Beneath a Wounded Sky

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  “Sleep,” George said. “I will tell them.”

  “Yes,” she mumbled. “Tell them.” And she slept.

  They stayed there, the two men, silently watching the woman sleep. George looked out across the plain. Dust rose from the army camps, and the sky above had collected clouds to paint with the evening sunset, but George could care about little more than that she was resting and that she would recover.

  She, and their child.

  “One Who Flies.”

  Storm Arriving had a furrow in his brow. He straightened his back but kept his gaze lowered. When he spoke, it was loud enough for those nearby to hear him.

  “I—” he began, his voice rough. “I should not have struck you. You showed great restraint.” He paused, his jaw clenching as if chewing his words. “A chief should show such restraint. I have shamed myself. I promise that I will do better.”

  It was not an apology, but it was an admission of wrong, made before others. It was the kind of abasement a chief makes when he fails in his responsibility, and George knew it had cost his proud brother dearly.

  George held out his hand.

  “We will say no more of it,” he offered.

  Storm Arriving clasped George’s wrist, sealing the bond. Then he stood. George stood as well.

  “I need to speak with you,” he said. “About this war.”

  “Later,” Storm Arriving said. “My council and I will meet you here.”

  George stayed with Mouse Road through the afternoon and into the evening. As she slept, he watched the two commanders—Storm Arriving and Pereira—set about preparing their men for the coming action. It was obvious who had the easier job, for while he could see Pereira’s staff scuttling from wagon to wagon, overseeing the proper stowage of all the paraphernalia associated with sheltering and feeding an army, Storm Arriving merely walked among his cohort, chatting amiably, gesturing to a loose tie-down or an overlooked item. Where Pereira had to ensure his men decamped in proper order, Storm Arriving simply understood that they would do so on their own. On the other hand, the People’s soldiers knew that anything left behind was lost. A man who went back in search of a forgotten knife or cartridge belt would be heaped with ridicule upon his lonely return.

  As night set in, George heard nothing but quiet conversation from the soldiers nearby, while from Pereira’s camp came a constant clatter of banging lanterns, the neighing of fractious horses, and the raised voices of displeased men.

  Mouse Road drifted in and out of her dreams, at times recognizing George, but at other times mistaking him for her deceased mother.

  “You are too hard on him,” she said at one point. George tried to rouse her, but she persisted. “Yes, Mother. I know he’s skinny. Yes, and hairy, too.”

  “Mouse Road,” George entreated, not wanting to hear this long lost echo of an old conversation.

  “Hush, Mother,” she said. “My mind is made up.” She smiled in her sleep. “I like his eyes.”

  She slept soundly then, and spoke no more on the topic, for which George was very grateful. After a while, she stirred, waking fully as Storm Arriving returned with his counselors, Grey Bear and Whistling Elk.

  Storm Arriving went to his sister’s side while the others sat nearby, forming a loose circle.

  “How are you feeling now?” he asked.

  “Stronger,” she said. “The sleep helped.”

  “It is what you need most,” Whistling Elk said. “Especially with a young one on the way.”

  Storm Arriving looked at Whistling Elk.

  Whistling Elk blinked and asked simply. “You did not know?”

  Storm Arriving stared at Whistling Elk, then looked at Mouse Road, and finally turned to George, who held up his hands to ward off a renewed tirade.

  “I only learned of it this morning,” he said, and then to Whistling Elk he asked, “How did you know?”

  Whistling Elk tsked and laughed. “I have known this one since she was five summers old. We women, we know these things.”

  Grey Bear cleared his throat, bringing Storm Arriving back to the reason for their visit.

  “Yes,” Storm Arriving said. “One Who Flies, we are here to listen. What is it you wanted to tell us?”

  George glanced at Grey Bear and Whistling Elk. “How much has he told you?”

  Grey Bear shrugged. “That you think we should break with the Iron Shirts and ally the People with the bluecoats instead.”

  “That I think...?” He gaped at Storm Arriving. “You did not tell them of the vision?”

  “Vision?” Whistling Elk said, surprised. “The vision?”

  “Yes,” George said. “The one Speaks While Leaving had and would not share.”

  Grey Bear frowned.

  “It was not important,” Storm Arriving said firmly.

  “Not important?” Whistling Elk was incredulous.

  Grey Bear gestured his dissent. “Storm Arriving is correct. It is not important.” He waved an arm toward the forces on the prairie. “That is important. Visions can be misread. That is truth.”

  Whistling Elk would not be put off. “I think that it is very important. Tell us, One Who Flies. Tell us everything.”

  George did so, giving them every detail of the vision and of how it had been shown to him. Mouse Road supported his story, making sure the soldiers knew that she had seen and felt its power just as her husband had.

  Whistling Elk listened, eyes wide with astonishment, but Grey Bear’s expression remained closed, his eyelids narrowed in skeptical disbelief.

  “But now,” George said, when he had told them all, “Now it is more than just the vision. Now we have the promise of the bluecoats, the promise of Long Hair himself.”

  Storm Arriving and Grey Bear both stiffened at the name.

  “You have spoken to Long Hair?” Grey Bear asked.

  Mouse Road spoke quietly but with resolve. “That is where we went. We met with the bluecoat war chief and with Long Hair himself.”

  George leaned forward, anxious to enhance the importance of his words. “He has agreed to fight the Iron Shirts with us as an ally. He has agreed to leave us the lands this side of the Big Greasy. He has agreed to a lasting peace.”

  Whistling Elk grinned broadly. Storm Arriving dismissed it all with a sneer. Grey Bear’s brow was furrowed once more, consternation plain on his face.

  “More empty promises,” Storm Arriving said.

  Whistling Elk thumped his thigh in exasperation. “You discount all this?”

  “Of course I do,” Storm Arriving said. He stood and pointed out at the field. “Do you think Long Hair does not see the size of this enemy? Do you think he does not fear our numbers? Our strength?”

  Whistling Elk leapt to his feet. “But he has agreed to everything we wanted. And the vision—”

  “The vision,” Storm Arriving spat. “Always the vision. The vision is blind. The vision does not count men on the battlefield. I do. And I say that Long Hair would promise us the moon and the stars to save his soldiers. Even if we could save them.”

  Grey Bear held up a hand for attention and the other two fell quiet.

  “You do not believe we can win, if we ally with the bluecoats against the Iron Shirts?”

  Storm Arriving was calm but earnest. “Our soldiers are brave, and we have made Pereira mighty against the bluecoat war chief’s greater skill. With him, against Pereira alone, victory is sure, but with the new soldiers from across the Big Salty? Their commander is skilled and wary. Can we win against both forces combined?” He folded his arms across his chest. “No. Not with the numbers we have.”

  “But with the spirits on our side,” Whistling Elk began.

  Grey Bear stood, joining the others. “For years the spirits have guided us to this alliance with the Iron Shirts. Now they guide us away, but do not give us the numbers to succeed?” He scowled at the ground as he wrestled with the dilemma. “Ma’heo’o is powerful. But Vé’hó’e, the Trickster, he is also a powerful spirit.
And we can be as easily guided by the one as we can be tricked by the other.” He looked out over the plain, at the thousands of men, horses, and machines making ready for war. “We near the end of this. We cannot risk defeat.” He faced the group once more.

  “I stand with Storm Arriving.”

  George’s heart sank, not because Grey Bear had sided with Storm Arriving, but because his logic was irrefutable. And then he realized that logic was the whole problem.

  “You are right,” he said.

  Mouse Road gaped at him and Whistling Elk sputtered, at a loss for words.

  “No,” George said to them, “they are right. To switch alliances now, and with these numbers? It makes no sense.”

  Storm Arriving and Grey Bear were attentive while the other two kept a stunned silence.

  “But let me ask you one simple question,” he said, purposefully gazing at each man before he raised his eyebrows and said, “When has Speaks While Leaving ever been wrong?”

  He saw the question hit them, saw their unique responses—dismissal from Storm Arriving, agitated concern from Grey Bear, delight from Whistling Elk—and continued.

  “For over a decade, this woman, this seer, has guided you with visions. She has guided the People to plenty and to prominence. She foretold our trip to the City of White Stone, and of our success against the bluecoats. She even foretold this alliance with the Iron Shirts, though none of you believed it would happen.”

  “She made that alliance happen,” Storm Arriving argued. “Against the will of the Council, and against my will, she made that happen.”

  “Does that make her vision false?” George asked. “Does that mean you are not allied with the Iron Shirts?” He stood and pointed to the plain that had been the focus of their calculations. “Yet now, because her vision points you in the opposite direction, you disbelieve her. Despite the fact that she has been proven true all these years—” He shook his head. “—No, it is because she has been proven true for so long, you decide to ignore her. You decide to forget all the past and look only at that field and the forces upon it.”

  Mouse Road sat up. “It is worse than that,” she said. Her words were to her husband, but all of them turned to listen. “Not only do they forget the past, they are blind. They see only men and soldiers. They do not see what is right before their eyes.”

  George was puzzled. He did not know what Mouse Road meant. Neither, it seemed, did her brother.

  “I see more than you think I do,” he chided his little sister. “I see men down there, I see soldiers, but I also see their war chiefs. I see the land on which they march. I see the paths they have taken to get here and the tactics they have used. I see the dead they made yesterday and the dead they are likely to make tomorrow.”

  “And yet you are blind,” she said.

  “To what?” Storm Arriving said, temper flaring. “What do I fail to see?”

  She pointed.

  “One Who Flies,” she said. “The man who fell from the cloud. The man foretold by the first vision Speaks While Leaving ever had. The man who will free us from all vé’hó’e.”

  It was Storm Arriving’s turn to gape.

  “See him,” Mouse Road said. “Hear him. Then decide.”

  The tumult of thoughts colliding in Storm Arriving’s mind was plain to see on his face. Slowly, he brought a hand up to cover his eyes and stood there, as blind in fact as Mouse Road accused him to be, seeing only his own thoughts, hearing only his own inner voice.

  George looked out beyond the circle of their council, saw men gathered by lantern-light, preparing for the morning’s battle. He watched them and worried, knowing full well what even ill-led troops could do in such numbers. They were thousands, perhaps four-to-one compared to Meriwether’s troops. Back in classes at West Point, such odds would be described with words like “overwhelming” or “insurmountable,” and yet here he was, begging commanders to commit their forces to the disadvantaged side. Faced with such reality, how could anyone side with faith and visions?

  “I cannot,” Storm Arriving said, looking at them all once more, and within George’s soul a small voice shouted in relief while another cried out in despair. Grey Bear’s face was sorrowful as he signed his concurrence, and Whistling Elk sank down to the ground, fists against his temples.

  They remained like that, none of them able to break past the conflict of their own thoughts, until the fluting of whistlers forced them all back to face the world.

  Sounds gathered in the darkness. Questions were answered, and urgent voices were ushered toward the council meeting beneath the cloak of the chestnut tree.

  “Storm Arriving?”

  “Here,” he said.

  Three men joined their circle. In the dim light, George could only see pale shapes in deerskin tunics and caught the glint of moonlight along rifle barrels. Scouts, back from patrol.

  “What is it?” Storm Arriving asked.

  “Riders,” said one of the men. “From the west.”

  “And from the northwest,” said a second scout.

  “And the north, crossing the river,” the third scout said.

  Storm Arriving stiffened at the news. “Bluecoats?” he asked.

  “No,” the scouts said, almost as one.

  “Then who?”

  “Riders from the Greasy Wood People and from the Cut Hair People,” one said.

  “No. They were from the Inviters. And the Little Star People.”

  “No,” the third said. “They are Crow People, plus our own soldiers, Elkhorn Scrapers and Dog Soldiers, by their shields.”

  They all stood, dumbfounded, until Whistling Elk’s high-pitched giggle broke the silence. His laughter built, deepening as it grew, until he was rolling on his back, beating his thighs, laughing so hard his cheeks shone with moonlit tears.

  Chapter 24

  Moon When Ice Starts to Form, Waxing

  Four Years after the Cloud Fell

  North of the Sudden River

  Alliance Territory

  A small, distant segment of Storm Arriving’s attention grew annoyed at Whistling Elk’s hysterics, but the main force of his mind, including the portion that governed his ability to speak, was utterly paralyzed by confusion.

  Soldiers. From the Crow People. From the Greasy Wood People, the Little Star People, the Inviters, the Cut-Hair People. Not to mention soldiers from the People themselves. All riding this way? All coming here? Why? And how many?

  He forced his voice into action. “How many?” he managed.

  “I could not be sure in the dark,” the first scout said. “Sixteen, perhaps twenty.” The other scouts told of similar numbers.

  Whistling Elk’s laughter began to ebb as the truth sank in. Storm Arriving blinked twice and shook his head to clear it.

  Riders, he thought, concentrating on what they knew. Small groups. News? But from so many places? The meaning of it escaped him.

  “You,” he said, pointing to Grey Bear, “and you,” he said, nudging Whistling Elk with a toe. “Gather squads. We must meet these riders.”

  “What about One Who Flies?” It was his sister, sitting up, now.

  Storm Arriving considered it. “He can come,” he decided. “But borrow a whistler. We must ride quickly.”

  One Who Flies signed acknowledgment.

  The men moved to fulfill his orders and he went to his sister’s side.

  “And you,” he said to his sister. “You rest.”

  She smiled the broad, infectious smile he loved so well, and his heart eased at the sight. Then he pressed down on the emotion, squelching it. The time was too serious, and the situation unknown.

  He put a hand to her cheek. Her skin was warm and her pulse stronger. “I did not believe him,” he said, “but he was right. You are better already.”

  “You need to trust more,” she said, pressing his hand close.

  He frowned, knowing that to trust was the one thing he found hardest to do.

  “Stay quiet,” he sai
d. “We will return before the sun.”

  The two squads formed up at the edge of camp. Whistling Elk and Grey Bear had each chosen three men, but with One Who Flies and Storm Arriving himself, it was not an auspicious number. He did not know if the spirits truly cared about such things, and in his own heart he doubted if they cared about anything at all, but it did not feel right, leaving with such a number. He pointed at Heron in Treetops.

  “You and your brother,” he said. “Prepare to ride with us. I...I need your sharp eyes.” The young soldier tipped his hat and sprinted off, returning with his brother and their mounts.

  There, he thought. Now we are three sets of four. Good enough for absent spirits.

  The sky was a patchwork of dark and light. Soot-black clouds obscured the glinting stars and broke up the glowing sky-river to Séáno. The air that had begun to move at sunset was now a steady breeze, hissing through the dry grass and tugging parched leaves from the trees.

  The camps of the Iron Shirts were dark, all their fires put out, all their men ready for the sunrise and their march to meet the bluecoats.

  The bluecoats.

  Off in the darkness, miles ahead, the bluecoats waited. And Storm Arriving knew where they were going.

  The bluecoat war chief had proven his knowledge of the land at every turn. The Iron Shirts still thought they were chasing the bluecoats, but Storm Arriving knew otherwise. From their first encounter, the bluecoat war chief had led them, drawing the Iron Shirts along like a puppy after a bone. He’d led them from battle site to battle site, testing them at every turn. He had tried their infantry at Crazy Woman Creek, assessed their artillery skills at the Black Rocks. He led them to stony ground near Whistler’s Spring to see how their cavalry fared, and every night, all along the way, he tested their picket lines and their sentries.

  Storm Arriving had seen the weaknesses, had seen the heavy guns fail to find a moving target, saw the large horses struggle across broken ground, and saw the infantry paralyzed by the Iron Shirt commander’s inability to respond and adapt. So he knew where the meeting would take place, could see it all in his mind. The field below the White Cliffs had every advantage nature could provide the bluecoats, and a few other things as well.