Little Flower Read online

  Little Flower

  Jeanie Johnson

  OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR

  Native American books

  Across The River

  Apache Pride

  Beyond The Heart

  Cherokee Courage

  Gentle Savage

  Gedi Puniku (Cat Eyes)

  Kiowa White Moon

  Kiowa Wind Walker

  No Price Too High

  Paiute Passion

  Sagebrush Serenade

  Savage Land

  Shadow Hawk

  Shoshone Surrender

  Son of Silver Fox (sequel to Gentle Savage)

  White Hawk and the Star Maiden

  Within The Heart (Sequel to Beyond the Heart)

  Historical or Regency/Victorian Romance Books

  A Bride for Windridge Hall

  Defiant Heart

  Highroad

  Indentured

  The Deception

  Wild Irish Rose

  Winslow’s Web

  Contemporary Western Romance Books

  Georgie Girl

  Grasping at Straws

  Mattie

  Passion’s Pride

  Single-handed Heart

  Historical Western Romance Books

  Elusive Innocents

  20th Century Historical Romance Books

  Italy Vacation

  Moments of Misconception

  Radcliff Hall

  Samuel’s Mansion

  Taxi Dancer

  Action and Adventure Mystery Romance Books

  Ghost Island

  Holding On

  Payback

  Futuristic Action and Adventure Romance Books

  Chosen

  Pony Up

  Surviving

  The Division

  The Dominion

  The Mechanism

  Time travel/Reincarnation Romance Books

  Egyptian Key

  Seekers

  Seekers Two

  Seekers Three

  The Locked Room

  The Vortex-book One

  Non Fiction Books

  A Collection of short stories (some true)

  Chief Washakie (short history of Shoshoni Chief)

  Dream Symbols Made Easy (how to analyze dreams)

  Peaches (inspirational)

  The Prune Pickers (my childhood)

  Whimper (true story of racial conflicts)

  Children’s Picture Book

  Dandy The Horse

  This is a work of fiction. Except for historical people mentioned in this story, all other characters in this book are out of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is unintentional.

  Story by

  Jeanie Johnson

  Copyright 20018

  All Rights reserved

  PROLGUE

  To Daisy the wagon was huge and a little scary. It rocked back and forth, precariously, creaking and groaning, like a monster lumbering over the rough path, making her fear it would tip over at the least encouragement. Her five-year-old imagination thought of it as a big ship sailing across an endless sea of grass, its dingy white cover like a curved sail propelling it forward. What really propelled it forward were a couple of huge oxen, their speckled noses sporting a ring. Their huge, cumbersome, feet tramped along, stirring up the dust like rolling waves, while trampling the sod down. The great wheels of the wagon crushed what the oxen didn’t step on, for good measure. Grass was all she could see for miles around her; grass and a scattering of wildflowers. She longed to touch those flowers with their soft white petals and dark, chocolate centers reaching their faces up to catch the sun.

  “Mama look, daisies, just like my name!” The high-pitched, excited voice cut into Rebeca Radford’s thoughts. Wildflowers were the farthest thing from her mind, and she had to force herself to pay attention to Daisy’s happy chatter.

  “Yes,” she said idly, “I see,” only she hadn’t seen. Her mother never seemed to see or pay attention to what Daisy found interest in.

  Daisy’s small, pink smile drooped. She hung her head farther over the side of the wagon seat, watching the ground moving past them, taking all the daisies with it.

  Rebeca glanced over at her husband, driving the wagon. He sat straight and stiff. His thoughts too, seemed to be somewhere other than out on the vast prairie they traveled over. The long whip he held over the oxen’s head moved listlessly back and forth, with the movement of the wagon, until he would give it a flip, any time the oxen slowed their pace. She wondered, for the hundredth time, how much longer this trek would take. “Stop fidgeting, Daisy,” she scolded, grabbing Daisy’s arm to pull her back.

  Daisy was leaning so far over the side of the wagon Rebeca feared she would end up falling out.

  “I want to get down. I want to pick the flowers!” she bellowed persistently.

  “You are too little to walk alone,” her mother mumbled.

  “Let her get down. She can walk with the older children. Ask Becky to keep an eye on her,” Blake Radford grumbled. He hated listening to Daisy’s pestering. She was a demanding child and he always found himself giving into her. “I’ll stop the wagon and help her down.”

  Rebeca shrugged. She knew Blake was just spoiling Daisy even more than she already was, but she didn’t feel up to arguing with him. Her pale, dusty face took on an indifferent expression. At this point she felt wilted and overwhelmed. If Blake persisted in spoiling the child, she had little say in the matter, she thought critically. However, she had to admit, he also spoiled her.

  His wealth afforded her anything she desired and her young daughter also profited from it. Her room back in New York had been filled with toys, which had to be shipped ahead on a cargo ship to San Francisco, along with their furniture. There was no room on the wagon to bring all of their belongings, but since the ship would take a lot longer traveling around the cape, they would arrive in San Francisco long before their belongings got there.

  Blake’s father had been an investor and when he died, the fruits of his investments fell into his son’s hands. Land was one of his investments. Land in California, where gold was drawing the east into the west. After they were established in San Francisco, she would be living in a huge, beautiful house once again. She hated leaving her home behind, but Blake wanted to expand his horizons and moving to San Francisco seemed to be the way he had chosen.

  With all the people moving there, after the gold rush of ‘49’ and then Chinese coming to work on the rails, the population in San Francisco had more than doubled. The hotel his father had purchased years earlier, would add to their wealth. It would need a little refurbishing, but Blake had great plans for it already. At night he would pore over the blueprints he had drawn up to modernize the building. Between access at the bay, and the new tracks being set through California from the southern part of the territory, more visitors would come, needing a place to stay when they arrived.

  Rebeca never questioned Blake. Not about his business, not about their wealth, not about any decision he made. So she did not question him now about letting Daisy down to walk. She was a dutiful wife.

  Perspiration soaked her delicate skin. The parasol she carried to shad her face, didn’t seem to ward off the heat that was shimmering up from the ground like waves of illusions, distorting the way the groundcover looked. The creaking of the wagon, pulled by the stalwart oxen slowed as Blake pulled the brake handle back and put pressure on it with his foot. Wood screeching against wood resounded in her ear. The Oxen came to a halt, shaking their heads and snorting through slobbery noses. Blake jumped down, causing the wagon to jolt as he did so. His strong arms reached up for their daughter, as he lifted her down. He couldn’t take too long or the wagon behind him would
be detained and the driver would be sure to complain.

  Daisy’s long black braids fell forward, and then danced around her shoulders as her feet touched the ground, eager to be running through the tall grass.

  “Now you stay with Becky and the other children and don’t lag behind,” Blake instructed Daisy, as he admired his only child. She was a miniature of her mother, except for her black hair, which matched his. Rebeca had flaxen hair, but Daisy had Rebeca’s full, pouting lips along with those haunting blue eyes of hers. Smiles of childish glee burst forth as Daisy ran giggling in the direction of the other children.

  Blake watched, shrugged, and then climbed back up in the wagon beside his wife, snapping the whip over the oxen to get them moving again. He wanted to talk to Rebeca, anyway, about their future plans when they reached San Francisco.

  Now Daisy felt free. She twirled in circles, her braids flying out and her long skirts almost tripping her as she pirouetted across the space until she reached the other children.

  “I want to pick flowers,” she exclaimed, her eager fingers darting out towards the stims pushed up through the ground about her, mingling in the tall stalks of grass. Along with daisies, there were many other bright-colored flowers to choose from and Daisy was ecstatic with all the possibilities dancing before her eyes.

  “I’ll make you a daisy ring for your hair,” Becky Carter, a ten-year-old child from the wagon ahead of them, offered.

  “Oh!” Daisy cried, excitement leaping through her. At once, she began to gather the treasured daisies.

  The children stopped for a bit as Becky wove the stems of the daisies together, placing the ring on Daisy’s head. “Now you are a proper daisy,” Becky laughed. She jumped up. “Come on, we need to catch up with the rest,” she called as she scampered off.

  Daisy watched the group skipping ahead only she wanted to pick more flowers first, so she took her time as she followed behind slowly. Crunching of wooden wheels through the sod and grass passed beside her. The wheels were so large, taller than Daisy stood, that it made her skip out farther from the wagons for fear of being run over by those lumbering wheels. She watched, wide-eyed as the wagons plodded past her, then she went back to picking flowers.

  The wagon train seemed to wind like a huge snake through the grasslands. It looked like miles and miles of wagons to Daisy. Now she was having a hard time knowing which wagon belonged to her parents. They all looked alike to her. She squinted in the distance and saw that Becky and the other children appeared like dots far ahead of her.

  “Wait,” Daisy called, but the sound of the wagons creaking and crunching like indescribable monsters beside her, drowned out her small voice. No one even seemed to notice her walking there, except for a ragged-looking dog that stopped to sniff her boots. The dog decided it liked the smell of her, and stayed at her side.

  Daisy wondered who owned the dog. There were so many dogs following along with the cows and horses at the end of the company. For all she knew, it could be a stray that decided to join the group for some reason.

  “What’s your name?” Daisy asked, getting distracted from her flower collecting. “You look like a bunch of rags. I guess I’ll call you rags,” she announced, stopping and patting the dog on the head. The dog rewarded her by slurping his damp tongue across her face, causing her to giggle.

  Daisy turned to see the herd of livestock approaching. The drovers always herded the livestock far behind the wagons, and then put them inside the circle of wagons at night to keep them safe from wild animals and wild Indians. To keep from getting trampled, Daisy clutched her wilting flowers in her fist and started running across the field before the livestock could reach her. Rags scampered at her heels, snapping at her skirt as it whipped behind her. All the livestock created a plume of dust curtaining around them, and now she could barely see the animals for all the dust they were kicking up. She started coughing and sneezing, dropping her flowers in the process.

  “Oh dear,” Daisy grumbled. “I lost my flowers in the grass.” She started to frantically pick through the grass to retrieve them.

  As Daisy sat in the grass, collecting up her wilted flowers, she realized the grass was high above her head. She couldn’t even see through it, and she doubted if anyone could see her or rags either. Rags was barking and snapping at her fingers as she tried to untangle the flower stems from the grass stems. His tail was going a mile a minute as he romped and played in a circle about her.

  Finally, giving up on retrieving her flowers and deciding she would have to pick more, Daisy stood up. The livestock was a mere cloud of dust in the distance, and she couldn’t even see the wagons any longer.

  “We had better hurry,” Daisy exclaimed, as she grabbed onto her daisy chain to secure it on her head and keep it from falling off. Then she started running through the tall grass. She was thinking she needed to get back to the trampled grass that the wagons and livestock had flattened against the ground, so her skirt would not be hampered by the tall grass stocks that impeded her progress.

  As she thought it, she found herself tripping and falling forward. The tall grass, thankfully, softened her fall, though. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, and it was then that she noticed two buckskin clad legs standing before her. Rags was barking furiously at the legs and Daisy looked up to see an Indian boy, a few years older than Daisy herself, glaring down at her.

  At first, she took in her breath with shock, and then she smiled. She had never seen an Indian boy this close up before. The Indians in the area had always seemed to be at a menacing distance from the wagon train, watching its progress but seldom approaching except when they boldly came and demanded the people trade with them. Only they had always been adult Indians. This was a child, and was someone who now, grabbed Daisy’s interest.

  Rags stopped barking as the Indian boy spoke. “Niye bloza iyececa cikala wahca,” he was saying. The words sounded strange to Daisy’s ears. She merely stared at him, wide-eyed.

  Hota Sumanitu repeated his statement. “You look like a little flower,” he said slowly, trying to get the strange-looking girl with flowers in her hair to understand him. She still merely stared at him. At least she did not look frightened, he thought. He bent down and gave the dog with her a pat on the head.

  “My name is Gray Wolf,” he said, just as slowly. Why are you out here all alone?”

  Now he was at eye-level with Daisy and she was intrigued by the sound of his voice, and the funny words he was saying that made no sense to her, whatsoever. Only he just kept talking like he expected her to understand him. She looked worriedly in the distance where the wagon train had all but disappeared, except for a faint cloud of dust, barely visible now.

  “I got left behind,” she told the young Indian boy. “I need to catch up and find my parents.”

  The boy held out his hand, and pulled Daisy to her feet.

  “I will take you to my village,” Gray Wolf told her. My father speaks the white man’s tongue. He gave her a friendly smile.

  Daisy was happy for his help. She thought he was about to put her on his pony and take her to the wagon train, so she did not complain when he helped her up on his pony’s back, which was standing close by.

  Then he was swinging up behind her and giving the spotted pony a kick. Rags was eager to follow them, as he trotted behind. Daisy had never ridden on a horse before, and she giggled at the excitement of being on the animal’s back and at the speed the horse was traveling. Surely, they would be able to catch up with the wagon train in no time at all, she thought happily to herself. Her parents would be so surprised to see her riding on an Indian pony. What an exciting experience!

  Only now, the boy was turning his horse away from the well-traveled trail the Wagons had taken. He was urging it across grasslands in the direction of the river, which the company had been following at a distance. His horse must be thirsty, Daisy reasoned to explain his change in direction. Often the wagons would camp close to the river to let the livestock drink an
d to collect water for the members of the company to use as well. Therefore, she was not worried. Surely the fast little pony could easily catch up with the wagons, once it got its drink.

  When they reached the river, the boy did let his pony drink. He patted its neck, talking to it softly.

  “Not too much, now, Cricket,” he cautioned the horse as it drank. “You don’t want to get bloated.”

  He pulled Cricket’s head up and gave him a kick, causing the pony to leap into the water. Daisy gasped, but then water was splashing up on them cooling her off. The boy must want to cool his pony before they continued to catch up with the wagons, she thought, enjoying the romp in the river. However, he continued across the river, and then started following it, going in the opposite direction than the wagons were headed. Rags had managed to swim across the river with them, and was shaking the water off his long, ragged coat.

  “I think you are going the wrong way,” Daisy stated, as she turned to look at the boy behind her.

  His face was close to hers. His eyes were so dark and alarming as he looked straight into her stark blue eyes. “Didn’t you hear me?” she complained, blinking at his steady stare. “You are going the wrong way!” she was almost shrieking now.

  “Hush!” Gray Wolf complained in his own language. He didn’t like the shrill sound of her voice, and now she was looking worried. He didn’t want her to be frightened, so he patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. No one will harm you,” he encouraged.

  “Turn your horse around!” Daisy demanded, only the strange boy speaking his unfamiliar language was ignoring her.

  “Please! My mama will be worried. Papa told me not to lag behind! If I don’t catch up they won’t know what happened to me!”

  “Don’t worry,” Gray Wolf muttered, hearing the fear in her voice, even though he didn’t understand what she was saying. “You will be safe with me. I will watch over you. I will call you Little Flower.”