White Fire Page 3

  Gray Feather then reached down and swept Song Sparrow up onto his horse with him. He placed a gentle arm around her waist and held her against him as he rode away with White Fire.

  The journey back to White Fire’s cabin was one of silence. He regretted the strain that was there now since he had once again turned down the chief’s offer to live with the Chippewa.

  He had learned while with them that year that adoption of whites and ’breeds was practiced among the varied tribes, especially because much sickness and past warring had claimed the lives of so many of them.

  Adoption of those who were not of their tribe was the remedy to keep their populations large enough to defend their villages and to hunt for food.

  White Fire had learned that Indians practiced adoption on a large scale, especially those tribes who were friendly with whites. He had discovered that the Chippewa might have been the most friendly of them all. Gray Feather had, in his heart, adopted White Fire, for they shared the same feelings about so many things.

  Gray Feather had also admired the young man’s strength. His nobility. He had said more than once that White Fire did not seem to have white blood mingling with the Indian blood in his veins. It seemed best to the chief that he live among those whose skin matched his own.

  But White Fire was being drawn elsewhere. He could hardly wait to see his son. His wife. He could already envision their reunion. It would be one of joy.

  They rode onward through the thick underbrush of the Minnesota forest, and along the winding streams, past the sky-blue waters of many lakes, and then finally beside the mighty Mississippi.

  Just as they made a turn at a bend in the river, White Fire caught sight of his cabin a short distance away in a break in the trees.

  He turned quick eyes to Chief Gray Feather when the old chief drew his horse into a sudden shuddering halt.

  “Gee-mah-gi-on-ah-shiq-wah, we part ways now,” Chief Gray Feather said sullenly. “But I will see you again wi-yee-bah, soon.”

  “Mee-qway-chee-wahn-dum, thank you, my nee-gee, friend, for your kindness,” White Fire said, his voice quiet. “I will come soon to your village and have council with you.”

  Chief Gray Feather nodded and rode away.

  White Fire gazed at Song Sparrow when she turned to look at him as her father took her away. His insides stiffened when he saw the utter sadness in Song Sparrow’s eyes, and knew that he had again hurt her deeply. He regretted this, but at the moment, he had someone else on his mind.

  He wheeled his horse around and rode in the direction of his cabin. Then he grew cold inside when he noticed that no smoke rose from the chimney, and the cabin was overgrown with vines.

  An instant fear leaped into his heart when he saw that even the door was crisscrossed by vines. That had to mean only one thing. It had been some time since the door had been opened.

  His heart pounding like a thousand drums inside his chest, he rode onward, then drew a tight rein in front of his cabin. When he saw the utter desolation of his home, and saw no one rushing from the cabin to welcome him, he dreaded knowing why.

  Chapter 5

  She walks in beauty, like the night,

  Of cloudless climes and starry nights,

  Thus mellowed to that tender light,

  Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

  —George Gordon, Lord Byron

  As the Virginia made its way around a bend in the river, Flame’s heart skipped a beat when she saw Fort Snelling. It was an impressive sight, perched hundreds of feet above the river on the top of a bluff. Built of stone, with a massive round guard tower, it looked a little like a castle to Flame, who had seen pictures of such things in her father’s books.

  Outside the walls of the fort, down near the banks of the river, a number of crude structures had been built. Among them she spotted some tepees. This caused an excited shiver to race up and down her spine to know that she would be living this close to Indians.

  Again the ’breed came to mind, yet she did not expect him to live like an ordinary Indian. While in St. Louis, with his military officer father, he had lived a life of affluence.

  Yet, she could not help but wonder if perhaps after having become acquainted with the Indian side of his heritage, he might not have become as one with them, more Indian now than white.

  She sighed heavily, almost certain that she would never know what sort of life he now lived, for the odds were against her ever seeing him again.

  “Ma’am, I think it’s best you go to your cabin and prepare your things for departure from the boat,” a voice said from beside Flame, drawing her quickly out of her thoughts.

  She turned and nodded curtly to a lieutenant who had been appointed her escort to Fort Snelling, a young man with a thick head of blond hair, and a wide-set mouth of flashing white teeth. She had been tempted to flirt with him on the voyage from St. Louis. But his uniform, with its shiny, brass buttons, and the way he stood so erect and stiff, made her think of how he reminded her too much of her father, who was stuffy and boorish in his behavior.

  No, she preferred someone whose life was not governed by strict rules and ambition. She preferred—

  She pushed White Fire from her mind before he completely took over her thoughts, as he had these past several days while she was traveling to Fort Snelling.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Flame said, flashing him a tight smile. “I shall go and be sure that I have placed everything in my travel bag.”

  She lifted the skirt of her dress and brushed past him. Then she stopped and took one last look at the fort that would soon be her home. The Fifth Infantry was stationed there under the command of her father. The post was a way station for traders, soldiers, explorers, travelers, and Indians.

  The fort was run by two dozen officers, most of them, like Flame’s father, graduates from West Point.

  She became lost in thought about the sort of life she would be living. Her father was an autocrat in this northern wilderness. His rule was absolute. He had made his way through the ranks and the command of the Minnesota Army garrison was his ultimate prize.

  He had written to her of their home. As in St. Louis, she would be living in a mansion. It had been built for Colonel Josiah Snelling and his wife, Abigail, and their eight children.

  He had boasted of the mansion’s many luxuries, the fine rugs and beautiful furnishings, many of them imported all the way from Europe. There was even a grand piano, which was often used during the social gatherings hosted by the fort’s commander. He had promised to hold a dance in honor of Flame’s arrival.

  Of course, the three hundred or so enlisted men at the fort would not be invited. They slept in wooden barracks around the massive parade ground. Her father had written that when they weren’t out on patrol, they worked hard in the fields outside the fort, growing corn, potatoes and wheat and planting orchards, too. The goal was to make the fort as self-sufficient as possible.

  Her father had further boasted that Fort Snelling was the finest fort in the American West!

  Anxious to see it, to be a part of this new life, Flame rushed to her cabin and made sure that she had everything packed.

  Then she paused and took a look at herself in a floor-length mirror. She ran her hands slowly over the sleekness of her silk dress, smoothing her fingers over the gentle swell of her breasts.

  She ran them lower across her tiny waist, and then across her flat tummy as she turned and looked sideways at herself.

  She smiled at her reflection, and how her flaming-red hair hung in long, thick waves down her back. Everywhere she went, men’s eyes turned to stare at her. She fluttered her thick lashes over her green eyes, knowing the power she had over men.

  Her smile faded and her shoulders slumped. She had wanted only one man these last eight years. She hoped that in time she could forget her foolish notion of seeing the ’breed again. She wished that while she was aboard the riverboat she would have allowed Lieutenant Green to escort her to dinner each evening, and to
the ball that the boat captain had given in her honor just this past evening.

  But she had preferred staying alone, enjoying the travel, the freedom of it. This was the first time she had ever been away from both parents.

  And even though she was soon to be with her father again, she would not allow him to stifle her need of freedom now that she had discovered the wonders, the thrill, of it.

  The steamboat’s shrieking whistle alerted the passengers that they would soon be docking at the riverbank and brought a wide smile to Flame’s shapely, red lips. She lifted her one and only bag. Her father had promised that she could buy a new wardrobe at the fort’s commissary. Flame rushed from the cabin.

  “When the plank is lowered, ma’am, stay close by me,” Lieutenant Green said as he placed a possessive arm around her waist. “There are a lot of ruffians housed along this riverbank.”

  Flame inched herself free of his arm and stood at the rail, watching the steamboat’s slow entry into the port. “It’s taking so long,” she said, giving the lieutenant a harried look.

  “Just be patient,” he said, smiling at her. “I’d say it will be another thirty minutes or so before you will set your feet on dry land.”

  “Why on earth so long?” Flame said, eyes wide.

  “The river bottom is much too shallow here,” Lieutenant Green said. He clamped his hands on the rail and watched the slow progress of the boat toward shore. “If the captain isn’t careful, the boat might run aground. That’d cost him his job, that’s for sure.”

  Flame inhaled an agitated breath, then looked on the opposite shore. She admired the forests, which were composed of towering pines, and the marshes of Minnesota, home to many thousands of deer and bear. They were the trapping grounds of the mink, muskrat, and beaver. It was a place of crystal-clear lakes and streams, the water abundant with fish.

  Then she looked past the fort on the near side of the river and saw many neat cabins nestled beneath the trees farther down from the fort. As far as the eye could see there were identical dwellings.

  Then, farther away, where the forest had been cleared, she saw the beginnings of a city. Her eyebrows lifted, for her father had not told her about any city within close proximity to the fort. She wondered what city, and what sort of people lived there.

  She had been told that in the summer the life of the garrison was sufficiently varied, picnicking and hunting on the shores of Lake Calhoun. It sounded to her like a pleasant variation on the routines of reveille, guard mount, fatigue duty, agricultural labor, dress parades, and five daily roll calls within the walls of the fort.

  But never had her father said anything about a city, where other sorts of activities surely could be found.

  The boat’s whistle emitting another loud screeching blast caused Flame to drop her bag and clasp her hands over her ears.

  She groaned when she glanced down at the river and realized that the boat had become somewhat grounded. She now knew that she would be stuck on the boat for a much longer period than she wished to be.

  She was so anxious to begin her new life in the wilderness!

  Chapter 6

  Does there within the dimmest dreams

  A possible future shine,

  Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe?

  Untouchable, unshared by mine?

  —Adelaide Anne Procter

  White Fire’s hands shook from anxiety as he broke through the tangle of vines at the front door of his cabin. The door was slightly ajar, and he held his breath as he shoved it slowly open.

  When he saw the utter desolation of the cabin, and the thick cobwebs that hung from the ceiling and from wall to wall, it was as though someone had struck him with a fist in his gut. Finding his wife and child gone was traumatic and frightening.

  As he made his way slowly through the cabin, smoothing cobwebs aside as he went from room to room, his heart sank. Everywhere he looked he saw the possessions of his family. That had to mean that when they left, it had been in haste, for they had taken nothing with them.

  This puzzled him, for his wife would have needed her clothes, and also their son’s. Still there they were, lying neatly in drawers, or hanging on pegs, or on wooden hangers in the chifforobe.

  Even his son’s crib was still there, cobwebs claiming the mattress.

  Stifling a sob in his throat, fearing the worst now, that they might be dead, White Fire gazed at, a tiny wooden horse that he had carved for his son only a few days before his abduction. It lay in his son’s crib, just barely visible, where a blanket was turned back at one end.

  He picked up the toy and held it to his chest as he went through the cabin again, seeing things as he remembered them.

  He saw his wife’s knitting basket, with balls of yarn neatly stacked inside it. Tears welled in his eyes as he stared at an unfinished knitted sock that lay across the arm of an upholstered chair.

  He went and touched the Bible, where inside were the inscriptions of his wife’s parents. He knew that she would have never left it behind. It was the only thing left of her parents after their untimely death in a fire in a cabin outside Fort Snelling.

  “Fort Snelling,” he whispered, his eyes lighting up with a faint hope. He had to go to Fort Snelling and see Colonel Snelling. Surely Josiah would know where his wife and child were, and why they had left their cabin in such haste.

  He spoke a quiet prayer that he would find answers about his family that would not devastate him.

  Then he laid the toy aside and looked down at his attire. He grimaced at the sight of the breechclout. He couldn’t arrive at the fort dressed in this fashion. At first sight, the soldiers might think he was a full-blooded Indian and not give him quick entrance into the colonel’s office.

  He went into his bedroom. Then he jumped back when he saw that on the far side of the room, just above the chifforobe, mud dauber wasps were building a nest.

  He avoided them and grabbed one of his suits of doeskin. He hurried into the shirt and breeches, which had fringes on the sleeves and across the shoulders, and down the trouser legs. He stepped into his own moccasins and discarded those that the Sioux had forced upon him.

  He raked his fingers through his thick, black hair to straighten it, then hurried to the door and went outside. He swung himself onto the horse, again riding it bareback toward the fort.

  Just as he arrived outside of the wide gate that led into the fort, White Fire saw the arrival of a steamboat. As he dismounted and led his horse to a hitching rail, he could not get his eyes off the beautiful woman who was just now coming down the gangplank.

  As though mesmerized, finding so much about her familiar, White Fire stood for a moment longer and watched the woman being swept away from the gangplank by a soldier, who led her toward the fort.

  As she moved past White Fire, too hurried to notice him standing there, he could not believe his eyes, for he had had time to recognize her.

  Yes! Surely it was the girl he had seen in St. Louis at his father’s funeral. She was now grown into a woman. How could he ever forget that flaming red hair, those flirtatious green eyes, or the perfect features of her face? He was very taken by her loveliness, which had been enhanced by maturity.

  He was shaken from his reverie when a soldier approached him and stood in the way of his entrance into the fort.

  “Sir, what is your business at the fort today?” the uniformed soldier asked, slowly raking his eyes over White Fire.

  “I’ve come to see Colonel Snelling,” White Fire said, squaring his shoulders under the soldier’s rude, close scrutiny. “My name is White Fire. I’m a close friend of Colonel Snelling. I must see him. I must inquire about the safety of my wife and son.”

  “If you were such a good friend to Colonel Snelling, you would know that he is no longer at Fort Snelling. That he recently died at Fort Jefferson Barracks in Missouri,” the soldier said dryly.

  White Fire took a quick, unsteady step away from the soldier, stunned by the news.

 
; “Josiah is dead?” he finally gasped out. “How? When?”

  “As I said, if you were such a good friend of the colonel, you would not need to ask,” the soldier said, placing a firm grip on White Fire’s shoulder, giving him a shove. “Get outta here, Indian. Take your lies back to your tribe. You’re going to have to come up with a better story than that to get inside the fort and cause Injun trouble.”

  Anger rising inside White Fire in heated flashes, he wrenched himself free of the soldier. He glared at him. “I am Samuel White Fire Dowling, who was not only a good friend to Josiah Snelling, but who was also in charge of building the roads in the area until I was abducted three years ago by the Sioux. I have been held captive until today. My Chippewa friend, Chief Gray Feather, came and saw to my release from the Sioux. I hurried home to my cabin and found my wife and son gone. I have come to question Josiah about my family’s whereabouts.” He swallowed hard. “And then I find that Josiah is dead.” He hung his head in his hands and heaved a deep, troubled sigh.

  “And who might this be wanting entry into the fort?”

  A voice familiar to White Fire, that of Colonel Russell’s, which he remembered from his past, drew White Fire’s eyes quickly up. He was glad to have someone there who knew him, who would set things right among those who greeted his return to civilization in such an unfriendly fashion. It then suddenly dawned on him, that if Colonel Russell was stationed at Fort Snelling, it had been his daughter who had swept past White Fire with her flame of hair, and flying, silk dress.

  Ashamed of thinking about her, since he was not yet sure about his wife, White Fire cast her quickly from his mind.

  “Samuel? Samuel White Fire Dowling, is that you?” Colonel Russell said, his pale gray eyes widening in surprise. “My Lord, Samuel, it is you. I thought you were dead.”

  “Yes, I would understand why everyone would think that I was,” White Fire said sullenly. “I am certain that Josiah searched extensively for me before giving me up for dead.”