Epilogue
Sloan walked up the slope to the great oak. The tree stood in a position of absolute dominance on the ridge that overlooked the valley where they’d built their home.
The house was beautiful and big. It had been designed with plenty of bedrooms upstairs. Their first baby, whom they had kept referring to as “he,” was actually “they”: twins, a boy and a girl, Zachary and Jill. And now, two years after those babies had been born, Sabrina was expecting again.
Looking down the hill, he could see his wife, and he smiled. She was just beginning to get round again.
She was setting glasses of lemonade on the table they’d set up outside. Skylar was talking with Sabrina as she worked, while Hawk was deeply engaged in conversation with Sloan’s grandfather, who had decided to move west after realizing it was where his great-grandchildren were going to grow up.
It was a wonderfully domestic scene. His twins were on the ground, wrestling with their cousins, Joshua—now two and a half—and Kaitlin, who was barely toddling about.
They were beautiful children. Exceptionally beautiful.
Amazingly, Hawk’s daughter was blond. Sloan’s son had brilliant blue eyes with dark-auburn hair, and his daughter had amber eyes and her aunt’s blond curls.
In all of the children, their White blood seemed to predominate, but then…
they each had a bit of Sioux blood evident in their physical appearances as well.
They had strong, well-defined features. They encompassed the best of two worlds, he thought.
Which was what they had tried to give their children.
Today, they were learning new accents. David had come from Scotland with his wife, Shawna, and their family on a long-planned excursion to America, and they added to the mayhem on the lawn.
They had survived.
It hadn’t always been easy.
The massacre of Custer and his troops had not been forgiven by the White world. There had been tremendous political upheaval, with everyone blaming everyone else for the fiasco and debating about who had meant what when orders had been given.
In November, after the battle, Colonel Raynald Mackenzie had won a decisive battle against the Plains Indians. More and more, the Indians were retiring to the reservations.
Crazy Horse had surrendered. He had said that he wanted the peace to last forever.
But he had later been arrested, and when he had seen the bars surrounding him, he had run out. He claimed himself worthless to his people because he could fight for them no more.
He was murdered by the Indian police, stabbed to death. He had seen the prophecy as a boy.
It was a sad end to a great warrior. Just as he had mourned Custer’s loss, Sloan mourned the death of Crazy Horse as well.
Some Sioux bands had gone to Canada, preferring the White Mother, Queen Victoria, to the White government.
“Civilization” was moving into the Black Hills.
He and Sabrina had opened their school. They now had three new teachers and nearly a hundred students.
They taught the children from the reservations, and they taught the children of the White settlers who would allow their children to come.
There was a great deal of prejudice against them, and Sloan saw clearly that there still would be, for years to come.
They knew that peace was the hardest battle, and they accepted it.
As he looked down at the scene below him, Sabrina suddenly looked up.
A smile lit up her face, and she set down the pitcher of lemonade and excused herself to Skylar.
She started to walk up the hill to Sloan.
It was a long walk, but he watched her come.
When she arrived, he wordlessly wrapped his arms around her. She glanced up at him, her eyes as lustrously blue and dazzling as ever.
“I love you,” she told him.
He kissed her.
He’d been a warrior and a soldier.
And he had waged dozens of battles.
But it was love that had won him peace. And he would cherish his love, forever.