Charlie's Choice Read online

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  Charlie’s Choice

  Atwell Kin Series

  Book 0

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  Zina Abbott

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  Copyright © 2019 Robyn Echols writing as Zina Abbott

  All rights reserved.

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  Dedication

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  This book is dedicated to the Kaw Nation which has survived in spite of the challenges it faced with the coming of the white man, particularly the Americans of European descent. It has been a pleasure learning more about them as I researched their history and their culture for, first, Kizzie’s Kisses, my first book written in what has evolved into the Atwell Kin series, and also for Charlie’s Choice, my prequel about the half-Kansa/Kaw character who makes an appearance in each book in this series. He is the link between the Americans and the people who lived in the Kansas territory before the arrival of the Europeans.

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  Acknowledgements

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  This book is part of the Atwell Kin series.

  Two of the books in this series were originally written for two other multi-author series sponsored by authors who post on the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog. I wish to thank those authors who wrote their own books for each series. I greatly appreciate the support they provided.

  Inspired by the setting and my character in my Grandma’s Wedding Quilts series book, Kizzie’s Kisses, I decided to write a book about her cousin’s story in Otto’s Offer for the Lockets & Lace series. Those were books 2 and 3 respectively. For the Atwell Kin series, I left them as the same book numbers, which left me with the challenge to write a Book 1. Book 1 in the Atwell Kin series will be Virginia’s Vocation which is scheduled for publication in April, 2019. Before that, I wish to write a prequel about a character who will show up as a minor character in each Atwell Kin series book.

  This is Charlie’s story.

  The cover design is my own. ©2018 Robyn Echols, All Rights Reserved

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  Disclaimer

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  All the characters described in this story are fictional. They are not based on any real persons, past or present. Any resemblance to real persons, living or deceased, is coincidental and unintended.

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  Chapter 1

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  Hard Chief’s Camp, Council Grove Kansa Reservation

  Kansas Territory

  April, 1856

  M eadowlark turned away from her father, Spotted Horse. Unwilling to listen to more of his arguments he used in hopes of persuading her to offer her agreement, she kept her head down as she cut the dried buffalo meat into small chunks to make a stew for their midday meal. It was not the first time she and her father had discussed the topic of her future, but she found it no less upsetting than the previous times. The conversation had come as no surprise considering the visit that morning by Broken Wing. Spotted Horse wished her to marry Broken Wing.

  Broken Wing was a proven warrior among the Kansa people—or Kaw, as they came to be known among the Anglo-Americans. He provided well for his family, often bringing down many bison on the annual summer and winter buffalo hunts to the west of the reservation. He had survived the smallpox epidemic that claimed the lives of Meadowlark’s oldest sister and her sister’s husband. Although scars riddled his face, he would be less likely to succumb to the disease should another epidemic strike the tribe.

  Broken Wing’s smallpox scars did not bother her. She could see through them. She vaguely recalled his face before the scarring since the great sickness came when she was almost seven summers, an age where she still kept some of her memories. On the back of his horse either in battle or on the hunt, he had proven many times his ability. She knew his warrior name, Broken Wing, a shorter version of Broken-wing-kills-buffalo, had been given to him not as a name of ridicule, but to honor him for the time his horse threw him into the path of a young charging bull buffalo. The fall injured his arm preventing him from lifting it. In spite of that, he had managed to use his spear with his other arm to bring down the animal.

  What Meadowlark wished her father to understand, but dared not say it aloud, were the reasons she found him undesirable as a husband. First, he was much older than she was, only three years younger than her own father.

  However, his age was not her greatest objection. Broken Wing already had two wives. The oldest, Red Quill, although gifted at beadwork, suffered for years from swelling of her legs and feet. Word circulated around the camp that the hard lump on the side of her abdomen came from an evil spirit swelling inside her. Now, she had grown worse, and she stayed in bed most of each day. She remained far too weak and short of breath to perform any work around the bark and mat-covered lodge that the family shared. For the past year, she had not created her art on the leather bags the family sold to the trading post for extra cash. People did not expect her to walk upon the earth much longer.

  Although Broken Wing’s other wife, Sun-in-shell was younger, she was still at least ten summers older than Meadowlark. Named such because the color of her cheeks reminded people of the color of the inside of a freshwater mussel found in the rivers, the name misled people into thinking her disposition matched the pretty glow of the interior of the cleaned shells. Meadowlark knew others shared her opinion Sun-in-shell was among the most disagreeable woman in all three Kansa camps. She did not need to become drunk on the liquor sold by the trading post to the braves to become belligerent and verbally abusive. Meadowlark more than once witnessed Sun-in-shell strike Red Quill, although even she dared not do so if Broken Wing was around. As much as Broken Wing might drink on occasion, which led to him yelling and physically lashing out at Sun-in-shell, He was not known to bother Red Quill, even when inebriated.

  Broken Wing married Sun-in-shell when he realized he needed help with Red Quill. The widow who lost a child shortly after she lost her first husband had readily agreed to the match. It was too bad, Meadowlark mused, that Broken Wing thought first of her attractive appearance—for her face did appear to be pretty the few times she wasn’t scowling. It was unfortunate for both him and Red Quill that he did not take into account that Sun-in-shell’s sour disposition would not disappear after they married. She performed the tasks expected of her, but she let it be known she resented caring for the sick senior wife.

  On principle alone, Meadowlark found the idea of being a third wife—the young one who would be expected to perform the majority of the manual labor under the direction of Sun-in-shell—repugnant. Considering what she knew about Sun-in-shell, her every thought and feeling rebelled at the thought of being stuck under the wolverine’s rule. If the rumors whispered among the women of the band were true, she complained of sharing a bed with Broken Wing. That meant, if Meadowlark married him, she would be expected to spend each night with him—a man who was almost her father’s age and his good friend.

  So far, Spotted Horse appeared to be unwilling to force his daughter into a marriage she opposed. Meadowlark wondered, if her father grew impatient with her, and if she did end up being forced to marry Broken Wing, would he also yell and strike her when he filled himself with whiskey? The white traders that traveled the Santa Fe Trail that ran through the Council Grove Reservation eagerly sold their whiskey to the Kansa warriors and encouraged drunkenness among them. Then they often laughed and claimed the Kansa were a worthless people. As much as living on the reservation and disc
overing they were powerless against the whites breaking the treaties and encroaching on land promised to the Kansa made the people of the tribe appear weak, the whiskey also played a role.

  Broken Wing was not the only Kansa warrior who took his frustrations out on those weaker than himself when he had been drinking liquor. Meadowlark cringed and pulled her body in tighter in a subconscious effort to make herself invisible. She would rather not marry than to be tied to a husband trapped in the lure of the whiskey bottle.

  Meadowlark scraped the meat off the cutting board into the pot full of simmering water. She tightened her forearm against her stomach that clenched at the thought. She must convince her father to allow her to marry a younger man, one who had no other wife—a man she could care for, perhaps even love.

  A dark heaviness descended upon Meadowlark. She was not blind to the problem that rode the same wind as that desire. Her father would not allow her to marry a man of her choice just because she preferred him. Spotted Horse, although not a chief, was a highly-regarded warrior among the Kansa. All his life he led men both on hunts and on raiding parties. He led men into battle. He had expectations for the husbands of his daughters. The man who sought her in marriage must be a warrior. He must prove to her father in the traditional manner he could provide for her and their children. He must be full-blood Kansa.

  Although the warrior days when her father and Broken Wing had been young had passed, most of the men among the Kansa proved themselves as warriors and earned a new warrior name to replace the name given to them as a child. Most men still considered it good sport to raid the Cheyenne, the Arapaho, the Pawnee or other neighboring tribes to acquire horses to give to a prospective father-in-law. When they had raided among the whites now invading their former homeland like a plague of locusts, they learned the hard way the trouble they might bring upon the entire tribe. Taking horses from among the whites, especially now they had ceded land and been forced onto a reservation overseen by an Indian agent, could mean the Army being called to subdue the people. It now meant the Kansa must travel many days to reach another tribe’s camp to find horses.

  In spite of his age, as long as he went long enough without indulging in the whiskey he liked to purchase from the trading post, even Broken Wing could ride with a raiding party to capture horses. However, for him, there would be no need. He owned many horses, and could easily give her father the expected gift for her. Meadowlark shuddered at the realization.

  The third consideration, Meadowlark knew, was what drove her father to consider Broken Wing as a worthy husband for his third and last daughter. Broken Wing was full-blood Kansa.

  There were many mixed-bloods who lived among the Kansa. Many years before when White Plume had been a chief, he made a special deal with the Americans during the treaty-making process. For his cooperation, all twenty-three half-bloods, including his grandchildren, were granted in fee-simple 640-acre plots along the Kansas River just east of the new reservation where the rest of the Kansa were forced to move. The rest of the tribe received no such special privilege. As the white men had intended, this move had caused division in the tribe.

  Many of the traditional full-bloods like her father had never forgiven White Plume. The tribe had always operated in threes, each camp having its own principle chief. Afterwards, due to resentment, it was more like the Kansa had split into four bands. There were still a few mixed-blood Kansa among the three camps of full-bloods who did not get any of the land White Plume had won from the whites, but many, like her father, looked down on them. Her father considered them weakened because of their mixed ancestry. Spotted horse wished all his children to only marry full-bloods. That was why he preferred living in Hard Chief’s camp.

  Meadowlark understood another reason that lay heavily on her father’s heart. The full-bloods were dying out. Even before the move to Council Grove, the tribe had lost many men to battle, especially to the warlike Pawnee to the north. With the encroachment of the white man, the tribes found themselves fighting each other for the resources that remained. Along with declining numbers, the traditions that had made the Kansa, the People of the South Wind, a great and powerful tribe in past generations, also faded in importance among too many of the people.

  In addition, for centuries before the Americans ruled the land far to the east, the Kansa held the territory on both sides of the Missouri River near where the Kansa River joins it, they had made earlier contact than most tribes with the white traders who had set up shop along those rivers to exchange furs and other Indian goods for the tools and goods the white men possessed. That lengthy exposure to the white men and their diseases by the Kansa warriors had caused many in the tribe to sicken and die.

  Meadowlark grabbed a bundle of herbs to mince. She shook her head as she considered the basic truth behind her problem. The Kansa people had many more women than it had full-blood warriors to be husbands to those women. That led to some of the women agreeing to marry among other people, notably the whites.

  Meadowlark mentally reviewed all the single men among the Kansa. Who did she know, and who would her father find acceptable? Her hands stilled and her heart sank as if suddenly weighed down with a heavy stone. There were a few young men she liked among the mixed-bloods, but none she could think of among the full-bloods. Who among the mixed-bloods, then, could she consider? Perhaps, if she brought to her father the name of one who was mostly Kansa, with only one grandparent a Frenchman, he might consider the man as long as he met her father’s other criteria. She paused in her task as her mind searched her memory for the faces of those to consider. None settled in her thoughts.

  Unbidden, the face of Gray Squirrel popped into Meadowlark’s mind. Why, she did not know, for he did not live with the Kansa. As a child he lived among the Kansa until after his mother, Owl Woman, as well as his older sister, Nose-twitches-like-rabbit, had died.

  Meadowlark might not have remembered much about Gray Squirrel except for several months the previous summer he had returned to visit his uncle who lived in Fool Chief’s camp, the same camp where several mixed-bloods lived nearby. He brought many gifts from his father’s trading post, some of which made their way throughout the tribe. Although their paths had little occasion to cross, especially since his uncle did not live in the same camp as she did with her father, she had seen him from afar and recognized him. It also helped that the older women, prompted by his appearance after so many years, talked and retold the stories from the times she and Gray Squirrel were children. Even if he did act a little too proud, and had the eyes, chin and teeth of his white father, she thought he had grown into a handsome young man. However, after the summer buffalo hunt, Gray Squirrel bid his uncle farewell and returned to his father’s trading post. He might remember his Kansa relatives, but he lived in the white world.

  Meadowlark felt the bark walls of their lodge closing in on her. She checked the fire to be sure it remained hot enough to keep their food cooking without burning it. She turned to mutter to her father she would return shortly. Without waiting for a reply, she scrambled to her feet and left their home.

  Outside, Meadowlark inhaled deeply. She turned her feet towards the latrine area in case her father glanced outside. However, after several strides, she veered off towards a clump of bushes next to the creek that fed the Neosho River. Partially screened from the rest of the people of her band, she slowed her breathing.

  Her monthly courses had started many moons before, which marked her as a woman, ready to marry. Her father expected her to marry. She knew most of the women in the band wondered why she had not already married. However, she did not feel ready to marry, especially to an older warrior like Broken Wing with his first wife confined most of the time to what was probably her deathbed, and his disagreeable second wife waiting for the chance to turn Meadowlark into her personal slave.

  Somehow, she must convince her father to allow more time to consider a different man for her husband.

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  Chapter 2

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  Bonner Springs, Kansas Territory

  April, 1856

  H is face flaming with anger, eighteen-year-old Charlie strode through back entry of his father’s trading post and slammed the wooden door behind him. The crossbar he had lifted from the outside by means of a cord crashed on top of the metal hook that held it to the door frame, causing the door to spring back and remain open a foot. Fuming, Charlie turned around and shoved the crossbar, into its bracket so the door remained closed. He pulled the cord towards him through the hole, thus preventing anyone from entering the trading post from the rear.

  Breathing heavily, Charlie paced the cramped floor of the room used as a warehouse where his father kept his excess trade goods. He muttered his distain in the Kaw language as he picked up the communal tin cup used for dipping water out of the barrel to slake thirst and flung it across the room.

  The 1850’s store constructed of brick walls and glass windows in front more closely resembled buildings that housed the mercantile businesses in any established town east of the Mississippi River. However, the trading post had its origins in a humble wood and hide shack originally built by Charlie’s grandfather for trade with the Missouri River watershed tribes. The Kaw were the predominate tribe, but surrounding tribes also made their way to his door. Although expanded in size, and the interior of the public area in front more updated with shelves and a wood floor, the construction of the back, which at one time housed the original trading post built in the days when only a few white trappers and explorers ventured west of the Missouri River, retained its original building materials and features.