A Cry in the Wilderness
Copyright© 2025 by Megumi Kashuahara
Epilogue: What Love Built
One Month After the Wedding
Sarah stood in her best dress—the blue calico that Slim had bought her special from the Sutler’s—and watched the man she’d loved for three years finally become her husband.
Angus spoke the words, simple and true, and when Slim kissed her, tears streamed down her weathered cheeks. Not tears of sadness. Tears of relief. Of gratitude. Of a future she’d stopped believing could be hers.
She was forty-two years old. Life had been hard—two children lost to fever, a first husband who drank himself to death, years of just surviving. She’d thought life was lost when here and her two remaining children were taken and put on the auction block like a piece of farm equipment.
Then, the Lord smiled on the when Slim bought us, and we became part of the McLaughlin ranch family expecting nothing more than work and a roof over her head.
Instead, she had found love from Slim. Patient, kind Slim, who waited while she healed from old wounds. Who never pushed. Who simply loved her until she was ready to love him back.
At the reception, she found herself standing with Póéso and Ma’hoena, watching their men talk by the barn.
“Look at us,” Sarah said softly. “Three women who had no right to expect happiness.”
Ma’hoena, baby Thomas sleeping against her shoulder, nodded. “I thought I was ruined. Worthless. Will showed me I was wrong.”
Póéso, still moving carefully from childbirth just weeks before, squeezed both their hands. “We are warriors. Different battles, but warriors same. We survive. We choose to live.”
Sarah looked at the two young Cheyenne women who had become like daughters to her. “You girls been through hell I can’t even imagine.”
“And you,” Póéso said gently, “lost children. Lost husband. Survived anyway. We all warriors, Sarah. Just different wars.”
They stood in silence, three survivors, three women who had every reason to be bitter, broken, consumed by hate. Instead, they chose this—community, family, love.
“To second chances,” Sarah whispered.
“To new families,” Ma’hoena added.
“To love that covers everything,” Póéso finished.
Two Years Later
Cassie stood in front of the mirror, hardly recognizing herself. At sixteen, she was no longer the wild child who used to sneak off to the creek. She was a young woman in a beautiful dress, about to marry Johnny Little Bear.
Ma’hoena pinned flowers in her hair while Póéso adjusted the beadwork on her sleeve—traditional Cheyenne work that Ma’hoena had painstakingly created.
“You scared?” Póéso asked.
“Terrified,” Cassie admitted. “But excited too. Is that normal?”
“Very normal,” Ma’hoena assured her. “I was shaking when I married Will.”
“I was not scared,” Póéso declared, then paused. “Okay, maybe little bit scared.”
Cassie looked at both women—the sisters who had survived horrors she could barely comprehend. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” Ma’hoena said.
“How did you ... after everything that happened to you ... how did you let yourselves love Will? Weren’t you afraid?”
The sisters exchanged glances. Póéso spoke first.
“I was terrified. More scared than any battle. Loving Will meant trusting again. Trusting white man after white men destroyed my people, killed my family.” She touched Cassie’s cheek. “But I was more scared of dying inside. Of letting hate win. Hate is easy. Love is brave.”
Ma’hoena’s voice was soft. “What was done to me ... I thought it meant I was broken forever. But Will showed me that evil done TO you doesn’t make YOU evil. That someone can hurt your body but not touch your soul. Unless you let them.”
“So you chose love,” Cassie said.
“We chose life,” Póéso corrected. “And life means love. Means family. Means hope.” She smiled. “Besides, Will is too stubborn to give up on us. Even when we tried to push away.”
Outside, they could hear the gathering—Will’s deep laugh, Slim calling orders, children playing, White Horse’s voice raised in song.
“Come,” Ma’hoena said, taking Cassie’s hand. “Your family waits.”
The wedding was small but beautiful. Johnny Little Bear, nineteen years old and working as White Horse’s apprentice, stood tall and proud. His Cheyenne name had been given to him by White Horse himself in a ceremony two years before, acknowledging his heritage and his commitment to the old ways.
When Cassie emerged, Johnny’s eyes filled with tears. She was breathtaking.
Angus performed the ceremony with White Horse standing beside him—a tradition now, this blending of worlds. Will stood as Johnny’s best man, one hand on the young man’s shoulder, pride evident on his face.
Cassie had been eight when she came to the ranch, angry and grieving after her mother’s death. Will and his father had raised her, loved her, given her stability. Now, at sixteen, she was starting her own family.
When Angus pronounced them married, the community erupted in cheers. But it was the moment after—when Johnny lifted Cassie and spun her around, both of them laughing with pure joy—that made Will’s throat tight.
Later, at the reception, Will found himself standing with his father, watching the celebration.
“You done good, boy,” his father said quietly.
“We done good,” Will corrected. “All of us.”
His father looked around at the gathering—Póéso and Ma’hoena with their children, Slim and Sarah dancing, Cassie and Johnny receiving blessings from White Horse and Morning Dove, ranch hands who had become family, neighbors who had once looked at them with suspicion now embracing them with love.
“When you brought them home,” his father said, gesturing to the sisters, “I thought you was crazy. Two Cheyenne women, broken and half-dead, in the middle of all this tension ‘tween whites and Indians...” He shook his head. “I thought it’d bring nothin’ but trouble.”
“And?”
“And I was wrong. It brought life. Hope. Family.” He gripped Will’s shoulder. “You taught me somethin’, son. That hate is easy and love is hard, but love is the only thing worth a damn.”