Lakota Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page B

had been their son for twelve years; and he had grieved over their deaths, despite the false story they had told him years ago. He understood why they had done it and he’d forgiven them. What his heart and mind yearned for now was his own father’s love, respect, and acceptance. Would he ever earn them? He didn’t know. Did he deserve them? Yes, because it wasn’t his fault he had been born of mixed blood!
    Yet, had he honestly expected them to welcome him back with open arms? Why shouldn’t they have qualms about his loyalty during future conflicts, questions about his motives for returning, doubts about his identity? After all, he half represented the people and fate they feared and battled most. Perhaps they all needed time to get used to him and to get reacquainted with each other.
    Chase sent his warring mind down a different trail. He knew the Nebraska Territory, of which this area was included, had been formed on May 30 and the sites of Omaha and Nebraska City had been founded. More Whites would soon come to this region. America was marking off this huge land of hers from coast to coast, and from Mexico to Canada. The Nebraska Territory was bounded by those of Washington, Oregon, Utah, New Mexico, Kansas, Minnesota, and Iowa, and the country of Canada. How soon, Chase wondered, would it be before this new territory was divided into states like those east and south of there? Each of those measures of “progress” and “expansion” would alter the Indian world forever, and he didn’t know if the Red Shields could survive such actions if they refused to acknowledge and accede to them.
    Now that he had lived on both sides of the conflict, he had learned a great deal about each. Oddly, both were alike in some ways: most wanted freedom, land, food, family, joy, respect, and a simple life. Both believed in one Creator of all things, a great flood which cleansed the Earth and gave rebirth to it, and that one should honor one’s family, and obey their people’s laws. Yet, the Indians and Whites had many differences, amajor one being the nomadic nature of the Plains Indians in contrast with the Whites’ desire to settle and stay in one place— often in the direct path of the Indians’ wanderings and hunting grounds.
    The Dream, Chase’s roaming mind hinted again, the dream which had beckoned him there. It was still as vivid inside his head as the night it had come to him: the beautiful maiden in a white doeskin dress, her dark hair flowing around her shoulders, her deep brown eyes sparkling with love and mischief, her mouth parted in a smile, her arms outstretched, and her musical voice whispering, “Come home, Cloud Chaser. Come home to me and where you belong. You must obey or we will all die. Come, my love.”
    Had he been foolish to place so much importance on a mere dream? He was about as wanted here as the cholera plague which had struck three years ago! Rising Bear certainly didn’t want to be reminded of his sin with Margaret Phillips! And neither did his wife and people, which had to include his half-brothers and half-sister. Probably everyone had been glad when his mother had died and when he had vanished, removing all White signs and tainting from their village and their beloved chief!
    Don’t do this, Chase! he scolded himself. You came to make peace, to find yourself. Don’t forget these people never mistreated your mother and they didn’t capture her; she was a gift from a Cheyenne chief. Don’t forget she loved your father, loved him as a man, something she kept hidden from everybody except you. And don’t forget Wind Dancer said Father did search for you. But for how long and how hard did you look, my father? Or did you only pretend to search? Did you lie to others and not look at all? Or did you give up too soon and too easily out of relief to have me gone? Am I nothing more than a shameful deed to you, one you want to forget? One you, hoped and prayed the Great Spirit had removed from