When he only stared at her and said nothing, she was relieved, but worried about her brother’s feelings. If she married Strong Wolf, that meant she would leave Chuck to fend for himself!
Chuck said nothing else about it. He knew not to. He knew that once his sister had made her mind up about something, no one could change it. He saw now why his father had placed her in the convent. He had hoped to tame her wild heart.
“Maybe that’s what you need.” he suddenly blurted.
“What?” Hannah said, forking an eyebrow.
“A husband,” Chuck growled out. “Maybe a husband could handle you better than father, or I ever could.”
“Chuck, I thought you, of all people, understood me. How could you even want me to be as you call it—handled?”
“I’m sorry, sis,” Chuck said, heaving a sigh. “I used the wrong word.” He gestured toward the door with a flick of a hand. “Go on, now. But be careful.”
“I will have the rifle with me at all times,” Hannah said. She went to Chuck and kissed him. “And you know how skilled I am with firearms. Father taught me well enough.”
“Yes, and he has regretted ever since that he turned you into a tomboy,” Chuck said, turning to place his fingers on the organ keyboard again.
“I’m not a tomboy, Chuck,” Hannah said. “I’m a woman!”
But she knew that he didn’t hear her. He was playing the organ, the music purposely much louder.
Hannah watched her brother playing the organ for a moment longer, then turned around and stamped from the house.
She was glad to be out on the open range. She couldn’t forget her brother’s expression when she had told him that she was in love with Strong Wolf, and that she might even marry him. His look reminded her of all of the white people who looked to Indians as untamed savages, and that in the white world, it was forbidden for a white woman to marry a redskin!
“Well, I will show them all,” she whispered to herself. “There is no law on this earth that will keep me from loving Strong Wolf!”
She flicked her reins and sent her horse into a hard gallop in the direction of Strong Wolf’s village. But she kept an occasional look over her shoulder for the likes of Tiny Sharp. Her brother still had not fired him.
And as long as he was in the area, she couldn’t let her guard down. She trusted him no more than she trusted a snake!
Chapter 14
Would you but come,
While lies were yet moist with your breath;
While your arms clasped me round,
In that blissful embrace,
While your eyes melt in mine,
Could e’en death e’er efface.
—JOSEPHINE SLOCUM HUNT
Strong Wolf sat as motionless as a ghost beside his fireplace. The bowl of his pipe rested on a knee as he thought over a request that had just been made of him.
First he looked at Colonel Patrick Deshong, and then Claude Odum, the Indian agent for the area. They were there to have council with Strong Wolf.
Colonel Deshong had voiced first their reason for being there.
Claude Odum, a close friend and ally with Strong Wolf, had voiced his opinion on the matter.
Both men saw the importance of a road being built on land that lay just adjacent to Strong Wolf’s, on the far side away from where his land hugged up against Chuck’s.
Still thinking, Strong Wolf coiled the fingers of his right hand around the long, tender stem of the pipe and placed the tip to his mouth. The glow of the fire crept through the pipe’s smoke, making the room take on an eeriness, the silence a strained one as Claude and Patrick breathed shallowly in their anxious waiting.