Wild Passion - Published by Wild Dreams Publishing!

Chapter One - Outside the Fortified Walls

Chapter One

Outside the Fortified Walls

The Sioux Nation were fairly peaceful people. The Great Spirit blessed them with plant and animal life to see to their needs. The Native Americans were appreciative and prayed their thanks to Wakantanka for every life they were blessed with to sustain them. They were careful not to waste anything.

Spirit Bear watched the white dogs from the first influx as they arrived in their horse-drawn white-covered boxes and settled into his lands. The war chief studied them as they constructed the wall surrounding their wooden village. It angered the warrior to see how the wasicu annihilated the wood near their settlement, and they did not thank the life they destroyed. The white dogs acted as if they had a right to everything. Spirit Bear vowed to put an end to it. However, he was no fool. The chief wanted to learn the ways of these wasteful creatures before he made his move.

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The early summer weather in the South Dakota Territory was hot and humid in 1802. Kaitlin Farley angrily brushed the rough dirt floors of their one room log home. It was quite tedious work with the sparse twigs she'd bound together and fashioned into a work tool.

Their home was the first one established outside of the robust walls of the town. Because there hadn't been any sightings of Indians for at least a month, her father and brother assumed it was "safe" to build upon the rich plains. Many advised against the move and recommended they stay behind the firm security the town freely offered, but it was advice rejected passionately by her men folk. However, Kaitlin believed she knew the real reason behind their plight... or flight.

Light colored eyes wandered to the barren storage areas roughly hewn in the stout log walls. Kaitlin knew it was also too much to hope that her father or brother would bring home a rabbit or fowl for their evening meal; all they ever brought home were hangovers.

The young woman grabbed a basket she'd weaved from long dry grasses gathered from the nearby stream's edge. For the time being, she gave up on cleaning the floors and headed for her only sanctuary. The cool water of the creek was the single place that seemed to soothe her frayed nerves.

After soaking her feet in the refreshing liquid, the honey-kissed blonde gathered poke, mouse ear, and water cress into her basket for a salad. She checked the wild peach trees and found several more had ripened since her last invasion. The deserted female had already been picking blackberries earlier that morning.

Kaitlin had no idea that she was not as unaccompanied as she thought. High on the hill above her, a lone Indian sat astride his mighty painted steed. His proud arrogance was not noticed as she gathered the plants she desperately needed for survival. The only movements on the stoic warrior was his raven hair as it ruffled with the caress of the breeze and his ebony eyes as he watched the white winyan's actions.

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He'd been closely watching the activity of the white dogs for several moons. They believed it was safe for them to take more and more from the lands. They now were building their wooden boxes outside of the wall of wood to live in, and they continued to deplete a circumference of plant and animal life around their settlements. They didn't even seem to notice the devastation of their ways! They didn't care to preserve the natural balance of nature as did the red man. It angered Spirit Bear more than he cared to admit.

Spirit Bear would not tolerate much more invasion to the Great Mother's lands. The wasicu had no respect for anything held in high reserve by the Indian. He also had another purpose to his visit: a wasicun or two had been killing off a few members of his tribe. Those men would pay with their lives!