Beneath a Wounded Sky

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  Within, there was little more than a horsehair pallet and a crate on which was a metal cup, bowl, and spoon. The only other item was a strongbox, all oak planks and steel fittings. A lock was fitted to the hasp, and D’Avignon produced a key to open it. The lock snicked, and the strongbox lid creaked open, revealing the product of the crew’s labors.

  All Alejandro could see was the brassy tops of pickle jars, but then D’Avignon reached in and grabbed one. Using two hands to support the weight, he pulled it up and out of the box. The quart jar was full of glittering gold, in dust and small nuggets like the one D’Avignon had found at the creekbed. He brought the jar over and held it out to Alejandro.

  So heavy! Alejandro could not keep the grin from spreading across his face. It was a fortune!

  “How many have you filled?” he asked, staring at the dozens of jars in the box.

  “Most,” D’Avignon replied. “It’s more weight than the box can hold, actually. We’ll have to separate them into manageable groups to get them back to main camp.”

  Alejandro was giddy, and he had to work to keep from laughing like an idiot. His dreams, his plans, it was all coming together. After so much time and so much heartache, the years of humiliation, the shame of demotion, the long, slow climb back to relevance and position; now he was bringing his name, his family, all back to their proper place. This gold would assure his family’s return to their rightful echelon of society, while the army out on the prairie would fulfill his promise to the Queen Regent. The possibilities before him were innumerable, the heights he could achieve as reward for these actions, unguessable.

  “Is there more to glean from this site?”

  D’Avignon smiled. “To be sure,” he said. “Every spadeful upturns a fortune.”

  “We will start moving this out tonight,” Alejandro said. “Just you and I, in small, discreet packages.”

  “As you command,” D’Avignon said with a grin and a bow.

  The men were returning, voices raised again in arguing tones. D’Avignon frowned. “They cannot have dug a decent grave already,” he said as he and Alejandro stepped out of the tent.

  The men had indeed returned, but they were not alone. They crouched in a tight group. Alejandro heard the creak of bowstring and leather and realized that they were surrounded by tribesmen. They looked different, somehow foreign; their headgear was of fur and pelts instead of feathers, their facepaint was stark and disturbing, their clothing heavier and less ornate. He saw few rifles among them but many bows, spears, and warclubs. All the bows were bent, steel arrowheads pointing at the cowering miners. Alejandro took a step and the bows creaked tighter. One of the natives stepped forward. He pointed to the pistol at Alejandro’s hip, opened his hand, and with a twitch of his fingers wordlessly commanded its surrender. Slowly, Alejandro did so. The Indian took his pistol and stepped back among the others.

  Alejandro waited, but none of the Indians said a word.

  “What do they—” a miner began, but got a spear butt shoved into his back as an answer.

  The Indians had the upper hand, but for some reason they did not move, did not speak. The miner’s unfinished question echoed through Alejandro’s mind.

  What do they want?

  He studied these strange men, trying to discern which one was their leader. They were at least twenty in number, but Alejandro saw others in the woods beyond the camp’s clearing, moving furtively behind the trees, and he could not guess their full number. But neither could he guess which man was in command, and that told him their leader was the one for whom they all waited.

  Finally he heard movement in the thicket at the edge of the clearing. The guardian archers took a step back. One of the miners whispered a Hail Mary, eyes glancing fearfully toward the approaching footsteps. The branches parted and a tall native stepped through the gap, followed by several others. The man was powerfully built, his hair loose and long about his shoulders. He wore the light deerskin of a Cheyenne warrior and carried a rifle in his massive hand. Alejandro recognized him; he was the silent brute who often accompanied young Custer; the man they called Limps. His visage, devoid of war paint, was more fearsome than any other of his party; his gaze burned with an intensity forged by rage, and when its focus fell on him, Alejandro truly feared for his life.

  “Please,” Alejandro began, his French slow and deliberate so Limps could understand and the mining crew could not. “We tracked these men to this place, D’Avignon and I.”

  “Yes,” D’Avignon chimed in, also in French, quick to turn any situation to his own advantage. “It is true. They are deserters. They disobeyed our orders.”

  Limps swept his hand to the side to silence them, then closed his eyes and cocked his head. When his eyes opened, he stared at Alejandro. “Speaks While Leaving says that you lie.”

  Alejandro bristled at the affront, despite its veracity. “She calls me a liar?” he said, hoping bluster would help them play for time. “I will not stand here and be insulted, not even by a chief’s daughter. I will return to the camp. I will see her face to face and see if she still calls me a liar!” He took a step toward his horse, but a raised hand stopped him once more.

  “No need,” Limps said, and beckoned over his shoulder. Two other warriors came forward, then four more, bearing a litter on their shoulders. As they came near, the men lowered the litter and Alejandro saw upon it a figure, covered head to toe in heavy buffalo and pale deerskin. Limps walked over to the body and drew back the flap from over its face. It was Speaks While Leaving, her skin ashen, her lips dark with death.

  “Speaks While Leaving travels with us,” Limps said. “She says that you lie.”

  “¡Dios mío!” Alejandro said. “He is mad.”

  Limps walked toward Alejandro, his step measured, balanced, his black-eyed gaze riveted to Alejandro’s own.

  “She is dead!” Alejandro shouted. He looked at the other warriors, pointing to the corpse of Speaks While Leaving. “She is dead!”

  Limps walked closer, until Alejandro could smell him, a mixture of sweat, leather, the spice of whistlers, and the distinctive scent of decomposition.

  Alejandro’s voice trembled as he tried to reason with the warrior before him. “Limps,” he said. “I know she was important to you, to all the People. But she is dead. Speaks While Leaving is dead.”

  Eyes still staring, Limps reached out and plucked the pouch of gold from Alejandro’s vest pocket. “Speaks While Leaving says that you lie. She says that you have betrayed us.”

  He ran. He turned and he ran. Sure that he would be struck by a dozen arrows, he ran all the same. He stumbled, sprawled, got up, and finally reached his horse. Tearing the reins from the branch, he struggled to get his foot up into the stirrup, the horse skittering in a circle as he tried. He stopped. He looked back at the clearing.

  Limps and all the men—miners, warriors, and D’Avignon alike—stood stock-still, staring at Alejandro. The miners’ faces were wide with surprise; D’Avignon’s eyes were narrow with calculation. The warriors stared down their aimed arrows, waiting for the command. And Limps...the long-haired warrior looked at Alejandro.

  And smiled.

  Alejandro got his foot in the stirrup and spurred his mount down the mountain path, heedless of the danger. Better a broken neck than the vengeance he saw in Limps’ eye.

  Chapter 21

  Moon When Ice Starts to Form, New

  Four Years after the Cloud Fell

  Sacred Hills

  Alliance Territory

  Speaks While Leaving stared as Alejandro tore off down the path, lashing his reins side to side. The smile Limps wore turned feral and vicious. The soldiers with them—Crow, Cradle People, and Blackfoot alike—stood immobile, faces stony and grim. The Iron Shirt miners cowered, shivering beneath their captors’ icy glares. Above her, birds sung in the sunlit boughs, oblivious to the change in the world beneath them, deaf to the thunder that still echoed through her mind.

  Speaks While Leaving is dead. />
  The words were an explosion, a blast that ripped the sky and shook the ground. She lifted her spirit-self off the litter and, for the first time, turned and looked at the body she left behind.

  The soft, pale deerskin that had covered her face—Had it always been there? She did not remember it.—was pulled back to reveal her face, only it was not her face. She did not see the warm skin or the shine of sweat that always accompanied her vision-fever. Her skin was ashen, dry, both dark and pale in the same moment. Her cheeks were sunken, slack, the bones around and beneath her eyes pronounced, skeletal. Her lips were swollen, dark, cracked, and her closed eyes deeply set, unnaturally flat. But her hair was dark, glossy; parted in the middle, someone had braided it back from her hairline, working strips of red cloth into the plaits, winding the ends tightly with elkskin and otter fur. About her neck was a collar of long shells and bright beads of silver, not a thing she ever owned, but fine and beautiful, a gift from an unknown hand. On her ears were small cuffs of silver from which hung chains of shells and an eagle’s downfeathers. On one cheek someone had painted a long, upward pointing triangle, white, an icy tear falling from her shrunken eye.

  There was no breath in her nostrils, no pulse beneath her skin. There was no blood to warm her silver adornments. There was only stillness and the chill of a waiting grave.

  There was only death. And decay.

  She was dead.

  Speaks While Leaving was dead.

  And yet... How long had she been so? She looked at her body and guessed it must have been days since she had taken her last breath. But Limps had spoken with her in that time. The chiefs had listened to her, taken her counsel. So, was she? Was she dead?

  Yes. Dead. Or dreaming.

  Or both.

  Motion distracted her, drawing her from her fascination. She heard a shrill whistle, faint but distinct, and a figure rushed toward her, rushed through her, a blur that dispelled her like a pebble in a still pond, rippling her but not destroying her. She coalesced and turned, saw a whistler running toward Limps. He held out his hand, grabbed the first rope as his mount ran past him, and leapt up along her spine, his feet deftly finding the loops, his hand brandishing the cold steel of his bone-handled knife. His toes dug into the whistler’s sides and the pair sped down the path after Alejandro.

  No, she thought. And No, she said.

  Limps did not falter, either deaf to or heedless of her admonition. He raced down the straightaway and disappeared into the trees at the first bend in the mountain trail. She wanted to follow. She leaned forward to run, and then was at his shoulder, following his twisting, plunging path down the mountainside.

  Do not do this, she told him.

  He grimaced and bared his teeth.

  Do not, she repeated.

  “Ah!” he cried, and slashed the knife blade through the air. “Leave me alone!”

  No.

  Stop.

  Limps yanked on the reins and the whistler fluted in exertion as it left the path and half-ran, half-fell down the incline.

  Stop.

  “Aah!”

  The whistler twisted away from reins made suddenly taut and began to slide down the steep slope. Clawed toes tore at the earth, lofting a spray of needles and dirt. Low boughs lashed and snapped. The beast’s foot caught on a root and for a sickly moment mount and rider hung in poise, balanced yet imperiled, before gravity demanded tribute, sending both tumbling. The whistler trumpeted. Limps grunted as he hit the ground, rolled, spun, slid. He grabbed a tree trunk and was on his feet in a moment, knife still in his hand.

  “He is the cause!” he shouted. “He makes our pain!”

  No. He is the spark, she told him. She reached out, but could not touch him, so she willed her calm upon his mind.

  He is the fulcrum of our future.

  Tears shone on his cheeks as he sought her in the forest gloom. His rage broke, and a terrible grief filled his features.

  Calm radiated from her. Go. Find him. But take him to the Council. We will follow.

  “Aaah!” he cried as he sank to his knees, weeping. One hand touched the earth, then the other, as he slowly folded in upon himself. His anger bled out into the ground, leaving him with only sadness. “As you wish,” he said quietly, sheathing his knife. Then he stood, walked to his whistler, mounted, and rode off to find his quarry.

  She retreated, back to her body, back to the others. The soldiers stood alert, listening to the woods for sounds of approach. Crow, Cradle People, and Blackfoot—just a handful of years past she would have called them enemies, but not now.

  She moved close to one of the elders, a man they called Badger. He was short and wiry, bearing scars along his arms and chest that told of rough encounters with man and beast. He wore a badger’s pelt atop his head, the creature’s head peering over his own, shading his eyes, seeing what he might miss. He carried a bow of wood and sinew, short and strong like its owner, and at his hip was an axe, head black, honed edge winking in the sunlight. When Badger spoke, bigger men listened; Grey Feather and the other Crow leaders had told her to trust him, and so, she did.

  Badger, she said softly.

  The man did not move.

  BADGER!

  He jumped, spun in the air, and landed facing the other direction. His cadre of soldiers stared at him as at a snake that talked. Badger looked one way, then the other, spun again, became still, and cocked his head to listen.

  Badger, she said again, and saw his eyes widen.

  “Who speaks?”

  She smiled—or did she? She could not say, but she felt as though she did, and that was enough for now.

  I am she who travels with you, she said, and saw the pulse quicken along his neck. And you are the man Grey Feather told me to trust. Was he mistaken?

  Badger clenched his teeth and closed his eyes.

  “No,” he said.

  Peace. Calm. Gratitude.

  My thanks.

  The cords on Badger’s neck relaxed and she saw his chest lift in a deep breath.

  The men around him grew anxious with his odd behavior.

  Tell them, Badger. Tell them that I am with you. Then take these men to the Great Council. I will guide you.

  Badger glanced at the trees that surrounded them, saw nothing.

  “Yes,” he said.

  The sun was bloated, a shimmering coal burning between the ceiling of bloody clouds and the undulating curves of golden, wind-blown grass. Speaks While Leaving sat, sharing the litter with her ashen corpse, its face covered once more by the shroud of pale deerskin. Her litter lay across a travois, pulled by a whistler, and her entourage of warriors flanked her on either side.

  Limps had obviously come before them, for the entire tribe was waiting as they approached the camp. Even from this distance, dying sunlight gleamed from a thousand knives. Badger called a halt, fearing the worst.

  Do not worry, she told him. They know. You are bringing me home.

  Badger glanced from side to side, seeking support. Finding none, reluctantly, he faced forward and toed his whistler into motion. He kept to a stately pace and, as they approached, above the whistle of the wind could be heard the keening of women. As they neared the throng, the knife blades were raised, edges sawing through braids grown decades-long in ancient expression of loss. Men and women alike knelt, dousing themselves with handfuls of dry, sun-scorched earth. As the travois and its shrouded body came near, wails rose and tears tracked down through dusty cheeks.

  Speaks While Leaving felt their pain, felt each tear as a blade-touch, a thousand cuts across her soul. Even the return of Three Trees Together had not seen such a display, and it humbled her, anguishing her, reaving her from top to bottom. Faces of friends, relations, and neighbors were lined up before her, features contorted, faces twisted by grief, mouths open in circles of anguish, begging for solace.

  I am here, she said to them, trying what she might. Be at peace. I am with you.

  But her words went unheard, leaving her engulf
ed by the mourning of thousands and by wave upon wave of anguish, fear, and uncertainty. She turned to the men who bore her toward the Council Lodge and saw that they, too, wept, overwhelmed by the emotions around them, each soldier grieving for a woman he did not know.

  The multitude parted before them, closed in behind them, enclosing them in a bubble of sorrow. Speaks While Leaving said no more, wished her spirit blind, until she saw Limps standing ahead of them, tall and stony in the last light of the dying day, hair loose in the breeze, cheeks shining with renewed misery.

  It was too much. She fled, striving upward, outward, inward, aching for the stars and the darkness of death, finding neither, finding only that as the world contracted beneath her, her pain expanded, filling her every aspect, encompassing her, defining her. She recoiled from flight and fell back, dragged down from singular anguish to face the broader distress of her tribe. Sinking earthward, she looked down and saw their glowing, life-filled spirits encircling the dark spot of her corpse, surging and ebbing around its procession, and did not know if she had the strength for this last task. This last vision, this final dream of what should be, was too vast, too ravenous.

  But as the sun set, a ghostly light rose on her left, followed by another on her right. She turned and saw two more rise behind her. The mourners below her were unmoved, unfazed by the four swirling pillars of brilliance that rose from the corners of the encampment. She recognized them: the nevé-stanevóo’o; the four Sacred Persons, created by Ma’heo’o to guard the corners of the world. They had been plaguing her sight since the day they brought her this vision. That day, the earth had trembled and brought fear to every heart, but this evening they radiated only calm, their serene power giving Speaks While Leaving the strength to continue.

  And so she returned, taking once more her seat on the travois, and rode beside her body to the Council Lodge.

  The lodge of the Great Council glowed with light from the hearth at its center. The lodgeskin’s painted designs—spirits of power like eagles, dragonflies, and the Thunder Beings—shimmered with burning light. Outside, waiting, were chiefs of the bands and chiefs of the societies; men of peace and men of war, the grandfathers of the People. As the funereal troupe approached, the elders moved inside. The soldiers picked the litter up from the travois and brought Speaks While Leaving within the lodge, setting her down near the flickering fire.