Wildest Dreams

chapter 16

May 1875

Lettie parted the lace curtains of Luke's and her bedroom window to look across nearly an acre of green lawn to the branding corral beyond. From her second-story vantage point, she could see the men working to the right of the new barn Luke had built last fall. The only request Luke had made for the design of their new home was that he be able to look out his own bedroom window and see the barn and corrals in case of trouble.

In the distance she could hear the men whistling and yelling, some of them, including Luke, riding their cutting broncs and whirling their ropes. One by one, young cows and bulls were being roped and branded, and most of the bulls would be castrated to make them easier to handle on a cattle drive and in the grazing fields. Only the best would be singled out to use for breeding. Lettie breathed deeply with the satisfaction that she had been right about trying the Herefords. The herd Luke had ordered from Nial Bentley nearly three years ago had bred well and multiplied in numbers enough that this year Luke could include several hundred head in the drive to Cheyenne.

Good, solid, huge steers they were, and hardy, too, just as Nial had promised. She had never seen the Englishman again after that spring dance in '73. His dealings had been strictly with Luke, and last year the man had decided to go back to Wisconsin to check on his holdings there, then, according to what he had told Luke, he was going back to England for a visit. He had good men to watch his land and cattle, and might be gone two or three years, so he said. She understood deep inside why he had left, and she couldn't help feeling a little sad that the great stone mansion at Essex Manor now sat empty except for a skeleton maintenance crew. She hoped perhaps Nial would come back from England with a wife.

She sat down on the wide bench just beneath the window to watch the branding. She could recognize ten-year-old Tyler even from here. He sat on a fence rail observing the work, wanting to learn all he could. The boy already rode nearly as well as the grown men. The boy burst with pride and excitement during roundup time, and she knew it would be difficult to get him to settle down to reading lessons once Luke left on the summer drive. He was proud to call himself a "cowboy," which they had learned through the Billings Extra was what men like Luke and the others were called by people back East. There were even little books called dime novels being written about such men, and she couldn't help smiling to herself at the fine adventures she and Luke could write about themselves.

Life was good—so good that Lettie was almost afraid to relax and enjoy it. After three years of construction by one of the finest builders out of Denver, the home Luke had promised her was almost completed. The second-story bedrooms were each large and roomy, with big paned windows for light, windows that could be unlatched and swung open to let in the sweet mountain air as soon as it was warm enough. Each child had his or her own room, but Luke's and hers was the biggest, stretching across one whole end of the second floor so that there were windows at the front, the side, and the back. The hardwood floors were waxed and shiny, decorated with Oriental rugs. Luke had wanted her to order a four-poster bed, but she preferred to keep the brass bed he had bought her, just as she had kept the old pine table he had built for her, now in her spacious kitchen.

She liked little reminders of the past, never wanted to forget what it had taken to come this far. That first little shack they had lived in could fit in one corner of their bedroom, and now it couldn't snow deep enough that they couldn't see out their windows. The house sat even higher than the larger log home they had lived in for the past ten years. All the bedrooms were on the second floor, servants quarters on the third. There lived Mae Diggs, a middle-aged woman who had lost her farmer husband last summer when he was struck by lightning. Their two grown sons had given up on the hard farming life long before that and lived in Denver. With eleven-year-old Katie and eight-year-old Pearl getting big enough to help her with the housework, Lettie didn't need an extra maid. But Mrs. Diggs had been left destitute, and Lettie had given the woman the job just so she would have a place to live. It had all worked out well. Mae had turned out to be a wonderful cook, and she loved the children.

The children's tutor also lived on the third floor. Lettie had written to a school in Boston to inquire about having someone sent out, and the result had been Elsie Bansen, a lovely, blond twenty-year-old, who came from an orphanage. Elsie could not only teach reading and writing, but also knew how to play the piano. She was giving lessons to Pearl, who sat downstairs in the parlor right now plunking away at a lesson. Lettie loved the sound of the grand piano they had ordered out of Chicago. It filled the whole house with music, and sometimes she felt like crying at the sound of it, remembering when the constant wind was all there was to listen to.

Elsie had seemed uncertain at first that she wanted to live in such a remote area. But then she had fallen head over heels in love with one of Luke's new hired hands, Peter Yost, a handsome young cowboy who had come to the Double L because he "wanted to work for the biggest rancher in Montana Territory." It seemed that out here, if a man couldn't be a big-time rancher himself, the next best thing was to work for one, and at least if Elsie and Peter got married, they were almost sure to stay on at the ranch. With all the hired help, some with wives, the Double L was becoming its own little settlement, and there were no more horribly lonely winters.

Lettie rose and walked over to smooth the colorful quilt on the bed, a quilt she had made herself. She moved to the separate washroom then, just off the bedroom for Luke's and her private use. She cleaned up Luke's shaving table, poured water from a porcelain pitcher into a marble sink to wash it out. Luke had rigged the sink and a porcelain bathtub so that water ran outside through pipes. Old wash water would never again have to be carried out and dumped. Supplies of fresh water were kept in holding tanks built into a special room on the third floor, so that the rest of the house had running water through simple gravity, and a coal-fired boiler in the basement heated the whole house, as well as providing hot water for bathing.

She felt like the most modern woman who ever lived, although she knew there were even more advanced plumbing systems for people in places like Denver. For now, and for this part of the country, this was the height of elegance. Everything was still so new that she had not tired yet of looking at her grand home. The rooms were big and airy, cool in summers because of the wonderful cross-ventilation of the home's many windows. A veranda ran the entire circumference of the house, supported by white pillars that stood out beautifully against the red brick of the outside walls. The porch had not been part of the original design, but Lettie had insisted on having one, so the builder had obliged, and every window was graced with white shutters. Green grass surrounded the house, watered by ranch hands who sprinkled it by means of a hydraulic system from a creek higher in the mountains.

Fine mahogany and walnut furniture decorated the home throughout, from the elegant highboy in Luke's and her room to the magnificent buffet and the huge dining table and chairs that matched it in the dining room downstairs. The library was fast filling with books, works by great writers of the time, books for teaching the children, even books on banking and investments for Luke.

She walked downstairs, running her hand along the rich mahogany stair rail, stopping at a wide landing to rearrange a few knicknacks in a corner cupboard before descending the carpeted stairs to the lower level. The stairs ended at the back of the grand front entry hall, its walls, ceiling, and arched entry into the rest of the house made entirely of the same rich mahogany that graced the rest of the house, the woodwork beautifully detailed along the edges with a scroll design. She made her way down a hallway then, past the library and a drawing room, through the large dining room and into the kitchen, where beside her old coal-burning cookstove sat a newer stove heated with kerosene. Above a working island in the center of the kitchen hung several copper cooking pots and pans, made especially for Luke by Shane Copper Mills in Denver with copper taken from the Double L.

She had been right to suggest to Luke that they allow Jeremy Shane to send his geologists to the Double L. There had indeed been a valuable mineral on their land, copper, not as rich as gold, but certainly rich enough to continue a very comfortable life in case some disaster should wipe out their beef market. For now, beef remained their primary source of income, a new army contract bringing them seven dollars a head this summer, another contract with Patterson's Meat Supply in Omaha ensuring that they would take any excess beef the army couldn't use, at the same price.

She reached the kitchen, where Katie and Pearl were helping Mae knead bread dough. The girls were giggling at the feel of the dough between their fingers and occasionally flicking flour into each other's faces. Five-year-old Paul sat on the floor playing with wooden blocks.

"Where is Robbie?" Lettie asked the girls.

"He's in the garden shed out back, sitting with Pancake," Katie answered. "Ever since Pancake got bit by that rattler, the dog just lays there. Pa says he'll live, but you know how Robbie hates to see anything hurting. He still thinks Pancake will die if he doesn't stay right by him and talk to him."

Lettie sighed, feeling sorry for Robbie. Big, old, yellow Pancake was his favorite of all the dogs. Robbie would not go near horses ever since being kicked by one when he was little, but he loved dogs. He had a penchant for nursing things, from birds with broken wings to his own brothers and sisters whenever they took sick. Now it was Pancake who needed his tender, loving care. He was such a good boy. She wished Luke would be a little more patient with him. Luke expected the boy to be just like Ty, eager to learn about the ranch and learn to ride. It had upset Luke that Robbie would no longer come out to watch the branding. He had cried every time he watched, and this year he had refused to go out at all. It was a source of great frustration to Luke.

"Mommy, read to me," Paul asked, abandoning his blocks and reaching up for her. She picked him up, knowing that of all the children she had spoiled little Paul the most. After all, he was the baby of the family, her last "little one." She didn't want him to be five already. Somehow she had thought perhaps he would always stay a baby. She still ached to give birth again, but that would never be. She gave Paul a hug. There was so much about his personality that reminded her of the way Nathan was when he was small, full of energy and mischief, yet often wanting to be coddled.

She stood there torn between obliging Paul's request to read to him, and going out to the shed to poor, sad Robbie. "Let's go see how Pancake is doing first," she told Paul. She carried him out to the back porch, smiling when she heard Mae chiding Pearl for poking her finger into the rising bread dough.

Lettie walked down a path lined with roses just beginning to show some buds. Soon they would bloom in a splendor of red, white, and yellow. They led to a lovely flower garden of which she was very proud. Green grass, bright flowers, all things she thought she'd never have during that first awful winter spent here. She wished her mother could see all of this, but Katie MacBride had died only one year after her visit. Lettie still had not quite gotten over the fact that her mother was gone from this earth and she would never see her again.

Before she could reach the shed, Robbie came running out of it, smacking into her before he realized she was there. "Mom! Come and see! Pancake got up. I rubbed his head all morning with cool water, and he's better! Ain't I a good doctor, Mom! Ain't I?"

Lettie laughed. "'Aren't' is the word, Robbie, not 'ain't,'" she reminded him, following him into the garden shed, where Pancake had lain on an old blanket being nursed by "Dr." Fontaine. The big dog stood panting, his eyes brighter than they had been since his run-in with a rattler out by the barn three days ago. "Well, look, Paul! Old Pancake is better!"

After Lettie set Paul down, he hugged Pancake around the neck, and the dog licked his face. "Come on, Pancake!" Robbie called. "Come outside and go for a walk with us!"

Paul followed after them forgetting he had wanted his mother to read to him. Lettie, relieved Pancake had gotten better, returned to the house and walked around the veranda to the front steps. She had just decided to walk to the corral and ask Luke when he would come in for lunch when she noticed someone riding hard up the long drive from the gate below the hill. She recognized Will Doolan, and Runner was with him. They both charged past her to the corral to find Luke.

Lettie shaded her eyes, her heartbeat quickening at the apparent urgency of Will's visit. Had something happened in town? She watched him speak excitedly to Luke without dismounting. She couldn't hear what was being said. Then every man working in the corral, as well as Tyler and all the man sitting on the corral fence, turned to look her way. What on earth was going on? She watched Luke, who seemed to be arguing with Will. Luke also looked her way. He brushed himself off and mounted his horse, shouting some kind of order to Tyler and the rest of the men. He had apparently told them to stay put, as they all remained behind, even Will, while Luke rode up to the house. When he reached her, Lettie noticed his face was ashen, his eyes full of sorrow, the eyes of someone about to give a person terrible news.

"Luke, what is it?"

He slowly dismounted, sighing heavily. He tied the horse, then limped up the steps. His leg never had healed quite right, but he refused to allow the pain to keep him from his work, and he could rope and wrestle a steer as well as any of his men. He was covered with dust and perspiration from a long morning of hard work. He took her arm and led her around the side of the house where the men could not see them.

"Some Sioux attacked James Woodward's place day before yesterday," he told her, "stole some of his beef, all of his horses. Killed Jim, his wife, and his son."

Lettie closed her eyes. "Dear God. What about his daughters?"

"They survived—hid in a root cellar. A few of Jim's men were killed, too, but they managed to down some of the Indians. Those who were just wounded, they shot dead... all but one. They saved him, brought him to town. People are talking about hanging him, but Sheriff Tracy talked them into waiting."

Lettie frowned. "Waiting for what? If they left him alive, why not turn him over to the army at Fort Ellis or Fort Robinson?"

Luke took off his hat and wiped at the sweat on his face with the sleeve of his red shirt. He turned away for a moment, threw his head back as though weighing what he had to say. "Because he's white," he finally answered, "with light hair and blue eyes. Will says he looks about the age Nathan would be... if he would happen to be still alive."

Suddenly, for Lettie, the sun was not shining, the roses were not budding, the birds were not singing. For a moment she could not find her voice. She turned away, not sure she could even breathe. She grasped a wicker rocker, telling herself to stay calm. In the next moment a big hand was squeezing her shoulder.

"It might not even be him, Lettie, and if it is, you've got to realize he's not the innocent little Nathan who was stolen away ten years ago. Will says he's a painted warrior, wild, can't even speak English. He could even be the one who killed Jim and his wife."

"No!"

"You've got to face this, Lettie. It's your decision what we should do about this. Will talked the townspeople into not harming him until you get a chance to go into town and see if you think it's Nathan. You know where he might have had scars or birthmarks. If anybody can tell it's him, you're the one; but I'm afraid of what it will do to you to see him that way—maybe to have to let him go again. You can't just go there and expect him to greet us with open arms and come home with us. He might not even remember you. I know what that will do to you."

She turned to face him, and the agony in her eyes tore at Luke's heart. Should he have told her he'd seen that same boy three years ago after he'd been wounded? What good would it have done then? What good did it do now, even though he'd been captured? His own piercing guilt for being responsible for all of this returned full force. He'd give his life to erase the look in her eyes right now.

"We have to go and see, Luke. We have no choice."

He sighed deeply and pulled her close. "I know." Seeing Nathan like this would be harder on her than if he'd been found dead. "I'll loan Will a fresh horse so he can ride back with us."

Lettie shivered, pressing against him for strength, wanting to scream. It all came back just that quickly, as though her little Nathan had been stolen away only yesterday.



"There they are!" A man standing in front of the jail shouted the words, pointing at Luke and Lettie as they rode into town at a near gallop. Will and three of Luke's men accompanied them.

Lettie paid no heed to anyone in the crowd as she guided her buckskin mare in front of the jail. She had chosen to change into a riding skirt and go by horse because it would be much quicker than a wagon or carriage. It was already nearly dusk, and their horses were lathered from the hard ride. People backed away as she and Luke dismounted and tied their horses.

"What are you going to do, Fontaine? That boy in there is a killer, white or not!" one man shouted.

"You don't know he's the one who actually killed Woodward and his family," Luke shot back. "It could have been some of those who got away!"

"He was with them. That's all we need to know!" another man put in.

The crowd agreed, holding up fists, one man holding up a rope. Lettie had already rushed past everyone to go inside. Luke yanked his rifle from its boot and stepped up to the jailhouse door. He cocked the rifle, leveled it at the crowd. "The first person who touches that boy in there before my wife decides what to do, dies! I don't give a damn if you hang me for it!"

The crowd quieted. Will took out his own rifle, riding around behind the crowd. "Same goes for me," he spoke up. People turned to look. "You folks agreed with Sheriff Tracy to wait till Mrs. Fontaine could come in and have a look at the boy. She'll know if it's her son, and if it is, it's up to her what we do next! You women in the crowd—men, too— how would you feel if one of your sons had been ripped out of your arms by wild Indians when he was hardly more than a baby! Wouldn't you want to find him again? And wouldn't you want to try to bring him back into the fold?"

Luke motioned to Tex and Sven. The two men dismounted and came to stand guard at the door while Luke called to Runner to follow him inside. Sheriff Tracy stood at the door to the jail cells, nodded to Luke. "She's already in there."

Luke set his rifle against the sheriff's desk. "Thanks for keeping those people out there at bay." He rushed past the man and into the back room, followed by Runner, who knew the Sioux tongue and had come along to act as an interpreter. Lettie stood staring at the "white Indian" in one of the jail cells. If it was Nathan, he would be fourteen. In the eyes of the Sioux, that was old enough to go on the warpath, and this boy was painted like the wildest of warriors. Luke stepped cautiously up beside Lettie, and the boy stared back at them... light hair... blue eyes. Luke inhaled sharply, recognizing the boy he'd seen the morning after he'd been shot, the one who had given him water. "Nathan," he said.

The boy showed no signs of recognition. He breathed heavily from a bullet wound in his side, which he had not let Dr. Manning remove. His wrists and feet were tied to the side rails of the cot on which he lay, so that he could not escape.

"We had a time getting him calmed down," Tracy told them. He unlocked the cell door. "He's wild as a bobcat, amazingly strong for his age and condition. Is he your son, Mrs. Fontaine?"

Lettie could hardly move or speak. He was older. All the baby fat was gone; but she would know her Nathan anyplace. "Yes," she finally answered. "He got that little scar under his left eye one day when he fell. He was only about a year and a half old. He cut his left knee badly in that same fall." She stepped inside the cell, moved a little closer, wondering how she was going to keep her knees from collapsing. The boy lay there panting, dirty, bloody, his eyes wide with fear and hatred. He watched her carefully as she leaned to look closer. He lay there wearing only a breechcloth, apron, and breastplate, his legs and arms bare. "There it is," Lettie told Luke. "The scar on his left knee." She closed her eyes. "My God," she moaned. Luke could see her begin to sink. He grabbed hold of her as she broke into tears.

The boy, who only knew himself as White Bear, watched them both in surprise and confusion. Why was the woman crying? There was something about her that was faintly familiar, but he was not sure what it was. Did these white people know him from when he was a small boy? Half Nose had told him he had found him abandoned along the white man's trail to the gold fields. The tall man with the very blue eyes also looked familiar. Wasn't he the one he'd seen badly wounded a few winters ago, lying among the dead buffalo hunters? Nathan. The man had spoken that same word that morning, when he had given him water.

What did Nathan mean? Was it a name? Here and there he had understood a word or two of what people were saying, and he supposed it was because somewhere deep in his mind he remembered those words from when he was very little, before his white parents had either died or deserted him. He wished he could remember more.

Luke kept an arm around Lettie, who wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief and turned to look at her son. "So grown up!" she said through a shivering sob. "Oh, Luke, it's Nathan. I know it's him. Why did Half Nose lie to you? Why couldn't he have just bargained with you, given our son back to us?"

Luke blinked back tears of his own. "A son for a son. He wanted us to feel the pain of his loss, but at the same time he wanted us to stop hounding him, stop searching for Nathan. Jesus, Lettie, I'm so sorry. If there had been more of an army out here then, I could have attacked, forced his hand—"

"No." She squeezed his arm. "He probably would have just killed Nathan for spite. At least he's alive." She left him to move closer and kneel beside the cot.

"Be careful, Lettie. He's as wild and full of hate as any full-blood. You can see it in his eyes."

Lettie sniffed. "He's my son... my boy. He wouldn't—" She touched his arm, and the minute she did so Nathan's whole body jerked. He gritted his teeth and spit words at her. Lettie pulled her hand away. "Oh, Nathan, my precious Nathan!"

The boy wondered at the look the white woman was giving him. It was so loving, so agonizingly sad. Why did she care about him? He looked at the other man who had come into the cell behind the white man. He was a Crow Indian! He could tell by the way the man wore the feathers in his hair, and by the way he was dressed mostly like a white man. The Crow people had given up long ago, had turned to the white man's ways, many of them even accepting the white man's religion. Some Crow even scouted now for the blue-coat soldiers, helped them find the Sioux who did not want to live on the reservation. He spit at him, furious when the man only smiled and said something to the tall white man with the blue eyes.

"Whoa! He is a wild one!" Runner told Luke. "What do you wish me to tell him, Mrs. Fontaine?"

Lettie breathed deeply to compose herself. "I want you to tell him I am his mother. Please explain why we're here, that we've saved his life by coming. Tell him I want him to let our white doctor help him, and that I want him to come home with us."

Runner, who wore his own long black hair in a tail at his neck, kept his distance. White or not, this boy had been taught to hate the Crow. He carefully explained who Lettie was, what she had told him.

White Bear listened in disbelief. He shook his head, told Runner his real parents were dead. His adoptive Indian father, Half Nose, had told him so. And his name was not Nathan. It was White Bear. He had already suffered the Sun Dance sacrifice, had seen the vision that made him a man. He was Sioux. He could not go with these white people.

He watched Runner explain, watched the woman shake her head. Her reply was firm.

"She says Half Nose lied to you. She is your mother. Half Nose stole you away from her when you were four years old." Runner spoke to him in the Sioux tongue. "His own son had been shot by the tall white man here because he attacked him. Half Nose wanted revenge and wanted to replace his son, so he took you. The tall white man is called Luke, Luke Fontaine. The woman is called Lettie. Your real father was killed in a white man's war many years ago, and your mother took Luke for a husband. He adopted you and loved you. After you were taken, he searched for you for many months. Finally Half Nose told him you were dead. He and your mother were deeply grieved."

White Bear could hardly believe the story, but the way the woman looked at him... "How does she know? I am grown now," he told Runner. "Perhaps she is mistaken."

He waited. The woman spoke, and Runner translated that she knew where his scars were and what caused them.

"It is easy to talk of scars. She can easily see them,"

White Bear answered. "Other whites have been captured over the years. Perhaps I came from some other white family."

As Runner translated, a lump rose in Letty's throat. Though she had just saved his life, her son was looking at her now as if he might kill her as easily as a rabbit or a deer. "Tell him I know his horse and belongings were taken by the Indians who got away," she told Runner. "Tell him I think that among those belongings is something I am betting he has kept all these years. Perhaps he thinks it is an omen, some kind of charm that brings him luck." She looked at Nathan. "Ask him if he carries a small brown stuffed horse with him. It had one eye made from a button. The other eye was missing."

When Runner had interpreted her words, White Bear was astonished. He had had the horse ever since he could remember, and even now it was inside a parfleche that was tied to the neck of his horse.

"Your mother made the horse for you. She sewed it with her own hands," Runner told him, "many years ago, when you were only one summer."

White Bear stared at the woman with the fascinating green eyes. There was a look there that told him not to be afraid. "Yes," he answered. "I have a stuffed horse. Now both eyes are missing."

When Runner translated his words, the white woman covered her face and wept. The white man with her put his arms around her. She said something to him through her tears, and the white man in turn spoke to the Crow Indian.

"The white man wants you to let a doctor fix your wound. He is a good doctor. You can trust him. I would not lie to you, even though I know you hate me because I am Crow," Runner told Nathan. "Your mother wants to take you from here so that you will not be harmed. She wishes to take you to her home, where those people outside will not bother you. You have brothers and sisters there, people who would take care of you. Your mother would like you to stay there with them forever, but she says that when you are well, you will be free to choose, to stay with them, or go back to Half Nose and the Sioux."

White Bear watched the woman cry. Considering what she knew about him, she must be his white mother. If this was true, she surely would not lie to him. He moved his gaze to the man holding her, studied his blue eyes, saw honesty there, and something else. The man looked at him lovingly, as a man would look at his son. Something told him he could trust these people. He did not like the idea of staying with a whole family of whites, but for the moment he had no choice. The bullet in his side burned fiercely. He knew he needed help. He told Runner he would go with them... for now. As soon as he was well, he was returning to his people, and to Half Nose, the only man he knew as father. He saw pain in Luke Fontaine's eyes when the Crow interpreted his words.

Luke turned to the sheriff. "Go get Doc Manning."

Tracy nodded and left. Luke gave Lettie a hug. "You keep your distance until the doc gets him sedated," he told her. "Keep in mind that in his mind and heart he's still Sioux. I'm going to take care of that crowd outside."

He left her then, and Lettie could hear him arguing with the people outside the jail. If anyone could straighten them out and make them leave, it was Luke and his men. How sad that now she had to defend her precious son against those who accused him of killing innocent whites. She felt so sorry for Jim Woodward's orphaned daughters. Could her Nathan have done such a horrible thing? She refused to believe it.

She ached to hold him, embrace him. What did he think of her? That she had abandoned him? That she had given up on him? Where had her bright, smiling little Nathan gone, the little boy who clung to that bear so tightly when Half Nose tore him away from her? He lay there painted and half-naked, his hair grown long. There was so much she wanted to know and learn, and so much he needed to learn in return. She closed her eyes and thanked God for bringing her son back to her. Surely he didn't mean it when he said he would go back to his people when he was well. The Sioux were not his people. She and Luke, Katie, Ty, Pearl, Robbie, and Paul—they were his people.

"I love you, Nathan. I never stopped loving, or hoping, or praying. We're taking you home, son."

She knew he didn't understand, but the words sounded good, words she had begun to think she would never be able to say. She stepped closer to the cot, knelt beside it. Again she touched his arm, and this time he did not try to jerk it away. He just watched her in wonder. She rested her head against his arm and wept.