Page 94 of The Veteran

‘My birthmark? How on earth do you know?’

‘Please let me see it.’

‘Why? It’s private.’

‘Please.’

She paused awhile, then tucked up her cotton skirt to reveal a slim golden thigh. They were still there. Two puckered dimples, the entry and exit holes of the trooper’s bullet beside Rosebud Creek. Irritated, she pulled her skirt back down.

‘Anything else?’ she asked sarcastically.

‘Just one. Do you know what Emos-est-se-haa’e means in the Cheyenne language?’

‘Heavens no.’

‘It means Wind That Talks Softly. Whispering Wind. May I call you Whispering Wind?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose so. If it pleases you. But why?’

‘Because it was once your name. Because I have dreamed about you. Because I have waited for you. Because I love you.’

She flushed deep pink and rose to her feet.

‘This is madness. You know nothing about me, nor I of you. Anyway, I am engaged to be married.’

She stalked off to rejoin her group and would talk to him no more.

But she came back to the fort. She wrestled with her conscience, told herself a thousand times she was being crazy, a fool, out of her mind. But in that mind she saw the steady blue eyes holding hers and convinced herself that she should tell this lovelorn young man that there was no point in their ever meeting again. At least, that was what she told herself she would do.

On a Sunday, a week before school resumed, she caught a tour bus from the centre of the town and alighted at the parking lot. He seemed to know she was coming. He was waiting on the parade ground, as he had every day, with Rosebud saddled up.

He helped her up behind him and rode out to the prairie. Rosebud knew her way to the creek. By the glittering water they dismounted, and he told her how his parents had died when he was a boy and a mountain man had adopted him as his own and raised him. He explained that instead of the school of books and maps he had learned the spoor of every animal of the wild, the cry of every bird, the shape and character of every tree.

She explained that her own life was quite different, orthodox and conventional, planned out. That her fiancé was a young man of good and immensely wealthy family who could give her everything a woman could need or want, as her mother had explained. So there was no point . . .

Then he kissed her. She tried to push him away, but when their lips met the strength went out of her arms and they slipped helplessly round the back of his neck.

His mouth did not smell of alcohol or stale cigars, as did that of her fiancé. He did not grope her body. She smelt the odour of him: buckskin, woodsmoke, pine trees.

In a tumult she broke away and began to walk back to the fort. He followed but did not touch her again. Rosebud ceased cropping and walked behind.

‘Stay with me, Whispering Wind.’

‘I cannot.’

‘We are destined for each other. It was so spoken, a long time ago.’

‘I cannot answer. I have to think. This is crazy. I am engaged.’

‘Tell him he will have to wait.’

‘Impossible.’

There was a prairie schooner leaving the gates, heading for the out-of-sight parking lot. She diverted her course, boarded it and went inside. Ben Craig mounted Rosebud and walked after the wagon.

At the parking lot the passengers disembarked from the wagon and boarded the bus.

‘Whispering Wind,’ he called, ‘will you come back?’

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