She wiped her hands, raw from the thick spiny foliage, on her muslin apron and hurried back to the dirt trail. Tonight her family would have blackberries and cream for dessert. If old Sukie felt like giving milk. Ella winced at the thought of milking the cranky old cow with her sore fingers. But milk her she would. It was her chore. Her duty to her family.
The pounding of the drums faded as she neared her family’s small cabin. She longed for the safety and security of their humble dwelling back in Minnesota, but Papa thought it important that he be here, in the Black Hills, to minister to the gold prospectors who risked going to hell because of their greed, their gluttony, and their lust. If he could convert some of the heathen red men while he was here, all the better.
Ella didn’t give a hoot about those avaricious men. Let them have their gold, their liquor, their soiled doves. As for the red men? She wouldn’t bother them. They should be allowed to live their own lives, have their own beliefs if they wanted. None of it concerned her.
What did she care if a bunch of greedy gluttons wanted to scour for riches in the Black Hills? If they were hell bound, so be it. Let God punish them. Clearly they were beyond redemption anyway. Several in town had offered Ella fistfuls of gold for an hour with her. Alone. She hadn’t told Mama or Papa. She couldn’t. The fear of what might happen to her kind father should he attempt to avenge her honor sliced into her stomach like a butchering blade.
She wanted to go back to her friends. Back to Andrew, the boy she had known since toddlerhood and who she had planned to marry.
“I’m home, Mama,” Ella said, opening the door to her family’s cabin.
Her mother stood over the wood stove, stirring a cast iron pot of stew.
Ella inhaled the meaty fragrance. “Smells good. I got enough berries for a nice dessert.”
“That’s fine, dear. Have you milked Sukie yet?”
Ella rolled her eyes. “No. Not yet.”
“You’d best get to it. The longer you make her wait, the nastier she’ll get.”
“Yes, I know.” Ella absently rubbed her shin where the cow had kicked her two days before. “I’ll do it now.” She grabbed a tin milking pail from the shelf above the pump and sauntered to the barn.
Picking berries. Milking Sukie. Listening to her father preach. Fending off indecent proposals from the gold diggers. Was that all life had to offer an eighteen-year-old woman in the Black Hills?
Maybe not all eighteen-year-old women. But for Ella Morgan, that’s all there was. She sighed. She’d never be able to leave her home. Her parents needed her. They hadn’t been the same since her older brother, David, had been kidnapped on the Kansas prairie fifteen years ago. Even her dream of marrying Andrew had been only that—a dream.
Her parents’ dependence on her was her joy. And her sorrow. Her cross to bear.
She opened the barn door, dreading the sight of that fat old cow. She edged inside. The afternoon sun cast its luminous rays through the windows on the west side of the barn. Hay rustled in Sukie’s stall.
“It’s just me, Sukie. I’ve come to let you kick me and snort at me.” She laughed to herself.
She walked toward Sukie but stopped when a low groan rumbled into her ears. “Sukie? Are you ill?”
She turned into the stall and gasped, dropping her pail with a clunk. A man sat on the ground, his back propped against the barn wall. Not just any man. An Indian clad in what appeared to be tan buckskin pants covered with hay. And moccasins. His chest was bare. Bronze and sculpted and bare. Ella’s breath caught, and she looked away. She shouldn’t stare at a man like that.
Her heart pounded. In fear? She wasn’t certain.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He groaned again, and she returned her gaze to him. Blood seeped through the hay covering his left leg. “Oh! You’re hurt. My goodness.” What she thought might be fear vanished. Her heart churned with sympathy. She hated to see any living being suffer. She went to him and knelt down. “Can you understand me?”
“Yes.” He panted, trembling. “I speak the white man’s tongue.”
“Good, good. What happened? How did you come to be here?”
“A bear. Attacked me. My horse… I…” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Don’t try to talk.” Ella fidgeted with her skirts. What should she do now? “I’ll get my father. He’ll know what to do.”
“No!” The man jerked forward and grimaced. “No white men. Please.”
“But my father’s a preacher. He won’t harm you. I promise.”
He reached for her and grabbed her forearm. His black eyes melded to hers. “No. Please. Promise.”
Was it his tone that convinced her? The pleading in his big black eyes? The strange yet pleasant sensation of his hand on her arm? “I won’t. I won’t. Calm down. Let me take a look at your leg.”