The Price of Freedom
A WHN for Season Four's episode 'Freedom Flight'
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When Charles Ingalls and Doctor Baker took a stand against Hugh MacGregor's bigotry and hatred of the Indians, they knew there would be consequences, but neither could imagine just how high the price of Little Crow and his people's freedom would be.
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"Charles. What are you thinking?"
The handsome man with the curly brown hair turned and looked past the fire to his companion. He'd known Doctor Hiram Baker for four years now and you couldn't find a better man. Along with several others, the physician had welcomed him and his family to Walnut Grove when they first arrived. Their acquaintance had turned professional when he'd foolishly climbed a tree to retrieve a kite and fallen some twenty feet to the ground, breaking several ribs. Hiram had bound his ribs and chided him, remarking how it never ceased to amaze him how many ways a man could find to hurt himself.
Charles gaze strayed to the east.
Or to hurt others.
"Charles?"
He pursed his lips and shook his head. "I was thinking about Hugh MacGregor."
The blond man blew out a sigh. "Whatever for?"
"It's somethin' Half-pint asked me, that first time when Spotted Wolf was so unkind to her."
Hiram shook his head. "That boy's an angry one. There's trouble there."
He nodded. "Yes, he is. He was very deliberate in letting Laura known a white man had killed her mother. It...it nearly tore her apart."
"She's a sensitive girl," the doctor said as he reached for the pot of coffee they had on the fire.
They'd remained behind to make certain the pyre upon which Long Elk's body had been placed burned itself out. Since night had fallen before it did, they'd made camp and intended to spend the night by the river before heading home in the ramshackle wagon he had traded his own for that morning.
Hiram poured his coffee, sipped it, and then asked, "So what did Laura want to know?"
Charles rose and turned toward the water. The moonlight glinted off its gently rolling swells. The air was crisp with a taste of September and a hint of October, and the night was full of soft sounds and welcome scents. He thought for a moment of the Santee Sioux, Little Crow, and his people leaving all of this behind and heading for Canada. He hoped they found what they were seeking there.
With his hands in his pockets, Charles turned back. "She was askin' about Hugh MacGregor and wonderin' how a man could hate so much."
The doctor rose and came to join him. "What do you know of the Dakota War, Charles?"
He shrugged. "Some. I know there were wrongs committed on both sides."
Hiram nodded. "Killing, murder, outrages of all kinds. Started with Dakota Indian men who couldn't feed their children – like Little Crow – and ended in the massacre of hundreds of settlers." The blond man eyed him. "MacGregor lost two sons and a daughter, all older than the one he has left. All killed by Indians." The doctor's blue eyes narrowed with remembered pain. "The girl – I think her name was Maggie – was raped and tossed aside." He took another sip. "Little Crow was in charge at the second battle of New Ulm. Did you know that?"
Charles knew little of New Ulm, other than it was one of the major battles of the Dakota war. The Indians set fire to the buildings in the town seeking to make its defenders run in panic. The settlers held their ground. The Dakota eventually retreated. A third of the town was left in ruin.
He shook his head. "No, I didn't know that," he admitted quietly.
"Little Crow was young and angry then, like his son."
Charles thought back to their midnight ride to save Little Crow and his children – the ride that had brought them to this plain where the rest of the tribe waited, and forced them to choose sides.
Both he and the doctor had chosen to stand with the Indians against the men of their town.
"Do you think MacGregor knew? About Little Crow, I mean."
Hiram shook his head. "No. I don't think so. If he had, there would have been no stopping him. I'm not saying Little Crow had anything to do with Hugh's children's deaths, just that he was the one giving orders." The doctor returned to his seat by the fire. "I don't say MacGregor's hate is right – in fact, I say quite the opposite – but there are reasons for it, Charles. Reasons, if not excuses."
It seemed inconceivable. Three children dead. Sons murdered. A girl – a girl like Mary, Laura, or Carrie – used, defiled, and then thrown away as if she were a piece of refuse. He'd been so hell-bent on saving the natives because he knew MacGregor's hate was so unreasonable – so wrong.
Tears entered his eyes. It was still wrong. But, it appeared, there was a good reason.
"Don't feel badly, Charles," the doctor said, leaning back and lowering his hat over his eyes. "I knew about MacGregor's loss and I still think the man's a coward and an ass."
Charles' expressive eyebrows danced with amusement. "An ass, eh?"
"Don't you know we doctors go East to study just to increase our vocabulary?" Hiram laughed but sobered quickly. "Hugh had no idea who Little Crow was and he was still willing to gun down a group of natives who had done nothing to him, women and children included." The doctor yawned. "Just because someone suffers a loss doesn't mean the reason they hate is exclusively related to that loss. Hugh MacGregor is a bigot, but worse than that, he's an alarmist and a man without a conscience." The blond man lifted his hat with one finger and looked at him. "You made a fool out of him, Charles, more than once. He's not going to forget that – or forgive. At least not any time soon."
Charles shrugged as he sat on the ground and took hold of the blanket he had chosen to bed down under. "He's one man. Out of all of Walnut Grove there were only ten followed him and half of them deserted before the end." He scooted down toward the ground and pulled the blanket up to his chin. "MacGregor is a coward. When it came down to it and he had no one to back up his hate, he turned tail and ran." Charles arranged his hat over his eyes. "No, I don't think we have anything to worry about from Hugh MacGregor."
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Hiram Baker shifted, seeking a comfortable spot to lie on. No matter what bit of earth he tried, it seemed the good Lord had chosen just that place to raise a rock out of it. The latest one had been pressing into his hip and had become so uncomfortable, it had awakened him out of the light sleep he'd finally managed to fall into. Now that he was awake, he felt the need to relieve himself.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
Since he'd been looking after the Sioux chief, Long Elk, he'd had little time to attend to his other patients and he would have to see to them as soon as he reached town. Mrs. Clary's bursitis was acting up. Harriet Oleson had insisted the last time he saw her that she was coming down with something. Hiram snorted. He was hoping it was laryngitis.
So was her husband, Nels.
Several other residents had colds and there was one child with the croup. There were a couple of injuries and one budding case of measles. Nothing fatal, thank goodness, just dozens of natural things to which the body was prone that meant little or nothing unless left untended.
Yes, it was high time he got home.
Hiram looked at the star-studded sky. They'd determined they would leave at first light, which he estimated to be about three hours away. His patients, he knew, would be no more anxious to see him than Caroline and the girls would be to see their father. Once they knew that MacGregor had discovered the Indians on Charles' property, he and his friend had taken the wagon and Little Crow and his family away in the middle of the night, flying like the wind. Caroline would have been without word of Charles for nearly two days. She was probably worried sick.
"Another patient," he breathed as he tossed his blanket aside and climbed to his feet.
Since there wasn't a tree within miles, the blond man went to the far side of the wagon where a modicum of privacy could be found. Once done, he buttoned his trousers and then leaned a hand on the wagon's side and looked up. The moon had retreated and lay behind a low bank of clouds. The air was chilly and the stars danced in the folds of the sky's black skirts. The night was hushed. Still. Silent.
Almost.
The sound of a horse blowing air out of its nostrils alerted him to the fact that they were not alone.
Just not in time.
As he started back to where Charles lay, a figure blocked his path. It was a big man. Stocky. With narrowed eyes shining in a shadowed face.
Hugh MacGregor.
He heard a click. The coward had a gun trained on him.
"You just stay right where you are, Doc, and you won't get hurt," the Scot said, his voice pitched low.
Hiram's eyes flicked to where Charles lay. There were other shadows there, moving in tandem around the sleeping man. As he watched they bent down. He heard Charles exclaim and then cry out, first in surprise and then in pain as one of them struck him.
"MacGregor, no!" Hiram shouted. "Don't be a fool!"
He couldn't see the Scot's face. He didn't need to. His words were ugly enough.
"Ain't one man in Walnut Grove won't back me up," the coward snarled. "They got no more use for an Injun lover than I do."
The doctor could hear fists hitting flesh. From the sound of it, Charles was giving as good as he got. One of the men who attacked him flew back suddenly, almost striking MacGregor in the legs.
"You get back in there!" the beefy man screamed. "You teach that Injun lover a lesson he ain't ever gonna forget!"
"He's awful strong," the other man said as he wiped blood from his lip and climbed to his feet.
The next words were the ones Hiram had feared he would hear.
"Then do whatever it takes."
"Hugh, listen to me!" he said, reaching out and catching the other man's shirt in his fingers. "Be reasonable! Is your hate worth ruining your life? Your wife and child's? If you...hurt Charles, you'll only be hurting yourself. You'll go to jail!"
The moon had broken free moments before. Its argent light struck Hugh MacGregor's jowled face and glinted in his cold dark eyes. "The judge at Mankato hanged them thirty-eight Injuns. Would have hung them all if Abe Lincoln hadn't gone white and let them go. That judge lost family to the war too." The Scot sneered. "You think a man like that's gonna hang me for killin' me an Injun lover?"
Hiram had opened his mouth to speak. It was at that moment he saw Charles fall. There was a flash of something shiny in the air, a startled gasp...
And then silence.
MacGregor gestured and another man came and took his place. He was holding a gun too and wore a mask over the lower half of his face, so only his eyes showed. The blue orbs were angry, but they were also scared. Apparently, he was not as sure of that judge in Mankato as Hugh was. Hiram watched the Scot cross to where Charles had fallen and crouch down. He made a scoffing noise and then rose and returned to his side.
Hiram's eyes were wide. "Is he..."
Hugh MacGregor met his gaze.
"Let's just say this, Doc. Mister Ingalls is in need of your services." The Scot nodded to the man who held the gun on him. "Let him go," he ordered. When the man hesitated, MacGregor stepped over and put his hand on the gun and lowered its point toward the ground. "Go ahead, Doc, for all the good it will do you or him."
He was at Charles' side in seconds. The brown-haired man was curled up on the ground as though he had fallen while trying to protect himself, with one hand over his head and the other beneath him. He was breathing hard. The doctor's skilled hands flew over his friend, seeking to find what it was that had taken him down. He had, of course, been badly beaten, but Hiram couldn't get that flash of something glinting in the moonlight out of his head. It wasn't until his hands reached the other man's hair that he found it.
Blood. A lot of blood.
Apparently the man had used his pistol to crack his skull.
MacGregor spoke from directly behind him, startling him.
"When...if Mister Ingalls wakes up, Doc, you tell him this from me. I am gonna make his life a living hell. Hell, I'm gonna make him wish he had died." MacGregor laughed at his own cruel joke. "And there ain't nothin' on this earth, above it or below it gonna stop me. He told me them Injuns had had so much done to them they weren't afraid to die.
"He'll soon know how that feels."
Hiram looked up. "Why? What purpose does this serve?" He rose to his feet and faced the other man. "Your children are dead, Hugh." He thrust an arm out, pointing at Charles. "This kind of brutality won't bring them back. What about Charles' wife and children?"
Hugh's mouth was a straight line. "That uppity woman of his ain't no better. They're all Injun lovers and they deserve what they get."
"Good God, man! What are you thinking?"
Hugh MacGregor stood before him, judge, jury, and executioner all wrapped up in one revolting package. He was flanked by the other two men who had come with him. The moonlight shone on the Scot's face, which was carved out of stone – hard, callous, cruel.
Pitiless.
"I ain't forgot which side you chose, Doc," he breathed, his tone full of menace. "Since you're a doctor, I figured you believe you gotta help anyone. But I tell you this, if you get in my way, I will take you down. Won't be one person in Walnut Grove come to you for your services. In fact," a slow sneer spread across the bully's lips, lifting one corner in a twisted smile, "you just might not be able to provide those services anymore."
"Are you threatening me?" Hiram demanded, breathless.
He saw it coming, but not soon enough. MacGregor's fist took him in the chin and drove him to the ground. As the blond man lay there, his head reeling, he heard the bastard say.
"It's not a threat, Doc. It's the God's honest truth."
And then everything went black.
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"Ma?" Laura asked. "How come people are looking at us funny?"
Caroline turned to see what it was her middle child saw. They had walked to Walnut Grove early in the morning to see if Doctor Baker or Charles had returned. Finding the doctor's practice closed and dark they'd headed for the mill and were waiting on Lars Hanson to arrive. As they did, several townspeople had passed them by without speaking a word to them or looking their way. However, upon their arrival at the Oleson's mercantile their 'neighbors' had started talking plenty. The women were on the porch, chatting with Harriet, and it was obvious they were talking about them.
She could just imagine what they were saying.
One thing among many that she loved her husband for was for his high sense of justice and steely determination to see right done no matter what the consequences. She was in complete agreement with his stand to protect Little Crow and his family from the bigotry and hatred of Hugh MacGregor. She was also, if she had to admit it, terrified. The Scot had made clear what kind of a man he was when – after she refused to give him any information regarding which direction Charles and Doctor Baker had taken – he'd said, 'I can make you tell me if I have to.'
The battle between the settlers in this area and the Indians was generations old, with a good deal of poor choices and loss on both sides. It was her belief – and Charles' as well – that a man was a man and he was good or bad, and should be judged by his actions and not by the color of his skin or his race.
Unfortunately, the fine citizens gossiping on the Oleson's porch believed no such thing. To them the only good Indian was a dead Indian. She could see it in their eyes. MacGregor had made it clear that the Ingalls' were Indian lovers and would protect the red man over their own – their own being those with white skin.
"Ma?"
Caroline started. "I'm sorry, Laura. Just ignore them. 'Ignorance is the curse of God' as William Shakespeare put it."
"Ma," Mary said, "Mister Hanson's coming."
Caroline looked up to find Lars Hanson walking down the street toward the mill. Johnathan Garvey was at his side. The pair brought a smile to her face. Lars was shorter than Charles, and Johnathan, well, he was one of the tallest men she had seen at well over six feet.
"Caroline," Johnathan said, his face as usual giving no hint of his thoughts.
Lars rushed past him. "Caroline, do you haf any vord of Charles?"
Her heart sank. "I came here to ask you the same thing," she said with a sigh. "Doctor Baker's office is closed and there's no light within."
"No one has seen anything of either of them," Johnathan said. "We've asked around."
She could feel Mary and Laura's eyes on her. Carrie, thank goodness, was young enough to be oblivious to what the men's words might imply. "I'm sure they're all right," she said for her girls' sake. "Still, I wish there was some way I could go after them."
"It is too dangerous, Caroline," Lars said. "You best let us do that. Ve vere joost talking. Ve are going to take a group of men and go after them."
"I've got Nels. He's talking to a couple of others," Johnathan said. "I'm going to knock on doors and see if we can find anyone else on our way out of town who will join us."
"Nels is going?" Caroline's eyes went to the mercantile. Harriet was still on the porch. Her mouth was running away with her as usual.
Lars looked that direction. "Ja. Nels is a good man. He is very fond of Charles."
She nodded. How Nels stayed married to that witch of a woman she had no idea. Charles had told her what the busybody said about the Indians, about how they abducted people and should have stayed on their reservation because they had plenty of land and food.
She'd like to see her say that if Nellie or Willie were starving.
"Caroline?"
She looked at Lars. "I know. Charles and I both value Nels' friendship. I was just thinking about Harriet."
"Vy ever vould you do a thing like that?" Lars asked, a hint of irony in his tone.
She giggled. "I have no idea."
"Ma?" It was Laura again. As she turned, her middle daughter asked, "Are they gonna go look for Pa?"
Johnathan nodded. "Yes."
"Can I go with you?"
Before Caroline could say 'no', Johnathan answered, "I'd love for you to, Laura, but we have to ride fast and hard and its only gonna be men. It wouldn't be proper for you to go with us."
Laura might have argued that first point, but she couldn't the second.
"I wish I was a boy," she muttered, looking at her feet.
The big man pretended he had not heard her. Johnathan's eye rolled over toward the mercantile. "There's Nels. We better get going."
Caroline looked. Harriet's form was stiff as a board. She had her mouth open but nothing was coming out. Apparently Nels had laid down the law and left her sputtering.
A minute later he was at their side. "I packed supplies, everything we should need in case..." He paused. "In case Charles and Hiram have been parted from their wagon and supplies."
She knew what he had intended to say – 'in case someone is hurt.'
In case Hugh MacGregor had 'made' Charles or Doctor Baker tell him what he wanted to know.
"You should take the girls and go home, Caroline," Lars said. "Stay there until Charles is back and..."
She looked from Lars to Johnathan.
The big man held her gaze.
"Lock the doors."
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Nels Oleson occupied the wagon seat next to Johnathan Garvey, who was driving the rig. Lars rode in the back with the supplies. They'd picked up a few other men on the western side of town and were headed out the way Charles and Doctor Baker had taken with the Sioux Indians. Harriet was not happy that he had volunteered to go after the two men. She was on her high horse about 'savages' committing murder and rape and every other crime on the face of the earth short of bringing about the Apocalypse. He was an even-tempered man. Yes, there were bad Indians, but there were good men among them too. Just like there were good men and bad men among the whites in Walnut Grove.
Good men, like the ones who rode beside him.
The Dakota War was a sore point with many in the area, spilling as it did into Minnesota and effecting many of the townspeople's lives. There were atrocities committed by the Indians, but then the white men could be just as savage and cruel. He had nothing against Indians and thought the removal act that came after the war a bit harsh. After all, the Indians had been good customers for the merchants who had been in the area before he arrived.
He did however, for the most part, keep his opinions to himself.
Nels sighed and shifted in his seat, adjusting so he was more comfortable. They were moving at a good clip, driven by a shared sense that something was wrong and they needed to find the Doctor and Charles Ingalls as quickly as they could. Charles was an upstanding man. He held deep beliefs and had no trouble expressing them. The problem was, that drew trouble to him and his family like flies to cherry pie. The world was not necessarily kind to a man of principle. One day a man like that would be lauded for it, and the next, condemned. He'd seen it often enough in his life, and especially during the Dakota war. Good honest, hard-working men could be whipped into a frenzy when they feared for their lives and the lives of their loved ones, and men like Hugh MacGregor knew just how to play into those fears.
He'd heard the rumors his own wife was listening to and which he'd forbidden her to spread. 'Indian lover', that's what they called Charles, casting aspersions on his character and hinting about the reasons for his attachment to the Indians. Some had even gone so far as to say he must have fathered that little girl who had been with Little Crow.
After all, why was she holding his child's doll?
Nels' reverie was interrupted when the wagon drew to a sudden halt. He looked at Johnathan whose face was a hard-edged line.
"Company."
Nels looked. There were two riders and a wagon approaching.
Hugh MacGregor was one of them.
"Mornin', Hugh," Johnathan said. "What brings you out this way?"
"We're comin' back from Volga. Had some buying and selling to do there," the Scot replied curtly, and then added, "if it's any of your business."
"Just bein' friendly," the man with light brown hair replied. "After all, that's what neighbors are for. Isn't it?" Johnathan tipped his hat. "Tom, Simon," he said, deliberately naming the other men.
"Surprised to see you away from your store, Nels," MacGregor said, looking directly at him. "What brings you out on such a fine day for the trade?"
He glanced at Johnathan, wondering if he should admit what they were up to.
"Ve are looking for Doctor Baker and Charles," Lars replied, taking matters out of their hands. "Haf you seen them? They vere traveling vest."
MacGregor made a big show of consulting the other two men. "No," he replied. "Can't say as we have."
"Can't? Or von't?" Lars prodded.
The Scot bristled. "You accusing me of something, Hanson?"
Before the older man could speak again, Johnathan reached around and touched his arm. Johnathan shook his head. Then he looked back. "We're not accusing you of anything, MacGregor." He paused. "At least not yet."
The Scot's piggy eyes narrowed in his meaty face. "If I was you, Garvey, I'd take care choosing which side to be on. You know what the good Reverend Alden always says." He pressed his heels into his mount's side and urged it to move. "There's consequences for a man's actions."
Before any of them could reply MacGregor and the two men who were with him moved off, headed in the direction of Walnut Grove.
After watching them go, Nels looked from one man to the other.
"I've got a bad feeling about this."