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was lucky to die at Wilson’s Creek, the way I hear it. He was bad wounded in the leg and they’d … they’d hadto … cut it off.” The old man’s voice trailed off and he bent his head and covered his eyes. “Lenny … could never have been happy that way … if he’d lived.”
    Danny frowned and put a reassuring hand on his father’s shoulder as the rain pattered gently against the window pane. It seemed incredible to him that the roar of cannons could come to the peaceful hills that he’d known in his boyhood. Perhaps his father was wrong. Perhaps this war would end quickly. He hoped so. He missed Emily already. For some strange reason he suddenly thought of another woman, a lovely young Sioux girl he had loved once. But Small Cloud was dead now, a casualty from a different kind of war. It still pained his heart to think of it. So many Indians were dead or dying. It suddenly struck him how ironic it was that the Federal government was participating in a war to free the slaves, while at the same time it seemed everything was pointing to putting Indians on reservations as just one of many ways to rid the western lands of the “bothersome” Indians.
    But none of that really mattered. He was a Tennessee man at heart, and Lenny had died for a cause. The cause was Tennessee’s right to make its own laws and decisions. Right now he would simply fight for Tennessee and the South. What happened to the slaves once they were freed would be another matter. And what happened to the Indians was out of his hands now, at least for the time being.
    “At last we are alone!” Zeke said with a sigh. He added more wood to the small fire inside their
tipi
to ward off the chill the autumn night would bring. “We always seem to be surrounded by children.”
    Abbie smiled and sat down on a bed of robes. “You don’t really mind all those children, now, do you?”
    He glanced over at her, at first saying nothing, only thinking how much he loved this woman who had come into his lonely life so many years ago and had brought him so much love and joy. He smiled softly. “You know I don’t. They’re my pride and joy, every one of them special in his own way.”
    She began brushing her thick, dark hair. “Are you sure they’ll be all right, Zeke?” she commented, her strong motherly instinct making her want to gather her children at her feet where she could watch over them herself.
    “Of course they are. Wolf’s Blood and that wild animal of his are better protection than six men. You know that. Smoke wouldn’t let anyone with evil intentions get within a hundred yards of those kids,” he added, referring to his son’s pet wolf.
    “I guess,” she answered, putting down the brush. Their eyes held. At their cabin on the Arkansas River in Colorado Territory, they had the privacy of their own bedroom. But on this journey they had either camped under the stars or erected only one
tipi;
either way, seven small Monroes had slept beside them.
    “One Indian custom you’ve never learned is to quietly make love under the blankets even when your children are sleeping nearby,” Zeke teased. “Most all Cheyenne children have heard or even seen their father and mother mating at one time or another. It’s as natural as the animals.”
    Abbie reddened deeply. “Those children’s parents grew up the same way,” she answered. “I did not. There are some things about me that will always be white, my husband, and one of them is making love in private.”
    He grinned and moved over to kneel in front of her, unlacing the shoulders of her tunic. “Well, you have privacy now, Mrs. Monroe.” Her heart quickened ashe let the tunic drop to her waist and he lightly kissed the fruits of her breasts.
    “Zeke,” she said softly, touching his hair. He moved his lips to her neck and gently layed her back, caressing her cheek then with his lips.
    “What’s bothering you?” he asked quietly. “You’re as tense as a frightened deer.”
    “I