On grassy shorelines, come to me.”
Swift Hawk triedto grab hold of her and envelop her within his arms, but she was too far away. He tried to speak—he formed the words in his mouth to do so. Before he could utter a word, her image had faded from view, and as quick as that, she was gone.
Gone, too, was the music.
And then, as though he had been dreaming, Swift Hawk opened his eyes and plummeted to the harsh truth of reality.
Swift Hawk wanted her back. He physically ached with the need to see her again, so much so that the inspiration of nature, spread all around him, could not make up for her loss.
But perhaps it was not hopeless. After all, he now knew what he had to do.
As the mellow scent of burning sage drifted up to meet him, he realized what he would do.
By muddied water—thatwould beE’ometaa’e, the Missouri River.By grassy shorelines—thathad to be the white man’s fort that had been so recently built there. He would go to that place at once, for there was an anxiety within Swift Hawk he could little explain. He felt pulled toward that white man’s fort, as though some force urged him there.
Moreover, that same force demanded quick action from him. He needed to get there swiftly now. The sense of urgency that swept through Swift Hawk could not be denied, even though it presented him with a bit of a problem.
Traditionally a vision seeker was expected to return to his village to visit a holy man who would interpret the vision. But Swift Hawk’s village—the Cheyenne encampment that had raised him—was far away. It caused him, if only momentarily, something of a dilemma. Should he do as he had always been taught and return north to his village? Or should he abate this sense of urgency and travel farther south now?
Being a man of action, it did not take Swift Hawk long to make his decision. He knew what he must do. After all, tradition must sometimes bend to the ways of the new. Plus, Swift Hawk felt no need to seek out a holy man to interpret his vision.
Heknew what it meant. That was enough.
Truth to tell, the vision had restored within him a feeling of purpose. For the first time in a long while, Swift Hawk felt hope.
It was a potent thing, this hope. Certainly it was more than he’d had eighteen years ago.
Chapter
Four
[Fort Leavenworth] is the extreme outpost on the Western Frontier, and built, like several others, in the heart of the Indian country. There is no finer tract of lands in North America, or perhaps, in the world, than that vast space of prairie country, which lies in the vicinity of this post, embracing it on all sides.
—GEORGE CATLIN,LETTERS AND NOTES ON THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITIONS OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
Fort Leavenworth
Lower Missouri River, Kansas Territory, Mid-April 1834
“Oh no! How could you have applied for this job? You know nothing about it.” Pressing her lips together, Angelia frowned at her brother.
“We need a refuge. We can’t stay here, even though this might be the hardest outpost to reach in the States. Eventually news of our escapade will reach here, as it did in all the other frontier towns, and then we’ll have a fight on our hands. Besides…” he held a book out to her, “…I’ve been reading this book on scouting, and I can tell you with certainty that I now know all there is to know about scouting. It’s all here in this book. Besides it’s only a little stretch of the truth to say that I scouted with the man who wrote this book.”
“Oh, please…” Angelia barely gave the book a cursory glance.
“Really. This fellow, John Bogart, see he was a mountain man before he became one of the greatest scouts for thegovernment. It’s all here. I’ve read it cover to cover. Why, there’s nothing to it. I’m a good shot; I can tell direction. What could go wrong?”
“There could be many things that could go wrong, and I?—”
“Ah, would you quit barkin’ at a knot?”
“But to actually tell them you have scouted with John Bogart?—”
“Shhhh.” He pulled Angelia into an alleyway behind a building, thus taking themselves out of the general traffic within the fort. “Do you want someone to hear you?”
Angelia stamped her foot. “You lied! Don’t you understand? What if this fellow comes here and calls you out? Have you thought of that? He’s not dead, is he?”
“Please, please, would you lower your voice?”
