Fireblossom (37 page)

For an instant Sun Smile's beautiful gray eyes betrayed intelligence and sensitivity and wonder; then they went blank again. Maddie didn't know what to do. Nothing in her past had prepared her for such a situation. She was wishing she could mumble something polite and run away when Strong suddenly reached out, took her hand, and placed it in Sun Smile's grimy fingers.

"Sisters," Strong said, with a nod of finality, and then she spoke to Sun Smile in their language.

"What are you telling her now?" Maddie inquired, alarmed. "I really wish that you would let me know what you are going to say so that I can decide if you really ought to say it. I mean, you know..." Hot color crept up her face.

"You may wish that you could change what is real, but you cannot, Fireblossom. I have only spoken the truth to your sister. I think that she knows of your father. Yellow Bird was the kind of woman who told the truth, and we always knew that Sun Smile was a little different. Whiter." Strong paused, letting her words sink in, then added, "So, I am telling her the name of the father you both share."

Maddie heard her father's name leap out of the singsong Lakota words Strong spoke, and she heard her own voice echoing, "Stephen Avery. Our father."

Again there was that brief, keen look from Sun Smile, like a shaft of sunlight breaking through storm clouds, and it heightened Maddie's skittish excitement. Part of her didn't want to feel this way, or to care at all. This smelly, ragged girl was nothing like her fantasy sister. But the past few weeks had changed her. No longer could she deny her true nature, suppress her impulses and emotions for the sake of propriety.

She took out the piece of velvet, unfolded it, and withdrew a golden locket. "This was my mother's," she explained in a trembling voice. Sun Smile had looked away again, trying no doubt to return to her own world, but Maddie was resolute. Fingers shaking, she opened the locket. "Sun Smile, please look. This is Stephen Avery. This is our father."

Sun Smile inched away, staring at the bark of the cottonwood tree instead of the daguerreotype. It had been made years ago, probably about the time Sun Smile had been born, and it showed a pale, solemn, handsome young man with curling dark hair, a stiff white collar, and luminous gray eyes.

"Tell her to look!" Maddie cried to Strong. "Tell her that this is our father!"

Strong obeyed, murmuring to the young widow, but Sun Smile hunched over farther, as if to protect herself. Maddie was outraged. "You ought to be proud to have this man as your father!" she declared, leaning closer, pushing the open locket in front of Sun Smile's face.

For just an instant the woman's haunted eyes touched their near reflection in the miniature, then she struck at it with the back of her dirty hand. "No!" It was impossible to tell whether she meant to speak the English word or was merely emitting a grunt of protest.

Maddie jumped to her feet, her eyes stinging with tears. "I wish I hadn't promised Father," she said to Strong, "but I did, and now I have to honor that promise. Tell Sun Smile that she will be coming with me when I leave for Deadwood. I will be taking her to meet her father whether she likes it or not, and she doesn't have any choice about it! Kills Hungry Bear
wants
her to go!" Clutching the locket to her heart, Madeleine started to march away, then tossed back a parting shot: "I think Kills Hungry Bear is glad for an excuse to be rid of his brother's wife, and I don't blame him!"

Strong sighed, watching as Maddie strode away. Meanwhile, Sun Smile stared into the distance, glassy-eyed and moaning softly to herself, as if unaware of anyone or anything. At last Strong left her, heading back to the village.

When Sun Smile saw that she was alone, she reached down and plucked something from the powdery dirt under one of the dog's tails. It was the scrap of velvet that had protected the locket.

Sun Smile gazed at the precious cloth for a long while. Finally she leaned back against the tree trunk, rubbing the velvet against her cheek while tears slowly gathered in her beautiful gray eyes.

* * *

"Good-byes are easier among the Lakota people," Fox explained to Maddie as he finished packing the wagon, "because you don't have to say them. Everyone understands that it's time for us to go and it would be considered rude to beg us to stay longer."

Maddie was nervous as she peeked out the back of the wagon. Without the crates of guns and supplies, there was much more room. She had created a cozy place for Sun Smile and decided that she would sit in front with Fox all the way back to Deadwood. "I feel all mixed up now. I've been happy, but I, too, know that it's time to return to our real home. I wish it weren't so impossible to blend the two worlds. I wish I didn't have to go back to wearing corsets and petticoats—back to saying and doing things I don't mean because they're expected of me."

Fox lifted her down and ran a hand up and down her slim back comfortingly. "I know; it's hard, once you've tasted this simpler way of life, to go back. But, we have to, Miz Fireblossom. We're
white!"

She laughed in spite of herself, then pressed her face against his shirtfront. "Oh, Fox, what about Sun Smile?"

"What about her?" He was careful to keep his tone even and reasonable. "We're taking her back to meet your father, just as he asked. We succeeded in our quest; not only did we find Sun Smile, it's working out that she can return to Deadwood with us. In fact, I'd venture to say that we're helping her in the bargain. Sun Smile doesn't really belong with Crazy Horse's band at the moment. She needs to be sheltered until she recovers from her grief."

"Do you believe that's possible?" Maddie was ashamed of the unkind note that crept into her voice. "I have my doubts."

"Give her time," Fox advised. "Just be patient."

There wasn't time for further discussion. Watson was prancing around, delighted to be embarking on another journey, and Maddie suggested that Fox exercise the roan while she guided the mule-drawn wagon.

At last, when everything was on board except Sun Smile, she appeared from the tipi she shared with other members of her dead husband's family, holding a buckskin bag and looking lost and frightened. Strong took her arm and led her over to the wagon. Maddie hung back as her friend explained to Sun Smile that she would be safe and well cared for. Then, Fox and Kills Hungry Bear showed her the little nest that would be hers during the journey to Deadwood. Sun Smile sat down on the quilts, dirty and smelly and yet graceful in her movements. She fixed her eyes on her lap and remained thus, frozen, as various friends and relatives reached into the back of the wagon to wish her well.

Runs Away declined to speak to the departing trio, but she watched with narrowed eyes. Strong let Maddie embrace her and thank her for her friendship, but they did not say goodbye.

"Do not fight the guidance of the Great Spirit," Strong told her, looking into Maddie's green eyes. "You have many blessings. Be grateful for them, and be careful. Others will be envious of your good fortune."

Maddie wasn't certain what those cryptic words meant, but she stored them away in her memory. So many feelings churned inside her as she looked back at the picturesque village and thought of all she had learned and what this place and these people had come to mean to her. One thought, sharp as a dagger, kept recurring:
This life is nearly past for all Indians. Even now, these people are clinging to the end of the dream....

It hurt too much to realize that there could be no victory for Crazy Horse's followers. Soon, they would have to surrender to life on the agency.

Nearby, Kills Hungry Bear was admitting this same fact to Fox. "I don't know if I can do it, when the time comes," he said in a low voice. "Can I live behind a fence and pretend that cattle are buffalo? It sounds very dull."

Fox looked over to see that the wagon was ready and Maddie was perched on the high seat, holding the reins. He could offer no words of consolation to Kills Hungry Bear or any of the other people here; they all knew it. Instead he swung onto Watson's back, touched the fox's tooth at the base of his neck, and smiled.

"H'g un, kola.
Keep up courage, my friend. I will never forget, and if you have need of me, call and I will come."

They started on their way then, slowly moving south from Bear Butte, Crazy Horse's birthplace, toward the Thieves' Road that George Armstrong Custer had made into the Black Hills.

Watson was overjoyed to be loose again and he galloped merrily ahead of the wagon with Fox giving him free rein. The sky was robin's-egg blue and dotted with whipped-cream clouds while the prairie spread out around the tiny travelers, a sea of golden green grass. Maddie watched Fox and Watson run in the sunshine, but she felt none of their pleasure. Her mules seemed to crawl toward the distant Hills and the silence was oppressive.

From time to time she glanced back into the wagon, where her half-sister sat facing the other way. She was glad that Sun Smile couldn't see her because she wouldn't have known what to say or do.

It was bittersweet to wish that life could imitate dreams. Maddie longed for more from Fox, and she had imagined that Sun Smile would be very different from the way she was.

But, Maddie decided, perhaps she didn't have to relinquish her dreams. Who could say what the future held?

PART 4

He fumbles at your spirit,

As players at the keys

Before they drop full music on;

He stuns you by degrees...

~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Chapter 22

August 16, 1876

The front door banged, then banged again as the wind caught it and slapped it backward against the house. Stephen Avery, still as pale as his pillows, winced slightly.

"I have asked your son repeatedly to take one additional moment to
close
the door securely on his way in and out of the house," said Annie Sunday Matthews from her chair beside Stephen's bed. Removing her spectacles with one hand, she put aside Nathaniel Hawthorne's
The House of the Seven Gables,
which she had been reading aloud.

"My dear Mrs. Matth—"

"Annie."

Stephen sighed. "Annie, you know how pleased we all are that you've come to Deadwood, and I can never thank you enough for all you've done to entertain me during my convalescence, but I do hope that you'll remember that this is the West." He had the sense, watching her back stiffen, that his chances of swaying her were equal to stopping a railroad locomotive with his bare hands. "What I am trying to say is that Benjamin is just a boy. He doesn't mean any harm. His mind is off on a hundred pursuits of childhood."

"Believe me, Stephen,
I
fully
understand the ways of male children. However, understanding Benjamin's behavior does not mean that we must also condone it. A few simple rules are good for him."

Watching as Annie rose to her full, statuesque height, Stephen was struck again by her unadorned good looks and the forceful purity of her character. The woman was at once mesmerizing and frustrating. Physically she was quite a handsome representative of her sex, with glossy chestnut-and-silver hair drawn back in a plain chignon, clear hazel eyes, and a taut body complemented by the simple, high-necked dresses she wore. However, she was definitely a force to be reckoned with. She had appeared a fortnight ago looking for her son, accepted their welcome, and then set about improving the Avery household. Now, Stephen feared, she was about to stride into the parlor and collar his son, who would probably leave the door ajar twice as often in retaliation.

"Benjamin?" Annie called in a calm schoolteacher's voice.

The bedroom door burst open and the boy entered with a shout, nearly crashing into Annie Sunday.

"Hey! There you are! Where's Gramma Susan, for Pete's sake? An' Titus?" His sandy hair stood up in sweaty cowlicks and his freckles were bright with excitement. When Fox's mother held his shoulders in an effort to quiet him, Benjamin wriggled free, yelling, "Leggo of me, lady!"