Meet the New Dawn (44 page)

“Was that all of the children then?”

“No.” She smiled, “I had one more—Jason, my baby. He was called
Eoveano,
Yellow Hawk. He is the one who works here on the reservation with the doctor. They’ll be along soon, Clay Woman. You must let them help you so that you have a
nice strong baby with no complications. It is good to keep some of the old ways—the language, many of the customs. But when it comes to doctoring and your health, the new ways are good. The white doctors have many medicines and much experience, and you should trust them to help you.”

The girl kept hold of her hand. “If you gave birth to seven children alone, then surely I can give birth to one, if you will stay with me.”

Abbie sponged out a cool rag and wiped her fevered brow. “I will stay with you, until the doctor lays a fine son or daughter on your belly and we hear him or her squalling.”

The girl smiled, closing her eyes and preparing for another pain.

In what seemed like only a month or two, a year had passed, and Abigail Monroe became as much a part of the reservation as the Indians themselves. Joshua returned home and married LeeAnn. Never had LeeAnn Monroe thought she could be so happy, as much in love, or as willing in a man’s arms. Joshua Lewis brought out all the things in her she had never experienced, taught her what love was supposed to be, and that takings man was a joy, not a horror. Jason learned quickly, and already took care of some medical needs on his own. Abbie felt happy and fulfilled, but two things loomed in that horizon of fate, reawakening her awareness that perfect happiness was something no one ever found. Bonnie Lewis Monroe became gravely ill with a strange disease that seemed to be eating away at her very flesh, so that she became thinner every day and could barely move because of pain. There was nothing the doctor could do for her, and Dan Monroe, now retired from the Army but remaining to help on the reservation, doing a little ranching on the side, was beside himself with grief. Bonnie had brought him intense happiness since his first wife died. She was practically his whole reason for existing. Abbie well understood his grief, and she remained faithfully by his side, helping all she could with Bonnie, who soon grew totally helpless.

Josh and LeeAnn helped as much as they could. They had
stayed on the reservation after marrying, living in a nearby town where Josh started up his own newspaper and LeeAnn began teaching at a reservation school. There was nothing any of them could do for Bonnie but watch her suffer. It reminded Abbie of the way her own mother had died back in Tennessee, suffering so much that it seemed a blessing to finally bury her. But she felt the old emptiness again at the thought of losing Bonnie—the loneliness that death always brought to the soul. She didn’t doubt that it would be relieved somewhat if she could see and talk to Swift Arrow. But he had remained elusive, refusing to come and see her for unexplained reasons. It confused and depressed her. She had so looked forward to seeing Zeke’s brother again—the Cheyenne warrior who had taught her the Cheyenne ways all those years ago when Zeke left her to Swift Arrow’s watchful care.

She and Swift Arrow had become such close friends, once she won over his trust and admiration. Why would he not come and see her now? Was he ashamed that the Sioux and Cheyenne had been defeated and had to live on a reservation? Or was it that seeing her would remind him of Zeke and bring him too much pain? He lived as a recluse, so she was told, in his own tipi high in the Bitterroots. Soldiers had long given up trying to roust him out. After all, he was just one warrior and bothered no one. He killed his own game and refused any of the handouts at the reservation.

The thought of him living alone tore at her heart, for he had always been such a lonely man, remaining a Dog Soldier and refusing to take a wife, his only family being Wolf’s Blood for the few short years the boy lived with him in the North. He was the only full-blooded descendent left of Zeke’s Cheyenne mother and stepfather. It was important for Abbie to see him. He was the only remnant from the past and those early years that she spent with the People when freedom was there for the taking. Apparently he was clinging to that freedom now, afraid to come into the reservation for fear of being arrested or sent away. That was the only reason she could think of that would keep him from coming to see her. What other explanation could there be?

As she watched Bonnie Monroe slipping away toward
death’s hands, she determined that somehow she must find Swift Arrow. It gave her something to think about, another buffer to ease the pain of the death of a loved one. Yes, somehow she would find her brother-in-law.

It was January of 1882, three years after Zeke’s death, when Abbie sat beside a dying Bonnie Monroe, who spoke to her in a whisper. “The top drawer … of my bureau,” she told Abbie, who had to lean over to hear her. “An … Indian necklace. Get it.”

Abbie frowned, going to the bureau and opening the drawer. She lifted personal clothing that was Bonnie’s, under which an Indian necklace, a bone hairpipe choker that looked familiar to her. She picked it up and carried it over to Bonnie, whose eyes teared when Abbie held it out for her to see.

“It was … Zeke’s,” Bonnie told her, forcing her voice to come through more clearly. “He gave it to me … all those years ago … after he saved me from those outlaws down in … New Mexico … when I first met him. I was … a young missionary. I … loved him, Abbie.” The words were sorrowful, as though she thought she had to confess to the sinful feelings she had once had for Zeke Monroe so many years ago. “I think … he knew. He gave me the necklace … in friendship … and told me to always keep it … made me promise to always … help the Indian in my work. I … kept my promise.” She reached up with a weak hand and closed it around Abbie’s hand that held the necklace. “You … keep it now. He said … his Cheyenne mother made it. You keep it. And … don’t hate me … for loving him. He behaved as … nothing more than a good friend. It was … such a long time ago … before I even married my first husband.”

Abbie’s eyes teared and her throat ached. “I’ve always known,” she replied softly, squeezing the woman’s hand. “Did you think I didn’t, or that if I did I wouldn’t understand? What woman who is rescued at the hands of Zeke Monroe, and who is with him alone for several days, is capable of not falling in love with him? He was easy to love … so easy to love.”

She put her head down against Bonnie’s hand, crying
quietly. Bonnie smiled, a soft, satisfied glow to her face. “And so was Dan,” she answered. “He was … so much like Zeke. And he … thinks the world of you, Abbie. He’ll be … so lonely … when I’m gone. Stay close to him … help him. You … understand how he will feel. Promise me … you’ll watch after Dan. He’s been … so good to me … and to Josh.”

“I promise,” Abbie whispered. She swallowed, breathing deeply and meeting Bonnie’s eyes again. “But don’t you worry about Dan. He’s a strong man. His Army years made him sure and independent. He’ll be fine. But I’ll make sure he’s never—” She stopped. Bonnie was looking at her but not seeing her. Abbie knew without even checking that the woman was dead.

A terrible blackness filled her entire being. She carefully put down her hand and reached up to close her eyelids. “I love you, Bonnie,” she whispered. Another one gone. Too many. She had watched too many die. She looked at the necklace, her hand trembling. Zeke. He had touched so many lives. His strength and spirit seemed to continually permeate the air wherever she went. She held the necklace to her cheek, then kissed it.

How she missed his strength! How she missed the times when she could literally collapse into his strong arms and he would hold her and assure her all was well. And how she missed being a woman in the physical sense. But she only missed it in the sense that she could no longer enjoy the ecstasy of being one with Zeke Monroe. She never even considered such things with any other man, and yet there was a distant, gnawing need that went unfulfilled. How could a woman live all those years with a man who was such an expert at bringing out the passion in her, and then suddenly live with nothing but emptiness beside her in the night? She kissed the necklace again, then dropped it into the pocket of her dress. She took a blanket and covered Bonnie’s face, shuddering with sorrow. She must go and tell Dan. That would not be easy, but at least his daughter Jennifer was on her way here from Denver. That would comfort him. Jennifer herself was recently widowed, so for a while they would have one another to cling to. Jennifer was
bringing her own daughter, Dan Monroe’s only grandchild by blood, whom he had never even seen yet. The timing was perfect. Abbie thanked God they were coming.

April of 1882 brought news that Margaret had given birth to her third child, another son named Lance Clayton after one of Zeke’s white brothers. That brother had once lived on the ranch, helping Zeke run it after the Civil War. But Lance had been killed the day the Comanches raided the ranch and rode off with LeeAnn. Abbie was pleased that Margaret named a son after the man. Her count of grandchildren was now up to seven: three boys from Margaret, a boy and girl from Wolf’s Blood, a boy from LeeAnn, and a girl from Ellen.

But still there had been no appearance by Swift Arrow. And worse, Abbie had not heard from Wolf’s Blood in many months. Dan kept a constant flow of letters and messages going between Fort Custer and Fort Bowie, where an officer was now stationed whom he knew well. All they could discover was that vicious cheating on the Apache reservation was leading to more unrest. Many Apaches had fled to Mexico. In one of these flights, many had been found by soldiers and shot down. White men were doing their best to agitate those who remained on the reservation, deliberately keeping them stirred up so that the Apaches would make trouble, would be removed, and the land belonging to the reservation would be up for grabs to white settlers. Newspapers printed outlandish stories of Apache deprivations, convincing whites that the Indians were as worthless as snakes and should not be entitled to their reservation lands.

General Crook, an experienced Indian fighter and a man who had learned his lessons well when fighting the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne in earlier years, was sent to try to solve the problem with the Apaches. Over the years Crook had developed a respect for red men as human beings, an attitude still not taken readily by most Army men or civilians. He arranged to meet with Geronimo and his renegades in Mexico. Called Gray Wolf by the Apaches, Crook managed a parlay with Geronimo himself, convincing the man to surrender and
return to Arizona.

The Apaches were returned, but there was much criticism of Crook for being too easy on them. Abbie and Dan could see the plotting and scheming in messages they received and in local newspapers they read, except for Joshua’s paper. The young man tried his best to find out the truth, but all he had to go on was the news coming out of Arizona and New Mexico, much of which they had trouble believing. It was rumored that Crook had made some kind of deal with Geronimo. And Geronimo himself was made out to be some kind of monster, worthy of nothing less than a hanging.

Through all of this, between 1882 and 1884, Abbie could discover no news of anyone called Wolf’s Blood. Perhaps when joining the Apaches, her son had changed his name again. Perhaps something had happened to Sonora and her grandchildren, and as a result Wolf’s Blood was again on the warpath with Geronimo and the other renegades. If he were coming back as he had originally promised, he should have returned by now. What had happened to her son? What had happened to her precious Wolf’s Blood? And what of Swift Arrow, who still had not come to see her?

March of 1883 brought another grandchild, a son to Ellen, called Daniel James. And May of 1884 brought a son to LeeAnn and Joshua, called Lonnie Trent, the first name being that of another of Zeke’s white brothers and the second being Abbie’s maiden name. Jason was a full-fledged doctor, working on the reservation, and LeeAnn still taught there. Abbie at least had the two of them, plus young Matthew, now six, and the new baby. And Dan’s beautiful daughter Jennifer was also with them now, having returned from Denver to stay for good, or at least until she thought her father didn’t need her anymore. Her presence, and that of Dan’s little four-year-old granddaughter, Emily, named after Dan’s first wife and Jennifer’s mother, brought the man much comfort and joy. Jennifer was an exquisite beauty, with thick auburn hair and sea-green eyes. She was the image of her mother, Dan’s first wife, a beauty by anyone’s standards. Her mother had been spoiled and fragile however, unable to cope with frontier life, and the marriage had not been a happy one. But at least one good thing had come
of it—Jennifer, as beautiful as her mother but much stronger. She stayed in Montana, teaching at a school for white children, lonely herself for her own dead husband.

The spring of 1885 brought little progress for the Northern Cheyenne, who continued to balk at any kind of assimilation into white society. They did not want to give up their old ways, and Abbie could not help but agree with them. To be the way the agents and teachers wanted them to be was simply too drastically different from the way of life they had always known. Children were taken from homes and sent to distant schools, their hair cut short, their buckskins traded for cotton dresses and pants. Distraught, lonely parents drank and often fought. Nothing was more important to the Cheyenne than closeness to their children, and bringing them up in the Cheyenne way. They felt helpless and empty.

Abbie sometimes tried to forget all of it, for it brought her much pain. And on a warm spring night she agreed to be Dan’s company at a dance held for the whites on the reservation and in surrounding areas. She fussed the whole day, wanting to look pretty not for Dan, whom she considered only a close friend and dear brother-in-law, but for that strange “presence” she always felt. She looked in the mirror at dark eyes set in a face that looked perhaps forty, even though she was fifty-five. The gray at her temples seemed to make her prettier, she surmised, or at least that was what Zeke would tell her. And her waist was still small. She stood back and studied her soft yellow dress with its full, ruffled skirt and flowing pagoda sleeves. The bodice was cut just low enough to reveal some of the fullness of her breasts, and her shoulders and neckline were still trim and young-looking. She was pleased with her appearance, considering all she had been through.