Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) (16 page)

“And I haven’t forgotten what
happened last night.” He took his eyes off Cheveyo to glance over his shoulder
into the darkness stretched out behind him. The chill swirled around him, the
air heavy with a sense of foreboding that settled in his lungs. “I’m not
leaving you alone for even an instant. Not in here, anyway.”

Cheveyo chortled. Let him. As
long as he and Jessie left together, he didn’t care what Cheveyo thought of
him. Jessie was the only thing that mattered in all of this.

“You’re eight years too late.
I’ve been alone for a long time, Bradshaw. What’s one more minute?” she asked.

For the first time since his
departure, he wished he could take it all back. Do the last eight years over
again. He shook his head to dismiss the idea. What was done couldn’t be undone,
and he’d just have to live with it.

She continued. “I can’t
refuse Grandfather’s invitation. I can’t. But I’m sure Cheveyo here will see me
safely to Fort Clark or whatever rendezvous point you have in mind.” She
paused, and when she next spoke, her voice was quiet and solemn. “I promise I’ll
come back.”

Her voice was reasonable, her
logic sound. But he would never,
never
let her go.

“You go nowhere without me.”
Let her try to deny him. If she did, he’d fight her. If she left, he’d follow
her and get her back.

She opened her mouth to
retort, but she never got the chance.

“You’re absolutely right,
Luke Bradshaw,” Cheveyo interrupted. “Because the invitation extends to you,
too.”

“You could have said
something,” Jessie later said to Cheveyo as they rode down the mountain
together, following the dry creek bed through a steep, high-walled desert
canyon so narrow they could only go two abreast. Wind whipped through the
canyon, and the cold seeped into her bones. The sky was blue and clear and
perfect. The color caught her attention.

It had been a long time since
she’d seen the sky unmarked by the dirty clouds peppering the hills of Virginia
City even on the clearest of days. A long time since she had taken a breath and
not felt the weight of soot in her chest.

Cheveyo turned in his saddle,
toward where his warriors separated Luke from the two of them. “Could have,” he
agreed. “Didn’t.”

“I noticed. But why not tell
us Grandfather extends his invitation and be done with it?”

“I guess I wanted to see how
far your man would take things.”

So like Cheveyo to taunt the
devil simply because he could. “He’s not my man,” Jessie pointed out. But no
matter how often she told Cheveyo this, he seemed unconvinced, and as they
rode, she began to wonder who needed convincing more, her cousin or herself?
She turned in her saddle, and Luke caught her eye and nodded a greeting.

“If he’s not your man, why
are you with him?”

“I don’t know.”

Cheveyo arched an eyebrow.

“Because I need someone to
help me find my father?”

“Is that a question?” Cheveyo
laughed. “We would assist you, if you wanted.”

She studied the golden brown
rocks of the canyon walls. “He’s got contacts you don’t. His people can help me
find my father. And he helped me when I needed it. Things were bad, Cheveyo. I
owe him this.”

Cheveyo regarded her for some
time, his inky eyes interested and cautious. “So you’re throwing your lot in
with him.”

Jessie nodded slowly. She
hadn’t made the conscious decision until now. “Yes.”

“A wise move.”

“You… you approve?”

He gave her a noncommittal
motion of his shoulders.

“Then why did you act the way
you did at the mine?” she asked.

“Sometimes the only way to
measure the strength of the bear is to poke it.”

“Sounds foolish to me.”

“Maybe so, but I found out
what I needed to know.”

Jessie sighed. “No need to be
cryptic, Cheveyo. Why can’t you say what you mean?”

“I have.”

Talking to Cheveyo reminded her
of the way her grandfather used to speak to her, his words forever a riddle
needing to be puzzled out. She was quiet for a moment. “Why did Grandfather
summon Mr. Bradshaw?”

“That is between the white
man and Grandfather, and not for me to say.”

“Did he ask for him in
particular?”

“Grandfather said I would
find you in the company of a man, and I was to bring you both to him.” He
jerked his head back in Luke’s direction. “I found you with Luke Bradshaw.
Therefore, he is the man our grandfather asked for.”

“So, no, not him in
particular.”

“I would argue otherwise,”
Cheveyo said. “I think out grandfather’s directives were very particular.”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “You’re
talking in circles again. He didn’t say, ‘Get me Luke Bradshaw.’ He said,
whatever man I was with at the time. It could have been Old Man Jensen.”

“But it wasn’t Old Man
Jensen,” Cheveyo replied, as if those words cleared everything up. He motioned
vaguely in Luke’s direction. “Not just any man, but
that
one.” He paused for a moment. “Now I get to ask the question.
Why do you claim he’s not your man? I found you both naked, and he behaves like
your man.”

“We did what we had to in
order to survive, and if you think he behaves like ‘my man,’ I’d hate to see
how you treat your wife.”

“Don’t have a woman,” Cheveyo
said. “You are not ignorant of our culture, cousin, no matter how white you
pretend to be. On our land, sharing a shelter with a man neither kin nor
husband is forbidden.”

“I didn’t have much of a
choice.” She peeked over her shoulder again and Luke waved as if he’d been
staring at her back the entire time.

“Obviously.” Cheveyo’s voice
mocked her with its gentleness.

She ignored it as she ignored
everything else she didn’t want to acknowledge. “What will you tell
Grandfather?”

“Worried, cousin?”

“No. Just wondering.”

“I will tell him the truth
and nothing more.”

Jessie frowned down at her
horse. “I’m not worried about the truth. I’m worried about how much of it you’re
planning on telling.”

Cheveyo regarded her for a
long time. “I won’t lie to him for you. You have been gone too long.”

“Wasn’t my choice.
You
left
me
, not the other way around.”

“Not my decision. You
could have looked for us sooner, but
chose not to. We would have come.”

“How was I supposed to find
you? What do you think I should have done?”

Cheveyo looked at her for a
long time. What was he thinking? She missed the boy who’d been her childhood
playmate, with the open eyes and the wild heart. The boy she’d lain with under
the stars, as they both howled with laughter.

This reserved, cautious man
was a stranger.

“Maybe nothing,” he answered.
“Or maybe search for us. You only sought us out once you had no one left.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes it is.” His voice was
bland. “You stayed in a town where everyone turned on you, rather than coming
to us. If you’d really wanted us, we would have come.” He looked away. “Even
now, when we’re all you have, you turn away.”

“Oh, no, Cheveyo, no. I didn’t
know where to go.” Tears threatened her, for she’d told the truth, yet all she
found in her cousin’s expression was judgment. He’d already tried her and found
her guilty.

Perhaps she was.

She chose her next words
carefully. “Does Grandfather think the same way you do?”

“I don’t know what
Grandfather thinks. He keeps his own council. Perhaps that’s a question better
asked of him,” Cheveyo said after a time. “Now it’s my turn. An answer for an
answer. Why have you ignored us? Did it have anything to do with your father?”

“No.” Her father had never
said anything about searching out her mother’s people. After she died, Jessie
had thought about joining the summer hunt, and she would have, had Luke not
left.

In those months after his
departure, Jessie simply hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to face anyone.
The months had gradually stretched into years, long stretches of bitter grief
punctuated only by fear and isolation.

“So why didn’t you come?”

“It wasn’t safe for an Indian
woman to travel alone,” she said. “Still isn’t.”

“True,” Cheveyo responded. “But
that’s not why you didn’t look for us. You’ll have to do better when you talk
to Grandfather.”

“It’s not what you think,
Cheveyo.” He thought she’d abandoned them as surely as they’d abandoned her,
and she hated herself because he was right. She hadn’t looked until after her
father died, had stayed in a town and suffered attacks for months before
finally deciding to turn back to her mother’s people.

And she’d stayed because
there had been... things... she had simply been unable to part with.

She thought about the ring
Luke had once given her, now burned into ash, and she turned in her saddle to
look back at Luke.

“Hey Jessie!” he called.

Jessie wondered if the
happiness in his voice was for her benefit. More likely, it was a meant to
taunt Cheveyo.

“Shut up, Bradshaw,” she
mumbled.

The canyon opened up onto a
narrow valley, the river reflecting the azure sky as it snaked through the
desert and disappeared between the mountains, the white of the snow temporarily
dazzling her. She’d forgotten the glittering brightness of sunlit snow.

Beside her, Cheveyo made a
noise, and when she turned her eyes to her cousin, he smiled. “You know why he
does that.”

“Because he’s obnoxious.”

Cheveyo laughed. “Perhaps.
But that’s not why he does it.”

“What are you getting at? Why
do
you
think he does it?”

“For the same reason he’s
done everything else. He does it for you.” Cheveyo put his heels to horse and
took off for the river. Putting the distance between them she’d felt ever since
his sudden arrival.

She pushed aside how he’d
found her. Naked. With an equally naked Luke Bradshaw.

Determined to follow him, she
urged Taba to follow, but she’d only made it a few paces before someone
whistled, and the horse stopped short.

One of her kinsmen quickly
caught up to her. “No, little sister, you stay with us.”

She turned to him, noticing
he addressed her as
little sister
rather than
cousin.
Her tribe had no
word for cousin. Cheveyo had obviously adopted the term to create distance from
her. The thought twisted her stomach into a knot that refused to ease.

“I wanted to talk to him,” she
began.

“He’s done talking. You must
let him go.”

“Amitola,” she began, but her
protest was weak, even to her.

Her large kinsman waved her
words away. “No. He’ll come back when he’s ready.” His eyes followed Cheveyo as
he made his way toward the river. “You will not question me further. I will not
answer.”

So she didn’t.

By the time they caught up to
Cheveyo, the sun had begun to dip behind the western mountains. Pale gold light
reflected against the white snow, an effect so different from the brilliant reds
cast by the sun through smoke that she was used to. Her cousin turned a rabbit
on a spit he’d constructed. “You made it.”

“Amitola refused to let me
follow.”

Cheveyo sniffed. “The Jessie
I knew never would have let that stop her.”

She dismounted and busied
herself with seeing to the needs of her horse. “We’re not kids anymore. You’re
different, too.”

“That’s true,” he said, with
a deliberate, measured nod. He chewed on his lower lip, and for a moment, he
looked the boy she remembered.

“I missed you, Cheveyo.”

“It’s been a long time,” he
agreed. “Come sit with me by the fire, cousin.” Perhaps it was an overture in
exchange for an overture.

It was a start she could live
with.

* * * *

“We’ll leave tomorrow at
dawn. You’ll want to get some sleep,” Cheveyo said after they’d eaten their
meager meal of dried berries and rabbit meat. He stood and walked toward his
wikiup constructed of bark and sticks and covered in animal hides. He’d spent
the better part of the evening constructing it, rather than talking to her.

Standing, she trailed after
him.

He turned to her. “No.”

“Where am I supposed to
sleep?” she asked. “The other wikiup is too small for three.”

“Grandfather would have your
head if you slept with those two.” Cheveyo motioned to Amitola and his brother.

“It would only be sleep.”

Cheveyo answered her with a
shrug.