Trumpet on the Land: The Aftermath of Custer's Massacre, 1876

He looked down at her while they walked along, crossing the center of the parade, heading for the big cottonwoods that lined the banks of the river. Sam’s cheeks glowed rosier than ever before, at least what he could remember. It must not all be the cold wind, he thought. Some of it had to do with her condition.

His wife’s hunger had surprised him that first night. And every one of the twelve nights since. Just as he had been a bit afraid to hug her so fiercely in those first moments at the bottom of the stairs, so he was frightened of what might happen if he penetrated her warm moistness— what he had dreamed of night after night for those long months of their separation.

“The other women have told me there is no danger, Seamus,” Sam had whispered in the darkness of their room that night as she had stroked her fingers up and down the hot, hardened length of him.

“You’re sure?” Oh, how he wanted her to be sure!

She giggled, like the flutter of a small bird, and said, “They’ve all had children, Seamus Donegan. I think they ought to know firsthand, don’t you?”

“Just as long as I don’t … you don’t … you’re so big.”

Nudging him over onto his back, Samantha quickly straddled him, almost as nimble as ever despite the size of her. He gasped when she took his flesh into her hand and aimed it true, slowly settling her weight upon his hips.

“I’ll make you a promise, Seamus Donegan,” she said huskily, her eyes half closing as she began to rock upon him in a slow dance. “If it makes you feel any better, I promise I’ll let you know if you hurt me.”

“M-me? F-feel any better?” he stammered. “What could possibly feel any better than this?”

Every night since, they had worked their immense passion around the full bulk of her belly. Right now he remembered again how it felt to kneel behind her, to reach around her widened hips, to stroke his hands across the heaviness of her—as if he were caressing the very womb where she carried their child.

Seamus looked down at her in the silver light of that half-moon just then climbing over the tops of the cottonwoods, stripped daily of their autumn-kissed leaves by strong, gusty, tormenting winds.

How he wanted her again, to feel the great warmth of her, to savor the love he felt when he was in her arms. Just walking beside her as he was now, he knew it wasn’t enough. He had to have more. Never would he get enough of her.

“Oh!” she squealed in a high pitch.

As soon as she stopped, he stopped. Clutching her arm, he asked fearfully, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

For a moment she rubbed her wool mitten across the round expanse of her greatcoat. Her eyes widened in surprise, lips pursed in a little fear. “Oh, oh, oh!”

Her each new utterance of the word alarmed him. As did the way she gripped at his arms, clamped on to them,her fingers like claws. Then it was past. Whatever it was, he could see it disappear, leave her face—tangibly. The way something visible might release her, replaced by the relief that showed there on that rosy face.

Her eyes smiled first.

“Good,” he sighed. “I was afraid something we had for dinner had given your stomach a twist.”

Now her whole face smiled, and she licked her lips in the dry autumn-night air. Looking up at him from the corners of her eyes as she had that very first night they had met back in the Panhandle of west Texas, Samantha straightened.

“I’m all right,” she said. “Let’s finish our walk.”

Minutes later she snuggled even closer to his side as they moved along, both her arms encircling one of his. Sam asked, “Are you going to take Colonel Mackenzie up on his offer and go with him, Seamus?”

“I’m not even going to consider it. Not with the baby due next month. It has been eight months, hasn’t it?”

“Near as I could count, Seamus,” she said with that giggle. “I never was much good at arithmetic.”

“It doesn’t matter. I want to be here when the babe comes. I’ll stay here and Mackenzie can march without me.”

“But—he asked you himself to go along. There at dinner tonight. Seamus, how can you turn him down, with all that you were through together in Texas? After all, he’s the colonel of the Fourth Cavalry, for God’s sake! Asking you to scout for him.”

“I scouted for him one winter already,” Donegan replied with a single wag of his head. “That was enough. So I’ve got a far better plan for this coming winter: to stay close to the home fires when the winter winds come howling off those mountains north of here.”

It took her several moments; then she finally said the words as if she had been rehearsing them: “Seamus, long ago I realized what you were—the sort of man you are. I think I knew what you were before you ever asked me to be your wife. I knew what you had to be before I loved you, what you were when you rode off to fight for Ranald Mackenzie two winters ago.”

“But don’t you see—it took that winter campaign for me to find out just how much I loved you, Sam.”

“And you came back to me, didn’t you, Seamus?”