Mountain Laurel (Montgomery/Taggert 15)

“Does he live with your family too?”

“Sometimes. He’s a blanket Indian.” At ’Ring’s puzzled look, she explained. “He’s what whites sometimes call a wild Indian. He doesn’t depend on the whites.”

’Ring nodded. That this boy who was his childhood hero should be called a “wild Indian” fit his image of what he hoped the man would become. “What tribe was he?”

“Crow.”

It took ’Ring a few seconds to react. “Crow?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, some pieces of a puzzle have fallen into place, that’s all.” He looked around at the trees and knew without a doubt that the Crow who’d helped him find Maddie was Hears Good. “He’s following us, you know that?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I know.”

“This explains a great deal, such as why you know so much about Indians and why you aren’t afraid of them.”

“I’m afraid when I need to be. I just don’t hold the belief that an Indian man is overwhelmed by lust whenever he sees a white woman.”

“And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“From Hears Good. You see, there is no finer-looking human on earth than a Crow brave in his prime. Tall, strong, handsome, thick, heavy black hair, skin the color of—”

“I get the picture.” It was exactly the picture he’d imagined of this man when he was wrestling his brothers to see who got to be the Crow brave, but he didn’t like to hear Maddie describing him. “What did Hears Good do?”

“My father and the others felt sorry for Hears Good because, to the white man’s eyes, there is no uglier creature than a Crow squaw. They hated to see a beautiful, magnificent man like Hears Good with Crow women, so, my father thought he’d give Hears Good a treat and take him to St. Louis.”

She paused. “My father had a brother who ran a trading post in St. Louis. It was through him that my parents met, but, anyway, Dad and Hears Good traveled to St. Louis. Hears Good was very impressed with the wonders of the city, but, as far as my father could tell, Hears Good never once looked at the white women in all their beautiful clothes. Although the women did look at him. Of course a woman can’t help but look at a Crow warrior when he’s in full regalia, and Hears Good is one of the finest specimens—”

“I understand.”

She smiled at him. “After they left St. Louis, my father asked Hears Good what he thought of the women, and Hears Good said they were a sad-looking group. He thought their tiny waists were awful, said they looked like ants, not women, and that a woman with a waist that small couldn’t work or bear children. He also thought their white skin and their sour-looking faces were ugly.”

She laughed. “Hears Good also told Dad what he thought of the way white men treated their women, what with taking them off into the plains with no other family members nearby for the women to have for company. He thought the men treated their women like children, dressing them in tight-laced garments and making them work so hard and—”

“I’ve seen the way the Indians make their women work. They use them as beasts of burden.”

“That’s because it’s accepted that Indian men are worthle

ss.”

“Explain that one to me.”

“The man has to keep his hands free in order to fight, and to die if necessary while protecting the valuable one, the woman. The woman carries everything but she also owns everything. Trust me, no one works as hard as the white people. The Indians think we’re fools.”

“Sometimes I agree with them. So, your Hears Good went back to his own people and his own women? I take it he didn’t think his own women were ugly.”

She smiled. “My father asked his friend to describe a truly beautiful woman, and he did. She should be short and stout, thick-middled, have a wide, flat face with a wide, flat nose, and she should have long, thin breasts that reach her waist.”

’Ring took a long moment to look Maddie up and down, his eyes lingering on her bosom that even without the corset was full and upright. “I can’t say that I agree with him on that point.”

Maddie turned away, blushing but pleased.

As they started back toward the rock ledge, he said, “What happened to the woman? The painter?”

“My father married her.”

They turned and looked at each other and smiled. It seemed natural that they should have their lives so entwined, that as a child ’Ring should have played at being her father and that her father’s friends should have been his heroes.