Edge of the Wilderness (2 page)

Jensen shoved him ahead, pointing to a two-story stone building just across the street from the prison lot. The men were welcomed inside by a blast of warm air. Someone had fired up a small stove in the center of the large, nearly bare room. Whatever happened, Daniel hoped he would be here long enough to get next to the stove. He had almost forgotten what it was like to be warm.

Three other Dakota men were sitting on the floor near the stove. Jensen stepped back outside without a word. Daniel and Robert hobbled over and sat next to a half-starved brave about Daniel’s age. To the question in Daniel’s eyes, the brave only shrugged.

Voices sounded at the door. Jensen swore loudly. “You can’t be serious! Whose idea was
that?!”

When he saw, who Jensen was yelling at, Daniel nudged Robert. “I thought he died up at Fort Snelling.”

“Rumors,” Robert whispered back. “We know nothing except rumors.” His voice trembled with emotion as he looked toward Sacred Lodge.

Sacred Lodge crossed the room toward them. He paused and put his hand on Robert’s shoulder. “It is good to see my old friend is well,” he said, shaking Robert’s hand. He nodded at Daniel. “I was glad to know you were not hanged. They had your name on the list.” Daniel felt a chill go through him as Sacred Lodge turned away without waiting for his reply.

Walking to the center of the half-circle where the men sat waiting, the brave began to speak. He was middle-aged, lean but powerfully built, and he spoke with the quiet confidence of a man accustomed to leading, accustomed to being followed. Every man in the room knew the history of this half-breed raised by his full-blooded stepfather. Sacred Lodge could have escaped to the north and avoided all the trouble when the uprising began. Instead, he remained, unifying the peaceful Dakota by organizing a soldiers’ lodge for peace, gathering and protecting white captives in his camp. Because of his extraordinary actions, General Sibley had offered to let Sacred Lodge return to his farm near the now destroyed Lower Agency. But Sacred Lodge would not leave his Dakota brothers. Instead of returning home, he had gone to Fort Snelling, willingly suffering with them. The prisoners at Mankato had been told Sacred Lodge died there. But here he was, dressed in a soldier’s jacket adorned with extra brass buttons, sporting a black hat decorated with feathers.

To Daniel’s surprise, Brady Jensen remained by the door, his arms folded across his chest while Sacred Lodge took charge of the meeting.

Everyone present had heard Sacred Lodge’s voice ring with the proud authority of a Dakota chief, but today his tone was gentle and persuasive. “In the end of the Deer Rutting Moon,” he began, “I went to General Sibley. I had heard that when the weather is warm again, the army will go after the hostiles who have escaped to the north. I was concerned for my peaceful brothers who are still wandering around the country. I told General Sibley that if he would let me, I would choose worthy Dakota men to go out as scouts and convince these friendly Dakota to come in where they will be safe.”

Big Amos tried to say something, but Sacred Lodge motioned for him to be silent as he continued. “I said we would also help the army chase down any hostiles still in this territory. And I told the general that when the warm moons come these scouts could lead him to the camps of the warring Sioux.” He paused, taking time to look into each man’s eyes before continuing. “This seemed good to the general. But he said he must write the Great Father in Washington and ask him about it.” Sacred Lodge smiled. “The Great Father thought it might be all right.”

Daniel felt a surge of emotion. Did Sacred Lodge mean they would be leaving this awful place? He tried not to let the hope rise too high. He glanced at Jensen who had uncrossed his arms and was standing, his fists clenched, his face a mask of disgust.

“The five men I chose pleased General Sibley.” Sacred Lodge paused and looked down at the four men seated around the stove. “But when I learned that you five were here at Mankato, I said that I wished also to take Daniel Two Stars, Robert Lawrence, Big Amos, Spirit Buffalo, and Good Voice Hail with me.”

Jensen snorted loudly and rubbed his nose.

Sacred Lodge continued. “The General asked, ‘Do you think it is a wise thing to take full-blooded Dakota Indians out of prison and turn them loose as scouts so soon after what happened?’”

Daniel bent his legs and hid his face by leaning his forehead onto his knees. Robert shifted his position to accommodate Daniel’s movement, although he chose to look Sacred Lodge in the face.

Big Amos interjected, “The General is such a wise man. He understands that all mixed-bloods are good Indians and
all
full-bloods are bad.” It was an attempt at humor, but no one laughed.

“When they doubted me,” Sacred Lodge continued quietly, “I told him he should not think of all full-bloods as hostile or all mixed-bloods as good. I said you five men are more steadfast and more to be depended upon than many of the mixed-bloods in the peace camp.”

Daniel looked up at Sacred Lodge as he concluded, “General Sibley listened to me. We have permission to go.”

Big Amos snorted in disbelief. He waved a broad hand in the air. “The general speaks and suddenly Dakota prisoners may take horses and guns and ride away?” Looking at the other four men, he said, “You know what I think? I think they want us to go outside Mankato so they will have an excuse to kill us.”

Sacred Lodge sat down before them. “They aren’t giving us horses or guns here in Mankato. We will ride in wagons that glide over the snow—with soldiers as a guard. Once we have made camp at Rice Creek they will leave us with horses and guns. Then we will be free men, my brothers.”

Daniel heard Jensen swear under his breath. He stomped out the door and shouted for someone to take over guard duty while he went to talk to the commanding officer.

Sacred Lodge repeated, “We will have horses and guns, freedom to hunt—”

“—freedom to hunt our friends,” Big Amos said bluntly. Good Voice interrupted Big Amos. Nodding toward the log prison barely visible through the filthy windows, he said, “Part of what Sacred Lodge says sounds good to me.” He looked up at Sacred Lodge. “I want to be a free man. But I could never bring my peaceful brothers to a place like this.” His voice lowered. “Better they die than come here.”

Sacred Lodge argued gently. “Any peaceful Dakota we find will camp with us until spring. Then all Dakota will be going to a new reservation. Even the ones at Fort Snelling.” He stood up and began to walk slowly around the little circle of men as he spoke. “Our frightened brothers who are still wandering around the country need to hear this good news. There is a place where they will be safe both from soldiers and from the hostile Sioux who hate them for not fighting.”

Good Voice reasoned, “If we help Sibley find the hostiles, perhaps the Great Father in Washington will let us have a home again.”

“You will be able to keep any horses you capture,” Sacred Lodge said quickly. “And guns. And they are sending a cook with us.”

“You mean we won’t have to kill our bread before we eat it?” Big Amos joked.

“You must promise the army to stay for six moons,” Sacred Lodge explained. “They will give you uniforms now. Horses and guns once we reach camp. They will pay seven U.S. dollars a month in wages. And,” he looked at Robert and Big Amos, “the scouts’ families will join them in camp.”

Daniel jerked his head up and looked at Robert. He saw the emotion flashing in his friend’s eyes, and spoke up immediately. “Robert and I will go.”

Good Voice joked, “Daniel and I have no wives. Will they bring us one?”

“When do these come off?” Daniel asked, rattling the chain that joined him and Robert together.

The guard who had replaced Jensen didn’t speak Dakota. Still, he knew what Daniel was asking. Holding up a small brass key he said in English, “If you swear allegiance to the United States, those come off now. Scouts leave at dawn tomorrow.”

Daniel looked up at him, studying the young face, wondering if what sounded like kindness in the yellow-haired man’s voice was real. The soldier met his gaze honestly and pressed his thin lips together in a faint smile. When Daniel and Robert slid their feet across the floor toward him, he knelt, quickly unlocking the shackles. When the other new scouts followed suit, he worked quickly, tossing the shackles in the far corner of the room with obvious relish. He inspected the spot where Good Voice’s ankle had been rubbed raw. “I’ll get the doctor over to look at that before we leave in the morning,” he promised. He smiled at Good Voice. “Can’t have a lame scout.”

“Wait here until I come back,” Sacred Lodge said. The men waited, moving as close to the stove as possible, rubbing their ankles, grunting with satisfaction as they walked about the room, free of chains for the first time in months. Big Amos leaped off the rough board floor and stomped around the room in an exaggerated dance that made the other men laugh under their breath.

Daniel wrinkled his nose as the five men’s unwashed bodies began to warm up and sweat. He looked down at his filthy hands and ran his hand over his matted hair. Glancing toward the blond-haired soldier who was standing near the door sucking in fresh air, he felt ashamed.

Sacred Lodge returned followed by a dozen soldiers carrying stacks of blankets and clothing. They brought in buckets of snow and set them around the stove to melt.

Brady Jensen dropped a half-used bar of lye soap at Daniel’s feet. “See you don’t
eat
it. It’ll gnaw a hole in your gut.” He stomped off, commenting to the blond-haired soldier about the stupidity of wasting soap on filthy savages. Once the men had washed and donned their outdated army uniforms, their clothing was burned in a bonfire just outside the front door.

That night they ate army rations for supper, stuffing themselves with fresh boiled beef and potatoes and corn bread until their bellies swelled. One by one they staggered away from the stove and fell on their bedrolls with satisfied sighs.

Late in the night, Daniel woke thirsty. He took an empty pail and stepped to the door, asking permission to get more snow. Once back inside he set the bucket on the stove and crouched down, waiting for it to melt. His first taste of the ice-cold water reminded him of a spring bubbling out of the earth near one of his family’s favorite campgrounds. He remembered following the stream of water from its source all the way to a lake they called Singing Waters, then alongside the lake and across the prairie to another creek and thence to Broken Pipe’s trading post. He had visited the trading post often with his friends Otter and Red Thunder, who enjoyed flirting with Genevieve LaCroix, the trader’s beautiful daughter.

The fire was dying again. Daniel looked outside. Snow was falling thicker and faster. Someone inside the log prison across the street was wailing a death song. It had become a familiar sound. Daniel looked toward the door. The guard stationed there was sitting on an upturned barrel, half asleep. Beyond him was the town of Mankato, and beyond Mankato, Fort Ridgely, and beyond that, far to the north, he imagined his friend Otter still living the old way, hunting buffalo, making war against his enemies. Somewhere out there, beyond Mankato and Fort Ridgely, was a beautiful half-Dakota, half-French girl named Genevieve LaCroix, whose dazzling blue eyes had once promised him everything a man could want.

After swallowing another mouthful of icy water, Daniel lay down. Pulling a buffalo robe around his shoulders, he stared into the darkness, wondering if the scouts would eventually revisit the agency and the nearby mission where he had once attended school. Someone had told him all the old mission buildings were gone now, burned to the ground along with the agency that had stood only a few miles from the mission. He wondered if the cabin had been burned down, and smiled at the memory of the strong-willed Miss Jane Williams. He thought about the vine that nearly hid the front of her cabin and the little bird that flitted around the flowers hanging on that vine. They were the color of the setting sun, beautiful against the plain wooden cottage. He remembered standing beneath that vine in the moonlight, with Blue Eyes staring up at him, breathless with emotion.

Try as he would, Daniel could not completely conquer the sense of hope threatening to overtake him. For a long time now, God had not seemed to hear the prayers he and Robert Lawrence prayed daily. But just when he had determined to stop praying, Sacred Lodge had arrived to take them out of prison. Perhaps it was a new beginning. Perhaps, Daniel thought, he would find peace wandering the places that, like him, had once been filled with life, but were now ruined and empty.

For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth.

—Job 37:6

“You sure it’s there?” Robert Lawrence leaned toward Daniel, screaming above the wind.

“It’s there.” Daniel hunkered down in the saddle, dipping his nose beneath his upturned collar, trying to protect his frost-bitten ears.

They were half ashamed, this handful of Dakota scouts sent out earlier that day to reconnoiter from the camp down by Rice Creek. They had grown up in this land, knew it as well as anyone. Should have known when the wind shifted. Should have seen the wall of dark clouds and headed back to camp. But Brady Jensen thought he had picked up a fresh trail. He cursed their cowardice. Said he wouldn’t quit because of a little snow. So they followed him past the old mission and around the edge of the lake.

When the wall of snow first slammed into them they weren’t all that concerned. Late spring snows weren’t anything unusual in Minnesota. No one wanted to give up on the first good trail they had located since being sent up here a few weeks ago. They wanted prisoners to hand over to General Sibley in the spring. And no one had proof that Little Crow had actually left the area. It might be Little Crow himself they were trailing. And so they had kept on until the wind began to freeze their noses and their horses floundered in blizzard-deep drifts.

Once Jensen relented, once they realized they needed to find shelter, someone mentioned old Fort LaCroix. The trader had been dead awhile. No one knew if it was even still standing. Hostiles might have burned it on their way north. But if even one of the buildings still, stood, it might save their toes—maybe even their lives.

Their leader, a man named Daniel Two Stars who spoke in grunts and stayed to himself, had been to Fort LaCroix more than once in the old days before the war. He said they were close. Since he was the best tracker among them, they followed him blindly through the snow.

Dumb luck or answered prayer. Take your pick. Either way Daniel slid off his bay gelding and, after feeling his way a moment, shouted for help. He and Robert worked feverishly, clearing away a drift and then pulling a rickety gate toward them. The men stumbled into a deserted compound that had once been the best-stocked trading post in Minnesota. Presently they were shaking the snow off inside a barn with stalls enough for each of the six horses and even a few piles of old hay in the loft above. By nightfall, with the storm still raging, they had knocked apart old LaCroix’s table and started a fire in the stone fireplace inside the trader’s own cabin.

Empty tin cans scattered across the floor told them others had taken shelter inside the compound in the past. When they heard something skitter across the ceiling, one of them charged up the stairs to the loft and returned with a huge raccoon, which they promptly killed, skinned, gutted, and roasted over the fire.

As night fell they stretched out atop their bedrolls around the fire. It had been known to snow for days when one of these storms stalled over Lac Qui Parle. There would be plenty of time to see what else old trader LaCroix might have left behind.

After everyone else was asleep, Daniel crept away from the fire. When none of the other men moved, he crouched low and made his way to the room at the back of the cabin. He sat down on the straw cot eschewed by the men as the probable residence of a few thousand fleas. Glancing behind him to make sure no one was watching, he leaned toward the wall and pulled the mattress up, disturbing a field mouse. As the mouse scampered across the floor, Daniel withdrew the book he had left there in the ancient past. He stroked the smooth leather cover, remembering the day he and Otter had come here seeking Etienne LaCroix to give him news of his daughter down at the mission school. They had found him dead and buried him on the hillside outside the stockade next to his Dakota wife, Good Song Woman. And then they had returned south to the mission school where Daniel told the young woman with the huge blue eyes that her father was dead. It was the first time he had held her in his arms. Even now he could remember how right it had felt.

He opened the book and turned the pages, finally concentrating on one illustration, a sketch of Blue Eyes as a girl. Her father had drawn a tangle of dark brown hair falling across one shoulder. His sketch captured the slight dimple in her chin, the featherlight eyebrows arching over those unforgettable eyes. Her expression in the drawing was defiant. Daniel had seen that look more than once. He knew just how she looked when she was afraid too.

A cold draft blew through the room, and he reached up and rubbed his left shoulder. It always seemed to ache worse when the weather changed. He looked down at the scar running from his elbow to his wrist, remembering when, half-crazed with pain from a gunshot wound to his shoulder and the ensuing fever, he had awakened in a missionary’s barn. When a girl came in to milk a cow, he had grabbed her ankle in a desperate, wordless plea for help. That was when the missionary’s white dog slashed his arm open. He remembered little else of that day until he woke beneath a warm blanket beside the fireplace in the missionary’s cabin. Drifting in and out of consciousness, he had begun to call the girl Blue Eyes. He had continued to do so even when he realized she was Genevieve LaCroix, the daughter of the trader up north.

As he sat on the edge of the now dead trader’s cot staring down at Genevieve LaCroix’s face, Daniel closed, his eyes, relishing the emotion that welled up inside him. The longing was so intense it was almost physically painful, and yet it was the first thing that had sliced through the dullness that had overtaken him in the recent weeks. Perhaps, he thought, he could come alive again, after all.

Looking down at the drawing he reminded himself,
You are dead to her now.
Sacred Lodge had told him his name was on the list of the men to be hanged. Blue Eyes would probably have heard that. She would think him dead. It was probably for the best, he told himself. The children they had protected during the uprising would give her life new meaning. The missionary Simon Dane would want her. His wife was dead. His children loved Blue Eyes.

Daniel turned his thoughts away from the idea of a union between Reverend Dane and his Blue Eyes. He thought about the white baby they had rescued from a deserted cabin during the uprising. If no one claimed the child, her presence would provide a link between them that would transcend everything that kept them apart. Even if Blue Eyes thought him dead, she would look at the child and remember him. That would have to be enough.

She has friends and children who love her. She is safe somewhere far away from all this trouble. You have no home and no future beyond tomorrow. You are dead to her . . . and that is good.

Still, when he got up to return to his pallet by the fire, Daniel tucked the book that held her image into the wide blue sash wrapped around his waist.