“She’s a very courageous girl, defying the chief, and trying to run away. She says you rescued her from the Crow, which is an act of insanity on your part, I might add. If they had caught you stealing the chief’s slave and future wife, and absconding with her, they would have had your scalp in about two seconds. I don’t know how the hell you two got away.”

“We got a head start,” was all Jean said. It was obvious from what Luc said that Wachiwi hadn’t told him Jean had killed her captor and left his body hidden in the bushes. Jean couldn’t help wondering if they’d found him by then. “I’m not planning to stay here long,” Jean went on. “It’s still a little too close for comfort. I want to get to Fort St. Charles, and then to St. Louis. We’ll be fine once we get to the fort. I’m a little uneasy till then.”

“I think you’ll be all right from here on. I’ll give you one of my horses. You need a fresh mount if you’ve been pushing yours hard for three days. She says she wanted to go back to her family, but she can’t now. She doesn’t want to get them in trouble either, and she thinks the Crow will be very angry at her for running away and succeeding this time. She doesn’t want to endanger her father or brothers.” And then he looked at his old friend with a question in his eyes. “What are you going to do with her, Jean?”

“I have no idea. If she can’t go back to her family, which sounds reasonable,” particularly knowing that she would be blamed for killing Napayshni and the Crow would seek revenge if she went back to her village, “I don’t know where to take her.”

“Are you in love with her?” Luc asked him bluntly.

“I don’t even know her,” Jean answered. It wasn’t entirely true. They had been meeting for several weeks, but he didn’t know her well enough to love her. They couldn’t even talk to each other. “I just did her a favor, getting her out.”

“She says she’s your slave now,” Luc informed him.

“I don’t need a slave,” Jean answered quietly. “I don’t even have a house. All I have is a horse, and a bunch of maps. I suppose I could take her to my cousins in New Orleans and leave her there. Maybe she’ll want to stay at Fort St. Charles.”

“There won’t be much for her there. And she speaks no French or English, and has never been out of her village, except with the Crow. She’s never been to a town or a city. Can you imagine her in New Orleans? What would she do there?”

“I don’t know,” Jean said, running a hand through his hair. “She needed help. I didn’t think beyond that.” And in fact, they had had no other choice but to escape, as fast as they could. Both their lives were on the line, not just hers. But he didn’t say that to Luc.

“I think you should keep her,” Luc said, smiling at her. She smiled back at him in return, and told him the food had been good.

“She’s not a piece of furniture, for heaven’s sake, or an object. I can’t just ‘keep’ her. She should have a life, a husband, children, something. I can’t drag her around with me on my horse.”

“Maybe you should get a house and leave her there. She’s a bright girl, and she’s got spirit. You can tell that talking to her. She’s very brave to have been taken by the Crow, defying their chief, and trying to run away. And she says she’s not worried now. She’s with you.”

“Thank her for her faith in me. She’s more responsible for getting us here than I am. I would have gotten lost several times. She had an unfailing sense of direction. She knows the forest as though she’s been in it all her life. She never looked frightened or complained.”

“If you teach her French, you can talk to her.”

“And then what? I think I’ll take her to my cousins. I can buy her some decent clothes in St. Louis.”

“What she’s wearing is more than decent. Everything about it says that she’s a chief’s daughter. The beading, the quills, the beads on her moccasins.”

“I don’t think my cousins in New Orleans will understand that. If I take her there, I need to buy her proper gowns. My cousin’s wife, Angélique, is extremely proper.” There was a quiet dignity about Wachiwi, and a grace, that anyone would notice and have to respect. Angélique had been born in Paris, and was a distant cousin of the king, and never let anyone forget it. She had been in New Orleans for forty years, but she was still extremely French. He knew he would have to teach Wachiwi a few words of French by then.

Jean had stayed with them for several months when he first arrived, and still did from time to time, when he needed a taste of civilization. But it always rapidly became too much for him, and then he took off again. He enjoyed his wanderings in the wilderness and discovering new territories too much to settle for a life in town. He couldn’t imagine Wachiwi happy there for long either. But it would be a good place to take her, until she adjusted to life away from her own culture and people. For some reason, Jean was convinced she could learn. She seemed to be curious about everything. She was now as she explored Luc’s kitchen, and quietly washed their dishes in the bucket he kept for that purpose. As Jean had, she devoured the simple meal. It was delicious, and she thanked Luc in Sioux.

He only had one bedroom to give them, and he insisted they take it. He slept in the sitting room on a comfortable old couch. And as soon as they were shown the bedroom, Wachiwi lay down on the floor. She had never seen a proper bed before, but she made no comment, and assumed it was for Jean. Before that, Luc had shown her the outdoor plumbing facilities, which she had never seen before either, and she thanked him. Jean pulled her to her feet when she lay on the floor, and pointed to her and the bed, and indicated that he would sleep on the floor, but she refused and lay down on the floor again. They argued about it in sign language for a few minutes while she insisted. She was his slave now, but as far as Jean was concerned, she was a woman, and had ridden just as hard and as long as he had. In the end, to make the point to her, he lay down beside her on the floor, and she giggled. He was telling her that if she slept on the floor, so would he. She didn’t budge an inch, and he was amazed at how stubborn she was. It shouldn’t have surprised him from all he knew about her now. He was still amazed by the story Luc had told him, of her courage and all that had happened to her in the past few months. And now she was riding east with him, to an unknown fate, and he was a stranger to her. But it was clear that she trusted him completely. They had survived their trial by fire. Her fate would have been very different if Napayshni had killed him instead. She might have been dead by then, for meeting a white man in secret. In fact, Jean had not only rescued her, but saved her life, and she knew it. And now she believed she belonged to him. He had no idea what to do with her, but he couldn’t just abandon her. She had nowhere to go. And in the face of her insistence, he finally gave up and slept in the bed. He got a good night’s sleep and so did she. He handed her a blanket, she wrapped herself in it, and was asleep in less than five minutes, as Jean lay in bed and thought about her. It had been an amazing three days, which he suddenly realized had changed his life forever. He had no idea what to do with her, but he now was responsible for this exquisitely beautiful Dakota girl.

Chapter 9

Luc made breakfast for them before they left, and gave them food and fresh water for their journey. He kept Jean’s exhausted horse and gave him one of his own, a solid young horse with strong legs that would take them as far as they needed. Jean thanked him for his kindness, and Wachiwi did the same in Sioux. And then they began the two-day trip to Fort St. Charles. It took longer than Jean expected, and they arrived on the afternoon of the third day. The trip had been long and arduous but not dangerous. The fort was familiar to him, because he had stayed there before. It was manned by French soldiers, and no one seemed surprised to see Wachiwi with him. Many men traveled with Indian women, and they directed her to the quarters set aside for Indian women. There wasn’t the remotest possibility that she could stay with Jean. She was treated like a servant or a slave. She looked unhappy when Jean came to see her that evening after having dinner with the commandant. It had been a hearty meal of roasted rabbit, prepared by a French chef, with excellent wines, delicious coffee, and a delicate dessert-and afterward the commandant’s aide handed out cigars. It was the best meal Jean had had in months.

But when he went out to see Wachiwi, he was embarrassed to see that they had served her slop in a dish like a dog. It upset him to realize she was being badly treated. It had never occurred to him that they would do that to her. And the other Indian women seemed less dignified than she did. He looked at her and tried to express how sorry he was, and she looked as though she understood. She nodded. And when the door to the women’s dormitory opened, he noticed that they slept on blankets on the floor. They weren’t treated like humans, but more like dogs, and when he saw that, he decided to move on the next day. His goal was St. Louis now, where he could get her a room in a hotel and get her properly dressed. It was another two-day ride from where they were.

He appeared at her dormitory the next day, pointed to the horse Luc had given them so she knew they were leaving, and spoke to her in French. She looked pleased, and Jean had decided that Luc was right. She needed to learn another language other than Sioux, either English or French, or ideally both. If she was going to exist in the civilized world, there were many things she had to learn. She seemed bright, and Jean thought she could. He taught her a few basic words in both languages as they rode.