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  Puzzled by his statement, Martha shook her head in confusion. “Spend some time with me?” she echoed. “Why would he . . . ?” She didn’t finish the question because it suddenly dawned on her what her husband was proposing. She gasped. “Robert! What are you saying?” she cried, scarcely believing her ears.

  “I know it don’t sound right. It ain’t me that’s wantin’ it. Charley just wanted to know what you thought of it.” Bewildered at this point, Robert shook his head as if trying to clear it of confusing thoughts. “I don’t know . . . Things are just different out here.”

  Her initial shock having given way to cool anger, Martha fixed an accusing eye upon her husband. “You want me to play the whore for your little brother?” she demanded, her tone heavy with the contempt she now felt for both of the brothers. She waited for him to answer. When he did not, she looked away in disgust, no longer wishing to gaze upon him. “Well, things are not different out here as far as I’m concerned. You’ll have to kill me first. You can tell your little brother to keep his dirty thoughts to himself from now on.” She looked back at Robert, the flame of anger flashing in her eyes. “And while you’re at it, you can tell him to keep his eyes to himself, too. I’m tired of catching him gaping at me every time I turn around. You both disgust me.”

  It was not necessary for Charley to ask Robert about the success of his proposition to Martha. When the younger brother returned from “taking the night air,” the frigid atmosphere inside the cabin more than conveyed the message. Both Robert and Martha pointedly avoided his eye as he drew a stool up to the fireplace and sat down. “The nights are gettin’ a mite cooler already,” he offered, seeking to break the heavy air that filled the cabin. His comment was met with a stony silence. The three of them sat without speaking for several moments more until Martha, still without a word, left the two brothers before the fireplace and retired behind the blanketed partition.

  “We’ll go huntin’ in the morning. Bring us in some fresh meat,” Robert called after her. When she had disappeared behind the blanket that formed their bedroom, he glanced at Charley. Frowning, he shook his head—a silent signal that Charley had already surmised.

  Disappointed, but far from discouraged, Charley just nodded in reply. She might not be willing right now, he thought, but we’ll see when the right opportunity comes along. In his mind, he was already planning that opportunity. If he were to beg off tomorrow, and stay here while Robert went off hunting, she might not feel so high and mighty. Living right there in the tiny cabin with his brother and his wife, he knew whether or not Robert was taking care of Martha’s special needs—and he was well aware of the lack of intimacy between them. Martha was ripe for the taking. Charley liked his chances.

  “You know, brother,” Charley broke the silence, laying the groundwork for his plan. “I’m feeling kinda poorly. I don’t know what it is, but my insides are aching. I think I better turn in.” For added effect, he uttered a slight groan as he went over to his straw pallet in the corner of the cabin. “I hope I’ll feel better in the mornin’.”

  Robert did not respond. Instead, he simply stared at his brother for a long moment before returning his gaze to the glowing coals in the stone fireplace, hating himself for what he had proposed. Bad business, he thought, this whole crazy thing with Charley. He wished that he had possessed the courage to undertake this venture into the Black Hills without Charley. The work was too hard for one man alone. He needed Charley’s help. That was a fact, but hidden deep inside his soul he knew he needed Charley more to help allay his fear of this untamed territory. Now Martha was all het up about his unnatural proposal, and she would no doubt be mad at him for several days. He had known ahead of time how Martha would respond to such an idea. He shouldn’t have asked, but Charley was so damned persistent. Well, what’s done is done. Maybe she’ll get over it. “Reckon I’ll go to bed myself,” he muttered. “I’m tired.”

  It was a good hour before daylight when Robert roused himself from his blankets. He took one look at his sleeping wife, rolled up in her blankets with her back to him, before he went to the fireplace to stir up the dying coals. When he had coaxed the glowing embers into a fresh flame, he added some wood from the stack by the fireplace and stood watching it for a few moments to make sure it caught. Satisfied, he glanced over in the corner where his brother was still deep in slumber. “Charley,” he called softly. When there was no response, he walked over and nudged him with his toe. “Charley,” he repeated, this time a good bit louder.

  “What is it?” a muffled voice finally answered from under his blanket.

  “Get up. We’ve got to get movin’ if we’re gonna get us a deer this mornin’. I’m thinkin’ we’ll more’n likely run up on one on the other side of the ridge where they’ve been eatin’ in those berry bushes.” When Charley failed to move, Robert gave him a little harder nudge with his toe. “Come on, Charley. It’ll be daylight before long. I wanna be back here before noon.” He lowered his voice again. “We’ll let Martha sleep a while longer.” Recalling his wife’s anger from the night before, he decided it best not to disturb her. Maybe when they returned to the cabin with a fresh carcass of venison, she would forget about the unholy proposition that had sent her to her pallet early, showing him her back all night.

  With a show of great effort, Charley finally responded to his brother’s cajoling. Raising up on one elbow, he looked up at Robert with a painful expression. “I’m a’feared you’re gonna have to go without me. I’m feelin’ poorly this morning. I’d best stay here and try to get over it.”

  On the other side of the blanket that divided the interior of the tiny cabin, her eyes wide open, Martha lay still and listened. She could guess what brother Charley’s ailment was, and she was determined that there would be no cure for it in this cabin. She was spared the trouble of setting the young man straight because her husband also had a fair notion of the cause of his brother’s illness.

  “You might as well haul your lazy bones outta them blankets,” Robert commanded. “I ain’t going without you. Besides, you can be sick up on that ridge. You’re goin’ with me.”

  “Damn, Robert, you don’t need me to go hold your hand. I’m not foolin’. I’m sick. I need to stay here and look after things.”

  Robert was not to be denied. There was no doubt in his mind what Charley was up to. And while he probably would not have opposed it the night before, if Martha had been willing, he now resented his brother’s designs on his wife—and he was thoroughly ashamed of his lack of backbone for considering it. He was determined now, and in a low voice close to Charley’s ear, he told him in no uncertain terms, “I know what you’ve got on your mind, and I’m tellin’ you it ain’t gonna happen.” With that, he jerked the blanket back and growled, “Now get your pants on—we’re goin’ huntin’.” The woman on the other side of the blanket relaxed.

  Martha pretended to be asleep until she could no longer hear Robert and Charley saddling the horses in the corral. She continued to lay still long after the sound of the horses’ slow plodding hooves had faded into the early echoes of the new day. Certain she was alone, she then got up and dressed. After a brief look at the fire to make sure it needed no attention, she picked up the wooden bucket and walked down to the creek.

  The morning air was brisk as the first long golden fingers of sunlight touched the tips of the pines. There would not be many more days before she would have to fill the bucket at night for her breakfast water. The thought was not a pleasant one. She had hoped they would be gone from this isolated valley before the first signs of winter came calling. She could not bear the thought of another winter spent with her somber husband and his leering brother. She harbored a genuine fear that, if they didn’t get out of the valley before the winter snows closed them in, the long monotonous days and nights might lead to trouble between the two brothers—and she might be caught in the middle.

  A sudden wave of melancholia swept over her as she kneeled beside the water, watching her bucket
fill. Virginia seemed so long ago and so far away. Was it possible that no more than a year and a half had passed since they had set out from the lush hills of Virginia after bidding her tearful parents good-bye? How cheerful and attentive Robert had been during those first few weeks. How soon the hardships of the trail and the ruggedness of the lofty mountains had tempered him, revealing a side of him that Martha did not know. “Well, missy,” she said as she lifted the bucket from the water, “you’ve changed as well, and this won’t be the only mistake you make in your life.” She took a few steps up the bank before stopping to add, “But it might be the biggest one.”

  Making her way back up the hill, she stopped to enjoy the first warm rays of the sun upon her face, pausing a moment to listen to the flutelike voice of a meadowlark beyond the trees to her left. Moments later, it was answered by another on the far side of a low line of boulders on her right. She realized that it had been a long time since she had even noticed the singing of the birds. When Robert and Charley were first building the cabin—when she had first seen the savage beauty of this rugged mountain country—she would often pick the tiny blue-and-yellow wildflowers that grew beside the stream. She had marveled at the crystal clearness of the bubbling stream as it hurried down through the rocks to join the creek that bisected the narrow valley, teeming with all description of wildlife—from the tiny water ouzel that dived into the rushing stream, picking food from the rocky bottom, to the occasional glimpse of an elk crossing over to the meadow on the opposite side of the ridge, the little valley could seem a virtual paradise.

  Thinking of these things, Martha was sad that she had lost her appreciation for the wondrous canvas that mother nature had painted. The daily toil of trying to extract their fortune from the rocky soil had dulled her senses—and now this latest, boldest, problem with her brother-in-law. I mustn’t lose sight of the beautiful things in life, else I’ll soon be nothing more than a bitter old woman. Then, farther up the hill, she heard the clear notes of the meadowlark’s song again. It seemed to be following her progress as she carried the bucket of water toward the cabin. At first charmed by the throaty call, she smiled. Seconds later her smile suddenly froze. A slight movement in the pine boughs to her left caused her heart to pound in her chest, and she sensed that she was being watched.

  Don’t panic, she warned herself. It’s probably just a raccoon or a porcupine. It occurred to her then that Charley might have sneaked back to the cabin, and the thought angered her. She hurried her step, determined not to show any sign of fear. If it were Charley, she was confident she could deal with that impudent scoundrel. She would set him straight, no doubt about it. Moments later, she would have been glad to discover Charley skulking after her. What she saw almost caused her to scream.

  Glancing to her right, she was suddenly terrified to see several moving figures among the boulders, paralleling her path up the hill. Her heart, pounding away at her chest moments before, was now threatening to burst from her breast. A rustle of boughs caused her to jerk her head back to the left, and she heard her breath escape sharply, for there, no longer hidden in the thick pine forest, three Indian warriors filed through the trees, pacing her.

  Unable to control her panic any longer, she dropped her bucket and started running, desperate to reach the cabin and the rifle she knew was there. She had no thought that the Indians could possibly be friendly, thinking only to reach the safety of the tiny log cabin. Her sudden flight seemed to have no effect on the warriors pacing her. They calmly continued to flank her path as she ran for the cabin, unconcerned with her obvious panic, and paying no attention to the wooden water bucket now tumbling and bouncing wildly down the slope.

  The fact that the savages did not set upon her at once gave Martha a minuscule portion of hope, and she pushed herself to the limits of her will to escape, straining to make her legs move faster. At last, the open door of the cabin was no more than a few yards away, as her legs—pushed far beyond their capability to support her—turned to lead. With one last desperate surge of willpower, she reached the doorway, almost collapsing on the dirt floor. Catching herself on her hands and knees, she forced herself to get up again. Staggering to her feet, she came face-to-face with a terrifying apparition that stopped her cold, holding her suspended in a paralyzing fear.

  He stood, calmly watching the terrified woman, an expression approaching boredom on his fearsome face. He was taller than the Indians she had seen at Fort Laramie the summer before. Naked from the waist up, he wore no paint on his massive torso. The two rawhide bands on his biceps were the only ornaments, other than the two eagle feathers that hung from his long dark hair. Though not in war paint, his face suggested a promise of unbridled fury, with eyes dark and penetrating, set behind flintlike cheekbones.

  As she stood shivering in fear, he seemed to be looking her over, evaluating his find, his face still expressionless, only his eyes moving slightly. When he made no move toward her, she gradually began to recover from the initial shock that had staggered her, and thoughts of survival returned. Seeing Robert’s extra rifle standing propped against a corner of the fireplace, she made a sudden lunge toward it. He made no move to stop her, merely turning to watch, studying her motions. With some measure of confidence restored, now that the rifle was in her hands, Martha aimed the weapon at the intruder and found her voice. “Get out!” she screamed, doing her best to inject some authority in her quaking voice.

  Without changing the expression of curiosity he wore, he made no response to her shouted command. Looking directly into her eyes, he brought his hand up before him, and slowly opened his fingers to show her the cartridges he held. Panic-stricken once more, she started to bolt toward the door, only to discover other warriors blocking her escape. Trapped, she backed slowly into the corner by the fireplace, pointing the empty rifle at the frightful savage still patiently studying her every move. All the while, he had not moved from his original position in the middle of the cabin, but after a few moments, he at last made a small show of animation. Taking his eyes from her, he glanced around the interior of the cabin, taking some interest in the things he saw there: the table and stools, the clock on the mantel, the pots and skillet. Then he brought his gaze back to the trembling woman in the corner, holding it there until one of the warriors standing in the doorway spoke to him.

  “The tracks around this place show there were two men,” Wolf Paw said. “There were more horses, but now there is only one and three mules. Should we wait for the men to come back?”

  “No,” the tall warrior replied. “We’ll burn this coyotes’ nest and be on our way. We have been far away from the village for too long. It isn’t wise to stay here in the land of our enemies, the Sioux. We are few in number, and the smoke may be seen.” He glanced back at Martha, huddled wide-eyed in the corner. “The woman interests me. I will take her. You and the others take what you will.” He moved deliberately toward Martha, who did her best to show a willful defiance. Forcefully, but without haste, the warrior reached out and took the rifle by the barrel. Martha held onto it in a stubborn attempt to resist. The warrior did not try to wrest it from her grasp. Instead, he merely held it firmly in his hand while his eyes searched deeply into hers. Realizing the strength in those piercing black eyes, Martha released the rifle. With a faint nod of approval, the warrior turned and handed the rifle to Wolf Paw. Then he held out his hand to Martha.

  “Please let me go,” she pleaded, pressing her body against the log wall. “Just take what you want and leave.”

  If the fearsome warrior understood her words, he gave no indication, but he continued to motion for her to come forward. Fearing that her life was very soon to end, she nevertheless took a tentative step toward his outstretched hand. Something in his manner told her that to resist was useless. He took her wrist in his hand and led her toward the doorway. His touch was like fire. She could feel the powerful tendons in his fingers and the muscles in his arm. And while his hands obviously held the power to crush her, she was surpri
sed by the gentle touch upon her wrist.

  Bumped roughly by some of the warriors pushing impatiently past her as she was led outside, she fought to contain her panic. Behind her, she could already hear sounds of dishes crashing against the walls and furniture being tossed aside as her and her husband’s possessions were being picked over. All this was mixed in with the excited chatter of the warriors as they talked among themselves. Forgetting her fear for the moment, she angrily pulled back in an attempt to free her wrist when a half-naked savage held up the silver picture frame that held her only photograph of her parents. The powerful hand that imprisoned her arm clamped down so suddenly that she thought her bones would be crushed. She cried out in pain, and just as suddenly, the pressure was reduced as the silent warrior continued to lead her away from the cabin.

  Out beside the tiny corral, Martha watched in horror as some of the warriors drew their knives and slaughtered the mules. Almost overcome with the dread of what her fate was to be at the hands of these savages, she sank down at the feet of her captor, the hopelessness of her situation smothering her like a heavy cloak. The tall warrior, obviously the leader of this pack of raiders, stood watching the plundering, seemingly disinterested in participating himself. He barely glanced down at the terrified woman at his feet as she watched her home being destroyed.

  Then a short stocky warrior came up to them, leading her horse, the gentle dapple gray that Robert had purchased for her in Fort Laramie and that had carried her across the wide prairie to these mountains. She felt a sob catch deep down in her throat at the sight of her horse in the hands of these savages. She feared that the gray was to meet with the same fate as the mules, and finding it unbearable to watch them slaughter the mare, she turned her face away.

  The tall warrior reached down, took her by the chin, and turned her head back to face him. Looking into her eyes, he spoke words that she could not understand. When it was plain that she did not know what he asked, he patiently tried again. This time with sign and gestures, until she understood that he was asking if this was her horse. She slowly nodded. Satisfied, he then spoke briefly with the stocky warrior, who grunted in reply and led the horse away.