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"You mean that?"
"Damn straight, I do."
She hugged him tight and smiled against his back. "I'm glad, because I wouldn't want to fight you, Aiden."
He smiled to himself. "I don't think you have a thing to worry about. I don't think you and I will ever fight against each other. Maybe for each other."
She squeezed him tighter for the words he spoke.
"How far to the camp?"
"A good five days ride." She told him.
"When you hide for the winter, you really hide. We've been up here for a week or so and hadn't seen hide nor hair of an Indian."
"Because of the war with Custer stirring up trouble, he raids our camps in the summer, he kills man, woman, and child, we have had to hide. He is a fierce warrior, few like him, thank the Creator. We will stay there a month, and then move again." She told him. "The Sioux will go further East. The Cheyenne will go West or South."
"That's why no one can find you. You don't stay in one place long."
Gloria moved up to join Aiden.
"Hiding is a way of fighting. Soldiers would die up here trying to find us." Lucy finished and glanced at the woman.
"How long will it take to get there?" she asked.
"Five days, I’m told." Aiden replied.
"Five days… "
"Yes ma'am. You really shouldn't have come up here, ma'am. But I respect you for doing so." Lucy told her.
"I came for my daughter, I won't go back without her." The woman said and joined her husband once more.
"She is a very determined woman, is she not?" Lucy asked.
"Looks that way." Aiden replied. "Does your tribe have adequate food and water for the winter?"
"We will manage," she replied. "As we always do. The Great Spirit smiles upon us."
"You could probably make a deal with the Major for more food and supplies if they'll comply with the conditions."
"I don't like that word, conditions. They don't want us raiding, but they allow Custer to kill our families. Does he think that we will not fight back? Aiden, they killed our women and children. Women that flashed the white flag at them were shot down, with the flag still in their hands. He is evil to us. To the Sioux and the Cheyenne."
"I'm sorry, I hadn't heard about it."
"And the reasons he has for doing so…. Power, fame, and a true hatred of our people. They will not bring him to justice, so we must fight him. They want us to stay here on the reservation but send settlers up here to crowd us out, to cut our trees. And the greed for gold and silver and copper grows each day. Does this Major seek peace or war?"
"Peace, they want the raids to stop. The want you to stay on the reservation."
"We stay and Custer comes. If we don’t move, he will come again and kill more. It is not right that he is allowed to kill our people and we cannot fight back Aiden. The real problem has always been that the whites are not keeping their word. Already many settlers have been through here, cutting the timber, sending it down the Cheyenne river to the settlements there. It is not their land to do with as they please. It is our land. Our people. They do not recognize it as our land. And we were promised this land by the big chief in Washington. So why can others come and take, and we cannot have what is rightfully ours?"
"How long ago was Custer there?"
"Two months ago, before the big snows came."
"He killed women and children?"
"Many? Yes, many. Slaughtered them like cattle."
