Across the Sweet Grass Hills Page 7

  “May I get you some water?”

  “No.”

  Liza bit her lip.

  “There,” he said at last. “I’m going to tell you something I should have told you a long time ago. I’m going to be honest and I don’t want you to say anything until I’m done.”

  “All right, Father,” she whispered.

  “You will be furious,” he said calmly, “but I can’t prevent that.”

  “No, I won’t,” she broke in.

  “Yes, you will,” he said, “so I won’t hold you to your promise.”

  “Go on.”

  “Have you never wondered why I longed to come west? Have you never wondered about me? Why I was so different than other men?” He turned away. “I have never shared much with you, have I? I’ve been a difficult father. But I thought I was doing the right thing at the time. Can you understand that?”

  Liza nodded, but her stomach rolled over just the same.

  “I tried to tell your brothers once—just before they ran away—but they wouldn’t listen. They left, disgusted and angry, and swore they could never forgive me.”

  “Oh, Father,” she said, remembering the day Evan and Lawrence left. It had been a bitter parting. Mother had cried for days and Father retreated further into himself and his work.

  He held up his hand. “You see, Elizabeth, my mother— your grandmother—was Kootenai. An Indian woman—”

  Liza pulled away, eyes widening, heart racing, even as he continued.

  “My father was a trapper. He came west early on. And he met a young woman. I don’t even know her name. They met somewhere in the Bitterroot Valley and lived there for several years.”

  He was panting now and Liza held her breath as she wrapped the thread of her ragged sleeve around and around her fingers. How could this be true?

  “She died after giving birth to me, their only child. My father was heartsick and couldn’t care for an infant. He sent me back to his family in Pennsylvania. I was raised there, but didn’t learn my true parentage for several years.”

  Liza couldn’t stop her tears. They were sweet, even as her throat burned bitter.

  He raised his hand again. “My father continued trapping, living with one tribe after another. Then he met a man who was a missionary to the Salish and a few Blackfeet. He became a Christian out here in this wilderness.”

  “You’re lying, or else you’re mad with fever!” Liza burst out, unable to sit still any longer.

  Her father ignored her. He spoke haltingly now, but rushed on. “I knew nothing of my father because the family was so ashamed of his Indian wife and my blood. It would never do to admit such a thing to the respectable people of Pennsylvania. Then, one day, my father came home to die.”

  He collapsed against the backrest, face drained, and breath coming in sporadic puffs. Several times he coughed. Finally, he closed his eyes. “After I got to know him, I decided to come west. To learn about my mother. To learn more about my father. To know these things before I die.”

  Liza was stunned. Unable to speak, she watched her father laboring to finish the story but her heart betrayed her. She wanted to scream and yell and fight. She wanted to kick and run away. How could she have been lied to all these years?

  How could such a bizarre thing even be true? Her father, the son of a Kootenai woman?

  “Liza,” he whispered, but she was already on her feet, her hands brushing his away. She had to get away from him before she said something regrettable.

  The cup of broth spilled across the rocky ground, tinkling in the ensuing silence.

  CHAPTER 8

  Liza paced back forth along the stream bank. Her mind whirled with a myriad of disconnected thoughts. How could such gibberish be true? Wouldn’t she have known somehow, suspected something over the years? Dark skin and dark hair were not unique to Indians, but Indians were different, a different breed.

  She pressed her memory, but there was nothing, no clue that her father had carried such a secret. Yet, how could it be true? She would have to deny it. She could never let anyone back in St. Louis know the truth.

  But she would know.

  Her father, part Indian. She said it over again; it seemed to stick to her lips. She rubbed her hands across the back of her neck. The idea was so preposterous. Kootenai? Who had ever heard of such a tribe? They might as well have come from the bowels of the earth.

  Well, it was simply impossible she decided, picking up a pebble. She watched it skip across the water and thought of every reason why she couldn’t believe her father’s story.

  Her father, Robert Andrew Ralston, was a minister, a well-respected, successful minister. Her mother, the only daughter of Herbert Poole, was heir to one of the most admired family fortunes in St. Louis, a family that had come from the deep South only a few years before the war. Grandfather Poole had been known for his conservative poli­tics and supported Missouri’s position on slavery, in spite of his son-in-law’s abolitionist views. No, Grandfather would have been horrified, would have forbidden a union between his genteel daughter and a half-breed!

  Most likely, the story had been conjured by Father’s fevered brain. No telling what one might dream after being unconscious for five days.

  She took a deep breath and glanced back at the camp­fire. Her father was resting now. His hands were folded and eyes closed, giving him a death-like appearance. She tried not to study the dark, straight hair falling across charcoal-colored brows and tawny cheeks.

  She shook herself. He had come so close to death, she just couldn’t be angry with him for creating a fantasy. He would come to his senses soon. He might not even remember the story he had concocted.

  Liza sat down on the flat rock, the same rock where Red Eagle had sat the last time she saw him. Passing her hand over the rough surface, she wondered where he’d gone. What did it matter?

  She marched back to camp, a cluster of blackbirds swooping past her as they flew to a stand of reeds along the bank. She watched them land, their bodies rocking on the long, broad blades of grass.

  She approached her father, then stepped back. He looked so pale, so weak. She swallowed the lump in her throat; she had promised not to be angry. She would leave things as they were, at least for now.

  Liza dropped to the ground beside the wagon. She had recalled something from the past she had not remembered ear­lier, something her father had triggered. About her brothers, Evan and Lawrence.

  What was it he’d said? That he had tried to tell them about his past but they refused to listen. Instead, they left home forever?

  Tears began to fall as that terrible day returned to her mind. Certainly, that part of her father’s tale was true. The boys had argued with him. Liza remembered clearly the shouting and cursing. Her brothers, red-faced, their voices shrill with anger, stomped out of Father’s library and though Father yelled after them, they didn’t return.

  They left that day and never came back. Both refused to tell Liza what happened and Mother locked herself in her room for two days.

  Liza’s pulse raced as she relived that last encounter over and over. If her brothers had known the truth, why hadn’t they warned her? Surely, she had had a right to know. Yet, what would she have done, or said, or thought? Her life as Grandfather Poole’s beloved granddaughter would have been destroyed forever. His deep hatred for anyone not white was well known and much appreciated by St. Louis society.

  She ran a hand through her hair and yanked the ribbon out viciously. Her hair tumbled down as the ribbon dropped to her lap. Dragging her knees to her chest, she wrapped both arms about her legs.

  “Papa, how could you have done this to me?” she whis­pered. “How can I ever go back to St. Louis and act as if noth­ing has changed?”

  Pressing her forehead to her knees, she took a slow, deep breath. Who else had known the whole truth? Liza bit her lip. Mother?

  Of course Mother knew. That’s why she never spoke of Liza’s brothers’ leaving, never explained what happen
ed that day.

  Mother had burned with the shame of it and the fear of exposure, understanding its power to destroy their lives.

  ****

  She slid a spoon of steaming broth into his mouth. Her father watched her carefully, but she refused to look into his dark, questioning eyes. Liza knew he saw the tears which stained her face. Even now, her eyes burned from crying.

  “Liza,” he whispered, “I don’t know how to apologize. It was wrong to keep the truth from you or your brothers. But your mother feared it would ruin your life, put you at a disad­vantage—”

  “It has,” interrupted Liza, wanting to hurt him as badly as he had hurt her. “I can never hope to return to St. Louis.”

  “Nonsense.” Pain glittered in his dark eyes.

  “You don’t understand, Father. I could never preserve the lie that has followed you all these years, no matter how ashamed I might feel about a person like your mother.”

  Her father’s eyes narrowed. “Ashamed of my mother? I raised you to be stronger-minded than that, to weigh worth by the quality of a person. I am not, nor have I ever been, ashamed of who I am. Because your mother begged me to, I kept it secret. She was terrified of her father. I only wanted to please her. Now, I know it was a mistake.”

  Liza held the spoon out as she spoke. “Tell me, did she know the truth before you married her, or did you trap her first?”

  His eyes flashed. “No, I did not trap her. In fact, I told her everything in the beginning, but she still wouldn’t let me tell her family. She knew her father would never condone our marriage and she couldn’t live with his rejection. Remember, that was before the war.”

  “Of course,” she returned, her voice rising abruptly. “Grandfather would not have allowed it. He’d have sent you packing—”

  “Is that what you think should have happened?” her father asked. “Do you believe a man’s skin denotes his worth? Did I raise you to believe that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Liza. “But it changes everything— everything!”

  The spoon in her hand shook as she dipped it into the broth. If only feelings were like layers of clothing one could shed or even throw away. If only she could discard the bitter­ness she now felt about her father and his secret past.

  He held his hand up. “No more.”

  Liza dropped the spoon into the cup. “Why didn’t you tell me after we left St. Louis? Or at least after Mother died? Did she insist you keep it a secret forever?”

  Straining to sit up, her father raised his eyes to hers. “I was afraid I would lose you. And your mother was so convinced that I shouldn’t that I couldn’t take a chance, even after we buried her. We had lost our sons and she’d given her life to our dream.”

  “Your wilderness killed her,” Liza sputtered, feeling the blood rush to her face. “You and your crazy notions killed her! Had we stayed in St. Louis, she would be alive today. Alive! Instead, cholera killed her and she died in a hovel on the banks of the Missouri.” Shaking uncontrollably, she stood and threw the remains of broth across the fire, causing it to spark and crackle. She tossed the cup down and stomped away, her hands drawn into fists at her sides.

  “Liza!” Her father’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. She kept walking.

  She had never felt so angry, and suddenly she realized how bitter she had become about coming west. Bitter that Mother had been consumed by disease and now lay under the ground in some remote, forgotten place.

  All this because of Father’s secret desire to return to some strange, unknown past. A past that included an Indian grandmother.

  She didn’t know if she could forgive her father for hiding the truth. He’d always said that telling the truth took courage, yet he’d taken the coward’s way.

  So how and why should she forgive him?

  CHAPTER 9

  “Git up! It’s daylight in the swamp!”

  Red Eagle rolled his eyes open and studied the face peering down at him.

  “I said, git up! You sleep more ’n the devil hisself,” added the big man as he prodded Red Eagle’s wound with his foot.

  Crying out from the pain, Red Eagle grabbed the man’s moc­casin, nearly toppling him over.

  “Don’t make me mad, Injun,” growled the mountain man. “I ain’t et yet, and I just might take a bite outa you. Now git up and make us a fire. An if you try anything, I’ll blow your head clean off.”

  Red Eagle stood slowly. As he did, his hand slid automat­ically to his knife. The big man grinned as he noted the surprise on Red Eagle’s face.

  “It’s a dandy,” he tittered, his pearl eyes glinting with amusement. “I ain’t seen one like it in quite a spell. You know, a body ought to take better care of hisself than to let something as purty as that get lost. You slept so long an’ hard, guess you didn’t notice you dropped it. Right over there.”

  Red Eagle burned with anger, realizing the man had had his hands all over him. What else had he taken?

  “You lookin’ for your poke?” quipped the trapper, pulling up the familiar medicine bag. “Is that how you dressed your wound? My woman’ll be mighty pleased when I give her this lit­tle thing.” He patted the bag as it hung from his belt, nearly hid­den by his enormous belly. “Now, enough small talk. I ain’t got no plans for you that cain’t be altered, if you know what I mean. Now, fetch us some wood and git us a nice big fire. Then we’ll eat. Then I’ll decide what I’m gonna do with you.”

  Red Eagle clenched his fists as he considered his choic­es. This man was no fool and perhaps meant him no real harm, but he would tread carefully until he could catch him off guard. Moving cautiously, he collected an armful of wood and headed to the fire pit. Noting the coals, Red Eagle stirred them before adding more fuel.

  “Now, that’s more like it,” hummed the burly man, hands on his belly, head cocked to one side. “I ain’t had me no com­pany for such a spell, I rather like havin’ you around. We’ll see if we cain’t improve the situation here. You like pork, Injun? I reckon you’ve eaten most everything at one time or another. You’re certainly no full blood. I see a white man in there some­wheres. Who was your pap, anyway?”

  Red Eagle turned toward the man, but his pale eyes were as flat and unreadable as two stones. Was he friend or enemy? “Cain McCullough.”

  “You tellin’ the truth?” came the reply. “I knowed him. A good man. Didn’t know he died till just last spring. A cryin’ shame. Heard he had hisself an accident. Ain’t much older than me, I don’t think,” he mumbled. “So your mammy was that little thing, Pikuni she was. I seen her ridin’ with your pap up in the mountains. She was as good with horses as she was with medicines. No wonder you carry them medicinals with you.” He scratched his belly then, his eyes still following every move Red Eagle made.

  The fire crackled, sending small sparks up into the pale morning sky. Blue-gray, the pre-dawn dome of space grew lighter. It wouldn’t be long before the sun would rise and cast its golden light.

  Red Eagle waited, his eyes on the flames, but every sense alert to the man standing less than five feet away.

  “I guess I should introduce myself,” he chuckled, wiping one hand over the length of his yellow beard. He squinted as he cleared his throat. “I’m Bull. Bull Lassly, but mostly Bull. That she-wolf I lives with ain’t never been able to say Bill, which was my before name,” he added. “I’m a bull when it comes to the squaws, though, eh, eh. They parley up to me ’cause they know I can give ’em what they like.” He laughed, revealing several empty places where teeth had been.

  Red Eagle said nothing, letting the man enjoy his own joke. But he watched him carefully, eagerly.

  He had to make his move soon or it would be too late. Perhaps it already was. Perhaps Liza was beyond needing his help.

  ****

  The morning was still, the air cold against Liza’s cheeks and hands. She had managed to catch a fish the evening before, which she wrapped in sackcloth.

  If only she knew how to figure a better w
ay of trapping fish.

  Her father had raised himself up to his elbows and watched her intently. Liza had refused to say more than good morning to him; otherwise, she might say something terrible. Even now she burned with anger, thinking of the lie he had per­petrated all her life.

  She built the fire up and stirred the last of the bear broth. It smelled horrible and she held her breath as it bubbled over the heat of her small fire. But it was the only thing she had for her father. If only they had some fresh meat or beans. Or fruit! Her mouth watered at the thought of real food.

  Just then, she heard her father moving. Turning, she gasped. He was on his knees.

  “Don’t!” she cried, running to him. She caught him as he rocked forward and together they fell to the ground.

  “Ugh,” he moaned, trying to right himself.

  She wriggled out of his way, pulling her skirt out from under him, then helped him lay down. “What were you doing?” she sobbed, tears filling her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, teeth locked together, dark eyes blazing. “I’m sorry.”

  “You haven’t the strength of a baby. You can’t move around. You have to get well, don’t you understand?” She pant­ed as she helped him lean up against the barrel backrest. “Oh, Papa, I don’t mean to yell at you. But I don’t know what to do. We need help. And I don’t know where to go for it—”

  She broke off then, her tears renewed. The fear she held at bay was overwhelming her. If she gave in to it, they would never survive.

  Her father nodded, brows knitted together, mouth drawn into a frown. “Yes, yes, I know. I was trying to get up to help you. Elizabeth, don’t you see I’m a worthless old fool? I can’t even stand. I can’t do anything but lay here, watching you. And I brought you to this, just like your mother. How could I have been so selfish, so arrogant? I had no business dragging you across this wilderness when I didn’t even have the guts to tell you the truth. Dear God, what have I done? Daughter, what have I done to you?”