Speaks While Leaving passed his words along to the boys and girls on the field. A whoop when up from both sides.
One Who Flies grunted as he stood up. She questioned him with a look but he waved away her concern.
“Don’t worry, my Lady Surgeon. It is mostly habit by now. I’ll be ready to ride to the meeting tomorrow.”
“I think you would say that no matter how you felt.”
He barked a short laugh and stretched his arms over his head. “I have never lied to you,” he said, “and I am not going to start now. I’ll be fine.” He slapped his healing knee. “I am still in no condition to run away, but I can ride, after a fashion. I’d give a great deal for a horse and saddle, though. A great deal.”
She thought of the meeting scheduled for the next day, and wanted to tell him that she would be sad to see him leave the People, but she stopped. Storm Arriving was walking toward them. She looked down at the ground, her heart suddenly beating like a sparrow’s.
The tall warrior came toward them with purposeful steps. With each stride dust puffed from his leggings and the silver of his earrings jingled. He stopped before One Who Flies.
“The Council wishes to speak to you,” he said. “Come, and ask the daughter of One Bear to come as well.” His errand complete, he turned to go.
“Why do you not ask her yourself?” One Who Flies asked him. “She’s right here.” Speaks While Leaving felt the blood rush to her cheeks and she turned to hide her embarrassment.
She heard Storm Arriving stop mid-stride. “I have asked you to relay the Council’s request,” he said. “Is that task too difficult for you?” There was an edge to his voice that she knew meant danger. She hoped One Who Flies heard it, too.
“Oh, no,” One Who Flies said cheerfully. “Not at all. I was only surprised that it seemed beyond your abilities.”
She heard the warrior’s long intake of breath. She spoke quickly, eyes still fixed on the ground at her feet. “Do not worry, One Who Flies. I have heard the Council’s request and will accompany you to the Council Lodge.”
One Who Flies snapped at her. “You are no better than he.” She looked up, surprised by the anger in his voice. “The two of you are incredible. I swear it. He won’t speak to you, and you won’t even look at him. My God, but you make a ridiculous pair. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. How long are you going to continue in this stupid contest? Until love dies?” One Who Flies threw his hands in the air and cursed. “Go ahead,” he told them. “Play your game. Ignore each other. Die alone. Idiots.” He limped off toward the center of camp. “And don’t follow me,” he said, stopping them both. “I’ll have Red Whistler translate instead.”
She stood there, frozen by shock and abashment. She had not thought of love as something that could die, and the words of One Who Flies set her heart racing even faster than it had been beating before.
One of us, she thought as she looked back down at the ground. One of us will have to give in. One of us will have to lose. One of us will have to disobey the other’s edict, or it will be as One Who Flies has said.
She looked up. It was not difficult. The habituated years of averting her eyes did not drag at her gaze. She simply thought it, and then she did it.
He stood four paces from her; tall, lean, his earrings glinting in the sun and his hanging feather turning in the light wind from the distant mountains. He was looking away, staring at the back of One Who Flies with an expression that sent arrows into the bluecoat’s heart. But even in his anger, he was beautiful, just as she remembered him, only…. She noticed that the stubble of hair on his shorn right temple was dusted with grey, and several hairs from the crown of his head were bright silver against the shining black.
That grey had not been there when last she had looked upon him. How much time has passed, she asked the spirits. How much time have we lost?
Grief burned her eyes. She wiped at them and when her sight was clear, he was gone, walking with anger after One Who Flies.
Following him was impossible. Her courage was gone, spent all on one bold glance upward. Now she was empty, unable to walk after him, unable to call out; she could not ford that river again today.
But tomorrow, she promised herself. Tomorrow we will speak.
Behind her, the pitcher caught the ball and ran after the batter, trying to tag him with the ball. The batter took off in the direction of the river and the chase was on. Both teams evaporated, the air was filled with shouts and laughter, and in three breaths Speaks While Leaving was alone with the dust and the streaming sunlight.
Storm Arriving stooped and entered the Council lodge. One Who Flies sat in the front near the cold firepit. Red Whistler was beside him, translating as the chiefs listened attentively.
“He speaks, saying that he does not know the plans of Long Hair, nor would he tell us if he did. Would one of us tell our enemy of our war plans if we were captured? He says we would not, and that until there is peace between our two peoples, neither will he.”
There was a good bit of grumbling at this statement, but Three Trees Together raised a hand and silence returned.
“One Who Flies is right in this. If one of us was captured by the Crow People, we would not tell them of our plans. If we caught one of the Cradle People after a raid, we would not expect him to speak to us.”
He pointed at One Who Flies who leaned to the side to hear Red Whistler’s words. “This man is a likable fellow, but he is a vé’ho’e and the People have often walked the path of war against his kind.
One Who Flies stiffened. The translation lagged far behind the chief’s words, but One Who Flies knew the word vé’ho’e, and he did not like it.
Two Roads, warrior chief of the Kit Fox soldiers, stood.
“One Who Flies does not know the thoughts of Long Hair. He cannot know, for he has been with the People since the Hatchling Moon was new. He does not know this, but it is not what I wanted to know. What I ask is this: why do my brother Kit Foxes return with reports of vé’hó’e soldiers all up and down the Big Greasy? The meeting is at the place where the White Water meets the Big Greasy, not south at the Unexpected River, or at the River of Big Round Rocks up in the north. Why are there bluecoats for a day’s ride in either direction? Is this the way vé’hó’e abuse our promise of safe passage?” He sat, and Storm Arriving saw many others commend Two Road’s analysis and question.
One Who Flies listened to the slow translation and then responded.
“Perhaps it is because the soldiers of Long Hair do not know if they can trust the word of the Council. The extra patrols across your lands may be to protect their leader from war parties or any others intent on killing Long Hair. It is not hard to imagine a young warrior who goes out on his own, determined to count coup on my father’s head.”
Those who spoke the Trader’s tongue laughed at this. The others laughed, too, when Red Whistler translated the words.
Dark Eagle, who had acted so rudely to One Bear the day that One Who Flies came to the People, stood to address the Council. Since his discourtesy, the other chiefs had treated Dark Eagle with stony silence. He had learned from this, and now his manner was much quieter and restrained, as befits a chief. The older chiefs gave their approval of his actions with their silent attention.
“It is true,” he said. “Any man would be proud to carry the locks of Long Hair on his belt, but to do so would not help the People. I would say at this time that One Who Flies does not help us. I think that Speaks While Leaving may have been wrong about him.” He sat, and the chiefs were unsettled by his words. When Red Whistler translated, One Who Flies looked at the faces of those around him, searching for support. He found none.
Three Trees Together knit his brow and gazed at his hands. The other chiefs brooded on the thought.
“It has been,” said one of the four chiefs of the Sage People, who were part of the great alliance, “more than half a moon since this bluecoat came to us. He has not helped in all that time.”
/> “And when will he?” Dark Eagle asked in turn. “When will he if not now, when armed bluecoats walk freely and Long Hair rides again in our lands?”
The assembly grew more anxious by the moment. Storm Arriving could see that One Who Flies felt the change in the wind. The chiefs spoke from their seats, against all propriety and tradition, the words of one walking over those of another. Red Whistler could not keep up, and One Who Flies could not interject a word.
“Speaks While Leaving has never been wrong,” said Iron Shirt.
“For everything there is a first time,” said Bull’s Hump.
“If he refuses to help us, then he should be driven away from us.”
“More than that—”
“Yes, more than that—”
Amid the building confusion, it came to Storm Arriving that they all might be wrong, that they might all have misunderstood the vision. He stood and even though not a chief himself, the others subsided and allowed decorum to return.
“I apologize for interrupting,” he said once it was quiet. “I know that I am here only by your invitation.” Red Whistler spoke quietly into the ear of One Who Flies. The look on his face was still touched with fear.
“You say that One Who Flies has not helped us. You say that he tells us nothing, that he does nothing. This is true, but that does not mean he is not helping us.”
He took a moment to gather his thoughts, for the idea was still new in his mind, its edges still vague and forming. The chiefs waited.
“In the vision…when we danced it…there were ten warriors, one from each band, who attacked the great Spider-Trickster, Vé’ho’e. The man who fell from the clouds did not fight. He only opened the way. Do you remember?”
He struggled with the words as pieces of his past fell into perspective. “Many years ago I argued with Speaks While Leaving. She thought the man from the cloud would be a great thinker. I thought he would be a great warrior. We thought only of what he would do for us, and not of what he could cause.
“We did not think of the thread that bound him. Perhaps that thread was the most important part, for it was tied at both ends. A rope can tie a man to a place, but it can be pulled both ways.”
Three Trees Together understood. “He pulls Long Hair to us?”
Storm Arriving sighed, grateful that his poor words had made their point. He saw the worry on the face of One Who Flies blow away, leaving behind a friendly befuddlement as the statements came to him from Red Whistler. Storm Arriving sat down once more.
Three Trees Together spoke to Red Whistler. “Please take One Who Flies outside.”
The young warrior rose, as did One Who Flies, and all were silent as the two left the lodge.
When they were gone, Three Trees Together continued. “A rope pulls both ways, but only as long as we keep hold of our end. If we give One Who Flies back to Long Hair and the other bluecoats, we lose our grip on the rope. We meet with Long Hair tomorrow, but I do not think we can give Long Hair back his son. What does the Council think?”
The night had dragged along, and through most of it George had been alone in One Bear’s guest lodge. Throughout the camp, people were occupied in festivity or prayer, but in neither of those was there room for a paradox such as himself. He was part of their world, but he was not of it, and as he had lain there, waiting for sleep to find him, he had felt many things. What he had felt the most, however, was alone.
Now, as the camp began to quiet, as the only music was the flute of a lonely lover and the distant howl of a hungry coyote, he gave up on sleep and put another stick on the coals. The sweet smell of burning wood was welcome after a week of using buffalo chips for fuel. Outside, the crickets in the grass sang to the frogs along the creekside. He heard a step near the door.
“Ame’haooestse? Are you awake?”
“He’eéhe. Né’éstséhnêstse.” Yes. Come in.
Speaks While Leaving pulled the doorflap open and stepped over the threshold. She did not close the flap behind her.
She stepped to the guest side of the fire, opposite George. Her hair was done up in two braids, and each braid was doubled up into two loops that had been tied behind each ear with small quilled disks of leather. Intertwined in the braids were sprigs of sage, and the ends of each braid—which still hung to the middle of her back—were tied off with rolls of fringed deerskin. Bracelets of iron and brass sounded and she sat, her knees together and feet to the left in the manner of all women from the Closed Windpipe band.
She sat for a long moment, not speaking, just looking into the heat that rippled across the coals. George did not interrupt the silence. He had learned that quiet moments were not wasted moments to the Cheyenne. He picked up another stick with its sweater of lichen and laid it delicately next to the first. Smoke twisted up from between the pieces of wood. It rose, twining, thickening, until with a soundless flare the wood caught and the flames took over the work.
“I wanted to thank you,” she said, though so softly that the hiss and spit of the tiny fire nearly drowned out her words. “For your honesty today before you went to speak to the Council.”
George looked into the fire, embarrassed. “I was harsh and rude,” he said. “It was not my business to say.”
“No,” she said and looked at him earnestly. “It is a friend’s business, if his friend is eating rocks, to say that it is stupid to eat rocks. A friend will do that, and I wanted to thank you and to say that I have decided to stop eating rocks.”
“I am glad to hear it,” he said. “And I hope that Storm Arriving will stop in his stubbornness as well.”
Silence sat with them again for a time, and they watched the two sticks turn from wood to coals.
“I should let you sleep,” she said finally.
“I will not sleep tonight,” he told her.
“Do you wish to be alone?”
He shook his head. “I would not mind company.”
“What were you thinking about when I came in? What is it that keeps you awake?”
He thought back to the moment he sat up and put the first stick on the fire. “Home,” he said. “I was thinking of my home.”
She reached out and took another branch from the stack and placed it in the flames.
“Tell me about your home,” she said.
Chapter 9
Tuesday, May 25th, AD 1886
Washington, District of Columbia
Even in late spring the mornings were chill and damp. The White House, cold and drafty on even the most clement of days, magnified the morning’s chill into a veritable frost. Custer’s numb fingers fumbled with the buttons on his vest and he cursed the house and its designer.
“Autie,” his wife exclaimed at his profanity. She came in from her dressing room, all lace and silk. She took over the chore of buttoning and her touch, her genteel smile, and the heady scent of tuberoses melted away his frostiness and his chill.
“You’re up especially early,” she said. “Do you have a busy day ahead of you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Very busy.” He did not want to concern her with the details of the day. He was worried enough himself over the situation. “I will most likely be kept late.”
“Oh?” she said and paused at his top button. “Really?”
He’d said too much. Libbie was smart and quick and could deduce his hidden thoughts from the most innocuous of statements. He could not pass it off, now. Instead, he feigned annoyance.
“Yes. Samuel says I’m booked through the whole day and when he says that, we always run late.”
She looked up at him from beneath a suspicious eyebrow. “You’re hiding something, my Golden Cavalier. I can tell.”
“Really, Libbie. I don’t know what—”
“Never mind,” she said, interrupting. “If you can’t say, then you can’t say.” She finished buttoning his vest and smoothed it out across his chest.
Custer took her hands in his. Her fingers had been knobbed by years of military life, but they were stil
l long and supple. He brought them to his lips and kissed their soft skin.
“You are my finest prize,” he said, and she blushed as if the years had melted away and they were back at a church dance in Monroe. “Besides,” he said. “You and the girls will be busy tonight.”
“Busy? With what?”
There was a perfunctory knock on the door just as the bedchamber door flew open in a tumble of chiffon-covered limbs and rag-tied curls. The girls—Lydia and Maria—were impossibly breathless and simultaneously full of excited chatter. There was no sense to be made of them as they heaped hugs and pecks upon their father and peppered their mother with interrogatives.
Custer smiled as Libbie called for order. Beneath her stern gaze the girls managed to rein in their exuberance to mere effervescence.
“Isn’t it divine?” Lydia said and “I can’t believe it,” said the younger Maria.
“Believe what?” Libbie said with a sidelong glance at her husband.
“Hasn’t he told you?”
“I can’t believe it!”
“We’re going to the theater—”
“Tonight—”
“To the National Theater—”
“To see Sarah Bernhardt—”
“In La Dame aux Camélias,” they swooned in chorus.
“Isn’t it divine?”
“I can’t believe it!”
“General…”
Libbie said the word in the same tone she used when she found Tuck or Cardigan Two with their dirty paws on the furniture. The girls ceased bubbling and their jaws froze mid-word as their dream of a night at the National with The Divine Sarah was suddenly cast in jeopardy.
“You know how I feel about the girls staying out so late,” Libbie said.
“I thought it would be a nice diversion,” Custer said. “Besides, it’s just down the street. You can have them back and in their beds ten minutes after the curtain rings down.”
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