The men were ready. They waited patiently, clicking tongues when their whistlers began to grumble.
“We go,” he said, and they headed out into the cool, wind-blown night.
They rode west, away from the camps, not wanting to risk being seen by the Iron Shirt pickets. Then they headed north toward the White Water, to the place where the scouts reported having seen the incoming riders. The wind was cold and kept them fresh as they rode. The waxing moon had set, but soon the clouds separated and silvered starlight helped to show the way.
Storm Arriving watched One Who Flies.
Could he be right? he wondered.
The visions. All the visions. The years and years of visions. He wanted to believe in them, to trust in the power he had felt on that day, just a few moons past, when the sky darkened and the ground shook. Mouse Road said she had seen the guardians rise from the earth that day, and he believed her. It wasn’t a question of whether the spirits existed; it was whether or not they cared, and if Speaks While Leaving had correctly understood their meaning.
One Who Flies was convinced; that much was clear. But Storm Arriving simply could not deny the numbers on the field. The bluecoats had chosen their ground with cunning, but that had only bettered their chances, not evened them.
Believe, my heart.
Storm Arriving yanked the halter so hard his whistler fluted as he jerked to a stop.
“Hold,” Grey Bear ordered, and the group reined to a halt. “Storm Arriving,” he said. “What is it?”
Trust, my love.
Storm Arriving could not stifle the moan that escaped him. He had not heard her voice for a moon, had not touched the silk of her hair, or smelled the luscious scent of her skin, and now all his memories of her flew through his mind.
See, he heard her say, and the night exploded, swirling around him. Colors flooded in, light bloomed, and he saw.
All that One Who Flies had described appeared before his eyes. All that Mouse Road had told, now repeated itself to him. It was more than mere sight and sound. He experienced it, he felt it, he knew it. And when the vision bled out and night returned, when the voices of men and the fluting of his mount reached his ears, he bit back stinging tears.
Come, she said. I wait.
He sat astride his fractious drake, holding him steady through sheer habit, his mind stunned by the power that had completely overtaken him. He had always known that her power was great, but to speak to him, to show him her vision—he was astounded. It was more power than he thought humans could possess, and yet he had seen it as clear as if he had lived it. His mind shied but he forced himself to see, to truly see what it was she had shown him.
A hand touched his arm, and he found One Who Flies at his side, visage serious. Storm Arriving gazed at him, no challenge in his eyes. He put a hand atop his friend’s.
“How could I have been so very wrong?” he asked.
Surprise widened his friend’s eyes, and then his smile gleamed through the dark. He said nothing, but only gave him a pat of encouragement.
Storm Arriving pulled his drake’s head around and slapped his flank, heading off toward their rendezvous.
His mind was ablaze. The vision was real! Its meaning was undeniable. The world had changed in a heartbeat and no matter what they met in the night ahead, he had to understand it in a completely different way.
The scouts led them along the banks of the White Water, back to the area where the riders had been seen. Ahead, a whistler’s trumpeting called to them and Heron in Treetops pointed.
“There,” he said.
Atop a treeless arm of land overlooking a bend in the river, riders had gathered, their whistlers signaling with shifting patterns along their chameleon skin. Storm Arriving led the party that way, and as they drew near, he saw that his scouts had told the truth.
Riders waited atop the rise, and even from a distance he could see the garb of different tribes. He saw the feathered headpieces of the Inviters, the badger-fur topknot on a chief of the Crow People. The shell and bead work of the Cloud People shone in the moonlight, and he could see the shields of the Elkhorn Scrapers, the Dog Soldiers, and other societies of the People. But he could also see that there were only a hundred or so men gathered atop the ridge. Many, but not nearly enough.
One Who Flies divined his thoughts. “Perhaps they will tip the balance,” he said.
“They are too few,” Storm Arriving said as they started up the slope.
“You have said that one of your soldiers is worth ten bluecoats. How many Iron Shirts are they worth?”
“They are too few,” Storm Arriving repeated, his voice raspy with emotion. “I wish that it were not so; as much as you, I wish it, but it is so.” He looked up at the soldiers waiting on the ridge. “I cannot think of what this means. Having seen...” His feelings—frustration, remorse, hope, anger, desperation—all welled up, throttling his words. A soldier rode forward from the group. When Storm Arriving saw the large frame and loose hair of Limps, he felt his heart would burst.
He toed his whistler ahead and clasped the arm of his longtime friend, a smile on his face and tears streaming from his eyes.
“Speaks While Leaving,” Limps began.
“I know,” Storm Arriving said. “She spoke to me—I do not know how, but she did, and she showed me. Her vision, she showed it to me.”
Limps nodded up at the riders on the ridge behind him. “She has shown all these chiefs. All who see it, believe. All who see, understand.”
Two other riders came down from the ridge. It was Two Roads and One Bear, father to Speaks While Leaving, chief of the Great Council; an unexpected presence among these soldiers.
Storm Arriving greeted his chief with deference. “My heart is glad to see you,” he said.
One Bear signed his own greeting, but there was no joy in his face. “We have come to join with you. My daughter...” He paused. “We have all seen the power of her vision.”
Storm Arriving looked once more at the troop of men on the ridge. He would not show disrespect to his chief for the men he had brought, but silently he wished it had been many more. Perhaps Speaks While Leaving could explain it.
“Your daughter showed her vision to me as well. She said that she would be waiting for me.” He scanned the ridgetop again. “Where is she?”
Limps turned his whistler upslope. “She rides with us,” he said, and urged his whistler into a jog.
Storm Arriving followed, perplexed. His men fell in behind him, and as a group they rode up the ridge. Limps did not stop, but rode through the gathering of tribesmen. The soldiers spun and rode alongside them as they crossed over the narrow arm of land. Limps slowed as they reached the far side and the land fell away, sloping down into a broad curve of land embraced by the river.
The pale starlight found no grass there, or any graveled banks along the shore, for the ground from hillside to the shining water was filled, covered by mounts and men. Storm Arriving gaped. He heard One Who Flies say something in his own language, his voice filled with awe, and Storm Arriving echoed the sentiment.
There were thousands, soldiers from every tribe, pale as spirits in white war paint, all here because of one woman and her vision of the future. And Storm Arriving knew where she was: in the middle of them all, at the heart of her creation.
Yes, he heard her say. I am here.
He kicked his drake and the beast leapt forward. They juddered down the slope and Storm Arriving whooped in delight. He regretted his every action against his wife, cursing his own stubbornness and mistrust. He knew with his deepest thought that he could never doubt her again. The love that he had twisted, denied for so long, he now let free, and it filled him, sending his soul to flight. He whooped again and the multitude began to move, opening a path as if his devotion had bid them all part to aid his passage to his one true heart, his wife, his love.
He rode past them, rode past the thousands, heading to their center, and there he found a circle of open ground.
His drake skidded to a halt, tail smacking the earth, his whistling call echoing from the hillside. But the circle was empty, the starry light touching only trampled earth, with one dark shape lying at the center.
Storm Arriving jumped down from his mount and ran to it, then stopped, and fell to his knees.
It was a travois; two pale lodgepoles braced and bound with rope. Across the travois was a litter, and upon it, a precious cargo. Pale elkhide lay beneath and a massive buffalo robe was draped over its top. Storm Arriving heard other riders enter the circle, heard one man dismount. Footsteps approached him, but Storm Arriving could not look away from the fur-draped bundle.
“So small,” he said, his words distant in his own ear. “In my heart, she was always so tall, so...” He sunk down, palms on the ground, and touched his forehead to the cool earth. His fingers dug into the turf and his shout was no longer one of elation. With a keening howl of loss, he tore the earth, raised his fists to the sky, and screamed again, tortured and feral. There was no other sound. All was silence, save for the ragged breath that burned his lungs.
Then, with trembling hands, he reached for his knife. Tears blurred his sight, and the glint of stars along his blade filled his vision with a glow that seemed to limn the shrouded body of his one and only wife.
He reached back and took hold of his braid. With two slow, brutal cuts, he severed it.
He did not move for a time, but knelt there, hands clenching his knife and his sacrifice, his breath shuddering in and out, in and out. Then, slowly, he got to his feet. He placed the braid atop the buffalo robe, and turned.
Limps, One Who Flies, Grey Bear, and Whistling Elk stood before him, somber and bleak, faces wet with new-spilled grief. Behind them were One Bear, Two Roads, and the others from the ridge. And standing, surrounding them all was the assembled might of a dozen tribes; thousands of men, their ghostly war-paint glowing in the starlight, all of them kneeling, all facing the body of the woman who had filled them with this single purpose.
When he spoke, it was with a calm, steady voice. He did not have to shout. His words would pass outward from him like ripples in a still pond, from the first man to the last.
“I am Storm Arriving,” he said. “And this is Speaks While Leaving, my wife. She has brought us here. She would have us all work together. Like the bluecoats, like the Iron Shirts, she would have us all be one, a nation undivided.” He turned as he spoke. “We have tried before, and we failed. We cannot fail this time, for if we do, if we cannot fight together—if we cannot live together—we will surely die together.”
He gave time for his words to travel, then raised his voice.
“Are all the chiefs agreed?”
“We are,” said one, then another, until they had all given voice and agreed.
“And you men,” he said to the legion of spirit warriors around him. “Are all men agreed?”
Their response was immediate and unequivocal, a shout that filled the night.
He raised his knife over his head.
“Then we go!”
Chapter 25
Moon When Ice Starts to Form, Waxing
Four Years after the Cloud Fell
South of the White Water
Alliance Territory
George rode back with Storm Arriving and the newly-arrived chiefs. Not only had they brought thousands of men, but Two Roads had brought some of the captured explosives they had used so successfully against the railroads. George had the perfect use for them in mind, if the situation was right, but for the moment none of that concerned him. Right now, he could think of only two things: Speaks While Leaving was dead, and he would have to tell Mouse Road.
In truth, all of the men—soldiers and chiefs alike—were grim, thoughtful, and silent. For the chiefs of the allied tribes, George imagined that being led to war by a dead woman was a sobering experience. But for the men of the People, it was much more. It was as if their window on the future had shut, leaving them adrift. They knew only what today owned, and were unable to see what tomorrow promised.
Of them all, Storm Arriving was the most affected. In the time it took the stars to spin a hand’s width across the sky, George had seen him change from opponent to skeptic to zealous believer. At the end, he had even discarded his mantle of bitter estrangement and ridden toward his former wife like a lovestruck boy at a sweetheart dance. Now, he rode dumb, eyes hollowed, as if some major part of him had been brutally amputated.
For his own part, George’s grief had yet to come. Instead, his mind was consumed by larger matters. His world had been tipped off-balance, and his concept of reality was no longer as clear as it once had been. It was one thing to accede to the notion of visions—history was full of saints and seers, of prophecies and foretold doom—but speaking with the dead? As a youth, George had listened as his mother scoffed at tales of mediums and séances, calling them sideshows better suited to a carnival or boardwalk than the upper-crusted parlors of Washington society. These men, though...he regarded the dour gathering around him. These were not impressionable naïfs or grief-stricken hopefuls clutching for one last word of comfort from a dearly departed. These were serious men, most of whom had never met Speaks While Leaving. They all claimed to have seen the vision, and to have heard her voice. That was what bothered George the most.
Visions he could accept, either as a message from The Almighty or as this culture’s interpretation of His presence. George thought of the body, back with the soldiers, under its drapery of pelts. Even in the windy night, the smell of decay was strong and unsettling. Were these men just seeing what they wanted to see? Hearing what they wanted someone to say? Were they dealing with willful hallucinations, or with ghosts, spirits, and a vision sent by a dead woman who was so powerful in life that her presence lingered on?
George did not know what to believe. During his time with the People, he’d seen enough to know that the world was not as simple or as absolute as he had thought. He had seen the vision. So had Mouse Road. That should have been enough, had been enough before, but now it strained credibility to its limit.
Struggling, he went back to his training, to the teaching he’d received at The Point and at his father’s side: Remove all distractions; focus on the real problem.
He discarded all his concerns about how the message had been delivered. He could have seen it written on a rock or heard it from a passing pigeon; precisely how he heard the vision’s message was irrelevant. Was the analysis valid? Did it make sense?
Clearing his mind, he listed the reasons for and against the various paths of action that were open to them. He let the scenarios build, searched for new paths, evaluated the outcomes. Was this the best choice? Forget everything about how they had decided; look at the facts. Was it the best choice?
“Hunh,” he said.
“What is it?” asked Whistling Elk, riding beside him.
“This is the best choice,” he said. “This alliance with the bluecoats. It really is the best path.”
Whistling Elk smiled wanly. “Welcome to the dance,” he said.
George relaxed. One problem was solved. Now on to the next.
He found Mouse Road leaning against his walker, fingers absently stroking the monster’s silk-haired skin as she gazed up at the stars. He had played it out in his mind repeatedly, first delivering her the good news, then starting out with the bad. In the end, she looked at him and read it in his face.
“Oh, no,” she said, standing to meet him. “What happened?”
The words spilled from him, his grief finally welling up as he told her. He held her as she wept, his own tears falling unchecked. They sat, leaning against the warm bulk of his walker, and looked out into the night together. Clouds began to gather, and the sky darkened.
Quietly, the night progressed until, near dawn, the word was passed: Prepare.
Men rose from their brief naps, ate—or did not, according to their habits—and readied gear and mounts. Down on the plain, bugles sounded the orders, and
the air was filled with a thousand grumbling complaints as men and horses were rousted from uneasy slumber.
Storm Arriving, his council, and his interpreter rode up as George was tying a sleeping bundle to his walker’s harness.
“We go to speak with the Iron Shirts,” he said. “I thought you might like to join us.”
George wondered if he misunderstood. “What will you be telling them?” he asked.
“I will tell them nothing, for I am nothing but a savage. But they will tell me much.” He waved one of his men forward. “We brought a whistler for Mouse Road,” he said. “The main group will head out and we will bring them our orders once the Iron Shirts have told us what they want us to do.”
George smiled. “This should be very interesting.”
Storm Arriving’s smile was weak, but sincere. “Very.”
Whistling Elk offered to escort Mouse Road north.
“Let me tell you about all the soldiers that will be waiting for us,” he said, and with a parting wave, Mouse Road put herself in the storyteller’s care.
George mounted up and headed off with Storm Arriving and the others. They rode down the gentle slope. The sky was heavy with clouds. To the east, between the wrought-iron land and the steely sky, the black was diluted by the faintest hint of dawn. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to lift George’s mood. This would be an important day, and he prayed that they would all see the end of it.
The Iron Shirts were waiting, three soldiers held lanterns high around an officer and his aides. They drew back when George’s walker stepped from the night into their illuminated circle, but they held their ground.
The officer spoke slowly, as if to a group of children, his exaggerated gestures and supercilious expression showing how little he thought of the native soldiers’ intellect.
George followed most of it, but when the Spaniard was done, Little Fox translated it all for them.
Beneath a Wounded Sky Page 23