Elizabeth felt her breasts grow heavy with milk. “Where’s her mother?”
“Dead,” Jake said flatly and then repeated what the soldier had said, “The doctor says you’re not going to get the fever.” He looked square at her. “You’re her last hope. She’ll die without something to eat.”
“But still…” Elizabeth knew she would not have let anyone who might come down with the fever touch her Rose. This baby here was frail and reminded her of how Rose had been when she was dying. If Elizabeth closed her eyes, she could still see the image of Rose lying so still after she took her last breath.
Suddenly, the baby stopped its wail.
“I can’t…” Elizabeth started to say, but her arms were already reaching out.
God would have to forgive her if that doctor was wrong, because she couldn’t let this baby die without trying to help it.
Jake held out the baby. Elizabeth wrapped a corner of her blanket around it and bent down to go back inside her tent. She supposed the two men would just stand outside and wait, but she didn’t care. She had a baby to hold again.
Once they got started, Elizabeth was surprised at how easily the baby fell into the rhythm of nursing. Even when the baby had finished eating, Elizabeth just sat there for a while with the baby at her breast. The little one’s hair was black and soft. She was an Indian baby, of course, but she looked like Rose all the same.
The baby didn’t seem as heathen as a warrior would, though.
She had heard that some of the white men who came to the territories took Indian wives. She wondered briefly if Jake Hargrove had married the baby’s mother in a church ceremony.
For a moment, Elizabeth was glad Matthew wasn’t here to see her nursing the infant. From the day he had proposed to her, Elizabeth had tried to be the wife Matthew had wanted. He had married beneath himself; there was no question of that. A lady would never nurse another’s baby and Elizabeth felt sure Matthew would refuse to let her do so if he were here, especially because the baby was not white. And probably irregular in its birth, as well.
The sun was almost setting when Elizabeth opened the tent flap again. Sergeant Rawlings had gone, but the other man was still there sitting on the ground near her wagon. The Indian girl had come closer to the wagon, as well, even though she still sat on top of her pony.
When she opened the tent flap, Jake stood up and walked over to her.
“What’s the baby’s name?” Elizabeth asked as she knelt at the door of her tent and lifted the baby up to the man.
“She doesn’t have a name yet.” Jake took the baby and began to wrap it back into the furs he wore over his shoulder.
“Oh, surely she has a name,” Elizabeth said as she stood up and hugged her blanket around her. Hoping for a girl, she and Matthew had picked out the name Rose before their baby was even born. Rose had been the name of Matthew’s mother, but Elizabeth had liked the name for its own sake, too. “She’ll sleep for now.”
“The Lakota wait to name their babies,” Jake said as he adjusted the baby inside his makeshift sling. “She hadn’t earned her name yet when she was brought to me.”
“My sister will be called the Crying One,” the girl on the pony said. “For the tears of her people.”
Elizabeth was surprised to hear the girl speaking English. Her words were not easily formed, but Elizabeth could understand what she was saying.
“Your sister doesn’t belong to the Lakota anymore,” Jake said. “She belongs to the people of her grandfather.”
The girl didn’t say anything. She just sat, facing east. She didn’t even seem to look at the man. Her face was smooth, devoid of expression.
Elizabeth had heard arguments like this before.
“Your dress is beautiful.” Elizabeth smiled up just in case the girl looked over at her. The faded yellow tones of the calico looked almost white in the rays of the setting sun. A good boiling with some of the dried marigold petals Elizabeth had in her wagon would bring the color back, though. “Your sister is fortunate to have a big sister like you to take care of her.”
“I cannot take care of her.” The girl turned and looked at Elizabeth for the first time. “She needs you.”
“Oh.”
Elizabeth saw the girl’s face crumble. Resentment and pleading both shone in the young girl’s eyes. How she must hate asking for help. And how desperately she wanted it.
Elizabeth nodded. “Of course, I—I will do what I can until some other way is found.”
“What other way is there?” Jake asked. His voice was strained, too. “The baby sickens on cow’s milk. I tried to buy some of that canned milk in Miles City—the kind they gave our men in the war—but none of the stores sell it. Most of them hadn’t even heard of it. You are our only hope.”
If things had been different, she and Matthew might have eventually owned a store like the ones that the man mentioned. That had been Matthew’s dream. They probably wouldn’t have canned milk, either, at least not in the beginning. But, in time, who knew?
Matthew always said he would tend the store while Elizabeth tended Rose. He had all those things in the wagon to sell. A fierce sadness rose up in Elizabeth just thinking about it. Those dreams and hopes were all dead. It didn’t seem fair that the peace of her passing should be disturbed with memories of things that would never come true. Matthew had died so fast, he hadn’t even had time to mourn his lost dreams.
Death had been taking its time with her, though. Without her Rose, she wanted to die. She had no family and she would not go back to being an outsider in other people’s homes. She was ready to die. She did not need two pairs of eyes watching her and demanding that she stay alive. She wished she could just close her eyes and keep them closed until she was done with this life.
But, Elizabeth admitted, the doctor in the fort had been a cautious man when he treated Matthew and Rose. A professional man like that wasn’t likely to make a mistake about the fever. She wondered if the doctor had seen the Indian baby. Elizabeth knew most people wouldn’t think it was a tragedy if one more heathen baby died, but she found she did. She had nursed this one. This baby reminded her of Rose. She wanted it to live.
“Of course, I will do what I can,” Elizabeth finally said. She looked over at the baby, snug in the man’s arms. “But if the doctor is wrong and the fever comes, you must leave. If you stay, the baby will die anyway.”
Elizabeth knew she could not bear to watch another baby die. Surely there were limits to what God could ask of any person, even of her.
Chapter Two
It was night when Jake Hargrove returned from the fort and laid himself down on his buffalo robe. He was bone tired. He’d stood off Indian raids and packs of starving wolves, but he’d never been more worried than he was now. He had no idea how to keep the baby alive if this Mrs. O’Brian wouldn’t stay with him through the winter. The men he’d talked to inside hadn’t been encouraging; they’d said she was one powerfully stubborn woman and she was set on dying.
Still, for now, she was doing what she could for his niece, Jake told himself. And a woman needed to be stubborn to survive in this land so he didn’t begrudge her that. He just needed to turn her mind around to match his. That was all.
He could see her tent clearly in the moonlight from where he lay. He’d put his bed a few yards from it. The baby was sleeping inside the tent with the woman and Spotted Fawn was lying next to the wagon, close enough so she would hear if her sister cried. The two girls hadn’t slept that far apart since Red Tail, his half brother, had brought them to him, begging him to raise his daughters in the white man’s world so they would live.
Jake had accepted the girls, knowing there was no other way for them. Sitting Bull and the rest of the Lakota Sioux were starving in Canada. Once Red Tail had said goodbye to his daughters, he had gone back to do what he could for the rest of his tribe. He told Jake not to expect to see him again in this life.
Jake put his rifle next to him on the ground. He’d checked earlier and seen that the woman had a rifle in her tent, as well. It had to be the one the blacksmith said he’d given her when she refused to stay inside the fort, claiming the noise and dirt were troublesome to her.
When Jake first heard about the woman, he was surprised no one had made her go into Miles City and take a room at the new hotel there. The bare land around here was no place for a woman from the East. The town was on the other side of the Tongue River, but it was only a few miles away from here.
Of course, now he knew the men at the fort had tried to reason with her. When Jake had talked to the blacksmith, Mr. Miller had said it was all he could do to get the woman to promise that she would run to the fort if she heard a warning shot being fired. The blacksmith didn’t look Jake in the eye when he told him that. They both knew a raiding party could be so quiet there would be no warning shot, at least not one that would do the woman any good.
Not all of the Sioux had fled to Canada after their battle with General Custer. Some of the younger braves were still in the territories, their hearts set on vengeance and thievery. As determined as they were to kill all of the white people they could find, these renegades were also looking for extra horses. That was one reason why Jake kept his rifle close. The easiest place to find horses was to rob an army corral, which meant they would need to come to the fort. Once the raiding party got to the fort, the loaded wagon standing outside would be a temptation. As would the woman inside the tent.
Jake shook his head just thinking about that woman. She should be sitting in a parlor back East somewhere. He didn’t know what her husband had been thinking to bring her out here; she didn’t belong in a land like this. But, as surely as Jake knew she didn’t belong, he wasn’t going to suggest she go back. Now that she was here, he was going to ask her to stay with him for the winter.
She likely hadn’t faced up to it yet, but she had a problem as big as his. She couldn’t winter where she was. The winds from the north had been damp lately and that meant winter would come early and it would bring enough snow to bury that makeshift tent of hers. At least, she would be warm and dry if she was with him and the girls.
Unfortunately, for the woman to stay with them, Jake would need to marry her. He’d known that before he met her. Miles City was an unforgiving place these days and he had the girls to consider. They were already viewed with suspicion because of the color of their skin. They would be true outcasts if people found out he was not married to the woman living with them. And, there would be no way to keep the woman a secret. He’d be a fool to even try.
Of course, when he’d first heard of the widow, he’d assumed she would be older and practical enough to make an arrangement with him. Jake looked up at the sky searching for stars. He hadn’t counted on Mrs. O’Brian being young or having eyes that made him want to protect her from things he didn’t even see.
The truth was he couldn’t even protect her from the things he could see coming. He and the girls were going to have a battle finding acceptance in Miles City and any woman he married would be in the battle with them. There was no limit to the mean-spiritedness of human beings and Jake figured his little family was going to see their share of it this winter.
It made him weary just thinking of it. If he had a fire going, he would read some from the Bible his mother had given him as a boy. It never failed to comfort him. His mother had been a fine lady. Of course, she’d been totally unsuited to the roughness of life out here. He relaxed just thinking of his old home, hidden on the side of a mountain northwest of here by the pines growing thick and tall all around. His father had brought them there, not believing the reports he’d heard that the trapping days were almost over. He thought it was all just rumors spread by the Hudson’s Bay Company. He pictured getting rich on furs once the other trappers gave up, but he barely managed to feed his family.
Jake had grieved when his mother died a couple of years after they came West. The crude cabin where they lived seemed to shrink and grow empty without her. He and his father never talked about his mother after her death. They had both felt too guilty for failing her. His father hadn’t even put a marker on her burial place. The last thing Jake had done, before he left to go out on his own, was to find a smooth slab of rock and place it in front of his mother’s grave with her name scratched on it.
By that time, his father had married again, this time to a Lakota squaw. Red Tail was their son.
If he didn’t have the girls, Jake would not consider marriage—especially not to a woman like Elizabeth O’Brian. She reminded him too much of his mother. This land had changed in the almost forty years he’d lived here, but it still wasn’t a place for pretty, young white women. He didn’t want to watch another one of them grow bitter and fade away here. He didn’t have much choice, though. Not if he wanted to keep the baby alive.
Elizabeth wasn’t sure if it was the pebble under her back or the smell of frying salt pork that woke her the next morning. She could see out the flap in her tent well enough to know there were heavy gray clouds hanging low in the sky. There was also a biting cold to the morning air. Winter was coming. The low bluffs in the distance might even have snow on top of them by now.
Elizabeth hadn’t slept well and it was later than she’d planned to waken. It had taken her hours last night to coax the older girl close enough to the tent so that Elizabeth wouldn’t worry about her. Finally, Spotted Fawn had agreed to sleep beside her tent when Elizabeth said she might need help with the baby.
Fortunately, the baby only stirred twice during the night. Elizabeth had fed her both times and the little one was doing better. Maybe this man, Jake, would be content to spend a few more days near the fort so Elizabeth could nurse the baby. That should give him enough time to find someone else to take care of the infant.
In the cold light of morning, Elizabeth accepted the fact that she was going to live. She looked down at the sleeping infant. Maybe God was keeping her alive to save this Indian baby. That was the only thing that made sense, even though she couldn’t help but wonder why He saw fit to worry about this little one when He had not hesitated to take her Rose away.
Elizabeth knew no one was supposed to question the ways of God, but she couldn’t help her thoughts. It would be a wondrous, as well as a bitter thing, if God used her to save this heathen child’s life when she had not been able to do anything but watch her own baby die.
Unfortunately, no matter what her thoughts, she could not spend her day hiding inside her tent. Whether or not she wanted to see him again, Jake Hargrove was out there and he’d naturally want to know about the baby.
Elizabeth pulled the blankets closer to the sleeping infant before she tried to smooth back her hair. Maybe she could slip around to the wagon without being seen and get her mirror. She didn’t want anyone accusing her of being untidy again. Maybe if she rubbed her cheeks with a damp cloth, the color on her face would even out, as well.
When Elizabeth opened the flaps to her tent, she could see that Jake wasn’t the one frying the pork. There was a layer of frost on the ground and someone had hollowed out a place in the dirt to build a cooking fire, even though the blackened ashes from her own fire were only a few feet away.
Elizabeth didn’t recognize the man who crouched by the fire’s coals, although he was wearing the usual army uniform so he clearly belonged to the fort. She took a quick look at the ground around him and didn’t see any signs of his belongings. She did see that the man had a coffeepot settled at the edge of the fire and was heating a rock that looked as if it had some biscuits warming on it.
She took a deep breath. The coffee didn’t have the faintly bitter smell of green coffee, either. That’s what she usually smelled around the fort. No, this was the kind of coffee a man would buy special in the mercantile. That soldier had probably been hoarding that bit of coffee for months. And now he was celebrating something.
Elizabeth frowned. The only thing around here to celebrate was his new camp. Why—she drew in her breath as she finally understood. That man wanted her place. Elizabeth’s needs had been pushed aside by others all of her life, and she’d accepted it. But now that she’d been cheated out of death too, something rose up inside of her. She refused to be pushed any longer. She didn’t care what her hair looked like.
“This spot’s taken,” Elizabeth said as she stepped out of her tent. The canvas had kept the frost away from the ground inside, but the icy cold outside made her gasp when her foot touched the ground. She had worn a hole in her left shoe from all of the walking she’d done on the way here and the cold went right through her stocking. She saw her breath come out in white puffs again today.
But she ignored all of that. As cold as she was on the outside, she felt a growing heat inside. For all this man knew, she was still dying. People needed to wait for the dead to be finished with their business before they took everything from them. She liked the spot where she was camped; she intended to keep it.
“If you’re planning to set up a camp, you might try a little farther down the ravine. There are more cottonwoods and dry thistle down there anyway so it will be easier for fires and all.” Elizabeth forced herself to smile. If she stood in one place, the ground under her shoes grew a little warmer.
“I’m not setting up camp.” The man stood up indignantly. His nose was red from the chill of the morning and his hair was slicked back with some kind of grease. He looked vaguely familiar. “I’m cooking you breakfast.”
“Me?” Elizabeth was astonished. She forgot all about her manners and her cold feet. “Whatever for?”
What would possess the man to do something like that? No one had ever cooked breakfast for her, not even the morning after she’d given birth to Rose. Maybe the doctor had decided she was going to die after all and this soldier had been sent to prepare her last meal. Really, that was no way to break the news to a person.
“Who told you to cook me breakfast? That doctor?”
“Nobody told me to do it. I just know women like to have breakfast cooked for them once in a while.”
The man smiled, even though he didn’t look too happy.
Elizabeth took a closer look at him. The man had shaved this morning. It wasn’t Sunday. Outside of God’s day, the men at the fort only shaved for special occasions like Christmas, the occasional dance and, of course—funerals.
She swore she’d never listen to a doctor again. The man couldn’t even keep a proper log of days. He had probably lost track of time and, when he recalculated, discovered his error.
“I’m still dying, aren’t I? Just tell me the truth. I won’t make a fuss.”
Elizabeth braced herself even though it was what she had suspected all along.
“No one’s dying. The doctor told me you were as healthy today as you’ve ever been in your life.”
Elizabeth wasn’t really listening to the man anymore. She was looking around. The man cooking breakfast wasn’t the only soldier here. There were actually several soldiers standing to the left of her. They’d been hidden from her view when she was in the tent. They were certainly standing quietly. And they all seemed to be carrying big, tall bunches of dried weeds.
“Is something wrong?” Elizabeth asked. Surely, the men would be worrying about their rifles and not those weeds if something was really wrong.
The first man in the line stepped forward. The gold penny buttons on his uniform were all in place and his posture was straight. He’d recently shaved, as well. She could tell that by the whiteness of his skin where his beard had once been.
Surely the doctor wouldn’t lie about whether she was expected to live.
“I was hoping you’d like these flowers,” the man said as he handed her what looked like dried cottontails. Then he took a deep breath and recited something he’d obviously memorized. “They should be roses to match the roses in your cheeks.”
The man gave an abrupt bow and turned to the side.
“But Rose is—” Elizabeth swallowed. She hadn’t even said the name aloud since Rose died. She’d scratched it in the dirt several times when her longing had overcome her, but she’d never spoken it again until now. “That’s my daughter’s name.”
The men weren’t listening.
“Roses aren’t fair enough to compare to your loveliness,” the second man said as he thrust another bunch of weeds in her direction. At least, he’d had the foresight to tuck in a little sage so it smelled better. “I’m saving to buy some land when I finish up here at the fort. I’ve got prospects. This is going to be cattle country soon. You’ll see.”
The third man stepped forward.
Elizabeth finally realized what was happening. “You can’t be here courting me.”
She wouldn’t have been more surprised if they had shown up to tar and feather her. She supposed it was flattering, but—“I’m afraid there’s been some misunderstanding. I’m not—that is, my husband and my baby, Rose—they’re, well…”
Elizabeth gave up and pointed. Surely they could see the mound of fresh dirt near the edge of the ravine. She had carried over the biggest rock she could find to mark the place so the grave wouldn’t be lost in the vast expanse of land here. But now that she looked again, it didn’t seem as if it would be enough. The weather here would wear the rock down or someone would move it not knowing what it was.
The third man took off his hat. “It’s sorry I am for your loss, but I was hoping you’d be willing to be my wife.”
“Your wife! But I don’t even know you.”
Never, in all of the years that Elizabeth had longed for a family, had she imagined that a man she didn’t even know would want to marry her. It didn’t seem quite decent, somehow. Matthew had taken her to church for months before he proposed. That was the way civilized men courted their wives.
Elizabeth hadn’t seen Jake coming toward her until he was suddenly there. The sight of him, standing so solid before her was reassuring. He might have surprised her yesterday, but today he felt like safety itself. At least he could explain that she was not looking for a husband.
“Tell them,” Elizabeth said to Jake. She could hardly think of what to say so she just gestured to the men.
“You’re going about it all wrong,” Jake said to the men. “She sets a great deal of importance to names. You might want to introduce yourself before you propose.”
“Well, it takes more than a name to—” Elizabeth stopped as she looked up at Jake for the first time. “Surely no one expects me to get married now.”
Elizabeth didn’t know what to do. Maybe Jake didn’t understand the problem completely. She was going to explain it, but she noticed he had changed out of his buckskins and stood before her in a blue shirt and black wool pants. It didn’t seem right that the blue dye of the shirt should match his eyes so exactly. And, the color was evenly spread so she knew someone had used dyer’s woad to get the blue. It had probably been one of those big factories that dyed the cloth, but it was the same process and it looked good. Not that the man probably knew anything about how his shirt was made. Men never did.
Elizabeth noticed her breathing was betraying her again as she looked at him. She realized she was actually gawking at the man.
“I could still be dying,” she finally muttered and then turned to face the soldiers. It wasn’t all she’d meant to say, but that piece of information alone should put the men off the idea of marriage. “The doctor could be wrong. It’s a bad death—influenza. I’d probably pass it along to any man I…ah…married.”