Deborah Camp (37 page)

“Both, I guess. I’m glad it’s over and that we won, but I’m sad about Lincoln.”

“You knew him? He was a great friend of yours?”

He laughed and pulled her into his arms. With his chin resting on top of her head, he stared at the jagged mountain range cutting up the sky. “No, I didn’t know him personally, but he was a hero of mine.”

“Then I’m sorry he’s dead.”

“Me, too.”

“Tucker?” She tipped back her head to look at him. “What is a president? I never quite understood it. There were two of them, weren’t there? Lincoln and some other man?”

He was struck by the chasm between them. He had spent the past two years fighting for concepts she couldn’t grasp and for a government she knew nothing about.

“He’s like a chief, darlin’. And there were two while the country was divided—like there are chiefs for each tribe or branch of tribes. But now the war is over and there is only one president again. One man to oversee the whole nation.”

“Oh, I see.” She smiled. “Who is their president now?”

Tucker framed her face in his hands and captured her gaze in a solemn stare. “Andrew Johnson is our president now, Copper.
Ours.
Yours and mine and every other American’s.”

She furrowed her brow for a moment and then she smiled. “There I go again, sounding like an Indian.”

Tucker kissed the tip of her nose. “Don’t worry. I’ll break you of it eventually.”

Copper hugged him tightly around the waist. “Be careful, Tucker, or I might just hold you to that and prove to be a slow learner.”

A
fter Micah and Ann left the next morning Tucker and Copper worked on repairing weakened places in the cabin roof. The weight of the snow had cracked beams and loosened sod. Tucker lashed new beams in place and Copper filled in the spaces with thick sod that would harden to the consistency of stone once the sun baked it.

“This is the way of life when you think about it.”

Copper looked up from the vat of sod. “What?”

“Me putting up the beams and you filling in the spaces. It’s what men and women do in nearly every part of their lives. Men make the structures and women fill them in.” He smiled at her puzzled glance. “Think about the settlers coming this way. The men arrange for transportation and pack their weapons and food stuffs. The women arrange for the comfort of the family during the trip and pack their family heirlooms and all those things that will make a house a home. Once they get to their plot of land, the man throws together four walls and a roof. The woman fills in the rest until the place is a home. She plants a vegetable garden, puts curtains on the windows, spreads Grandma’s quilt on the bed, nags her husband until he strings a swing from a tree branch for the kids.” He looked toward Copper and found her
studying him with open affection that brought a flush of pleasure to his neck and face.

“I’m glad you notice these things, Tucker. Most men don’t.”

“We take it all for granted,” he agreed, his gaze drifting to her flame-colored hair. “Hey, you’re wearing your mother’s comb. What’s the occasion?”

“Nothing.” She touched the ivory hair decoration. “It reminds me that I’m not Crow. I know you want me to think and act more white.”

“No, darlin’.” He scooted across the roof to sit close and wrap an arm around her shoulders. “I don’t want you to be anything but you. I think this is a pretty comb, but you wear it because you want to, not because you think I want you to.”

She rubbed her cheek against his wool shirt. He smelled of wood smoke. “Sometimes I feel caught in the middle. Half white and half Absaroka. But that’s silly. I have no Indian blood in me.”

“Yes, but you were raised by them, so it’s only natural that you should feel like you’re part of them. Listen to me, I don’t want you trying to change yourself. I like you the way you are.”

“But you keep reminding me that I’m white.”

He laughed. “Well, that’s because you are, sugar.”

“If I was really Crow, would you still like me?”

He cupped the lower half of her face in one hand. “Without a doubt.” He kissed her lips lightly, lingeringly, then looked toward the horizon, over the tops of trees, through the high branches of others. “Look out there, Copper. Feels like we’re the only two people on earth.”

Admiring him from the corner of her eye, she wondered if he’d insisted on helping her shore up the cabin because he intended to leave her soon and wanted to make sure she was ready to go on without him.

“What did you and Micah talk about out in the stables?”

“You. What else?”

“No, it was more than that. He seemed more … oh, I don’t know, more protective of his wife. Did he accuse you and Rides In A Circle of something?”

“Of course not! Where do you get such ideas?”

“You’re a handsome man and Rides In A Circle isn’t blind.”

He laughed and shook his head. “We were talking about slavery and he was acting as if it had nothing to do with him. I reminded him that he traded goods for his wife, which is a form of slavery. He didn’t cotton to that notion.”

“You didn’t! Rides In A Circle isn’t his slave!” She raised her head to stare at him, aghast.

“No? He did trade for her, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but from what I know about it, it was a fair trade. More than fair. She’s not worth half what he traded for her.”

He angled back to examine her. “Will you listen to yourself? You approve of being traded for? What did Stands Tall trade for you?”

She sat tall and tipped up her chin. “Four mares, six blankets, three bows and three buffalo robes.”

“And did you have
any
say in this trade?”

“Much Smoke talked to me about Stands Tall and told me it would be a good marriage. I always listened to him. He’s a wise—
was
a wise man. Stands Tall traded more than any of us expected. It placed me in high regard among the people.”

“But not with Stands Tall. He still made you miserable.”

She looked away from his probing eyes. “But the trade was legendary. I felt like a chief’s favorite daughter.”

“It’s a form of slavery.”

“No.” Her gaze clashed with his, then wavered. “Is it?”

“Of course, it is. You didn’t fall in love with Stands Tall before the marriage. Much Smoke told you how it was going to be and that was that. Much Smoke got the goods and Stands Tall got you. Now how is that any different from a slave trader exchanging a big, strapping stud of a fieldhand for two women of child-bearing age plus two sacks of sugar?”

She flinched.

“Huh? How’s it any different? Micah rode into camp, spotted Rides In A Circle, haggled over a trade, and took her as his bed partner. I daresay she didn’t have a damn thing to say about it.”

“This is what you fought about in the war?”

“Among other things.”

“Your family never had slaves?”

“Not while I was growing up. My grandmother had a few, but my father shamed her into paying them wages and giving them their freedom papers.”

“I never thought of it as slavery. When you’re brought up with it, thinking of how wonderful it will be when a young man offers some of his most treasured things for you …” She let her voice trail off as her mind reckoned with the unfairness of such a trade. “But you’re right. The women never have anything to say. I remember one girl—Two Feathers—cried and cried when it was decided she would wed Low Runner. He was short and not easy to look at without laughing. But her parents made the trade and she wed him, tears or not.”

“See? Slavery.”

“Yes, I guess so. I’d rather choose than be chosen.”

“And it’s even better when it’s mutual.” He grinned. “Remember how you didn’t want to have anything to do with me at first? I had to grow on you. But when we finally got together, it was what we both wanted. That’s the way it should be.”

“I liked you right away,” she confessed. “I had
bad memories, that’s all. And I didn’t see much point in getting close to you when you’d be long gone in a few months.”

“What changed your mind?”

She smiled. Sweet sentiment shone in her dark eyes. “My heart.”

That night after Valor had been put to bed, Tucker sat in the rocking chair and Copper sat sideways in his lap, her arms around his neck, her head resting on his shoulder. They watched the fire, glad for the quiet and the company. She moved one hand down his chest over the beating of his heart and heard paper crackle in his vest pocket.

“What’s this?” she asked, dipping her fingers into the pocket and pulling out a long, white paper cartridge. “Ammunition?”

He craned his head back to get a better look, then chuckled. “No. One of the firecrackers Gus gave me. Remember? I forgot I had them.”

“Oh, yes.” She replaced the novelty. “Some night we’ll have to set them off and light up the sky.”

He hugged her close. “I like the fireworks we make better.”

She hugged him back, but sensed a moodiness in him. “Are you thinking about the war again?”

He sighed. “Yes. I can’t seem to get it out of my mind. It’s over.” His tone reflected his inability to grasp the finality. “After all this time, it’s over.”

“You knew it would end one day.”

“Yes. I often thought about how the end would come, but I never thought it would be like this. I always pictured the news coming when I was with the men serving under me. We’d cheer and leap for joy.” His voice took on the edge of exuberance and Copper knew he was smiling. “We’d get our hands on some liquor and toast our survival and our victory. Then we’d toast those who had fallen,
whose blood stained the earth in so many places—places we’d never heard of until we had to change them from cotton fields to battlefields.”

“You would have rather been with the soldiers when you heard?”

“Well, I do feel cheated,” he admitted. “And I feel like a cheat. I should have been with them instead of here.”

“Being here isn’t your fault, Tucker.”

“I know.”

“Your thoughts are there more than they are here with me. I’m jealous. I don’t want to share you.”

He nuzzled her hair. “I’m sorry, sugar. Ever since Micah told me the news, I’ve felt divided. I’d put all that to rest, you see, and had pretty much decided I wouldn’t go back, wouldn’t worry about it ever again. But hearing about the victory and the tragedy of Lincoln’s death—it brought it all back to me. I think of all the men who died and about their families. How will the country heal? How long will it take before we’re one nation under God with allegiance to a common flag?” He kissed her temple. She snuggled against him. “More people will be coming to these mountains now. Many many more.”

“They won’t like it. They’ll go back to their cities and farms.”

“Some will. Some won’t.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said peevishly. “It scares me.”

“Scares you? Why?”

“Because the tribes won’t allow the whites to trespass on their hunting grounds. The war will be over among the Yanks and the Rebs, but it will begin anew here.”

Tucker stared at the leaping flames in the hearth. She was right, he thought, depression sifting through him life dark snow. His mind’s eye showed him wagon upon wagon rumbling over
the plain, splashing across rivers, groaning up mountain traces. He thought of the Indians’ attacks, the loss of lives, the loss of a way of life. Change was in the air and everyone knew it. No one could prevent it.

“Don’t be scared, Copper,” he whispered against the fire of her hair. “Legends like you can withstand anything, right?”

She laughed softly and turned her face to his for a kiss. “I’m not a legend,” she said, amused. “Except in your mind.” Easing from his arms, she stood to cross the room and close the shutters. Facing him again, she slowly loosened the ties of her leather shift, and with an undulation of her slim body, her clothing pooled at her ankles. Tucker’s breath caught in his throat. She gathered two buffalo robes in her arms, all the while feeling Tucker’s lambent gaze and inordinately pleased that she could arouse him without even touching him. She spread the robes before the hearth and settled on her knees in the center of them.

“Well?” she said, dropping her gaze to his privates. “Are you going to keep that all to yourself, Tucker Jones?”

He joined her without further hesitation. He crushed her to him, splaying his hands on her bare back and bending her over his arm until she lay on the robes, her hair fanning out like sunrays. His kiss was hard, demanding, thrilling. Copper caught his fire. She plucked at his clothing, searching for his warm, hair-roughened skin. He struggled from his vest and shirt, tossing them into the rocker, then he straddled her and allowed her to unfasten his trousers and release him. She stroked him with tender familiarity. Tucker groaned in sweet agony. He stood to remove the trousers and undergarments. They joined his other clothes on the rocking chair.

Copper held out her arms to him and wiggled her fingers in happy anticipation. He filled her
embrace with muscle and sinew covered by sleek, slick, sun-browned skin. His mouth courted hers with brief, lipping kisses. She combed his hair with loving fingers and bracketed his hips between her thighs. The firelight played over his face, making his lashes seem incredibly long and his nose incredibly straight. She knew she would never tire of stroking his firm shoulders or kneading the bunched muscles in his arms. Every day gave him back more of his strength. She felt more vitality in him each time they made love. He was almost back to his normal weight and his limp was completely gone. She’d healed him, and in return, he had healed her.

Tucker gazed longingly at Copper’s rosy pink nipples. He tongued one and it hardened until it looked like a pink pearl. He smiled at her.

“I love the way you do that.”

“I don’t do that. You do that.”

He touched the tip of his tongue to her other nipple for a twin response, then drew it into his mouth. Copper gasped and shivered as he suckled gently, arousingly. He tasted her, milky and sweet. He rolled the sensitive bud on his tongue and she grasped handfuls of his hair, making his scalp tingle.