White Moon Rising

  White Moon Rising

  John Foxjohn

  Published by Watermark Press at Smashwords

  Copyright 2014 John Foxjohn

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction of distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing by the author or publisher.

  Other books by John Foxjohn

  The People’s Warrior

  WHO!

  Law of Silence

  Unbalanced

  Code of Deceit

  Cold Tears

  Color of Murder

  Tattered Justice

  Journey of the Spirit

  Paradox

  Killer Nurse—the true story of a female nurse serial killer

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eighteen

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter One

  With the spring sun beating on the back of Andy’s neck, his body swayed with the movement of the horse. Grasshoppers and other insects, feasting on the thick grass, fled in the wake of the big horse’s steps.

  The rolling hills of northwest Nebraska were a vibrant green at that time of year with a smell of freshness from the rain.

  Andy bent forward and rubbed the horse’s neck. The horse turned his head as if to say thank you, but his ears sprang up and he focused his attention on the hills to the left. A chill swept up Andy’s back, and he eased the horse to a stop.

  Without seeming to do so, and out of the corner of his eye, he scanned the hills. An uneasy feeling, but one he was familiar with, fluttered in his chest like a scared bird. It only happened when danger was near. He closed his eyes and sighed. The last thing he wanted was danger. He’d seen enough war and fighting to last ten men several lifetimes.

  He just wanted people to leave him alone. Peace and a family was all he wanted. The big question: would they let him have it?

  Leather creaked as he continued to study the land around him. They were on a high flat table with hills to the south. Andy had never traveled this way before, but the table would continue to rise, then it had to drop off. If someone was following him or trying to get ahead for an ambush, they had to know his destination. The best place to set up an ambush would be where he tried to come down off the table.

  Swiping sweat off his brow, he continued to sit, studying all the possible routes. The contour of the land dipped to the right, or east, away from what bothered Big Red. He studied the route for a long moment. It was the least likely way he would go because it took him away from his destination.

  Andy used his knees to guide the horse to the east. Better to take the long way than walk into trouble. Besides, he wasn’t in a hurry.

  Keeping the pace slow to stop from stirring any dust, he guided Big Red down the contour of the land. At last the natural dip of the land took them around a hill and he the horse pulled up. Andy gasped. Sitting before them was a small valley so beautiful his lungs refused to work.

  Young cottonwoods overflowing with luscious green leaves contrasted with a cloudless blue sky. The sun sparkled off a small stream running through the trees. Juicy green grass surrounded and enhanced the beauty. As he kneed Big Red forward, a soft breeze carried the aroma of wildflowers.

  The sight transformed Andy. All thoughts of enemies, dreams—everything—left. He guided the horse to the stream, unsaddled him, and hobbled him so he could graze. Opening his saddlebags, he removed a large buckskin pouch. He sat on the ground beside the stream and began to remove small canning jars.

  Next he took out a large piece of tanned deerskin. He’d treated the skin himself for this purpose. With the skin stretched tight, he’d used a buffalo bone tool he’d made and scraped all the meat off. Then he used a combination of fat and bone marrow to rub into the skin. By the time he had it where he wanted it, the skin was as soft as rabbit’s fur.

  With a contented smile, he began opening the jars. Heath, the town he’d ridden from, sold paint, but Andy didn’t have the money to buy it. Besides, he’d always made his own. He took dried plants and pounded them into a powder. Oak leaves made green, yellow came from the bark of ash trees, white from the bark of maple, and when he mixed white with charcoal, he had black. With a stick he blended in walnut oil with different powdered plants to create a rich palette of colors.

  Using several slender willow branches, he stripped off the bark and cut them thin like hair. When he tied them together, he had a paintbrush.

  Sitting in the shade of the cottonwoods with birds chirping and the fresh aroma of wild roses growing close to the water, time passed as Andy painted the scenery. On the deer hide canvas he brought the rich beauty to life exactly as it appeared.

  Hours later, he finished the painting. He sat back studying it and smiled with delight. No one had ever taught him to paint. He’d been born with the gift. The Indians said the gift came from Whankan Thanka, the Great Spirit, and the whites said it came from God. Andy didn’t know what the difference was. To him they both sounded alike, but neither side wanted to hear that. But he was glad whoever was responsible had given it to him.

  Nothing satisfied him more than to find a beautiful place like this and transform that beauty to life on the deerskins. Not only did he love to paint, he’d discovered the white people would pay him for his paintings. They even had him paint pictures of them that they hung on their walls. He needed the money but never understood why they wanted a picture of themselves on their walls. They already knew what they looked like, and anyone visiting them in their home could see what they looked like.

  He stood and bent, pulling up handfuls of grass. He strolled to where Big Red was standing and began to rub the horse down. As he worked, he took in the sights and smells of the small valley. This was just the kind of place he wanted to build a home, have a life. But it could ever happen until he figured out who he was, or even what he was. The fact that he didn’t know the answers to these questions said a lot about his state of mind.

  To most of the white people at Fort Robinson and Heath, the small town close to the fort, he was a white renegade who the Sioux had raised. To make matters worse, he’d fought with the Indians against whites. It didn’t matter to them, that at the age of eight, he was the lone survivor of a wagon train massacre. The whites cared less that
the Sioux had adopted and raised him, the only reason he survived.

  Tensions were high in the area and most whites wanted a measure of revenge for what they called the Custer massacre, a fight Andy had participated in, and others. The Indians had been at war with the whites in this area for years, and most had loved ones or friends killed by the Indians. They believed the soldiers should pen him on the reservation like all the other Sioux, or kill him outright.

  It wasn’t just the whites who Andy had to worry about. He had enemies among the Indians, too. He was the adopted brother of Crazy Horse and had been with the Sioux leader at the time of his murder—one instigated by some of his own people.

  Whites had labeled him a renegade, and to quite a few of the Indians he was just another white.

  Born Andrew Jackson Johansson, up until he was eight, his white family raised him. Then the Sioux called him Wrong Hand, or shortened to Hand, a name attached to the fact that he was left-handed.

  Now at twenty-two of the white man’s years, he was an outcast. All he wanted was a home, a family, and a way to provide for them. He could go live on the reservation with Worm, his adopted father, who would take him in as one of the family, but some of the others wouldn’t treat him as an Indian.

  He was white, at least in blood and looks, if not in upbringing, and he was free to go anywhere he chose, someplace where no one knew anything about him. If he didn’t tell them he was raised a Sioux, they would have no way of knowing just looking at him.

  Neither of the two scenarios playing in his mind took Abbey Martin into account.

  Abbey had hair the color of ripe wheat and her ice-blue eyes conveyed warmth and caring. The slim young woman was without a doubt the most beautiful woman Andy had ever seen, but she was more than that.

  She had spunk, and would walk beside a man and not behind. Every time he looked at her his insides and tongue tied in knots. He wanted her to be a part of the life he desired, but he couldn’t take her to a Sioux lodge in the middle of a reservation. The Sioux on the Red Cloud reservation where Worm lived existed from one handout to another from the government. Worm’s people had no way to hunt for food or clothes, and no way to support a family.

  Andy couldn’t take a white woman raised in the white world with the things she wanted and needed, into abject poverty and expect her to stay, even if he could get her to go to start with.

  Rubbing the horse down, Andy smiled as Big Red turned and nuzzled him. The horse stood seventeen and a half hands high, with muscle on top of muscle. He could run like the wind and had the stamina to go all day.

  As the horse drank, Andy caressed Big Red’s neck. He’d captured the horse from the Crows when he was just a colt. At the time, he was small and almost black—nothing to indicate the enormous size and color when he matured. By the time the colt became full-grown, he’d become the color of dried blood.

  Andy squatted beside the fast-moving creek; cupped his hand, and dipped up some cold, clear water. It tasted good, almost sweet. A couple more hands full quenched his thirst, and he rose, wiping his hand on his pants leg.

  Holding his palms in front of him, he stared at them. His hands were large, blunt, and powerful. He had wide shoulders and a deep chest that went along with bulging muscles to match his hands. Although he was only five-ten, he weighed close to two hundred and fifty pounds, and he’d never put his hands on anything that didn’t move. Of course, like his black hair and dark eyes, he’d inherited his size and strength from his father.

  Before coming west in the wagon train, his father, who was taller and bigger than Andy, had worked as a blacksmith and planned to open his own shop out west.

  He inherited his real father’s size and strength. His adopted people, the Sioux, had trained him to be a warrior, but none of that helped him support a family. Although he could draw and paint well, he couldn’t support a family with it. In fact, he had no skills to support Abbey, and he had no one he could talk to about it.

  With a sigh, Andy saddled the horse and reached for the reins, but the horse’s ears rose and he jerked his head up, looking downstream. Andy reacted instantly as one who had lived all his life with danger. In one step he was at the horse’s side and slid the rifle out of the scabbard.

  Squatting, he scrambled for a small cluster of rocks behind him and away from the horse. If someone fired at him he didn’t want them hitting Big Red by accident.

  Andy kept one eye on the slope where the horse had looked, and the other on Big Red. Moments passed as the horse continued to stare downstream. Nothing but birds, insects, and water bubbling over the rocks in the creek penetrated the serenity of the day.

  His gaze shifted, looking for movement in the grass where the wind didn’t blow. Several minutes passed. He glanced back at the horse, who’d returned to eating beside the creek. What had caused the horse to react the way he did? It could have been an animal, but Big Red usually would snort if an animal was near, including a horse.

  Even though the horse no longer showed any concern, Andy remained squatted behind the cluster of rocks, rifle butted against his shoulder.

  Time passed as he continued to scan the area and listen for the telltale signs of leather brushing against grass or brush. Finally, with the horse still not showing any concern, Andy rose. He eased around Big Red, putting the horse between him and the downstream area. Picking up the reins, Andy mounted, but kept the rifle in hand, butt on his thigh, barrel pointing up.

  Gently, he tapped the horse’s ribs with the heel of his boots—footwear he still wasn’t used to wearing. Big Red turned his head to glance at him as if asking if he was sure. The horse had enjoyed the grass. Andy leaned forward and patted the black mane, and at the same time gigged the horse forward. He had too many enemies to feel foolish about the false alarm, if that was what it was. It was better to be sure than dead, but he trusted his horse’s senses.

  Big Red crossed the narrow creek and Andy turned him downstream with his knees. Although he kept his gaze sweeping the area, he kept a watch on the horse’s ears.

  If it had been a man the horse had sensed earlier, he would have been on the same side of the creek as Andy was. He would have heard a horse or man cross the water. Now his gaze swept the bank back and forth on the opposite side. Andy was almost two hundred yards and around a bend of the creek when he spotted a smudged area close to the creek.

  Dismounting, he let the reins trail on the ground. He’d trained Big Red for ground hitch.

  He eased across the water to make as little sound as possible and kept low, squatting at the smudged area. It was obvious that a boot made the mark. He could see part of the heel, and it was fresh.

  Andy’s gaze followed the prints back up the slope and away from the creek. Why would a man in this country not have a horse, or if he did, why not bring him to the creek to drink?

  Kneeling with the sun beating down on his shoulders, he glanced at the creek bank. There was no sign that the man—and Andy had no doubt, a white man—had not gone to the stream to drink. In fact, he’d slipped. He must have thought he’d made some noise because he’d turned and retreated.

  The print led him to a small copse of trees. Andy rose and followed them over the slope. With rifle ready, he eased forward. There he found where the man had tied the horse. If the man had followed him from town, but off to the side and out of view, he would have made it to the trees before Andy made it to the creek. There was a good possibility he’d left the horse here to avoid spooking Andy’s horse, and intended to go on foot along the creek to get the shot.

  Two things occurred to Andy instantly: he had spent too much time thinking of his problems and not enough watching his back trail, and whoever followed knew where he was going.

  The sure-footed red stallion eased down the rocky trail, weaving back and forth between the trees. Andy had hung the reins free and let the horse maneuver his way over the loose shale. The horse was more adept at this kind of terrain than Andy would ever be in directing him.

&nb
sp; At the bottom of the seventy-five-foot slope, several tepees stood in the gorge. The closer Andy came to The People’s homes, the more pronounced the familiar smells became. Wood smoke and cooking meat odors along with other rancid smells swam on the light breeze.

  Because of the heat, all of the tepees had their sides rolled up to allow a breeze to blow through.

  As Andy approached, everyone came out to see who it was. They all recognized him, but not the way he was dressed.

  Worm, Andy’s adopted father, appeared from his tepee and sat. With his hand palm up, he indicated for Andy to join him.

  Andy handed the reins to a boy about ten who came up to take him to the horse herd. After thanking the boy in his Lakota language, he took the seat Worm indicated. Neither spoke as the older man stuffed tobacco in his pipe. When he had it drawing well, he took it out. “Ayiee, Hand, you look troubled, my son.”

  “Ate,” Andy said using the Lakota word for father, “I need the wisdom of your years.”

  Puffing on his pipe, the old man paused a moment, and then said, “It’s good you came then. How can I help you?”

  “Ate, I don’t understand who or what I am.”

  The old man didn’t say anything for a long time. The creases in his face deepened as he smoked his pipe. Andy remained silent out of respect for his adopted father. Finally, the old man spoke. “Years ago, I told you the whites may make you decide. I hoped it would not be the case then. Now, unfortunately, I think they will make you decide.”

  “Ate—”

  “Let me speak, Hand. “ You were a little white boy when Crazy Horse brought you to us. We raised you the only way we knew how. Now you are a grown man—a white man whether you want to believe it or not.”

  Worm sucked in a deep breath from his pipe and exhaled. “You are my son and always will be—always welcome in my home.” He pointed the pipe stem at Andy. “Each race has its good points and its bad. You were born in one and raised in another. I do not think you can exist in both. You are a white man. Who you are, only you can determine.”