Tender savage (45 page)

why. It must be our secret, though. You are not to spread a word of this to your friends, who spend more time gossiping than any lady should. Now give me your word you'll not breathe a word of this to anyone. Ever."

"Of course, I'll keep what you say in confidence," the brown-eyed beauty agreed. By asking for such a promise Mark had won her rapt attention, but the story he told was so difficult for Sarah to accept that when he completed it and rose to leave, she simply stared up at him with her mouth agape.

"You don't mean iti Erica ran off with an Indian brave? Erica actually did that?"

Mark reached for his sister's hands and pulled her to her feet. "Come walk me to the door. Don't judge anything Erica did, or ask her to explain it. I am so happy to be her husband, I am not troubled by the fact that I am not her first. I don't want you to be troubled by it, either."

"I don't know what to say," Sarah replied with a befuddled frown.

"You will say absolutely nothing to Erica or anyone else. I have your promise on that, and I expect you to keep it," Mark admonished her sternly. "Now give me a kiss and wish me continued good luck. I'll try and come home soon."

Sarah's eyes filled with tears as she bid him good-bye, for she loved her only brother dearly. "Be careful, I couldn't bear it if something happened to you."

Mark laughed as he waved good-bye. "Nothing can happen to me nowl" he boasted confidently.

As Sarah closed the front door behind him she thought him very cruel for telling her such a fascinating story and then insisting she keep her promise not to share it with her friends. Such a demand would have been impossible coming from anyone else, but for Mark, she would keep her word, although she knew it would be the most difficult thing she had ever done. "An Indian bravel" she giggled to herself, wondering what had |x>ssessed Erica to do such an outrageous thing. Inspired by the hope of learning more from his bride than Mark had revealed, Sarah decided right then to become the best friend Erica had ever had.

f

Henry Sibley had no idea how to go about punishing Song of the Wren. Since Mark and Erica were gone, there was no one to press charges against her, so he could not

gut her on trial for assault. Finally he released her to the iendly chiefs who thought the jealous young woman's hatred for whites not unusual and did nothing at all. At the end of the trials, she and her family were among the seventeen hundred Sioux who were transferred to Fort Snelling where the army could more readily feed them. Although there were no charges against this group, they spent a wretched winter in a fenced camp on the Minnesota River, while their future was being debated in Washington.

On November 5, 1862, the military commission completed their work. They had tried 392 braves, handed down 307 death sentences, 16 long prison terms, and 69 acquittals. Colonel Sibley approved their findings in all but the case of John Other Day's brother, whose death sentence he commuted to a prison term because of lack of evidence and Other Day's persuasive appeal.

General Pope and Colonel Sibley both wished to execute the condemned Indians at the conclusion of the trials, but fearing that would be overstepping their authority, they asked President Lincoln to decide that question in October. When, after another review, the final list of condemned was set at 303, Pope telegraphed their names to the president. With the exorbitant cost of the war placing an enormous burden upon the federal treasury, Lincoln was not pleased with that four-hundred-dollar expense and rqjlied with the request that Pope send the complete record of the convictions by mail. A man possessed of remarkable wisdom, Lincoln, when the papers arrived, appointed two men to study them thoroughly, so that the Sioux braves accused of rape and wanton murder could be separated from those who had done no more than fight in battles.

On November 9, the condemned prisoners were transferred from the Lower Agency to Camp Lincoln in South Bend. As their wagons passed through New Ulm, the citizens eagerly seized the opportunity to vent their hatred on the braves who were securely bound and could do little to escape injury other than attempt to dodge the barrage of rocks hurled their way.

Viper was as badly abused as the rest of his companions. He saw Erica's uncle and returned his hate-filled stare until the young man at his side threw a stone that tore a jagged cut in his forehead and blood began to drip into his eyes. He reminded himself these were people who had lost family members they held dear, but it amused him to realize die violence of the whites' behavior was far more savage than his own had ever been. It was not until the troops providing their escort charged the crowd with bayonets that the battered prisoners were allowed to continue their journey unmolested.

On December 4, a group from Mankato bent on taking the matter of the Sioux's executions into their own hands was stopped on the road to Camp Lincoln. Fearine for his prisoners' safety, Colonel Sibley then moved the condemned men to a log structure in Mankato where they could be guarded more effectively. Here again, the braves had nothing to occupy their time but their own dreary thoughts. Crowded and miserable, their tempers were short, but Viper kept to himself, and when fools like Claw of the Badger taunted him about losing his wife, he ignored them, for in his mind and heart, he knew Erica would never be lost to him.

As the holidays neared. Erica spent each morning poring over the newspapers. With a morbid fascination, she securched out each mention of the Sioux. Governor Ramsey of Minnesota, General Pope, and countless others called daily for the immediate execution of the condemned braves. With the notable exception of the Episcopal Bishop, Henry B. Whipple, who nad been to see President Lincoln to plead for the liraves' lives, and the Reverend Rig^s and Dr. Williamson, who wrote letters on the Indians' behalf, the whole world seemed to be clamoring for their deaths with a ghoulish frenzy.

To add to Erica's worries, it had been nearly six weeks since she had spent the predawn hours wishing Viper a passionate farewell, and with each new day she grew more certain she had become pregnant as a result. While the hope that she would have his baby was a wonderfully comforting one, the fact that Mark might not wish to raise an Indian's child was deeply troubling. Were the baby to

be a blond girl he might possibly accept her, but Erica thought it far more likely she would present him with a black-haired boy he could never love as his own. Just the prospect of telling him she thought she was pregnant nlled her with such a horrible sense of dread that she became physically ill.

Actually, since returning home she had never felt completely well. Whether it was due to morning sickness or to the lingering effects of Wren's brutal assault she didn't know, but she was often too ill to eat and had litde energy. Sarah Randall had insisted upon supervising the selection of her new wardrobe, and she had simply lacked the strength to refuse her help, although she haa managed to refuse each invitation the persistent young woman had offered in an effort to encourage her to get out and see her friends again. Social obligations were simply too great a strain in Erica's frame of mind, but to the people of Wilmington, who regarded her as a new bride who should welcome their invitations, she seemed unaccountably aloof.

In November, Major-General Ambrose E. Bumside had been placed in command of the Army of the Potomac, a position he had twice refused to accept, stating he felt unequal to the task. He was an 1847 graduate of West Point who had left the army to manufacture firearms. At the outset of the war he had become a colonel in the Rhode Island volunteers, was soon made brigadier-general of volunteers, then major-general. In early December he was preparing an assault upon Fredericksburg, Virginia. Erica tried to keep abreast of the news regarding the war, too, but she was confident Mark could take care of himself, while she knew Viper was in no position to do so.

On December 6, 1862, President Lincoln approved death sentences for only 39 of the 503 condemned Sioux. In his own hand he wrote out the names of those to be executed on December 19, and sent the order to Colonel Sibley to carry out. This was the day Erica had been dreading, and her hands shook so badly as she read the headline in the newspaf)er that she could scarcely make out the print.

"Only thirty-nine?" she whisp>ered as her heart swelled with hope. Hurriedly she scanned the list of names for the

one of the man she adored. When she reahzed the miracle she had not dared expect had happened and his Hfe had been spared, she was too dazed to either laugh or weep. She sank down on the settee in the parlor and tried simply to comprehend what this totally unexpected piece of good fortune meant.

"Viper isn't going to die," she whispered as she broke into an angelic smile. That was so marvelous a relief it was difficult to grasp. The president had had the wisdom the members of the military commission had sorely lacked. He understood that there was a difference between men who fought for their beliefs and those who would use war as an excuse to murder and rape. Tears of joy began to trickle down her cheeks.

Viper was going to have a future, and she wanted to SF>end it with him. Her hands went to her stomach, which as yet showed no trace of her pregnancy, and she whispered, "You'll know your daddy after all, my darling, and I know you'll think him as wonderful a man as I do."

Erica spent the next week in a blissful fog. There were still problems ahead: apparently Viper might have to serve some time in prison, but she regarded that as a small inconvenience when compared with the fate he had so recently faced. She planned to return to Minnesota as soon as she had the opportunity to tell Mark of her decision. There was a good chance he would be given a leave at Christmas, and while she knew he would be heartbroken,, she hoped he would love her enough to let her go.

Before dawn on December 11, a Union force numbering a hundred thirteen thousand men under Major-General Ambrose Bumside's command attacked General Lee's Confederate stronghold at Fredericksburg. With a des-

Cerate series of frontal attacks he tried, without success, to reak through the South's defenses. The Confederates repelled each of his poorly timed assaults, and after suffering staggering losses, Burnside withdrew. Twelve hundred of his troops had been killed in the battle. Another ninety-six hundred had been wounded, and Captain Mark Randall was one of those casualties.

Lars Hanson looked out at the long line of ambulance wagons drawing up outside the hospital and heaved a weary sigh. "God help us," he prayed under his breath, wondering where he would find the strength to see even one more injured man, let alone the hundreds he knew would soon be flooding the wards. All too often, soldiers had suffered such horrible wounds before they could reach a hospital that they had already expired. With that dismal thought in mind, Lars went down the steps to the wagon currently being unloaded by two burly orderlies to make certain no dead were carried inside.

"Evenin', doc," the driver of the vehicle called out cheerfully. "Where you want these boys?"

"They're men," Lairs corrected him firmly. Many of the wounded were teenagers, but as far as he was concerned, any of them who had chosen to serve their country as soldiers ought to be considered grown men. He waited as the wounded were placed on stretchers, then greeted those who were conscious. He smiled as he offered the same words of encouragement he always did, i^oring the men's powder-blackened faces and torn uniforms as he quickly assessed the extent of their injuries and their chances for survival. In his opinion, this group was exceedingly lucky. They had all reached the hospital alive and in each the odds were at least fifty-fifty or better they would recover from their wounds. Encouraged by that

optimistic thought, he quickly commanded the orderhes to be^n taking their charges inside and moved on down the hne of wagons hoping his next group of patients would be as fortunate as the last

The driver of the second ambulance apologized as he greeted Lars. "I'm 'fraid I lost one on the way, doc. At least he don't seem to be breathing to me. He's an officer, too, and I sure hate to lose one of them on the road."

So as not to alarm his other passengers with that gruesome news, Lars climbed into the back of the ambulance to help the driver ease the wounded out onto stretchers. The two leather-covered benches that ran along each side of the wagon were sticky with blood, but he was used to that now. This group didn't look nearly so good as the last, but in the dim interior of the wagon Lars could see that one fellow did seem worse off than the rest. His head had been heavily bandaged, and Lars wondered why a surgeon in the field had wasted precious space in an ambulance on so severely injured a man when it was far kinder not to make them suffer the perils of a long journey and simply allow them to die where they had fallen.

He saw the captain's bars on the man's coat as he reached for his wrist to try and detect a pulse and thought perhaps his rank was the reason he had been accorded preferential treatment. When he found a faint but steady beat, Lars wasn't encouraged, for there was little he could do to treat men who had suffered head wounds. Still, he gripped the young man's hand firmly and whispered, "Don't worry, son, I'll do all I can for you."

It wasn't until he had moved the unconscious captain out of the wagon onto a stretcher that he could see his face clearly enough to recognize him as Mark Randall. "Oh no," he moaned. Overcome with despair, he turned away to grab hold of the side of the ambulance to steady himself. Mark had sent a wire when Erica had been found, then another telling of their marriage. He had stopped by the hospital to provide Lars with the details he haa not trusted to a wire, but Lars had been so stunned by his new son-in-law's tale that he had said little in response. Now Mark was back, more dead than alive, and Lars feared he could do nothing at all to repay him for the loving forgiveness he' had shown his daughter.

Puzzled, the driver started at Lars's back for a moment, then found his voice. **You knew him?"

"I know him," Lars replied as he turned around, steeling himself for the long, weary hours that lay ahead. "You were wrong. The captain is still among the living." He signaled to a pair of orderlies and saw that Mark was the first of that ambulance's passengers to be carried inside, but he was already searching his mind for the words he might need to tell Erica she was no longer a new bride, but sadly, a widow.