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nel Russell said thickly. “I’ve got lots on my mind. I don’t need to be constantly worrying about my daughter.”
Flame went to the window and gazed out at the courtyard. She was using her usual escape from her father’s words by becoming lost in thoughts that were much more pleasant. She stood on tiptoe and stared down from the second-story window at White Fire as he rode from the fort.
“That man that was just here,” she murmured, not able to keep totally quiet about her curiosity. “I saw him one other time, Father. I saw him at a funeral when I was ten. His name is White Fire. What is he doing here?”
She paused, then turned and faced her father. “Is he married?” she asked, her voice soft and guarded.
Colonel Russell glared up at her. “The ’breed’s wife died a couple of years ago,” he said warily. “He only found out today that she is dead and that his six-year-old son is being raised by a family in Pig’s Eye.”
“A son? His wife is dead?” she said, her pulse racing.
She fought against arousing her father’s suspicions of her being too interested in a man she knew he never would approve of.
“And, Father,” she said, purposely changing the subject. “Where on earth is Pig’s Eye? I have never heard of such an ungodly name for a town.”
“Pig’s Eye is a short distance from the fort,” Colonel Russell said. “I doubt it will ever amount to much.”
Flame turned back to the window and gazed from it. She smiled slyly. She had heard all that she needed to know. White Fire was single. And the fact that he had a son made him even more intriguing, for she loved children. She had always hungered for a brother or a sister, but her mother had been too frail ever to have more children.
Her thoughts returned to her father. He was still someone who would try to rule her life. She vowed to herself not to allow it. Since her mother’s death in St. Louis, she had learned to enjoy her independence. She had come willingly to the Minnesota Territory with hopes of finding White Fire.
She had also looked forward to experiencing the challenge of living in the wilderness. She loved challenges.
She smiled as she thought of White Fire again.
Now he just might be the biggest challenge of all!
Chapter 7
Coulds’t thou withdraw thy hand one day
And answer to my claim,
That fate, and that to-day’s mistake—
Not those,—had been to blame?
—Adelaide Anne Procter
White Fire had visited his wife’s grave. The very sight of it, the thought of Mary having died at such a young age, leaving behind a son whom she had adored, had given White Fire even more determination to go to his son.
As he arrived at the two-story stone house, where the family of George and Maureen Greer lived, White Fire observed its grandness as it sat back from the dirt road. Inside that house was his beloved six-year-old-son, Michael.
White Fire felt threatened by the apparent wealth of the Greer family, for their home was the best of all those that had been built in the city of Pig’s Eye. It stood tall, stately, with open green shutters at each of its many windows on both stories. Chimneys made of round stones from the river stood two in the front at opposite ends, and two at the back. On this cool morning of early September, smoke spiraled slowly from all of the chimneys.
He gazed at the fenced-in yard, and at the abundance of flowers lining the lane that led to the front door, and those in the window boxes on the lower-floor windows.
He looked past the house and saw a grand stable at the back of the house. He stiffened when he saw a stable boy bring a horse and buggy from the stable. He watched, with guarded breath, as the lad took the horse and buggy to the front of the house.
Shortly after that, a short and squat man, perhaps twice White Fire’s age, came from the house in a black broadcloth business suit, a valise tucked beneath his right arm.
White Fire watched as the man, who he surmised was George Greer, took a wide turn in the drive and directed his horse and buggy down the lane, soon riding toward White Fire.
White Fire tapped his moccasined heels into the flanks of his horse and rode onward, making it look as though he was just another curiosity seeker who had stopped only long enough to admire the Greers’ fancy home.
White Fire stopped when George Greer left the lane and traveled onward in the opposite direction toward the small business district of Pig’s Eye.
White Fire wheeled his horse around and rode back to the lane and in a slow lope up it. He watched the door, his heart thumping at the thought of his son coming outside to play. It was such a beautiful day, the sun brilliant overhead, the breeze soft and lulling.
