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.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
