AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He seemed too educated to be an Indian, yet, he certainly dressed as one. He was powerfully built. His hair was long and sleek and black, it shone in the sun. His eyes were a warm brown. He was very Indian, and very handsome.
"Have you seen your people lately" she asked.
"No."
"Not even your father?" she asked.
"No, he died not long after his people joined the reservation. When a man is free to roam all his life and suddenly is penned up like a bird in a cage, his spirit begins to die."
"I'm sorry for you father." She looked at him again. "If you accept the white man's ways, why don't you dress like one."
He stared at her now. "My way of dress offends you?"
"No, I've seen others dressed like you in the villages I've been in. I just wondered why you keep your Indian clothes. Even though you speak like a white man, you have not conformed to all the white man's ways. Many of the scouts at the fort wear white men's clothes. But you wear your tribes' clothes."
"You have been to villages?"
"Yes."
"Indian villages?"
"Yes."
"Why would a white woman go to an Indian Village?" He twisted his head in question.
"My father was an Indian agent."
He tossed his head arrogantly. "An Indian agent. I see."
"You didn't answer my question."
"It would not take away the Indian in me to dress differently. But our clothes are more fitting for moving about freely. Out here in the wilderness, one must climb, run, jump even, these clothes are made for such things. In the winter I do tend to dress like the white man, especially around Jack. I do not accept all the white man's ways. Only part. I am still very much an Indian and choose to be. I just refuse to live on a reservation. I have scouted for the army. I have worked with a blacksmith. I have learned a lot of the white man's ways, and his tongue quite well. But in the wilderness, I am all Indian."
"You certainly are," she remarked as her eyes went over him again.
After thinking about what he said she added. "I've seen a couple of reservations, none of the people there looked happy." She said in a tone of sympathy.
He looked away and then back at her, as though he didn't believe her. "You traveled with your father?" He glanced at her as though she had a forked tongue.
"I went with him after my mother died. He didn't want to leave me alone, as I have no brothers and sisters." She explained simply.
"Your mother died?" He asked a certain amount of compassion in that question.
"Yes, of small pox."
"I am sorry. That has killed many of my people too." He told her.
"Yes, I know, we witnessed some of it."
"You are right, my people are not happy on these reservations. They like to roam and move about freely. The land is not fertile, nothing grows on it. It is worthless and that is why it is a reservation. The Great Sioux Reservation in the Black Hills was a good reservation and the treaty was a fair one. But Washington broke those treaties when the settlers wanted the land, wanted the gold and silver and to cut down the trees." There was a trace of bitterness in his voice, but she realized he had a right to be bitter about that, at least. Because she had witnessed the starving's, the giving up, she understood what he was saying better than most whites, she figured.
"How have you survived without getting killed?" she asked.
"I do not often spend the night in a white man's barn, if that's what you mean." He told her, eyeing her closely. "I am sorry I had to kill your man, but he was no good."
Exasperation lines her facial features. "He was not my man. I wish you would quit saying that." She quickly corrected. "He never was. He wanted to be, but he wasn't. And after he tried to... " She glanced at him again. "I'd have never married him."
"Oh, and why is that?" The Indian's brow raised a notch.
