Chapter 9
“My God!” Skylar breathed.
Mayfair. The house was magnificent. It was nestled in a valley surrounded by undulating land, with the Black Hills rising in the distance.
Even by the moonlight in which they arrived, the lawn surrounding the fine house seemed teeming with color, softened by shadows brought about by dozens of different kinds of wildflowers.
Mayfair itself was a large, whitewashed structure with massive white columns that framed a large porch filled with rockers and other chairs.
A barn stood to the far right of the house and slightly behind it.
Aside from those two structures, nothing broke the flow of the natural beauty of the land.
The house seemed almost like a castle in the midst of a flowery Eden.
“It’s so very elegant—in the middle of nowhere,” Skylar murmured.
She felt Willow looking at her. She turned to him. “It’s very beautiful.”
Willow watched her, nodding. “The mine is some distance from here. Not quite in the Black Hills, the disputed land now, Sa Papa. Lord Douglas came here many years ago. When he built his white man’s house, he would not do so on Sioux holy ground.
Not even his gold mine rests on holy land.
He had too much respect for the beliefs of the people. But now…”
“Now?” Skylar asked.
Willow shrugged.
“Now the people are divided in factions. Red Cloud was once a fierce warrior. Now he lives in the agency and tries to coerce more food from the whites. Many of the Indians live in the agencies, taking the government stipends. Even there, some wish to sell the Black Hills, while others refuse to do so. Some say that war with the whites has all but decimated other tribes and that we must learn the white ways in order to survive. And if we do so, we might indeed survive, but at what price? Others…”
“Others?”
“Others join with Sitting Bull to our west and the north. All that remains of our hunting territory. Men such as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull will not even come in to speak at the agencies. They feel we must draw the line now and can surrender no more. Red Cloud went to Washington in the summer.” He smiled with a shrug.
“Red Cloud sees the strength and the might and the numbers of the white men and their government. He enjoys trips to see the Great White Father, your president. But on this matter, even Red Cloud despairs. Red Cloud went to ask that the Indian agents quit cheating. That they buy good cattle instead of rotten meat. Give us grain that is not laden with worms. No one would discuss the problems that plague us. All they want is the gold in the hills.”
“There’s been a depression for several years now,” Skylar told him.
She wondered if she could try to explain the confusion of economics when she barely understood it herself.
“It’s very bad for the white men now, too.
A few summer ago, there were grasshoppers destroying the crops.
So many, they say, that they darkened the sky and were several feet thick when they landed on the crops.
Food became very expensive. The president was afraid of having too much money out that wasn’t backed by gold, while the farmers thought that we needed more paper currency to keep them going.
In the big cities, people were out of work.
” She hesitated. “After the great war when the Americans fought the Americans, many came west for a new life. Now they need to come west again to try to survive. Gold is to us what the buffalo is to the Indians. White men think they need it to survive.” I need it at the moment, rather desperately, she thought.
Willow was studying her. He nodded with a grudging smile. “Once, it was a great crime for any Sioux to even mention to a white that there might be gold in the hills. They have known that the whites become madmen over gold dust.”
“Well, men do go mad over gold!” Skylar agreed. She stared at the house, shaking her head again. “Lord Douglas came here, years ago, and lived undisturbed by the Sioux?”
“He lived among the Oglala, then returned to England. When he came back here, he built Mayfair. Undisturbed.” He lifted a hand, seeking a way to explain.
“Among my people, a man is expected to follow his own path through life. Crazy Horse keeps his distance from all things white. Young-Man-Afraid had been among his best friends, but they shook hands and parted when Young-Man-Afraid became an agency Indian. Young-Man-Afraid is now among the Indian police at the Red Cloud agency. Each man takes his own path.”
“Young-Man-Afraid,” Skylar murmured. “Interesting name. Is he—easily frightened?”
“Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses,” Willow told her.
“He’s afraid of horses?”
Willow laughed. “No. His enemies are afraid, just of the sound of his horses.”
“Ah!”
Willow was still smiling. He shrugged. “I live in a log house by the mining camp. My brothers went west to ride with Crazy Horse. We have parted but are still blood.”
“It must be very difficult,” Skylar said.
“A tide has come. Like a great wave. Just since I was a boy. By the time many more years have passed, everything I knew then will have changed. But—”
“Yes?”
“Well, it’s not over yet. Many have seen the future in their dreams. There’s blood shed ahead for us all—” He looked at her again, then seemed to feel that he had spoken too freely and said the wrong things. “I’ll bring you into the house. Hawk will be waiting.”
Willow lifted her down from the wagon. Wolf, aware that he had arrived home, jumped from the back as well, barking excitedly.
Even as Skylar’s feet touched the ground, three men appeared in the shadows, coming toward the wagon.
“Lady Douglas,” Willow said, pointing to each man as he spoke, “Jack Logan, who runs the cattle herd.” Jack was a tall, wiry white, quick to tip his hat to her.
“Rabbit works with Jack.” Rabbit was nearly as tall but heavily muscled and pure Indian.
“And this here small fellow with the gaping grin is Two Feathers.” Two Feathers, as well, was Indian.
He was a boy of about twelve, and he did have a wonderful, friendly smile.
Skylar returned it. “Hello,” she said to them all.
“We weren’t expecting no bride out here,” Jack Logan told her awkwardly, “just his Lordship back,” he added, sorrowfully inclining his head toward the coffin. “But anything you need, Lady Douglas, you come to any of us.”
“Thank you.”
“You go on up to the house now, ma’am. We’ll be bringing in his Lordship.”
Willow held her arm, escorting her up the steps to the porch and then to the huge wooden doors that opened to the foyer of the house. She just stared at the doors, at their size and obvious weight.
“He had ’em brought over from Scotland. Things came by steamship, by railroad, then overland on wagons through hostile territory. Quite a feat.”
Skylar agreed but said nothing because the doors had opened.
“Do come in.”
It was Hawk’s voice that greeted her. As she stepped into the grand foyer, newly amazed by the pure beauty of the house, she wondered how long he had been at the mansion.
He had changed into a white shirt with slightly frilled sleeves, a black frock coat, and pants.
He seemed every inch the absolute master of his domain, guiding her into the entry where her attention was drawn from him to Mayfair itself.
The entry floor was marble, surrounded by highly polished hard wood.
A curving staircase also made of marble led to the second floor, while double doors on either side of the entry led to other rooms. It was immense.
It might have been opulent, but everything that might have been overdone was subdued instead, giving the place a feel of both elegance and comfort.
“The master bedroom is that second door off the main hallway leading from the staircase,” Hawk said to her, looking past her to the coffin being borne to the house by the men.
“Sandra!” he called. An exotic young woman in a simple calico frock and apron came from the left doorway, drying her hands on her apron, and looking curiously at Skylar.
Skylar was certain she returned the scrutiny, for she didn’t think she’d ever seen a woman quite as different—or beautiful—as this one.
There was Oriental blood in her as well as white and Indian.
Her eyes slanted slightly upward, their color unbelievably dark.
Her hair was loose, hanging down past her shoulders in blue-black strands that glowed in the dimmest light.
Her face was a gamine’s, heart-shaped, intriguing as it was lovely.
“Sandra, Lady Douglas has arrived. If you would be so good as to show her to her room…”
Sandra ceased staring at Skylar to make a small bow toward her. “Lady, if you will…”
“Your trunk will be brought up,” Hawk told her. “Sandra will see to anything you need. When you’re settled, someone will bring you back down.”
“As you wish,” she murmured.
“No, my dear, as you wish,” he said, mockery tinging the polite words. She felt him watching her as she followed Sandra up the stairway.
“This way, Lady Douglas,” the girl told her, opening the door to the room for her. Skylar stepped into it, amazed once again at the old-world elegance that had found its way into a hostile land.