Lone Wolf's Woman

Her reply was a disbelieving snort.

“If you think I have an allegiance to my uncle then you are very much mistaken.” He nudged his horse forward to retrieve Julia’s mount, which had stopped to graze a few yards away.

He deposited her on her horse. “I didn’t tell you about my kinship to the Griffins right off because I figured you would overreact.” He stared meaningfully at her. “The way you are overacting now.”

“So you waited until I actually began to trust you,” she accused harshly. “And here I thought you were different from other men. Obviously you’re all the same—devious and manipulative.”

Lone Wolf hadn’t intended to go into detail about his history with Sol, but Julia was staring at him with those luminous green eyes that reflected hurt, betrayal and indignation. He couldn’t bear that, not from her.

Sappy fool that he had suddenly become, he longed to see the look of trust and approval again. It had made him feel good about himself, made him feel worthy of respect. Now he felt as if he had lost something precious and unique and he instinctively struggled to regain whatever it was about Julia that lured him to her against his will.

Whatever the hell it was, he was glad that he had the good sense not to examine it too closely.

“My mother was Sol’s younger sister. Her name was Isabella,” he elaborated as he rode toward the barn. “She was captured by a Southern Cheyenne raiding party when she was sixteen.”

“Your mother was Sol’s sister?” She stared owlishly at him, as if having trouble accepting the notion.

“Yes,” he affirmed solemnly. “My father became intrigued by my mother and he took her as his wife. She adopted his culture and made a place for herself with the Cheyenne. I believe that she was happy with him.”

Julia listened intently, apparently waiting for him to continue. He was relieved to note that she had set aside her anger and frustration—temporarily at least.

“One winter, when George Custer was just a colonel, trying to make a name for himself as a soldier, he attacked our encampment on the Washita River in Indian Territory,” Lone Wolf informed her. “He massacred our people, women and children included. First I watched my father and Chief Black Kettle die, then my mother, who wasn’t far behind because she had found a safe hiding place for me in the underbrush.”

Julia’s heart went out to Lone Wolf. She knew how it felt to watch someone you loved being shot down. But she could only begin to imagine the extent of anguish he had suffered. The nightmare of watching his family and friends being murdered must have been devastating.

“I’m sure what you felt was even more horrible than the feelings that bombarded me after losing my father, only four years after Mama’s passing,” she murmured. “I was angry, lost and disoriented. I fiercely denied the scandalous report of Papa’s secret liaison with Rachel Griffin because it felt like a betrayal to my mother.”

“Grief makes you say and feel crazy things,” Lone Wolf agreed. “It’s hard to know what you’re supposed to feel.”

Julia gave a self-deprecating smirk. “It definitely made me go a little crazy. I tried to outrun everything by throwing myself into duties on the ranch. I was willing to try anything, no matter how dangerous or unladylike. Anything to keep my mind occupied and hold all those hounding emotions at bay.”

Lone Wolf nodded in understanding as he stared into the distance, as if looking through a portal in time. Julia saw his jaw clench, noticed his fist knot around the reins. Although he usually appeared calm and unflappable she could tell that the tragedy of his youth still affected him deeply.

“My mother survived her wounds for a few hours after the soldiers rode away.” His voice was brisk and clipped. “She insisted that I leave the reservation and make use of the fact that she had taught me to speak fluent English and that I was half white.

“I wasn’t sure that I wanted to abandon my people and the only way of life I understood,” he admitted. “But I had lost all family ties in that brutal massacre. I got to thinking that anywhere had to be better than living in that valley of death and walking over those graves.”

His mouth twisted in bitter irony. “At least Custer paid dearly for his unprovoked attack on our camp. The surviving Cheyenne put a curse on him and chanted to the guiding spirits to give them revenge. To this day our people swear it was that curse that led Custer into disaster at the hands of the Sioux and the Northern Cheyenne at the Battle of Little Bighorn.”

“Where did you go after the massacre?” Julia asked gently. “You couldn’t have been but a young teenager when this happened.”

“I was fourteen,” he reported. “My mother made me promise that I would find her brother in Kansas and ask him to take me in. It was her dying wish that I unite with her white family and make a fresh new start in life.”

Julia watched his countenance change to an expression of resentment and torment. She knew what he was going to say even before he told her what happened. “Sol rejected you.”

He nodded stiffly. “I went to him, carrying the heart-shaped necklace my mother always wore as proof of my ancestry. I told my uncle that my mother had died trying to protect me and that she sent me to him for help.”

Lone Wolf scoffed sourly. “Sol was outraged that I had the nerve to show my face on his ranch. He shouted me off his property and told me not to come back. He said he wanted nothing to do with ‘the spawn of a savage.’ He swore that if I tried to make contact with him, his wife or his infant daughter that I would end up dead like the rest of my clan.”

Julia reached out to comfort him, as he had comforted her in her hour of need. She wasn’t sure he even noticed her hand folding consolingly around his rigid forearm.

“I had no choice but to live off the land like a scavenger,” he went on bitterly. “Without my training with the Cheyenne I would have starved to death. I didn’t want to go back to the confinement of the reservation. I couldn’t bear to come face-to-face with the grief and torment all over again, either.”

His expression turned as hard as granite. “I survived like a wild animal, if only to infuriate and defy Sol Griffin with my very existence. For those first three years I lived for no other purpose than to show Sol that he could deny me, but I was out there somewhere, waiting for the right moment to make his life as miserable as he made mine.”

Julia groaned inwardly at the thought of a young boy growing up so alone, alienated and cruelly discarded.

“I trained myself to be tough and competent enough with every weapon so I could withstand the ridicule and defend myself when I reentered white society.”

He laughed humorlessly as he glanced at Julia. “The irony of all this is that instead of heading west I decided to headquarter in this particular area. When I came here eight years ago, Dodge City was a fledgling town that had sprung up around the buffalo-hide business.

“Criminals showed up to rob and swindle traders and merchants and I was sent to track them down. I made plenty of money because business was brisk. But deep down inside I knew the reason I set up camp here was to let Sol know that I was never so far away that he could forget I existed. I wanted to be the ever-present thorn in his side.”

Julia smiled faintly. She could understand Lone Wolf’s need to prove himself to the world—to Sol in particular. He never wanted Sol to forget the injustice and rejection.

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