Reckless Heart (5 page)

It was the most impassioned speech Josh had ever made. His blue eyes pleaded with me to accept, but another man held my heart. A man with piercing black eyes and skin like fine copper. Shadow.

Looking down at my hands, I said as gently as I could, “I’m sorry, Josh. I can’t.”

“Is it Orin?” he demanded jealously.

“No.”

“Hannah…”

“Please, Josh, don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

“Very well,” he said heavily. “But if you ever change your mind, I’ll be waiting. I love you, Hannah Kincaid. I’ll always love you.”

My folks were terribly disappointed when I told them I had turned Joshua down. Both had been eagerly anticipating our marriage. Pa had planned to take Josh on as a full partner in the store after we were married, and Mother was happily looking forward to being a grandmother. Unable to have any more children of her own after I was born, she was counting on me to give her dozens of grandchildren.

Still, disappointed as they were, they accepted my decision without a lot of fuss, and for that I was grateful.

Two new families moved into the valley in August, but I was so preoccupied with Shadow and the love blossoming between us that I paid little attention to them. One bit of news that did catch my attention concerned Orin. It seemed he was courting Lucinda Bailey, another recent arrival. Paul Brown was also courting her. In fact, all the valley boys seemed to be spending a lot of time at the Bailey place. And who could blame them! Lucinda was a tall, statuesque brunette with ivory skin and emerald eyes. If I hadn’t been so in love with Shadow, I might have been jealous of the attention she got. Truth be told, I suppose, deep down, I was a little jealous of the way Orin followed her around. But only a little. Joshua, alone, seemed immune to her charms. He still came to see me now and then, and though he never again mentioned marriage, I knew he was hoping I’d reconsider and say yes.

But I had no time for Joshua. My thoughts and hopes and dreams were centered around Shadow. Waking or sleeping, I could think of nothing else. Our love blossomed like the gaily colored flowers that brightened the hills and valleys, permeating the warm summer air with a delightful fragrance that seemed to be for us alone. Our kisses grew longer and more fervent, and it became increasingly difficult to say goodbye. Sometimes Shadow trembled with desire as he stroked my hair or caressed my willing flesh, and I ached to satisfy his hunger, even as I longed to satisfy my growing curiosity about the intimate relationship between a man and a woman.

Often, I thought how wonderful it would be if we were married. We could build a little house a few miles down the valley and raise cattle or horses. Or maybe Shadow could work in the store with Pa—though I wasn’t sure that would be such a good idea. I dreamed of having children and hoped our first child would be a boy with thick black hair and dark eyes. Perhaps one day we’d go East and tour the cities there. I’d never gotten over my yearning to dress in fine clothes and go to the theatre. Oh, it would be such fun, I thought, and then giggled out loud as I tried to imagine Shadow in a coat and tie. Somehow, I couldn’t picture him in evening clothes and the harder I tried, the sillier it seemed.

But I had no trouble imagining myself as his wife. None at all. And so the warm summer days went by on running feet, and my heart swelled with love and a growing hope that one day soon Shadow would ask me to be his bride.

Chapter Five

The warrior sat atop a high bluff, his face set in a deep scowl as he watched a half-dozen hunters decimate a herd of buffalo. Fifty of the huge curly-haired beasts had fallen, kicking and bleeding, before the herd caught the scent of blood and stampeded, thundering across the sunlit prairie like an angry brown sea. Hides were selling for three dollars apiece in the East, and the plains were crawling with buffalo hunters who took the great shaggy hides and the tongues and left tons of meat to rot in the merciless Dakota sun. Their Big Fifties made short work of bringing down the buffalo. One hunter, accompanied by a band of professional skinners, claimed to have killed fifteen hundred animals in a single week.

Predictably, the tribes were growing increasingly hostile as their main food supply was callously slaughtered and left for the wolves and the buzzards. Again and again, hunters had been ambushed and killed, but still they came. And as the great herds dwindled, tribes that had known nothing but prosperity found themselves starving and forced to settle on the reservation.

Lost in thought, Two Hawks Flying reined his big red stallion toward the river crossing. If the whites did not give heed to the treaties—and when had they ever?—there was going to be war on the plains. The Indians could not survive without the buffalo. Virtually everything the red man used, ate, or wore, came from old Pte. The people covered themselves and their lodgepoles with Pte’s hide, made rope from his hair, cooking vessels from his paunch, spoons and rattles from his horn, glue from his hooves, jerky and pemmican from his rich red flesh.

But the buffalo hunters were not the only whites swarming over the country. There were others that came scratching in the Black Hills for yellow iron. Still others came with their cattle and their families, crowding the Indians off their land, scaring away the deer and the elk, fencing the grassland, churning up the soil with their plows.

Troubled by his thoughts, Two Hawks Flying pulled Red Wind to a halt and sat staring toward Bear Valley. Not long ago there had been only one cabin in the valley. Now there were more than could be counted on two hands.

The young warriors were talking more and more about wiping the settlers out.

“Kill them now,” the angry young men argued around the campfire. “Why wait until their numbers grow larger?”

They spoke words of wisdom, Two Hawks Flying mused ruefully. And yet, because he loved a white girl, he spoke for peace.

So far, there had been no bloodshed in the valley, although Snake and a handful of hotheaded young warriors had burned down a squatter’s shack the week before and run off the white man’s cattle and horses.

But that was mild compared to the carnage that would surely take place if the whites continued to violate the treaties. Once the young men got a taste for blood, there would be no holding them back. What real warrior would be content to sit at home when there were honors to be won on the field of battle, when there were white scalps for the taking?

Once the fighting started, not even the combined efforts of Black Owl and Elk Dreamer would be strong enough to maintain peace.

Two Hawks Flying sighed heavily. War was inevitable, he thought gloomily, and when it came, it would totally destroy his relationship with Hannah. Once the fighting started, it would be red against white, with no quarter given on either side.

Even now, he knew the Kincaid family would be severely criticized by their neighbors, perhaps shunned entirely, if it was known that Hannah was seeing an Indian on the sly. It would be best if they stopped seeing each other altogether, he mused, but even as he considered it, he was nudging Red Wind with his heels.

Like a moth to a flame, he was drawn toward the river crossing. And Hannah’s waiting arms.

Chapter Six

“Why won’t you come?” I asked for the tenth time. “Mother would love to see you—you know she would.”

“And your father?” Shadow asked drily.

I shrugged. “Pa won’t care,” I answered, and the lie tasted flat in my mouth. The truth was, I didn’t know how Pa would behave. He never had liked Shadow, but then, Pa just didn’t like Indians. Of course, he had a good reason. His parents, a sister, and two brothers had all been killed by Blackfoot Indians when Pa was just a little boy. Pa had been left for dead and would surely have died of starvation and exposure if a kind-hearted old mountain man hadn’t happened along the next day and found Pa wandering around the charred ruins of their wagon. The mountain man had raised Pa until Pa was sixteen, and then Pa had set off on his own.

“Please come,” I begged, and Shadow finally, reluctantly, gave in.

Mother gave me quite a probing look when I told her Shadow was coming for dinner that night. However, she asked surprisingly few questions and readily agreed to speak to Pa about being on his good behavior. I smiled all day as I rushed about tidying up the house, dusting and mopping and polishing until every room sparkled from floor to ceiling. That evening I took an extra long bath, then slipped into a becoming green dress and tied my hair back with a matching ribbon. Humming softly, I twirled before the mirror, pleased with my appearance.

Pa was in the parlor, poring over some mail order catalog and muttering about the high cost of something or other, when I entered the room.

“Evening, Pa,” I said cheerfully.

“Evening,” he grunted. Then, looking up, he frowned as he said, suspiciously, “You’d think somebody special was coming to call, instead of just an old playmate.”

“Oh, Pa!” I chided, and hurried into the kitchen to help Mother set the table before Pa could ask any questions I didn’t want to answer.

Shadow arrived on the stroke of six, and as I saw him enter the room, my heart began to pound. He was dressed in a shirt of bleached doeskin, heavily fringed along the arms and exquisitely decorated with dyed porcupine quills. His thick black hair hung loose down his back, adorned with a single white eagle feather. Tall and straight and proud, he shook my father’s hand, kissed my mother’s cheek, and smiled at me.

“Well, dinner is ready,” Mother said cheerfully. “I hope you’re all hungry.”

Mother outdid herself that night. She served up chicken and featherlight dumplings, succulent baked ham, fresh picked peas, and hot biscuits dripping with butter and honey. And for dessert she had deep dish apple pie. And oatmeal cookies.

Shadow and I grinned at each other as he reached for one of Mother’s cookies, and Mother grinned, too, as she asked, teasingly, “Can you still eat ten in less than a minute?”

“I do not know,” Shadow replied soberly. “But I am willing to try.”

We all laughed at that, even Pa.

After dinner, the men retired to the parlor while Mother and I cleared the table. It made me nervous to leave them alone together, and I wondered uneasily how they would get along. Pa had been quiet during dinner, leaving me to wonder if they would just sit and glare at each other.

Abruptly, Pa cleared his throat and I frowned as I heard him say, “Well, Shadow, do you think there will be any more trouble this year?”

“Yes,” Shadow answered flatly. “There is going to be a lot of trouble if the whites do not stay off our land.”

“I’m afraid it won’t be your land much longer,” Pa replied bluntly. “Tales of gold and grass and fertile soil will draw people West like shit draws flies.”

“I think you are right,” Shadow agreed. “But know this. My people will not give up their hunting grounds without a fight. We have lived here for hundreds of years. We are not afraid to fight for what is ours. And we are not afraid to die. And we will fight to the death before we surrender!”

“Likely!” Pa snapped, and in my mind’s eye I could see them glowering at each other, bristling like two dogs over a bone.

There was a taut silence. Then Shadow said, “Because your family has been good to me in the past, I will tell you something. I think, if you are smart, you will take your wife and your daughter and get out of this part of the country before it is too late. Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and the other chiefs are talking war. Sitting Bull is making big medicine in the Sacred Hills. The young warriors among the Tsi-tsi-tsis and the Lakotas are eager to join him.”

“Yes, they’ve already been out practicing up,” Pa acknowledged flatly. “The Henrys were burned out last week, their cattle and horses run off.”

“It was a warning,” Shadow said. “No one was killed this time. The next family may not be so lucky.” Shadow’s voice dropped as he said, earnestly, “Take your family away from here before it is too late.”

Pa snorted. “This land is mine as much as anybody’s! I worked it, and I sweated over it, and I’ll not leave it. No, by damn, I won’t!”

For the second time that night a heavy silence fell between the two men. Even in the kitchen, I could feel the tension between them. Worried, I cast an anxious glance in Mother’s direction. She smiled reassuringly as she removed her apron, picked up the coffee pot, and glided into the parlor.

“Coffee, anyone?” she asked brightly, and tactfully steered the conversation into more pleasant channels.

Shadow left soon afterward, and Pa stomped off to bed, leaving Mother and me to finish up in the kitchen. Mother looked preoccupied and increasingly worried as she washed the last cup and drained the water from the sink. Then, with a sigh, she looked me right in the eye and said, “All right, Hannah. Tell me everything.”

“Why, whatever do you mean?” I asked innocently.

“You know perfectly well what I mean, Hannah Kincaid,” she said sternly. “How long have you and Shadow been meeting on the sly?”

My mouth popped open in astonishment. How had she known?

I had difficulty speaking past the lump in my throat. “Since my birthday,” I confessed, and Mother frowned as she dropped her apron over the back of a chair and took me firmly by the hand.

“I think we had better have a talk, dear,” she said, and led me to the sofa. I sat beside her, not meeting her eyes.

Still holding my hand, Mother sat quietly for a moment, studying my face. Then, in her dear sweet voice, she said, “Hannah, you know how fond I am of Shadow. I couldn’t love him more if he were my own flesh and blood, but Hannah dear, he is an Indian. And even though he speaks English almost as well as you do, and even though he seems just like one of the family when he’s here, he isn’t one of us and never will be.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. She sounded just like Pa! I felt as if I had been betrayed. I had been so certain she would be happy for me—happy for Shadow—because we were in love. In the back of my mind, I had been counting on her support, counting on her to make Pa see things my way. And now this.

Impatiently, I said, “Oh, Mother, you don’t understand. I…”

“But I do understand, child. That’s just the trouble. You and Shadow haven’t done anything we need to worry about, have you?”

I felt my cheeks flame as I realized what she was implying, and said, rather indignantly, “Mother, really!”

“Don’t look so shocked, Hannah. I know what goes on between a boy and a girl.”

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” I said sullenly. “Honest.”

“I believe you, dear,” Mother said, squeezing my hand. “And I think it would be best for all concerned if you end it now, before it goes too far.”

“I can’t. I love him more than anything in the world.”

“I know, child,” Mother said sympathetically. “I can see it in your eyes. But it will never work.”

“We’ll make it work!” I cried passionately. “I love him with all my heart, and he loves me.”

“Sometimes love isn’t enough, Hannah,” Mother remarked quietly. “Where will you live? Here, in the valley? I don’t think so. Our neighbors would never accept him.”

“Then we’ll live with the Cheyenne.”

“Do you think you would be happy there, living with strangers—knowing you would never belong?”

“I don’t know.”

“Perhaps you should think about it carefully before you rush into something you may regret. I doubt if Shadow’s people would accept you any more readily than folks here would cotton to Shadow. And in the meantime, it will only get worse. You heard what Shadow said to your father. If war comes, it won’t be safe for Shadow to show his face anywhere near the trading post. And it won’t be safe for you to leave the protection of these walls, either.”

Tears of despair and frustration welled in my eyes. Jerking my hand from Mother’s, I walked over to the window and stood staring out into the darkness. Out there, somewhere beyond the trees and across the river, was the man I loved. What difference did it make that he was an Indian? If I didn’t care about the color of his skin, why should anyone else? No one would care if he were Dutch or French.

“Hannah, perhaps if you gave Joshua another chance…?”

“Joshua!” I exclaimed. “You must be kidding.”

“He loves you. He would make you a fine husband.”

“Never! If I can’t marry Shadow, I won’t marry at all!”

“Has he asked you?”

“No,” I admitted miserably. Mother had touched a sore spot that time. I had been waiting—hoping Shadow would propose, but he never did. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he didn’t love me as much as I loved him. Maybe he didn’t love me at all. He had never said so.

Resolutely, I put such thoughts from my mind. He did love me. I knew he did. His eyes and his kisses could not lie.

“I doubt if he will,” Mother said gently. “Shadow is a realist even if you are not. He knows it would never work.”

“It would work, if everybody would just leave us alone.”

“Hannah, marriage is hard enough when two people share the same background and the same beliefs. Without a common heritage, it’s almost sure to fail.”

“Oh, leave me alone!” I cried petulantly, and ran from the room, blinded by my tears. Why couldn’t she understand how I felt? Distraught, I slammed my bedroom door and threw myself across my bed. Burying my face in my pillow, I cried until my throat was raw and my eyes swollen. And still the tears came, until, exhausted and discouraged, I fell asleep. Only to toss and turn all night long.

I woke before dawn and left the house. Outside, the air was cold and clear and still. A thin blanket of sparkling frost covered the ground, and my breath came out in little clouds of white vapor.

Nellie humped her back and flattened her ears when I laid the cold saddle pad in place, stubbornly refusing to budge when I climbed onto the saddle. Even my horse is against me, I thought angrily, and pounded her sides with my heels. Finally, with a soulful look at the cozy barn, she broke into a shambling trot.

In spite of my heavy coat and wool scarf, I was shivering and my teeth were chattering when I reached the river crossing. Shadow was there, waiting for me, and I saw that he had spent the night beneath “our” tree, wrapped in a furry brown buffalo robe.

“You have been crying,” he observed as I dismounted. “Was it bad after I left?”

“No,” I lied.

“Hannah, you are as easy to read as the stars in the sky,” he chided gently. “I told you it would be better if I stayed away.”

“Please don’t scold me,” I begged. “I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.”

“You’re cold,” Shadow observed quietly. “Come, let me warm you.”

And so saying, he spread my coat beneath our tree, sat me down beside him, and drew his buffalo robe around our shoulders. It was very cozy, bundled in the heavy robe, and I lifted my face for his kiss, desperately needing to feel the strength of his arms around me and feel the reassuring warmth of his lips on mine. As always, his touch left me breathless and yearning for more. But he held me away from him, and I raised troubled eyes to study his face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked tremulously.

“Hannah, you must persuade your father to leave the valley. There is going to be war, if not this year then the next.”

“What has that to do with us?”

“Everything. When my people fight, I must fight with them, and I do not want to fight you or your parents. I would not like to see any of you killed.”

The thought that we might be killed had never entered my mind. War, and talk of war, had always seemed vague and far off, something that only happened to other people, in other parts of the country. Even when the Henrys had been burned out, it hadn’t affected me personally. No one had been hurt, and I didn’t know them anyway, not really. They were just a placid, middle-aged couple with three tow-headed kids who had come into the trading post now and then.

“Maybe there won’t be any war,” I suggested hopefully. “And even if there is, surely your people won’t harm us. They never have before.”

“This is not like before,” Shadow said gravely. “The buffalo hunters are killing the buffalo for their hides and leaving the meat to rot in the sun. My people cannot live without the buffalo. This summer, ten new families moved into the southern end of the valley. Soon there will be ten more, and then ten more. The hunters are bad enough, but the settlers are worse. They come with their families and their cattle and fence the land. We must stop them now, while we can.”