Watching Eagles Soar (24 page)

* * *

M
olly could hear the familiar sound of J.J. moving about the drawing room as she started down the stairs. She had reached the landing when the library door opened and J.J. came out into the vestibule. He struck a pose at the bottom of the staircase, one hand gripped over the knob of the balustrade, the other waving a newspaper. “I was coming to find you,” he said. “You'll want to read this.”

Molly stopped three steps above him. She could feel the blood rushing from her face, and she grabbed the railing to steady herself. Polly Pry—that dreadful woman. If she would only print the stories people gave her, instead of traipsing across the city looking for horrible, embarrassing news that no one needed to know.

“What is it?” she managed, finally taking hold of the newspaper. She sank onto the step and looked at the article that he had folded into place. She had to force herself to focus on the headline, and thank goodness the headline was small—“Actors Plead Guilty to Manslaughter.” And thank goodness for something else: There were no sketches.

She felt herself begin to breathe again as she read down the column:

A pair of actors from London, Alex Herron and Kate Dawes, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the case of fellow actor, Edward Alsop, found shot to death in the alley behind the Oxford Hotel. The couple had come to Denver for a performance at a private gathering, in which the third actor also took part. Evidently, the actors had a falling out over money, and Mr. Alsop attacked Mr. Herron and Miss Dawes, who claim they had no choice but to defend themselves with a small pistol that Miss Dawes carried for protection in strange cities. It was not explained how they happened to be in the alley behind the Oxford, but it would seem that the private performance had taken place nearby. According to Captain McCloskey, the police had acted on an anonymous tip and apprehended the pair at Denver Union Station as they were about to flee aboard the train to San Francisco. Captain McCloskey refused to identify the party that had hired the actors for a private performance. “They have nothing to do with the commission of the crime and must remain anonymous,” he said. One can only guess which of Denver's finest had enjoyed a performance staged by murderers!

Molly pushed herself to her feet, hurried down the rest of the steps, and threw herself in J.J.'s arms. “I do believe we are now part of Denver's finest,” she said. She was laughing and crying, wiping at her tears and burying her face into the blue serge of J.J.'s waistcoat.

“What are you saying?”

Molly pulled back a little and looked up at him—that same supercilious grin, but mixed now with a genuine look of perplexity. “Isn't that what Louise Hill said?” She was laughing so hard, it took a moment before she could go on. “The mark of the finest is having money. And knowing how to use it.”

More from Beyond

Lizzie Come Home

T
he day the soldiers appeared on the ridge, Lizzie scooped up Little Feather and ran out of the village. In the willows along the creek, she made a leafy bed for the child and snuggled next to him, watching the small brown fingers reach for her red-gold hair and curl into the whiteness of her palms. The willows shaded him from the midday sun that bleached the sky to pale blue. It was cool here; no one could see them.

When she had first heard the rumble of the horses' hooves, her heart had almost stopped. She dropped the moccasin she was stitching and, scarcely breathing, looked toward the ridge in the distance, longing for the sight of Flying Cloud, her husband. But the horses that galloped into view carried three soldiers. The sun glinted off the metal bars of their jackets and caps as they halted to survey the village below, horses whinnying and pawing at the dry earth. Suddenly another rider reined in alongside them, a trader in a buckskin shirt and slouched hat. Like the soldiers, he had a rifle slung across the back of his saddle. In an instant, Lizzie was running to the creek, as her father, Chief Medicine Man, had told her from the time she was a child. “When the white men come to the village,” he said, “you must hide yourself. If they see a girl with hair like the sun and skin like the winter snow, they will take her away from us.”

Now Lizzie parted the willows and watched the white men ride to the center of the village. Women shooed children into the lodges that stood among the cottonwoods. Except for the clip-clop of horses, the jangle of spurs, and the rush of the breeze, the village was quiet. Medicine Man and the other elders walked toward the riders, hands outstretched in the Arapaho sign of peace.

A soldier as thin as a lodgepole pine swung off his mount and stepped toward her father. The trader followed. Lizzie recognized him. He had come to trade with the
Hi'nono eino
in the time past, before the soldiers had killed the people at Sand Creek, before the worst of the troubles had begun. The harsh sound of voices drifted through the sunshine. Lizzie knew the trader was interpreting the words spoken by her father and the soldiers. Fear as sharp as an arrow shot through her. The traders always lied; they told the soldiers what they wanted to hear.

Little Feather began to whimper. She picked up the child and blew gently on his cheek, lest his cry give away the hiding place. With quick fingers, she loosened the ties on her dress and shrugged the soft buckskin off one shoulder. Then she gave the baby her breast. The small pink mouth tugged at her nipple, making soft, hurried sounds. Stroking the baby's head, she peered again through the willows. Medicine Man and the elders sat in a circle with the white men, heads bent and voices low, like the fading echoes of drums. The cry of a child was of no concern.

She wondered what had brought the strangers to her village. The trader had no goods to trade; he must have come only to interpret the spoken words. But why had the soldiers come? A new fear gripped her. What if they had brought news of Flying Cloud? What if her husband were dead?

Lizzie swallowed back the cry that rose in her throat. Flying Cloud must not be dead! Before he and the other warriors had ridden out of the village, he had come to her lodge. It was the Moon of Ice Breaking on the River, and warmth had begun to seep into the days. She had just given birth to Little Feather and was still gaining her strength. Her husband had lain down beside her on the buffalo robe.

“I go at dawn,” he whispered.

“No,” she said. “Do not leave me and your new son.”

“It must be.” His tone was meant to soothe her. “We go to scout for the soldiers on the Sweetwater. When we lead them to the hostiles, it will prove our people only want peace. The soldiers will give us land where we can live without fear that they will kill our people and burn our villages. Little Feather will be able to grow safely into manhood.”

She had protested. “They say they will give us lands, but they don't say the truth.”

“We have no other choice.” His voice was firm.

“But if you . . .” She could not bring herself to speak the words. How could she live with the sadness if Flying Cloud did not return?

She had begun to cry and her husband had gathered her into his arms. He brushed away her tears and kissed her cheeks and the moisture on her eyelids. “You must be brave,” he said. “You must believe I will return to you and the child.”

Flying Cloud and the other warriors had ridden out of the village in the first light of dawn. Inside her lodge, Lizzie had cuddled Little Feather, listening to the hooves pound through the village and into the silence. Now it was the Moon of the Drying Grass and the prairie lands that stretched away from the village had turned the color of the antelope. Coolness gripped the air, a warning of the cold weather soon to come. Her child's arms and legs had grown fat. He looked at her out of knowing eyes.

She had carried her dread through the passing days. Once, while she was gathering berries near the creek, she had felt the eyes of the other women on her and understood the unspoken words. Who would care for her and the child? Who would bring them flesh and skins from the hunt if Flying Cloud did not return? Which warrior would Chief Medicine Man say must marry her, so that she and Little Feather could survive? But she was not alone. Other women also awaited the warriors. So many husbands Medicine Man would have to find.

Now she saw the lodgepole-thin soldier jump to his feet and wave toward the lodges, as if he might sweep them away should the notion strike him. The others also got to their feet, and the trader leaned toward Medicine Man, raising one hand in a kind of warning. Abruptly the white men turned and climbed into their saddles. Another moment and they had galloped up the slope and disappeared over the ridge.

A sense of relief flooded through Lizzie. Yet a strange uneasiness nagged at her. She did not want to leave the hiding place. For a long while, she watched the child sleeping in her arms. Her heart swelled with love. Sometimes she wondered whether it was this small human being who inspired such love or the man who had given him to her. He was so like his father: the honey-color of his skin, the bright, dark eyes, and the sureness in the hands clutched into tiny fists. But his hair! His hair was like hers, the bright color of wild berries. Now his hair shone in the sunshine that spattered the willows.

Finally she laid the baby onto the bed of leaves and tied her dress into place. As she got up, lifting the child so as not to wake him, she saw her friend, Kooish, pushing through the tall bushes. There was wildness in her dark eyes; the grandmothers said she was
nohoko
—off in the head—since the terrible day at Sand Creek when the soldiers had killed her husband and shot her baby out of her arms. She had thrown herself in the path of the horses, but a brave had pulled her into the scrub brush and some part of her had survived.

Drawing close, Kooish stretched out one hand and patted the child's head. “So beautiful,” she said. Then, a glance at Lizzie. “I heard the men whispering together.”

Lizzie said nothing. The only men still in the village, besides the elders, were those of the older generation—not yet wise enough to be elders, not strong enough still to be warriors. Kooish went on, “They are placing bets on who will be your new husband.”

“They place their bets too soon,” Lizzie said, surprised at a strength in her voice she did not feel.

Kooish shrugged. “Medicine Man calls for you.”

Lizzie was trembling as she followed her friend through the willows. What news had the soldiers brought? Already the sadness was coming over her.

As they walked through the village, she saw Yellow Plume, one of the older generation, staring at her from the shadows of his lodge. Round-bellied and thick-armed, he was renowned for the buffalo he had taken. She shuddered at the thought of such a man as her husband. Avoiding his eyes, she hurried past and, after handing the child to Kooish, stepped into her father's lodge.

Medicine Man sat on a buffalo robe across from the opening. On his right was Nee'ma, her mother. Lizzie lowered herself beside the older woman. Thin shafts of sunlight drifted through the opening above and spilled down the center lodgepole, forming a little pool of light on the hard-packed dirt floor. Her heart was like a trapped bird fluttering against her ribs.

Medicine Man cleared his throat. “One day in the long past time,” he began, “the people went to trade with the Sioux in a village on the muddy river.”

Lizzie reached for her mother's hand, a lifeline to keep from drowning in deepening sadness. If Medicine Man was again telling the story of how she had come to the people, it was because he wanted to soften the blow.

Her father continued. “There in the village was a small girl child with thin shoulders and hair the color of the sunrise and eyes as wide and sad as the sky. I said to the leading man of the Sioux, ‘I will give you five ponies and all of my buffalo robes. I will give you the glass beads and tin pans from the white man. You must give me this child.'”

A smile came into her father's eyes. He always smiled at this part. Clearing his throat, he began again. “The leading man said, ‘She is not worth the least part of what you offer. But I accept your fool's bargain.' And so I lifted you onto my pony and rode to our village, straight to the lodge of my wife. I said to her, ‘Here is a child to replace the one who has gone to the spirit world.' That is how you became our daughter.”

Closing her eyes, Lizzie steeled herself against what he would now tell her about her husband. She struggled to make sense of his words. Something about the soldiers coming for a little girl who was now a woman.

Lizzie's eyes snapped opened. A coldness gripped her as Medicine Man explained how a white woman had come to the prairie lands to find a white girl stolen by the Sioux when they had attacked a wagon train on the muddy river.

Lizzie tightened her hold on Nee'ma's hand. A white girl in a wagon train? It meant nothing to her. And yet, a shadow darted at the edge of her mind, the faintest memory of guns firing and men shouting, and she was running, a slow motion across the dusty earth.

“Daughter.” Medicine Man's voice called her out of the memory. “The woman says the girl is her own family, that their parents were the same. She has come to take her sister home.”

Lizzie stared at her father. “What does this have to do with me?”

“The soldiers believe the little girl has grown into a woman among the
Hi'nono eino
. I said to them, ‘The women of our village are Arapaho.' But the white trader told them that once he had seen a little girl with hair like the sun in our village, even though she had run away to hide. I fear he will convince the soldiers he speaks the truth. I fear they will return with the white woman.”

“I am not the one they seek,” Lizzie said, struggling against the panic rising inside her. “Please don't let them take me.”

Medicine Man rose and stepped toward her. “You must listen to me, daughter,” he said, touching her shoulder. “Your husband, Flying Cloud, and the others have been away for many days and nights. We have no word of them. We don't know . . .” He stopped speaking a moment, his hand gentle on her. “We don't know if they will return. This white woman comes to take you to another life. A good life.”

“No,” Lizzie said, shrinking away from his touch. “What do I know of any other kind of life?” She looked from her father to her mother, searching their faces—the narrow, dark eyes, the etchings of the sun on their cheeks, the whitening hair that once was black—for some sign of herself. There was none.

Medicine Man spoke again. “You must decide the best road to follow.”

Lizzie got to her feet. She said, “I wait for Flying Cloud.”

* * *

T
he early dawn scattered feathers of pink light across the sky as Lizzie carried Little Feather's cradle to the creek. A pair of hawks circled overhead, calling to each other. The child clasped his hands and made happy gurgling sounds. Sheltered in the willows, she removed the shirt she had sewn for him out of the softest deerskin and laid him naked on the bed of leaves. Then she pulled off her moccasins and loosened her dress, letting it fall at her feet. The morning coolness licked at her skin.

She lifted her son and waded into the creek. It was as icy as the streams that tumbled out of the blue-white mountains in the far distance. The baby squealed as she sank down, swishing him gently back and forth. His hands flapped at the water, like small brown leaves caught in an eddy. Balancing him on her lap, she ran both hands over his body to wash him clean. His hair shimmered in the light of the sun creeping over the horizon.

Holding the baby close, she waded out of the creek, her bare feet gripping the slick rocks. The darkness of his skin against hers caught her by surprise, as if she had never noticed it before. She wrapped him in his shirt and laid him on the willow bed. Quickly she pulled on her own dress, wanting to hide the hated whiteness. Yet it remained with her. On her arms. On her hands. What did it matter? she told herself. Medicine Man would never let the soldiers take her. But Medicine Man was growing older, and the warriors were gone. If the soldiers returned, how could her father protect her?

She squatted by the baby and, pushing aside the leaves, began scooping out clumps of dry, brown earth, which she scrubbed on her arms and hands and smeared over the bareness of her neck and face. Scooping up more earth, she rubbed it onto her hair, pulling the strands forward to watch them darken into the color of the hawks. When she was satisfied she no longer looked like the whites, she swung Little Feather's cradle onto her back and started toward the village.

She saw the commotion as she came out of the willows: women pulling down the lodge coverings and packing the travois, children scampering about, men leading ponies from the corral. The village was about to move! She hurried through the cottonwoods toward Medicine Man's lodge, dodging past groups of women, past lodgepoles that stood naked against the sky, skeletons of former homes. The baby's cry was sharp in her ears, an echo of the terror that welled within her.