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Yet if she was truly with child, would she have risked losing her own baby to save the red-skinned son of another?
He was drawn from his thoughts when another warrior spoke his name.
Thunder Horse hurried into a discussion about the upcoming hunt. It was of great concern to his people. Their meat supply was low. He had allowed it to dwindle since he’d thought they would be traveling by now to the Dakotas, to join the others of their Fox band at the reservation.
But still his father lived. And while he did, life at the village must continue.
After hearing of this mock hunt today in Tombstone, Thunder Horse firmed his jaw and made a promise to himself that none of his people would ever lower themselves to such a degrading act.
But he doubted they would be put in that position, for the white chief in Washington had told him that their reservation was far from where the Cheyenne were imprisoned. He’d been told that the people who were already there were being treated fairly.
They even had normal hunts and normal times of merriment among themselves.
Thunder Horse hoped that the white chief in Washington was not speaking with a forked tongue!
Chapter Nine
“Come with me and I’ll show you my library,” Reginald said as Jessie pushed her chair back from the huge dining table. “You can content yourself with reading tonight while I go into town to attend a meeting.”
Hardly able to eat her supper because she was still haunted by all that she had seen today, Jessie was glad to leave the dining room and to have something else to fill her mind.
A book would be wonderful.
Always while she read, she forgot herself and everything else as she entered another world, another time; fantasies provided a wonderful escape from the real world.
Her real world was anything but wonderful. Jessie couldn’t get Lee-Lee off her mind, nor those Indians who had pretended to hunt while being laughed at by white men.
And then there was that child. If Jessie had not gotten to him in time, he would have been trampled to death.
She had been the only white person who seemed to care.
Jessie couldn’t help wondering about Chief Thunder Horse and his people.
Were they also forced into such mock hunts? Did they live on a reservation like the Cheyenne?
Would she ever know? Would she ever see Thunder Horse again?
All that Jessie did know was that she was in no position to help anyone. How could she help get the young Chinese woman free when she felt more and more like a prisoner herself?
“Here it is,” Reginald said as they stepped into a room where the walls were lined with shelves of expensively bound books. “Jessie, do you remember how much I loved to read when we were children?”
“Yes, I remember the times I wanted to go horseback riding and all you wanted to do was keep your nose stuck in a book,” Jessie said, walking into the library with her cousin.
She was very aware of the wealth necessary to purchase all the books that lined the shelves.
Small windows at the top of the room let in some moonlight, which cast its white sheen onto a huge oak desk that sat back from the center of the room. Two rich leather sofas sat on opposite walls, and two luxurious-looking leather chairs sat before a blazing fire in the huge stone fireplace on the far wall.
“Yes, many of the boys called me a bookworm,” Reginald grumbled. “Even the girls.” He shrugged. “But I don’t care what they said. Look at me. Look at how I live. I bet your bottom dollar I’m the wealthiest of all those we knew as children.”
“No doubt you are,” Jessie said, walking along one row of books and running her hands across the leather bindings.
“Choose which one you want and I’ll leave you to your evening of reading,” Reginald said, standing with his hands clasped behind him. “I can assure you, all are good reads.”
Jessie turned to him, her eyes wide. “You’ve read them all?” she gasped.
“Sometimes twice,” Reginald said, his eyes gleaming.
“My word,” Jessie said, turning again and staring at the many volumes of books.
