The Endless Sky (Cheyenne Series) (42 page)

Chapter Nineteen

      
Chase raised his head, sensing her disquiet. Seeing the tears, he felt a pang deep in his chest. Wiping the trail of tears from her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, he said, “Please don't be sorry, Stevie.” He knew there was a plea in his voice but could not help it.

      
She shook her head, taking his hand in hers and tasting the saltiness of her tears on his fingers as she kissed them. “No, Chase, I'm not sorry for what we shared. How could I regret anything that beautiful?”

      
“Then why...?” He cupped her face in his hand, looking deeply into her glittering amber eyes.

      
“Don't you see, I gave to Hugh what belonged to you. The first time for me was meant to be shared with the man who loved me—whom I loved.”

      
“The loss of that—the pain and deprivation you suffered—were my fault, not yours, Stevie. I left you to Phillips and I'll never forgive myself for it.”

      
She reached up and touched his face, memorizing every harshly beautiful contour, reveling in the rasp of his beard, the sensuous curve of his elegantly sculpted lips, all the while drowning in the fathomless ebony glow of his eyes. “I can no longer blame you for leaving when you did, Chase...but I wanted to be a virgin when I came to you and—”

      
“You were! In every way that counts, you truly were.” He paused for a moment and then laughed with pure joy. “And I guess in a strange way so was I. I've never known this sense of peace...of completeness.”

      
“I never could have imagined what it would be like, Chase. Back in Boston women always spoke in hushed whispers of marital duties, a subject of some distaste to most of them apparently, although being young and unwed, no one ever explained why to me.” A wry smile twisted her lips. “At least with Hugh my expectations were not high so they weren't dashed.”

      
The thought of that obsessive madman touching her made his guts clench. Chase vowed that Hugh Phillips never would again. “In the spring I'll have to return you to civilization.” He forestalled her protest, rushing on to say, “It's not safe with my people. If we're caught, the army will ride in and slaughter the women and children just to get to the men.”

      
She wanted to deny it but knew from the straggling bloody survivors often herded into the army posts in route to reservations that what he said was all too true. “I would scarcely be safe with Hugh. You said yourself, after this he would never want me. I'd only be an embarrassment to him, to his career. I'll take my chances with Red Bead and the others. Kit Fox is the first true friend I've ever had and I couldn't bear to leave the children.” I couldn't bear to leave you.

      
He could hear the yearning in her voice and wished with all his heart that they could spend their lives together but he knew the dream was impossible. “We'll stay together as long as we can,” he equivocated, pulling her into his arms, “but you must promise me one thing.”

      
“What, Chase?” she asked, guardedly.

      
“If the worst should happen—if I were to die—I want you to go home to Boston and sue Phillips for a divorce. I don't give a damn about Christian morality or what society says. It's madness to remain tied to a man like him. I know he would rather see you dead than alive. You'll have your father's money and if there was one thing I learned living as a Remington, it's that enough money excuses all manner of sins, even bastardy and bad blood.”

      
She had told him of Josiah's death but not her resultant penury. Before she had refused to subject herself to his pity. And now, could she hold onto him if it meant filling him with guilt for leaving her destitute and at Hugh's mercy?

      
No, she could never reveal her father's final betrayal. She would take each day they had together as a precious gift. Their love would be as endless as the High Plains sky, no matter that fate might ultimately separate them. “I can't think of leaving you now,” she pleaded.

      
“Please, Stevie. I couldn't bear to think of him touching you again. Promise me you'll divorce him,” he implored.

      
His anguish was so great she would have agreed to anything. “I promise, Chase,” she replied gravely. Far better he believe that she possessed the money to secure a divorce, for if he knew that she did not, he would set out once again to kill Hugh. No matter what her husband's crimes, she did not want his blood on Chase's hands.

      
He studied her expression intently, then nodded, releasing a pent-up sigh. “Good. I'm glad that's settled. Now,” he said, his voice growing low and seductive, “it's snowing again and we can go nowhere until it clears...so...”

      
“So...?” she echoed, snuggling into his embrace as he rained soft kisses on her face, then moved down her body. This time she wantonly reveled in her nakedness, seeing in his eyes that she was indeed beautiful to him.

* * * *

      
They returned to the village two days later to much rejoicing, for everyone had given them up for dead during the fierce blizzard—everyone except for Red Bead who had walked up to them and nodded her usual terse greeting, then turned to Stands Tall. The warrior and his aunt exchanged glances in silent understanding. That night Stands Tall moved his belongings info Red Bead's lodge, leaving Stephanie alone with Chase in his lodge.

      
The following morning the air was crystalline bright, a blinding azure that seemed to stretch forever, reflecting the brilliant glistening white of the new-fallen snow which had left a deep heavy mantle across the valley as well as the mountains. When Stephanie emerged from the lodge to go for fresh water, Kit Fox joined her, smiling a cheerful hello. Stephanie felt a surge of happiness at seeing her friend, whose cheeks bore the radiant glow of a woman in love.
Do I look the same way?
“Marriage agrees with you, my friend,” she said, practicing her halting Cheyenne.

      
Kit Fox smiled more broadly and nodded. “Yes, it is good...and for you, also, I think.”

      
“You're altogether too perceptive,” Stephanie replied, switching back to English. “But I am not a bride.”

      
Kit Fox could see Stephanie's cheeks flush and knew she was uncomfortable, yet there were words that should be spoken between them. “According to the custom of my people, you are.”

      
“Remember that I already have a husband,” Stephanie replied too sharply.

      
“But he is not here and you have chosen the White Wolf,” Kit Fox replied with irrefutable logic.

      
“There is no such easy divorce among my people.”

      
Kit Fox took her hand as they knelt by the icy river, unfrozen only because of the warm water pouring into it from the underground hot springs. “You are not among white people now but here with us. My heart is glad that you are my friend and I wish only your happiness. Will you live as one of us...for as long as the Powers permit you to remain here?”

      
“Someday I must leave,” Stephanie said with genuine regret in her voice.

      
“Until then?” Kit Fox prompted.

      
“What would you have me do?”

      
Now the Cheyenne smiled. “I will speak with the lodge maker, Antelope Woman. She will direct us—Swan Flower, Green Grass and me. We will build your lodge. A woman must have a lodge of her own—and a bride price must be offered and gifts given to the White Wolf's family.”

      
“But I have no family here,” Stephanie sputtered, flustered by her friend's contagious excitement. This was getting out of hand. Such a ritual would not make her Chase's wife. Yet one look at Kit Fox's face told her it would be best to consent. Perhaps if they followed his people's customs, he might keep her with him longer. The thought of living with Hugh was unbearable and she had no means of doing what Chase asked of her if he returned her to civilization.

      
“I will speak with my mother. She will know what to do. Perhaps my family will adopt you as daughter and we will be sisters.”

      
Stephanie smiled and felt the sting of tears in her eyes. “I would like that, Kit Fox. I would like that very much!”

      
The two women hugged on the snow-covered riverbank, then filled their buckets with water and returned to camp.

* * * *

      
Their new lodge was tight and warm, secure against the night's howling wind. They had finished making love, then dozed for a bit, but he had awakened to stare into the glowing embers, unable to return to sleep. Sensing his restive mood, Stephanie, too, had awakened to his troubled gaze fixed on her. “You do not truly feel we are married, do you?” Chase said.

      
Shoving the heavy mantle of hair from her bare shoulders, she sat up in his arms and replied, “You paid a high bride price for me and my dowry was most generous,” she replied, referring to the requisite exchange of gifts made between Kit Fox's brother Plenty Horses and Stands Tall.

      
“That isn't what I asked,” he said softly, letting his fingers comb through her shimmering hair. “Phillips will always be there, won't he?”

      
“I love you, Chase, not him.”

      
“And you feel guilty about it.”

      
She could not deny the fact. “When Pony Whipper said I would bring death to your people and denounced me in front of the camp, I knew there were others who agreed but were too polite to say it. Hugh is not all that stands between us.”

      
“Pony Whipper has taken his troublemakers and ridden off to join another Crazy Dog band in Montana. Most of my people accept you as my woman, but you won't believe you're my wife until you're able to marry me under white man's law.”

      
There was no condemnation in his voice, only a sadness and an acceptance that made her heart ache. “We have now, Chase. For now, we are husband and wife.” She gestured around them to the beautifully fitted out lodge, and touched her heart, then pressed her hand to his. “This is a gift, even more precious because it may not last. I want to grow to be a part of you, of your people, to live their way and forget everything else—for as long as we are given.”

      
Chase sat up and reached inside his storage bin for a tiny pouch. It was covered with exquisite beadwork, the sort used to hold a sacred medicine bundle. He loosened the thin buckskin cord holding the bag closed and drew out something that glinted in the flickering firelight, a gold locket. It was small and heart shaped with delicate scrollwork on the front forming the initials A.R. As she watched curiously, he flicked it open revealing two faded pictures, one of a youth with solemn dark eyes, the other of a young woman who looked to be little older than the boy. “This is one of the few things I've kept with me from the past.”

      
“It's your mother's, isn't it, and the boy with her is you.” She knew the delicate golden haired girl was Anthea.

      
He stared at the pictures a moment, saying, “She had the one of me taken when I came home from boarding school, our fourth Christmas in Boston.” He closed the locket and replaced it in the beautiful medicine pouch, then reverently slipped it over her head. She pressed it between her breasts to her heart. “Consider this my wedding pledge to you. Be happy as she was while you're here. For as long as the Powers grant us.”

      
Stephanie felt the sting of tears and clutched the pouch in her hand, holding it to her beating heart. “I will wear it always.”

      
Chase nodded gravely, knowing that in the spring he must take her to safety. Perhaps the knowledge that he could not keep her even though she belonged heart and soul to him and he to her was why he deviled them by bringing up Phillips.

      
“For as long as the Powers grant us,” she repeated softly, as he cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to meet hers.

      
And so they passed the winter, Chase hunting with the warriors and Stephanie performing simple camp chores with the women. Each night they made love in the warmth and security of their lodge while the snow deepened, isolating them from the outside world. All too soon the sun began its arching rise across the vault of sky, raising temperatures and threatening to end their idyll.

      
Yet another threat arrived in camp with the clearing of the pass. Pony Whipper and three of his Crazy Dogs returned bringing news of more disasters for the Cheyenne and their allies. In spite of Crook's failure to round up the Sioux still roaming freely across the treaty lands of Dakota and Montana, Sheridan was sending Terry and the hated Long Hair, Custer, marching against them as soon as the weather cleared enough for the railroad to move men and supplies. Game on the open plains had been scarce and the winter storms fierce. Many bands of Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne were starving and some had already turned themselves in to the agency men in exchange for blankets and the meager rations provided by the White Father.

      
A great battle between the Blue Coats and the plains tribes was in the offing. Pony Whipper was eager for the fight, and at night he found many willing listeners around the campfires who would join him. The village hummed with a keen edge of repressed excitement. Would the White Wolf lead his raiders against their enemies? Or had his white wife suborned his loyalty to the Cheyenne?

      
Before the confrontation between Chase and his old rival came to a head, another more immediate and terrible disaster struck—smallpox. Chase had brought serum for his people but many, fearing the white man's bad medicine, had refused to be inoculated. Stephanie, Kit Fox and Red Bead, along with many other of the women who were immunized, nursed the sick, making them as comfortable as they could. Almost all who contracted the dread sores died, including Crow Woman.