to sleep on the ground in a tepee again. He missed his Sioux family and friends. He wanted to see them again, to eat meat roasted over an open fire, to hunt buffalo and deer, to watch the stars at night and know that he was close to the Great Spirit. He needed to go into the hills and pray. The longer he stayed here, the weaker he felt he was becoming. If it wasn't for the pathetic love and hope he saw in his white mother's eyes, he would already have left.

Luke climbed into bed, wearing nothing because of the hot night. He watched Lettie brush her hair. She wore a sleeveless cotton gown, and he thought how beautiful she still was for a woman of thirty years who had borne six children— beautiful but untouchable lately. For the last three weeks her whole world had been wrapped around Nathan, teaching him, watching him, afraid to let him out of her sight for one
second.

"Lettie, the other children are starting to feel neglected."

She put down her brush and faced him. "They just have to understand. As soon as Nathan begins to feel that he belongs here, I won't have to give him so much time and attention."

Luke sighed, lying back into his pillow. "Do you know how it makes me feel to know what it will do to you if you lose him again? I've carried the guilt for ten years, Lettie. It will just be worse if this doesn't work out the way you think it will."

Lettie came
over to the bed and got in beside him. "I've told you a hundred times I never blamed you, Luke. Now I just want you to believe Nathan is back to stay. He's learning more every day, and he—"

"Stop it, Lettie!" He turned on his side, resting on one elbow and reaching an arm around her. "You know damn well he's
only
biding his time. I can see it in his eyes!"

"You're wrong."

"I'm
not
wrong! I wish to hell he'd never been found in the first place. It would have been easier on you than this!"

Her eyes widened, misting with tears. "How can you say such a thing?"

"Because it's true! You know damn well how much I love that boy. If I thought for one minute he was really happy here and wanted to stay, I would myself be the happiest man alive. But his heart is out there on the plains and in the mountains now, Lettie, with a people he calls his own. The Indian spirit is very powerful. It will call him back."

A tear slipped down the side of her face. "More powerful than a mother's love?"

God, how the words hurt. How could he look into those green eyes and tell her the truth? "Maybe," he answered. "I've talked to Runner a lot about it. He doesn't think you should get your hopes up."

She jerked in a sob. "He's my little boy. My son. How dare you tell me not to hope and believe!"

"My God, Lettie, I love you more than my own life. Do you think I like any of this? You've got to remember you have other children who need you, a
husband
who needs you! We're all here and we love you. If Nathan goes off again—"

"I won't listen to it!" She turned her face away.

Luke put a big hand to her face and made her look back at him. "I need you, Lettie. I need you to be a wife to me, to look at me as though you realize I still exist. The kids need that, too." He leaned down to kiss her lightly, but she lay there unresponsive. Luke angrily jerked off her drawers and moved between her legs, forcing them apart with his knees. He pushed himself inside her out of sheer need, moving rhythmically until he felt the necessary release of pent-up emotion and desire, but through the entire intercourse he got no response from her. He relaxed then, pulling away and resting beside her.

"You're so far away, Lettie. I feel as though I've lost you."

"Then you shouldn't keep telling me I might lose my son again. How can I respond to a man who says he wishes my son had never been found?"

Luke angrily threw back the covers and got up, pulling on his long johns. "For Christ's sake, you know I only meant that for what it would do to
you!
Do you think
I
didn't pray every day for years that we'd find him? You know goddamn well the hell I went through searching for him, the hell I've been through thinking you blamed me. It's pretty damn obvious now that you
do
blame me, or you wouldn't be acting this way!" He pulled on his pants.

"Where are you going?"

"Outside to have a smoke." He pulled on a shirt and headed for the door. "We'll have Nathan's decision within a week or two. By then it will be time for me to leave on the cattle drive. We have to get some things straightened out between us before I go, Lettie, no matter what Nathan decides to do. I feel so far away from you that it's as if you aren't here at all." He turned and walked out.

Lettie wanted to go after him, but she couldn't move. She knew he was right that ever since Nathan had come to live with them, he had become her whole world. She also knew he was right that the boy might leave again. That was why part of her had begun to hate her own husband, just for being so damn right. She felt as though if she lost Nathan again, it
would
be his fault this time, just for suggesting that could happen.

She got up and quietly washed, then walked to the guest room where Nathan slept. She opened the door. In the moonlight she could see he was not in bed, but was sitting staring out a window. He quickly turned, like an animal on the defense. "It's me. Lettie." She walked toward him. He rose, already standing as tall as she. Lettie quietly put her arms around him, and this time his own came around her in return, an embrace that was more wonderful than anything she had ever experienced. She wept, for she knew in her heart Luke was probably right; but at least God had let her see him and hold him one more time.

Nathan sat up in his bed at the sound, a trilling call, like a night bird. He recognized that call, one used by his Sioux uncle, Stalking Wolf. He was out there somewhere! He quickly but very quietly leaped out of bed, pulling on his moccasins. At night he wore his breechcloth and nothing more, always glad to shed the white man's clothes. He walked on padded feet to the chair where his bone breastplate lay. He tied it on, then picked up the precious folding knife Luke had given him. He walked to a window then. It was a warm night, and the window was open. He leaned out to listen.

There it was again, a soft call that only another Sioux would recognize. It came from a thick stand of trees far off to the east, beyond the gate that led to Luke Fontaine's ranch. He smiled, realizing that if anyone could sneak this close to Fontaine land without being caught, his uncle could. Somehow he had to get out to the man and find out why he had come, how he knew he was even here. He moved his legs over the window ledge and crept along the roof of the first-floor veranda to a side of the house where he knew there were no guards posted. He put the knife between his teeth, and, making no more sound than a rush of air, he grasped the edge of the roof and lowered himself, dropping to the ground. He moved like a shadow, darting from bush to tree to wagon, waiting at each stop to be sure he had not been noticed. He made his way through the night, climbing over the fence far from the entrance, rather than drawing attention by opening the creaky wooden gate. He headed for the stand of trees, taught well how to keep from making any sound as he made his way over fallen twigs and pine cones.

He stopped then, shoved the folding knife into the waist of his breechcloth, and gave his own call. The trilling sound was returned, and he moved toward its source. Several times over he heard it until he was close. "Stalking Wolf," he said in a loud whisper.

"Here!"

Now he could see the man in a shaft of moonlight that came through the trees. With a glad heart he came closer and greeted the man. "How did you know I was here?"

"Half Nose said that you might be. When we told him the white men had caught you, he said that if they let you live, they would bring you here."

Nathan's heart fell a little. So, Half Nose
did
know who his white parents were and that they were alive. Luke and Lettie had not lied to him.

"Your Sioux father is very sick," Stalking Wolf told him. "He wishes to see his son before he dies. He fears you have chosen to stay here with your white family and he will never see you again. I have brought your horse."

Nathan turned to look at the ranch house in the distance. He had promised his white mother he would stay a full month. That meant he had another seven days to go, but what if he stayed and Half Nose died before he could go back to him?

He had little choice. Whatever the reason Half Nose had lied to him, it mattered little. He was the only father he could remember, and he loved him. Luke Fontaine was a good man, but he had not raised him, and he was not happy in that big house in that soft bed. "I go with you," he told Stalking Wolf.

He started to mount up, then hesitated. Part of him felt sorry for the white woman, who he knew would mourn greatly when she found out he was gone. He considered going back and trying to explain, but feared she would ask Luke to tie him and force him to stay. He still could not completely trust the white man. After all, they were known to break nearly every promise they ever made to the Sioux. No. He dared not tell anyone he was leaving.

Still, he had to leave something that might soothe his mother, let her know he would not forget her. He took the folding knife from his breechcloth and shoved it into the leather bag of supplies his uncle had tied to his horse, and from the same bag he retrieved the faded, tattered stuffed horse he had carried with him for so many years. "Wait!" he told his uncle. He disappeared for several minutes. Stalking Wolf waited anxiously until White Bear finally returned.

"We go!" the boy said then, leaping onto his horse without the benefit of a stirrup. They turned their ponies, moving stealthily through the trees until they crested a ridge to a place where the land was open. They made off then, guided by the bright moonlight.

Lettie rose from the chair on the porch when at last she saw Luke and Runner returning. Nathan was not with them. Her stomach ached at the realization that her son was gone again, this time probably forever. Everything Luke had warned her about had come true. She wanted, needed, to blame someone. Could Luke or the children have done more to make Nathan stay? Could she have done more herself? What had compelled Nathan just to sneak off in the night like that, with no explanation and no good-bye? He had promised to stay!

This was almost worse than the first time he'd disappeared, just as Luke had predicted. She watched as they rode closer, saw the devastation on Luke's face, knew he was hurting the same as she, yet she could not make herself go to him, hold him, allow him to hold her in return. He dismounted and took something from his saddlebag. She could see it was the stuffed horse! He came closer and handed it to her, his eyes misty.