On the other side of the fire knelt Alejandro, his hands tied behind his back. Limps brought in D’Avignon and shoved him to the ground beside the ambassador. The other prisoners were kept near the doorflap.
At the vá’ôhtáma, the position of honor at the rear of the lodge, Speaks While Leaving spied a familiar figure, his hair salted with silver, his face lined, his mouth grim.
Father, she said.
One Bear startled, eyes wide, and took an involuntary step forward.
“Daughter?” she heard him say.
Father, she said again. You can hear me.
Gasps and murmurs told her that others could hear her as well. Even Alejandro looked about him in confusion and fear.
I am here, she said. I am with you. And there is much I want to tell you.
One Bear rushed to the litter and pulled back the deerskin that covered her corpse’s face. Everyone saw, and everyone now knew.
I am dead, Father.
He looked around, up toward the smokehole, all around the lodge, seeking her.
She went up to him and wished she was flesh again, to feel once more the warmth of his embrace, to touch his tear-stained cheek. Regret filled her, for her stubbornness, for her headstrong nature.
I am sorry, Father.
“No,” he said softly. “Do not be so.”
“Madness,” said a voice, and as one the Council turned to look at Alejandro. “Sheer madness,” he said.
Limps lunged and struck a blow that sent the ambassador to the ground. Alejandro lay there, nose bloodied, chuckling quietly. Beside him, D’Avignon said nothing, did nothing, observing all with his coyote eyes.
The Iron Shirts have betrayed our trust, she said to them all.
“It is true,” Limps said over the rumblings of disbelief. “We found them in the Sacred Mountains. Mining, for this.” He motioned to the soldiers at the back, and they carried forth the crate that held the glass jars of powdered gold.
“This is too much,” said Two Roads, chief of the Kit Fox soldiers. He walked over to Alejandro, reached down and grabbed him by the hair. He hauled him up and took out his knife.
Wait! she said.
“Why?” One Bear asked her. “How many times must we be taken as fools by these vé’hó’e?”
They have broken their promises to us, Speaks While Leaving said. Our agreements are void. We are free to act. But not just against this one.
“What?” the chief of the Ridge People band blurted. “You expect us to turn against all of the Iron Shirts?”
“Daughter,” One Bear said, “I know you. You never speak without a plan. But you have kept too much hidden from us.”
No more, she said. Look around you. I have brought the Crow People here. I have brought the Cradle People. The Blackfoot. Their chiefs have seen the vision I kept from you. They have seen it and they believe it to be true. Riders have been sent. Many are coming.
Her father closed his eyes and clenched his fists. “You tell our oldest enemies of this vision, but do not tell your own people?”
She hesitated, and then admitted her guilt. I did not think you would believe me. As you said, I was arrogant.
“Will you show it to us now?” her father asked.
Yes, she said. Now.
She opened her mind, and let the vision flow. It burst from the world of spirits into the world of men, flooding everyone in the Council Lodge with the sights, the sounds, the import of what she had kept from them. And as the elders of her tribe lived the vision of the three paths, as they grasped the whole of it, as they absorbed its meaning, Speaks While Leaving felt a surge of power from outside. Four lights, the guardians of the world, grew brighter and brighter, infusing everything with a glow of ethereal power until, when the vision played out to its end, the lights shot up into the night, dimming, and took their place among the stars.
Around the lodge, men gaped and looked to one another for confirmation that they had, indeed, just seen what they had seen.
“You were right,” One Bear said. “I would not have believed you.”
Speaks While Leaving felt tenuous, as if she was draining away, like water through cupped fingers.
And now?
One Bear addressed his fellows. “Any dissent?” he asked.
None spoke. The path was clear.
Chapter 22
Moon When Ice Starts to Form, Waxing
Four Years after the Cloud Fell
North of the Sudden River
Alliance Territory
The morning mist swirled in the lazy air. Sheets of it rose from the ground, grey tendrils reaching out with ghostly hands, caressing the flanks of the passing horses. George rode a grey mare, borrowed from one of the general’s aides, and Mouse Road was perched atop the broad back of a sorrel gelding, hands twined in the poor beast’s mane, her face pinched by discomfort and the fear of tumbling off. Meriwether and his men accompanied, ranging near or far as their duties dictated, their misty forms vacillating between suggestion and reality, their horse’s hooves squelching across the rain-soaked grassland.
The sun was just an idea in the east and the wind of last night’s storm was just a memory. The day lay quiet, sullen and expectant, or so it felt to George. He tried to dampen his hopeful spirit, his experience counseling caution while superstition warned him of jinxes. But even so, there was a giddiness within his breast, a puppyish exuberance he could not keep entirely quiet.
“Must be getting close, now,” Meriwether offered.
Meriwether had been a cipher during their return from Westgate. Aloof and patently suspicious on their outward journey, on the trip back he had stayed closer, at times even riding alongside George and Mouse Road. As a conversationalist, he was not verbose, but neither was he the pillar of silence he’d been before.
“Indeed,” George replied. He noted the copse of poplars in the curve of the creekbed. “We’re nearly there, in fact. Just a mile or so more.” He glanced over, noted the general’s furrowed brow, and saw the muscles of his jaw working under the unshaven stubble.
“Something on your mind, General?”
Meriwether glanced over and George saw the man’s jaw clench once more.
“I misjudged you,” he said.
George did not reply, but let the old soldier find his own words in his own time.
“I thought you were...” he began. “I thought you were just...”
He took a breath and held it for a moment before releasing his words. “I thought you were a dilettante.”
George could not help but chuckle. “A dilettante, eh?”
Meriwether’s shy smile expressed some of his embarrassment. “Yes,” he said. “A dilettante, a dabbler. A gadfly bent on making his name at the expense of others.” He turned and leveled his gaze at George. “At the expense of your father.”
George took that in, mulled it, and nodded. “And now?”
Meriwether looked forward again, peering out into the thinning mist.
“I watched you two, you and your father. You weren’t out to hurt him or to shame him, but you weren’t a pushover, either. You were...” Again, he paused to seek the proper word. “You were professional. A firm negotiator, but respectful.” He shrugged. “It surprised me, is all. You were both working for peace. That’s not something I usually get to see.”
George nodded. “You’re thinking of the Spanish.”
The general squinted into the distance. “Yes,” he said. “The Spanish.” He nodded his head to the west. “Those soldiers out there, your ‘Iron Shirts,’ they are all I usually get to see. They want to make war and, with skill or without it, they succeed. Making war is easy; any idiot with ten thousand men can do it for a fair spate of time. But making peace, well, now. That’s where the true skill comes in. And it’s not something a general gets to see on the battlefield.”
Mouse Road guided her mount closer, questioning George with a few deft gestures.
He talks, she signed. All good?
Ye
s, George responded. All good.
All good, but still, a question had been nagging at him.
“General,” George said. “My father trusts you completely and I know you will follow his orders to the best of your abilities. But what I need to know is if we can trust you, not as a soldier, but as a man. Is your heart in this?”
Meriwether looked neither right nor left, stared straight ahead, betraying nothing. George, fearing he had trespassed on the general’s conversational mood, spoke quickly lest he offend a new ally.
“My apologies,” he said. “I did not mean to imply—”
“No,” Meriwether said with an absent wave of his hand. “I was just considering. It is an honest question, and you deserve an honest answer.”
George let him ruminate in silence, fairly sure that he had already been given the answer. When Meriwether did speak, his words were measured, his tone almost avuncular.
“As you said, first and foremost I am a soldier, and as a soldier, your trust would not be misplaced. I will not waver in my commitment to my commander’s orders.
“But as to my heart, well, let us say that there the situation is much less clear-cut.”
He paused and they all rode in silence, with only the sounds of hooves, tack, and harness around them.
“In my heart,” he went on, “I believe our race is superior to your native friends, and I believe that placing the great prairies of this continent in the hands of a tribe of hide-wearing savages goes against God’s plan.” He held up a hand. “I know, that’s not what you wanted to hear, but that is what I feel. However...” He twisted in his saddle, put a hand on his hip, and looked George square in the eye.
“You and your friends have been very clever. You have us over a barrel and, truth be told, I would rather have your hide-wearing savages on my back doorstep than those cursed Spaniards. And so, yes, as far as that goes, my heart is in this fight.” He pointed at George. “But if you or they so much as hint at betraying this agreement, I’ll bring down God’s own wrath upon you all.”
He straightened in his saddle and gazed forward again. “I hope that answers your question.”
George blinked, taken aback by the general’s unvarnished honesty. “Indeed, sir, it does.”
They rode onward, pushing into a canter as the morning brightened and the terrain smoothed out. Soon, Mouse Road pointed out the tall, lone sycamore that was their landmark. George relayed the news.
“It’s just up ahead,” he told the general. “Best we part ways here and go on foot the rest of the way. No sense spooking your horses.”
Meriwether nodded and called a halt. George dismounted and Mouse Road gratefully did likewise. They turned the reins over to their escort and George regarded the general once more.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t be discouraged, son,” he said. “I’m just an old Southern boy at heart. There are plenty who would side with you. This war with the allied tribes has gone on for far too long, and many are weary of it.” He leaned forward and extended his hand. “The natives have earned an honorable settlement.”
George reached up and shook the general’s hand. Then Meriwether touched the brim of his hat and nodded to Mouse Road.
“A pleasure making your acquaintance, ma’am,” he said, then turned and spurred his horse into a trot.
George and Mouse Road watched them disappear into the thinning mist. George shouldered their bundle and set off for the sycamore tree. The sun was a smoky ball of dim fire, but grew brighter as the mist burned away. Mouse Road walked quietly by his side, the tall, dew-heavy blades of prairie grass whispering as she passed. She slipped her hand into his and he could not help but smile.
“He said something you did not like,” she said.
George sighed. “No. He just spoke honestly.”
“But it made you sad.”
He shrugged. “A little.”
She stopped and gripped his hand to halt him, too. “I do not want you to be sad. Not today. Not when we have everything so close. Not so close to victory.” She stepped up to him, reached forward and sought him beneath his breechclout. George’s eyes went wide and she laughed, grinning.
“Not today,” she said. “No one is allowed to be sad today.”
George found his tongue tied in knots by her uncharacteristic brashness. “But, can we,” he started, trying to calculate if this was the right time of month. “Your moon-time, isn’t it due soon?”
She caressed him and lifted her eyebrows. “Past it.”
“But, then...” He couldn’t think with her doing that with her hand. “You mean that you are...?”
Her smile became knowing and her hand stroked him, up and down. “Yes,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “The child will be born in springtime.” She took his hand and placed it on her breast.
“Wait,” he said.
She took a step back, hands on hips. “One Who Flies, I did not think I would have so much trouble getting you to lay with me.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head to clear it, to deny her accusation, to bring him back from the dream he had stepped into. “I just, I mean...if you are...can we?”
She walked back to him, took him once again in hand, and looked up at him with smiling eyes.
“We most certainly can.”
They loved, then and there under the brightening sky. His skin thrilled at the cold of the dew-moist grass, the warmth of her touch, the heat of her enveloping sex. They loved, silently and with urging words, laughing and crying out. She guided his touch and he complied happily, finding pleasure in hers, before she reciprocated in kind. They loved and after, lying in the crushed grass beneath the open day, he had to admit that he was no longer sad at all.
She lay beside him, her body stretched out, an arm and one leg draped across him, her breath warm on his neck, her breasts a pleasant pressure against his ribs. He watched sunlight glimmer along her waist-long braids and gleam from the sheen of sweat at the small of her back. Her scent, made of musk and smoke and the scent of fallen leaves, intoxicated him. He breathed it in slowly, held it, and released it in a sigh. She snuggled closer against him; he closed his eyes and, lulled by the drone of bees and the sun’s renewed warmth, drifted toward sleep.
Then the ground beneath him trembled with a pulse—thrum—like a raindrop on a drumhead, and he knew their brief idyll was near an end. Mouse Road felt it too, her body stirring as the pulse in the earth grew stronger. They could hear it, now—deep, sonorous, at the limit of the ear. George stroked his wife’s cheek, kissed her eyes, and reached for his clothes just as he heard the great footsteps close in on them.
“Hello, chick,” he said.
His walker halted, tense and still a few yards away. She eyed them and snuffled at the air, smelling new scents. George laughed and his walker blinked, put at ease by his radiated mood. She rumbled, deep in her throat, satisfied at their reunion.
The sun was climbing toward its zenith when they headed off, veering south away from Meriwether’s trail. The general told them that the bluecoats would draw the Spanish forces slowly to the north, and George figured that a long hook around the southwest should bring them in on the Spanish right flank.
They traveled at an easy pace, giving the walker ample rest. They ate from their stores of dried meat and biscuit as they rode, and George scanned the terrain idly. On their left was a line of trees, leaves rustling, and ahead a low rise, but his mind was on other things.
“What?” Mouse Road asked when her arms around his waist detected his quiet chuckle.
“I was thinking of my father,” he said as they rode over the top of the rise. “This is not what he expected when he dreamed of being a grandfa—”
Shouts.
George saw soldiers, Spanish uniforms. One of the soldiers screamed, gaping at the walker. The beast chuffed and all of the Spaniards grabbed their rifles. George waved a hand to ward them off, stop them, to show them that it wasn’t just a rogue walker, bu
t they did not see him. All they saw was the beast, the teeth, the size of her.
Gunsmoke and muzzle fire. Bullets sang past. The walker twisted, veteran of battles, knowing when to retreat. Mouse Road’s grip failed. George turned, saw her falling as the walker turned to run. He reached for her, caught her sleeve, but couldn’t hold her up, wouldn’t release her, and then he fell, too. The walker pushed off toward the trees. George hit the ground, hard. His head swam.
The soldiers rushed in. He heard words, an argument. Someone grabbed him and rolled him over. He reached out, tried to defend himself and pain struck him in the face. Thrust back onto his stomach, they set upon his back like a barrowload of bricks, their hard-boned knees pinning him to the earth, their hands binding his arms and hands.
“Mouse Road!” he cried. He writhed, trying to catch sight of her, but his view was obscured by men and knee-high grass.
Orders were given in hissing, lisp-filled Spanish. George craned to see his captors. Their uniforms were dark blue, not the sky blue of Pereira’s forces. Marines, then, and from Spain; not the Creole-manned ranks from Cuba or the Tejano Coast.
These were the reinforcements, the armada sent by the Spanish Crown, here and already in the field.
The soldiers argued with their leader, but the louder voice prevailed. They lifted him to his feet. He fought, butting the soldier in front of him. Unbalanced, he fell, and earned a kick to the ribs for his attempt.
“Mouse Road,” he cried again, for she had not answered his first call. The soldiers, holding his arms from behind, lifted him again, and he saw why his wife had been silent.
Mouse Road lay on the golden grass, blood staining the breast of her deerskin dress. Her eyes fluttered as she lay senseless.
Desperate anger filled George’s brain. He shouted—an incoherent, rage-born roar—as they dragged him toward the woods, leaving Mouse Road behind.
Beneath a Wounded Sky Page 20