A Love Forbidden (20 page)

Jesse was busy skinning a rabbit he’d caught earlier that morning, when Persune rode into camp. Jesse didn’t immediately jump up to greet his friend until he’d finished removing the rabbit’s pelt and draped it over a nearby bush to dry. Since he’d already gutted the rabbit, he then quickly wrapped the carcass in a piece of hide and put it into a lidded basket and back inside his tepee to keep the meat safe from any inquisitive camp dog.

By the time his friend tied up his pony and ambled over, Jesse had cleaned both his knife and his hands. “What brings you all the way out here?” he asked as he stood and clasped the other Ute’s forearm. “Your wives making more unreasonable demands of you?”

“No.” Persune shook his head. “This time, it’s Josie. She asked me to fetch you. Seems she has some important information to tell you about the red-haired woman.”

Jesse released his friend’s arm and stepped back. “If luck is with me, it’s that Shiloh has decided not to return.”

His friend shot him a curious look. “You don’t wish to see her again? And here I’d hoped that the journey with her back to her family had helped to strengthen the bond between you. That perhaps you’d even made her your woman.”

At the thought of Shiloh consenting to any untoward advances, much less her agreeing to bed him without being married, Jesse’s mouth quirked in amusement. But then, Persune’s view of how things should be between a man and a woman were colored by his Ute culture. It didn’t matter anyway. Shiloh could never be his.

“No, I didn’t make her my woman,” he said in reply. “Nor will I.”

“Well, I think you’re making a big mistake, but you can be certain there’ll be many braves who’ll be happy to take your place.”

“A lot of good it’ll do them,” Jesse muttered softly.

“So, when can I tell Josie you’ll be meeting with her?”

“Still trying to win her favor, are you? Even stooping to becoming her messenger now?”

Persune’s eyes narrowed in irritation. “You turn your nose up at a pretty white woman, then begrudge me my love for Josie? You’re not being fair, my friend.”

No, he wasn’t being fair, Jesse thought, remorse filling him. He was being unkind, peevish, and a bit jealous. And taking it all out on his best friend.

“You’re right. I’m sorry for my foul mood.” He gave Persune a playful punch on the arm. “If you can wait about an hour while I cook up this rabbit, we can eat it and then head out for the Agency. Assuming, of course, I can spend the night in your tepee?”

The Ute grinned. “Stay for a few days, if you wish. My wives always enjoy your company. And so will some of their friends.”

Jesse rolled his eyes. He’d managed to forget what inveterate matchmakers Persune’s wives were. Still, some of their friends were rather pretty. And their friendly company might help take his mind off of a certain redhead.

On the other hand, that possibility seemed rather unlikely, Jesse glumly amended. At least for a long while to come. But nothing was accomplished pining after what one couldn’t have. And if he was nothing else, he was a realistic man, he thought as he turned and headed back to his tepee.

“No,” Jesse said in disbelief the next morning as he stood outside the Agency office, listening as Josie finished reading Shiloh’s last letter. “I told her not to come back. Why is she coming back?”

Josie eyed him caustically. “Maybe because she’s a grown woman and can do what she wants? Whatever gives you the right to tell Shiloh what to do?”

Jesse sighed and shook his head. “Obviously, nothing. Nothing gives me the right.”

“She just wants to fulfill the contract she made with my father,” Josie said, softening her tone. “And I think, as well, Shiloh felt like she left things unfinished. Her work here, the friendships she was beginning to forge with some of the Ute people . . .”

“None of that will do her any good. She won’t succeed.”

“You don’t know that!” Once again, anger flared in Josie’s eyes. “Shiloh was becoming good friends with Susan and Johnson and some of their camp. And Jack liked her, even if he tried to hide it.”

He gave a disparaging snort. “She may have won Jack’s respect, but don’t ever imagine he would trust or befriend her. He’s long past trusting any white man.”

“Well, then that’s his loss,” she snapped, fisting her hands on her hips. “As it apparently will be yours too.”

Jesse clenched his jaw. “Is that all you wished to tell me then? That Shiloh’s on her way back and will be here around the 25th of September?”

“Pretty much. For what it’s worth.”

“Then I thank you for the message. I don’t intend, though, to be part of the welcoming party on her return.” He turned on his heel and began to walk away.

“Oh, really?” Josie cried after him. “And where exactly do you intend to go to avoid her?”

He didn’t look back but just kept on walking. “Who knows? It’s hunting season. Maybe I’ll just take a long trip into the mountains and stay there for a while.”

Autumn was glorious this year, Shiloh thought from the front bench of the freight wagon as they headed south from Rawlins to the White River Agency. The aspens were already beginning to turn golden and, combined with the deep, dark green of the pines and firs higher on the mountainsides and the rich blue skies, she didn’t know when she’d seen anything more beautiful. But then, she’d always loved these mountains and their verdant valleys slashed with rushing, ice-cold rivers and streams.

“Quite a difference from when you first came this way,” Joe Collum said from beside her. “March was pretty bleak around here, if I recall.”

“Bleak and cold.” Shiloh shot him a quick smile. “I’m thinking I like this time of year a whole lot better.”

He nodded, then slapped the reins over the mule team’s backs to urge them to pick up the pace. “Me too. The summer was pretty hot, though, and miserable. Not a lot of rain, so it got pretty dry. And lots of wildfires, which set folks on edge. The Utes got blamed, and the settlers put pressure on Meeker to keep them on the reservation. And, of course, that didn’t sit well with the Utes, who needed to travel farther into the mountains to get their summer hunting in.”

In her letters, Josie had intimated that things had gotten pretty tense between her father and the Utes this summer. Josie, however, hadn’t provided a lot of details. Shiloh hoped, with the coming of cooler weather in the next month or so, that the high emotions on both sides would also begin to cool. The summer heat always seemed to bring out the worst in everyone’s tempers.

“So, how did all that end up?” she asked. “Was Mr. Meeker able to keep the Utes at home?”

Joe gave a disdainful snort. “Fat chance of that ever happening. Every time I bring in supplies, I get an earful of Meeker’s complaining about the Utes. Things aren’t going well for that man. Not well at all.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Word got around that Meeker went so far as to ask help from Governor Pitkin, requesting soldiers to assist in keeping the Utes on the reservation. Pitkin then went to the Indian Bureau, demanding that troops be sent to move the Utes to the Indian Territory. And, somehow, Chief Douglas and Captain Jack found out about that.”

Shiloh’s heart sank. Governor Pitkin was well known to hate the Utes and want them all gone. And now, if Douglas and Jack knew what was in the works for them . . .

In spite of the day’s warmth, she shivered. What exactly was she heading into?

“I don’t mean to alarm you, ma’am,” the freight driver said, apparently noting her reaction. “But you need to know what’s been going on in your absence, and I’m sorry to say, it’s only gotten worse.”

“Worse?”
How much worse?
Shiloh wondered. “Well, best you tell me all you know. I can’t be of much help unless I know what the problems are.”

“Well, that’s kind of my thought too, ma’am.” He shot her a considering look. “Were you aware that Meeker’s had his eye on plowing up a big plot of that rich pastureland in Powell Valley, to plant winter wheat in?”

“But that’s the Utes’ grazing area for all their ponies.”

“Yep, and when Meeker sent Shadrach Price to start plowing, the Utes took it pretty bad. Meeker apparently ignored their protests, and the plowing resumed. Then some of the Utes hid in the surrounding sagebrush and fired some warning shots at Price. He hightailed it out of Powell Valley and refused to come back until the matter was settled between Meeker and the Utes.”

“When did all that happen?”

“Just a couple of weeks ago, in early September.”

Though she dreaded the answer, she had to ask. “And have things been settled?”

Joe sighed and shook his head. “Not for long. Chief Johnson and Meeker had a big falling-out about a week after the Powell Valley incident. Johnson accused him of plowing up his land and writing lies to Washington. One thing led to another, and Johnson ended up grabbing Meeker, pushing him outside, and slamming him into a hitching rail.”

Meeker had always considered Johnson a good friend and ally. What would happen now that Johnson had seemed to turn against him?

“Anything else happen since then?” she asked.

“Couldn’t say. I headed back to Rawlins for another supply load the next day on the 9th, and this is the first chance I’ve had to return to the Agency.”

Shiloh did some quick calculations. Johnson and Meeker’s falling-out had happened on September 8th then, and today was September 24th. They should arrive at the White River Indian Agency tomorrow. Seventeen days would’ve passed by then, since the last incident Joe Collum knew about. She could only wonder what had transpired in the interim.

“Well, let’s just hope, by the time we arrive tomorrow,” she said, “that things have begun to calm down.”

“I sure hope so, ma’am,” the freighter said, though his somber tone didn’t bode well. “Because if it hasn’t, we’re in for a heap of trouble. A very big heap of trouble.”

14

Jesse had mixed feelings about heading out on the hunting party to Wyoming. But fresh meat was running low in their camp, and with Shiloh due to arrive any day, he needed more time to sort out his chaotic emotions about her. As a planned weeklong excursion, the hunting trip would be the perfect excuse to prolong his inevitable meeting with Shiloh. Hopefully, it’d also provide the time for thought that he craved.

However, in the past few weeks, things at the Agency had rapidly gone from bad to worse. After Jack and Douglas had discovered that, thanks to Meeker’s incessant letter writing to his various superiors, the Colorado governor was trying to send soldiers to move the Utes to the hated Indian Territory, the two chiefs had their people stop all work on Agency projects. Jack had even paid Governor Pitkin in Denver a visit, complaining about Meeker. And, when Meeker found out about the visit, he told Jack he deserved hanging for his disloyalty. After that, things were never the same between the two men.

The attempted plowing of Powell Valley had only escalated the tension between the Agency and the Utes. With the hundreds of ponies owned by the White River Utes, the rich grasslands for grazing were imperative to protect. Yet it seemed nothing they could say to Meeker could convince him otherwise. Not even the agent’s friendship with Chief Johnson seemed to make any difference. And when Johnson had failed to change Meeker’s plans for Powell Valley, Johnson had finally washed his hands of the Indian agent.

Now, Meeker had no allies left with the Utes. Jack and Douglas had never thought much of him, and just paid lip service to the agent’s plans as long as they could obtain the annuity goods. In the meanwhile, though, they went behind his back whenever it suited them. Johnson had truly tried to work with Meeker, but it seemed that he’d finally tired of always being the one to have to change, to compromise. And now, all the chiefs were becoming increasingly worried that soldiers were coming, that there might be war.

As much as he hated leaving the reservation right now, perhaps it was for the best. If it came to war, they’d need a good supply of meat and other provisions. And they certainly couldn’t count on Meeker’s generosity of late. Only yesterday, Jack had gotten into another argument with Meeker when the agent had refused to issue annuity blankets to their hunting party.

The People were sick and tired of feeling like beggars when it came to asking for the necessary supplies promised to them by the US government. To feel they had to ask permission to engage in activities that had always been their right, like ranging far from the reservation to hunt. And to have their traditional way of life not just belittled but actively destroyed at every turn.

The tension, the insults, and the degradations had been building for years now. No man who called himself a man could endure much more. Yet Meeker seemed not to see what was building, or even to care. He was like so many of his kind, puffed up with their own importance and sense of superiority over a race they felt was little more than ignorant, uncivilized savages. They took whatever they wanted and imagined themselves justified in doing so. In the end, Jesse well knew, no matter what the People did, the whites would win.

The saddest part was that the innocent would suffer in this clash of cultures and likely suffer the worst of all. The women, the children, the good-intentioned whites who championed the Indians’ cause. Folks like Shiloh, whom Jesse knew truly wanted the best for the People. But she, in her own way, was as naïve as the Utes in imagining that the People and the whites could ever live together as equals.

Perhaps, if fortune smiled, Shiloh would arrive back at the Agency and realize how precarious things had become. Realize that all her fine teaching aspirations were a lost cause and that it wasn’t safe for her to remain here. Perhaps, if fortune smiled, she might well be gone from the Agency, heading back to the safety of her home, before he even returned.

The solution to the problem of Shiloh was likely too easy, though. Fate, it seemed, was repeatedly forcing them together. Forcing them into a headlong course that Jesse feared might lead to him having to make a choice—a choice between Shiloh and his Ute family.

One of the last summer squashes, nearly hidden by the large green leaves, dangled from a thick, bristly stem. Shiloh squatted and gingerly felt for the vegetable through the leaves. When she found the squash, she twisted it gently from its stem, then placed it in her basket and rose.

A few yards away, Josie worked with a spade, carefully checking the potatoes. “Not quite ready,” she called over to Shiloh. “Another week at most, though, and we should be able to dig them up.”

“Let’s just hope we don’t have a killing frost in the meantime,” Shiloh replied, adjusting the brim of her straw hat to better shade her eyes. “I’d hate to have to drag a mess of blankets out here to cover all these plants.”

Josie gave a short laugh, then turned her attention to spreading dirt back over the potatoes she’d exposed. It was a nice warm day for it being four days shy of the end of September. Shiloh had been back at the Agency since yesterday and in the past day had struggled to come to terms with all the changes that had occurred in her absence.

Some things Josie had filled her in on, others Shiloh had just noted by quietly observing. Since early August, when Nathan Meeker had badly injured his arm when their wagon had overturned on the trip back from Rawlins, Josie had noted a decided change in her father. He now spoke disdainfully of the White River Utes, calling them cowardly and dishonest. He had been too good to them in the past and now was willing to use force—soldiers, guns, and even chains—to get the Utes to come around to his way of things.

And his foul mood wasn’t just directed at the Utes. His whole personality had taken a turn for the worse. He was distant and moody with everyone around him. He even berated Josie for watching the Utes race their ponies.

“Everyone goes around with a long face these days,” she’d informed Shiloh her first night back as they sought out the privacy of Shiloh’s bedroom and gingerly sipped at steaming mugs of tea. “I’m really getting worried. After Father’s falling-out with Johnson almost three weeks ago, I can’t even get Susan to talk to me. And Douglas pulled his son out of school, so now I’ve no one to teach in your absence.”

“It does sound bad.” Shiloh paused to take a tentative taste of her Earl Grey tea. “Isn’t there any way to mend things?”

“I don’t know.” Josie sighed and shook her head. “Not unless one side caves in to the other. And Father thinks he’s bent over backward and says he refuses to bend any farther. The Utes, of course, feel pretty much the same way. I’m just afraid the soldiers from Fort Steele are on the verge of heading down here to settle this. If they do, the Utes might see it as an act of war. They’re already pretty skittish these days, with a lot of meetings, braves riding back and forth between camps, and even some war dances near the Agency buildings on the night of the 10th. Most of us couldn’t sleep at all that night.”

The Utes suspect something
, Shiloh thought.
Meeker’s a fool to imagine that whatever he’s doing to get soldiers down here hasn’t been noticed.

“Has your father sent for the soldiers?”

Though Josie hesitated in her reply, the look on her face gave the answer away. “Yes, but you must promise not to say a word to anyone, and especially not to any Ute.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be too hard a promise to keep,” Shiloh said with a chuckle. “If Susan and Johnson won’t speak to you, they likely won’t speak to me, either. And Douglas and Jack have not been big supporters of mine in the best of times.”

“There’s always Jesse,” her friend supplied, shooting her a sly look. “But he’s on a hunting trip with some of the other braves from Jack’s camp. He just left two days ago and won’t be back for about a week.”

So, Jesse found a convenient excuse not to be here when I arrived.

Shiloh leveled an intent gaze on Josie. “Did you tell him when I’d be getting to the Agency?”

“Yes, of course. You didn’t say I couldn’t, and I’d hoped he’d have taken the news well.”

“But he didn’t, did he?”

Suddenly, Josie seemed to find great interest in her cup of tea. “Well, he thought it might not be the best or safest time for you to return, considering what’s been going on of late.”

“And that was all he said? That he was concerned for my safety?”

“Pretty much.”

Shiloh grimaced. “I can just bet that’s all he said. Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m back and am here to stay!”

Josie set down her cup, stood, and rushed over to her. “Oh, I’m so glad to hear you say that! I was afraid that once you found out about the recent troubles . . . well, I’m just glad you’re here.”

“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” Shiloh said as she set aside her own tea and took her friend’s hand. “Somehow, we’ve got to try and get everyone to make peace and start afresh.”

“How exactly do you plan to do that?”

“I don’t know,” Shiloh replied, chewing her bottom lip in thought. “But just give me a day or two and I’ll come up with something.”

By the next day, it soon became apparent that the task before her and Josie had become even more difficult. Douglas came to Meeker, demanding to know if he knew anything about soldiers being in the area. Meeker denied any knowledge but assured the chief that if any soldiers did turn up, he’d have them halted at the reservation border at Milk Creek and then arrange a meeting with all the chiefs and the military commander.

The agent’s assurances didn’t seem to work, however, and soon the squaws in Douglas’s camp were taking down their tepees and heading south. That evening, a messenger named Charlie Lowry arrived and Meeker took him into his office for a private conversation. The fact that he soon ordered the Agency employees to stand guard over the storehouse containing the annuity goods didn’t bode well for the contents of the message.

Everyone went around with solemn expressions at best, and outright fearful ones at the worst. An air of foreboding hung over the supper meal, and there was little talk and even littler of the meal consumed. Shiloh helped clean up after supper and wash and put away dishes, then headed to her bedroom.