Proud Wolf's Woman (23 page)

She had loved Neeheeowee, she loved him still, but was it enough to become, herself, Indian? Perhaps if he had offered her more than the life of a mistress, she might have considered it. But now? After having been brought up within the gentle ways of society, could she throw aside all she felt was right?

No, she didn’t think so. Which meant what to her?

She had no family left at Fort Leavenworth since her mother and father disappeared on a trip to St. Louis several years ago. And with only a few scatterings of friends within the fort, the idea of returning there was less than appealing. But what else could she do?

As she pondered over her situation, dawn settled in over the prairie, washing the land with the pinkish glow of morning and bringing with it the scent of a clean, fresh day.

Perhaps this day, she thought, her future would become clear.

She’d known it all along. She’d just been unable to admit it. There was only one path for her, and that was to return to her own people.

The problem was how to do it. She couldn’t find her way back to the fort on her own, she was quite un-prairie-wise. She’d get lost, or, even worse, she might starve.

But she couldn’t continue to travel with Neeheeowee; otherwise, she could have simply asked him to take her back. But she couldn’t do that; it wouldn’t work. And not because he might not take her back. No, she simply foresaw the result of it. If he were to bring her back there, their parting would be too painful for her, for him, for them both, and she knew she would never leave him.

There was nothing else for it. She had to get away now, while she still had the strength to do it.

That’s when the idea came to her. She knew that they followed closely to the Santa Fe Trail, but until last night, she’d had no indication of pioneers traveling that route. But this past night as she had lain awake, she’d listened to the faraway sounds of a country fiddle.

And she decided. She would travel down to those people on the trail below her and, once there, beg them for passage to Fort Leavenworth.

She might not see Neeheeowee again, but she knew this was for the best. It had to be.

Just as he had his vows to live up to, so too, did she.

She left at the first light of day, while Neeheeowee was away from the camp on his regular early morning hunt. She didn’t take many supplies with her, certain that she’d find camaraderie down there amongst the people of her own race.

And so it was that on this day, Julia left Neeheeowee’s guardianship. The travesty of her heart was mirrored in the few gray clouds overhead which grumbled out a protest, but Julia, seeing it, chose to ignore it.

Neeheeowee watched her go, knowing he would not stop her…at least not right now.

He saw her take some supplies from their pony, noticing that she packed only a meager amount of food. He shook his head.

He realized that she probably thought to go down to the white travelers along the road, but even still, she should have taken more. He could always hunt for food, whereas she would starve if her supplies ran out.

Despite her obvious intentions, he would not let her go, and he considered his choices. He could appear before her right now and put a stop to her leaving, perhaps treating her as though she were a captive, forcing her to continue with him. It was an action he looked to with favor since it meant that he would keep her with him, something that he intended to do no matter the consequences.

However, such an action would override her own power of choice, something he was reluctant to do. Besides, he had no great wish to subdue the spirit in her that he so greatly admired. Somehow it would make her less alive, and this he didn’t want.

There might be, however, another way to keep her with him, a more difficult way, but it could provide her with more opportunity to think and perhaps, if Neeheeowee were lucky, she might eventually change her mind without his having to say a thing. It was possible. The only problem was how to go about it.

He would keep her from reaching the white man’s camp, perhaps by putting obstacles in her path, maybe by making it easy for her to lose her way. It would mean he would have to follow her, to plant wrong tracks for her to follow as well as to ensure she came to no harm.

It would be more difficult for him, but it would have the advantage of not overruling her ability to make decisions, nor would it take away her independence. After all, he wanted to strengthen Julia’s belief in herself, not overwhelm it.

Neeheeowee narrowed his eyes as he watched Julia prepare to leave. Yes, this is what he would do. He would follow her. He would somehow prevent her from reaching the white man’s camp and he would keep her on the road to Bent’s Fort…somehow…

What does she do?

Neeheeowee had been following Julia from a discreet distance, intending to plant obstacles in her path to ensure she did not arrive at the white travelers’ camp. But so far, he’d had to do nothing.

He glanced up toward the overcast sky, then back to Julia, and frowned.

If she meant to meet up with the white travelers, she grossly miscalculated their direction from her. They lay to the south and east of her. She traveled to the north and west, the direction
he
wanted her to go. Was she traveling elsewhere than he had originally anticipated, or could she simply not tell direction?

He lifted his shoulders in pure bafflement. Never had he seen anything like this. All Indians possessed an innate sense of direction, even the women. Finding one’s way was something no Indian thought extraordinary.

Yet, he saw before him what appeared to be a woman who could not find a camp which lay no more than the distance of several hills and valleys away. He raised an eyebrow. She must be heading elsewhere. It was the only explanation he could fathom.

He scowled. Even if she traveled in the direction he had hoped to coax her into, and especially if she had some other destination in mind besides the white man’s camp, she went greatly undersupplied. He made a mental note to teach Julia the basics of survival techniques on the prairie at the first opportunity. Otherwise, he would never be able to trust her out of his sight.

Julia suddenly stumbled into a hole, most likely a rattlesnake hole.

Neeheeowee prepared to shoot out of his cover toward her, but when she picked herself up, no apparent harm coming to her, Neeheeowee held back.

Muttering a quick
“Eaaa”
to himself, and then a grunt of disbelief, he set off after her, gazing into the hole she’d fallen into as he passed by it.

That he had to act quickly to send an arrow into the snake that slithered out of the hole did not sit well with him, especially when that snake almost bit
him.
He shook his head, hoping against hope that this wasn’t an indicator of things to come.

Somehow he didn’t think so.

“None of this looks familiar,” Julia said to herself, gazing around her. Perhaps that should have disturbed her, but it didn’t. She dismissed the idea of familiar territory as ridiculous. Why should any of this look familiar? She was on the prairie, alone, after all.

It seemed to her, however, that she should have crossed the pioneer camp several hours ago. Mayhap it was simply a greater distance away than she had at first estimated. She would just have to keep going onward until she ran across them.

She felt optimistic.
It isn’t that hard to find my way on the prairie,
she decided.
I can always tell direction from the sun.

She looked upward, wishing the sun were out.

“Oh, well,” she said to herself. “I’ll find the pioneer camp eventually. I’m certain of it…I think.”

Julia congratulated herself on escaping Neeheeowee without his being aware of it. By now he would have returned to their camp to find her gone. If he were to follow her, she could only hope that when he did eventually catch up to her she would be safely ensconced within the confines of the white camp.

And though she wasn’t elated over her escape from Neeheeowee, life still had a pleasant feel to it, and she found herself humming a tune as she trod over the grounds of the prairie, certain she would find the pioneer camp any moment now.

Neeheeowee and the pony lagged behind Julia far enough so that he knew she couldn’t spot him—if she even looked for him. He rolled his eyes at the naïveté she demonstrated on the prairie, and he admonished himself for not teaching her better.

She strolled over the ground with no concern for where she stepped, as though there were no danger of awakening a rattlesnake or a copperhead or even a bull snake. He shook his head.

How could he ensure her safety when she didn’t know the dangers? He wondered if she would have the sense to check the ground each night before she made camp? Did she know how to find fuel for a fire out here on the barren prairie? Did she know when to start a fire and when not to? Did she even know how to build a fire in the first place?

In the distance, far away from him, a pack of wolves followed her, they, too, aware of her naïveté, waiting for her to make a mistake.

He lifted his shoulders and shook his head. He would have to scare off the wolves. He couldn’t allow them to come too close to her.

He sighed, deciding that if Julia ever returned to him of her own free will, he would teach her the basics of survival on the prairie. But he couldn’t think of that now, and, with one last glance at Julia, Neeheeowee picked up his bow and lance, slung his quiver of arrows over his back, jumped onto the pony, and set off in the direction of the wolves.

Julia heard the growls and whelps of some animals in the distance, wondering what could be causing such mournful sounds. She thought about investigating the disturbance, but seeing that it lay the opposite way from where she was headed, she decided against it.

“I hope it’s not too important,” she said as though to someone else. She sat down upon a rock, thinking to bask under a few rays of light, the sun having decided to poke its head through the clouds for a moment. She smiled to herself, at the wonderfulness of being able to survive alone on the prairie. Who said a woman couldn’t do it by herself?

She stood up all of a sudden and stretched, ready to continue her journey, unaware that a snake coiled at her feet.

Just then thunder roared in the distant sky and Julia lifted a hand to look off in the direction of it, missing completely the swish of an arrow as it hit its mark deep in the body of the rattlesnake, that reptile just poised to strike.

In truth, she wasn’t even aware of the snake or of any danger at all and so as she moved away from the rock, and, feeling her spirits high, she hummed softly to herself.

Neeheeowee watched Julia from the cover of several bushes and rocks. He looked down at himself, at the numerous scratches and wolf bites over his body, and grimaced, while Julia, unaware of his plight, happily sang a song.

He had sneaked into her camp, confiscating some of the ointment Julia carried in her parfleche bag, and he was even now thinking of applying the mixture to his cuts when, ever watchful, he noticed a bear moving in Julia’s direction. He looked back at Julia and almost shouted his frustration. She sat in front of a black bear den and didn’t even know it.

He let out a soft cry of exasperation before he looked back to see that a bear approached them.

And then he didn’t think. Neeheeowee sprang from his cover as though shot out of it, sprinting toward Julia in his fastest run, but he needn’t have bothered.

Julia had finished her meal long ago, was already strolling away as though unaware of anything at all, while Neeheeowee, having fled in the direction toward her, stood dead center where she had been. He heard a growl and snapped around to confront the bear.

And though Julia heard the growls and yelps in the distance, she didn’t connect them with anything to do with her, and, unaware of any danger, she continued her hike over the prairie.

Julia tripped over something in her path. She looked down. Why, this was just what she’d been looking for, just what she needed, wood for a fire. It had been growing dark and she had begun to wonder how she’d ever be able to make a fire when she could find no buffalo dung and all she could see for miles was flat, treeless prairie.

How wonderful. It was almost as though someone had set the wood right here for her.

She smiled at her fanciful ideas, although she did look around her to see if someone watched her. It seemed a little too good to be true.

But she saw nothing, and so, shrugging, she set about making a fire, her last thought before she drifted off to sleep being how much she missed Neeheeowee. She wondered where he was, but most of all she wondered, why didn’t he follow her?

In a camp not far away, Neeheeowee applied ointment to his many scrapes, gashes and wounds while he cut himself out a new breechcloth from some buckskin in his bags. He tried to lie down, but found his body wouldn’t obey his command, still sore from the near miss with the bear.

He’d just barely escaped with his life, having abandoned his breechcloth to the bear’s claws, the animal having gotten that close to him.

He’d finally escaped, running downhill as fast as possible, this being the only way to outrun a bear, since the animal needed to be more careful in its footing.

Neeheeowee had picked up Julia’s trail later, just in time to drop the wood conveniently in her path.

He grimaced, knowing it would go better for him if he went to her now and just took her captive, giving her no choice but to come with him. But he wouldn’t do it. He had decided on his course of action, he would see it through, even if it meant giving up his life in the process.

He smiled at his thoughts and shook his head. If things continued on as they had today, forfeiting his life might not be that unreal an outcome.

Chapter Twelve

Neeheeowee shook a bush as though there were an animal in it, the noise discouraging Julia from turning south when he wanted her to go west. It hadn’t been difficult to keep Julia on the path that he wanted, since he had cleared a course for her, making the trail look like a buffalo trail.