Page 33 of Shoshone Sun

Flying Arrow hesitated, then cleared his throat and spoke, his voice low. There was no point in keeping his feelings a secret. “Jane is a remarkable woman: strong, tender, and beautiful. I grew to love her. But I could not stay. My people called to me. And so, I left, though my heart is torn. Jane … she could not come with me. She has her place there. As I have mine here.”

Mighty Buffalo nodded thoughtfully. “Love, like the land, is a hard thing to claim,” he said quietly. “But you did what you had to do. The winds carry us all in different directions.”

Flying Arrow felt a pang in his chest as he thought of Jane, her face in his mind’s eye as clearly as if she were sitting before him. “I long for her still,” he admitted quietly.

That night, and every night after, as he lay beneath the stars, the sounds of the tribe settling around him, Flying Arrow’s thoughts turned to Jane. He could feel the distance between them—both the miles and the lonely days. There were moments when the pain of leaving her was unbearable, when he wondered if he had made a terrible mistake. Would she ever understand why he had left? Would she ever forgive him for abandoning her?

Over time, the longing did not subside. Flying Arrow spent his time working alongside his people—training the young warriors, helping to prepare for the coming season of hunting, and strengthening his bond with his family. But in the quiet moments, when the firelight flickered and the world seemed still, his thoughts always returned to Jane.

- Peter Jacobs Homestead, Spring 1867

Ninety miles west of Fort Laramie –

Jane’s days dragged on after Flying Arrow left. She went through the motions of her life on the homestead—helping with chores, caring for Petey, and settling into the rhythms of farm life—but her heart was no longer fully in it. The absence of Flying Arrow left a space within her that seemed impossible to fill.

One evening, as she and Susan sat together in the cabin, her sister must have noticed her distant expression. “You are still thinking of him, aren’t you?” Susan asked gently, her voice full of understanding.

Jane nodded, the weight of her emotions spilling over as tears welled up in her eyes. “I miss him so much, Susan. I think I made a terrible mistake not going with him.”

“You did what you thought was right,” Susan said softly. “But the heart wants what it wants, Jane. And I know your heart still calls to him.”

Jane wiped away a tear, her thoughts a whirlwind of confusion and longing. The days since Flying Arrow’s departure had felt long and empty, leaving her with a longing she could not ignore. Should she have gone with him?

As she lay in bed that night, the silence of the homestead pressing down on her, she wept quietly. The ache of missing him was unbearable, and she wondered if he missed her as much as she missed him. She knew she had to face the fact that she would probably never see him again, that he was almost certainly gone from her life forever.

Over the following weeks, the days continued to stretch on, each one feeling heavier than the last. Jane helped with the spring planting, cared for little Petey, and tried to distract herself with any other work that needed doing. But in the quiet moments, when the world seemed to still, her heart was always with Standing Buffalo, endlessly wondering if she had made a mistake.

One day in late April as the late afternoon sun filtered through the window, casting long, golden beams across the room, Jane’s mind was far away, lost in a past she could never fully leave behind. It had been weeks since Flying Arrow had ridden off into the distance, leaving her heart aching in his absence. Each day felt like a slow unraveling, each moment a reminder of what she had lost, what could never be again. The memories of him had not left her, not for a single moment. But today, something else clawed at her—something she hadn’t dared to acknowledge, even in the deepest recesses of her mind.

She sat by the window, her hands resting on her lap, her mind adrift in thoughts of him. She remembered the night they had shared in her room, the night their passion had flared into something more than just platonic love. The way he had held her as though the world might slip away if they didn’t cling to each other with every fiber of their being. The sweetness of his touch, the warmth of his body against hers—those memories were etched in her soul, more vivid than anything else in her life.

But as she thought of that night, the joy of it began to mix with an unsettling feeling that had been growing in her, deep in her core—an unfamiliar nausea that had begun and persisted. An exhaustion that had set in with a fierceness she couldn’t ignore. An aching in her breasts. No, she could no longer dismiss the changes in her body, could no longer tell herself they were nothing.

Now, sitting alone in the quiet of the house, with the sun stretching across the floorboards, she could no longer deny the truth.

She was with child.

The thought struck her like a thunderclap in the silence. Her breath caught in her chest, and her hands trembled as she placed them gently on her stomach. She couldn’t—couldn’t—believe it. A child. Flying Arrow’s child. The love of her life, the man she had lost, the man she would probably never see again.

A sob caught in her throat, raw and heavy. She felt the tears begin to sting her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away, not wanting to give in to the overwhelming wave of grief. She had to pull herself together. She had to. But it was as though her very body was betraying her, reminding her, with every painful twist in her heart, of the love she had lost.

She rose slowly, pacing the floor as the gravity of her situation settled over her, pressing down on her chest like an unbearable weight. She wascarryinghis child. She could sense the new life growing within her—her body had known it before her mind could admit it.

Her mind reeled with the enormity of it. A thousand questions crashed through her mind, each one more suffocating than the last. How could she raise this child on her own? How could she face the knowledge that she had lost the man who had meant everything to her? How could she explain everything to her child one day?

Tears slid down her face, unchecked now, as the weight of her loneliness settled deep into her bones. She missed him so terribly, it was as though the ache inside her was consuming her whole. She thought back to the night they had shared—his hands, his lips, the way he had whispered her name as they became one, so utterly entwined. In that moment, she had felt invincible, like nothing could break them apart. But now, the cruel truth of their separation was a wound that would never heal.

She wrapped her arms around herself, as though trying to hold together the fragments of her shattered heart. She was alone. She wasalonewith a piece of him, a piece of her—a child that would never know its father.

The thought broke her. How could she raise this child without him? What kind of life could she give him or her when the one person who should have been by her side to watch their child grow wouldn’t be with her?

Jane crumpled, her hands cradling her face as she let the sobs come, shaking her body with their force. The tears blurred her vision, but even through the haze of grief, one thought burned clear in her mind.

She had lost him.

The longing for him was a knife in her side, and now, the knowledge that she’d be a mother without him felt unbearable.

She felt as though she might lose her mind under the weight of it. The absence of Flying Arrow felt like a gaping hole, and this child—theirchild—was now the only thing that tethered her to the world. But even that tether was fragile, as fragile as a dream that might never come true.

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