by John Legg
They stopped, and Hannah lifted her head. She saw Star Path gagged and tied to a tree. She watched as Willis untied the Sioux woman and told her to mount a nearby horse. Star Path refused, and Willis cuffed her hard across the side of her head. Star Path mounted.
Hannah grew more confused as they continued to ride away from the camp. Fear’s icy fingers gripped her. Her horse stopped and she was yanked to the ground. Her knees buckled. Willis kept her from falling, but managed to slide a hand across her tightly bound breasts.
“Y’all can scream now, if’n y’all want.” He chortled.
The sound sent a shiver through Hannah. Her fright grew as she glanced around the bustling Blackfoot camp, which was large, though not quite as large as the Sioux camp they had visited. But there was danger here that had not been present in the Sioux village. It chilled her.
“Bring the squaw,” Willis said to Strapp. He pushed Hannah ahead of him. “Y’all come with me, girl.”
With her hands bound in front of her, Hannah swung them as one and caught Willis on the cheek. Shock flickered in his eyes but faded rapidly.
“That wasn’t real nice of y’all, girl,” he snarled. He backhanded her across the face, sending her sprawling backward, legs spraddled. “Y’all best not try that agin, bitch,” he snapped. “Or Elk Horn or no Elk Horn, I’ll have your breeches down and be plowin’ y’all afore y’all know what hit ya. Now get up.”
She did as she was told, rubbing the back of her hand across the droplets of blood on her split lower lip. Willis grabbed Hannah’s buckskin shirt at the shoulder and tugged her along. Star Path followed quietly, prodded by the pistol in Strapp’s nervous grip.
Willis shoved Hannah into a dark tipi. She blinked and wrinkled her nose at the strong, dank smell. It created stark fear in her, something that was tangible. Her arms and legs seemed numb, and she didn’t think she would be able to speak if called upon to do so.
As her eyes adjusted, she saw seven Blackfoot warriors sitting in a crescent around a small fire. Two Indian women hovered in the shadowy background. Hannah noticed that the men looked bigger than the Sioux, but were no more handsome. Most of them wore their hair loose. They wore buckskin war shirts, and their coppery faces gleamed in the firelight.
“Sit,” Willis said, shoving her down. He sat to her right. Star Path sat to his right, with Strapp next to her. Willis took the pipe handed to him and puffed briefly before passing it to Strapp, who looked as if he might vomit. He took one brief puff, hardly touching his lips to the stem, before sending the pipe on its way.
When the pipe had completed the circle, Willis said, “This here is the white squaw Ah told y’all about, Chief Elk Horn.”
Hannah shuddered. And she was having trouble breathing. “Woman look like man,” Elk Horn said in halting English. “It’s just the way she’s dressed. Wait’ll y’all see her dressed like a real squaw.”
Elk Horn looked Hannah up and down, while her heart pounded and there was a roaring in her ears. “No meat on bones. You not feed her?”
Willis laughed uncomfortably, the sound loud and brittle in the skin lodge. “Y’all give her a few young’uns to nurse and she’ll not be so scrawny. She’ll be able to pleasure y’all.”
He paused, then said cruelly, “Hell, ah tell y’all what, Chief. Ah can see y’all don’t believe she got what it takes to be a woman. Now, Ah wouldn’t ’spect y’all to take a horse from me ’less’n y’all was to give it a good lookin’ ovah. So why’n’t I have this here bitch stand and shuck her clothes for y’all. That way y'all can see that she’s really all woman under these here man’s duds.” Hannah thought her heart would either explode, it was pounding so hard, or else stop from overwork. A trickle of sweat formed on her right temple and sailed down across her cheek and jaw.
The Blackfeet jabbered among themselves for a while, then Elk Horn shrugged. “No time now.” He pointed to Star Path. “Why you bring Sioux?”
Willis grinned. “She’s an extra gift for ya, Chief Elk Horn.”
“Only want one more present,” Elk Horn said harshly.
The smile ran from one of Willis’s ears to the other, and then he grinned some more. “Ah don’t know why y’all were so afraid of that old Squiah. He wasn’t so tough.” He made a great show of rummaging in the sack that sat on the ground before him. With a flourish, he whipped out a long, tawny scalp and laid it on the bag.
Hannah saw black dots before her eyes, and her head swam. She thought she would faint right here, and she sucked in breaths as fast as she could. Star Path sat stoically, moon face unmoving.
“Ah told y’all Ah’d take care of Squiah, and Ah done so. And,” he grinned, “Ah brung y’all an extra gift. This Sioux bitch is—was—Squiah’s.”
A rustle ran through the assembled warriors. Elk Horn held out his hand, and Willis tossed the scalp across the fire to the Indian. Elk Horn and the other warriors examined the still-bloody topknot closely, talking quickly in their thick guttural language.
The Blackfeet sat back, and Elk Horn’s marble-black eyes bored into Willis’s. “You have spoken with a straight tongue. You shall have your fort, and The People will trade with you there.”
His face looked calm, but there was both a warning and a lingering fear in his eyes.
One of the warriors picked up the scalp and left the lodge. A moment later there was a cacophony of war whoops, rumbling drums and singing, as the Blackfeet celebrated the death of their longtime enemy.
Willis relaxed, and grinned. “Y’all gonna take this here white gal now? Or maybe that fat Sioux?” He licked his lips, eager at the thought of perhaps watching.
Elk Horn smiled as he eyed the two women. Hannah shuddered, and worried that she might vomit. Star Path’s expression had not changed. “Would be good. But no. Winter comes. We are many suns from home. Must leave.” He turned and talked with his men before turning back to face the two white men. “We go north now. Take women. You come.”
“Y’all afraid Squiah’s men gonna come seekin’ revenge?” Willis asked thoughtlessly.
The Blackfoot’s unblinking black eyes focused on him. “We fear no one. Elk Horn fears no one. Medicine to fight white eyes bad now. We leave. Fight later.”
But Willis could see fear in Elk Horn’s eyes, and a sliver of fear settled into his own stomach. Perhaps Elk Horn knew that he had not really killed Squire, that it was another man’s scalp that the people were celebrating over right now. These people, he realized, truly were afraid of Squire.
Elk Horn spoke more words in his own language, and the two squaws who had been working in the shadows circled the fire to tug Hannah and Star Path to their feet. With kicks and shoves, the Blackfoot women pushed the white girl and Sioux woman out of the lodge.
Outside, Hannah stopped short and swung her tied hands at one of the Blackfoot women. The blow caught the squaw off guard, but she recovered quickly and scooped up a piece of wood and lashed out with it. Hannah yelped in pain as the wood struck her shoulder.
The two Blackfoot women shouted insults, none of which Hannah understood. They pelted her and Star Path with stones, snow and sticks.
Warriors and the few other women in the camp gathered around, the men to watch and jeer, the women to join in the fun. Star Path took the punishment without expression, never flinching.
The Blackfoot women turned all their bile against Hannah, who refused to cry out in pain. A woman she might be, but she had lived, and worked, like a man. Hannah fought hard, kicking, yelling epithets, lashing out with her bound hands. She tried to use her lowered head as a battering ram, and twice she managed to knock one of the Indian women down and jump on her, hitting and biting until the others drove her off.
Hannah gagged when one of the Blackfoot women spit on her, and then another, until they were all doing it. Hannah continued to fight, but there were no targets now, and she tired rapidly. Tears formed in her eyes as she tired to ignore the spittle, sticks and stones that rained on her.
Suddenly
Elk Horn stood before them, yelling orders.
The women stopped tormenting Hannah. Two grabbed her and hauled her to her feet and shoved her to where horses waited. They tied her and Star Path to a tree while they went about striking camp.
Hannah sat with head hanging down, defeated, totally frightened. Thoughts of Train spun in her head. Had she only but looked up, she might have seen him and Li’l Jim being hustled to ponies at the other side of the camp, and leaving under the watchful eyes of Big Tree’s men.
Before long, the tipis were down and the horses loaded. Hannah and Star Path were tied onto Blackfoot ponies. With Elk Horn leading the way, they rode out. They traveled slowly, but there was no stopping that cold night. It wasn’t until the following evening that they stopped to make camp in a lightly falling snow.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
HANNAH was untied and fell to the ground, too tired to move. She had been up more than thirty-six hours, a prisoner of the Blackfeet for thirty, and on the trail almost that long. She also had suffered much abuse at the hands of her captors. But she was not allowed to rest.
The squaws forced her up and made her carry heavy firewood and haul large skins of water from a stream. Only when the chores were done did she get a little jerky from a Blackfoot woman who threw the food on the ground at Hannah’s feet.
Star Path picked up the strips of hardened meat, wiped them on her greasy dress and handed half of them to Hannah, who took them gratefully.
The woman stroked Hannah’s face softly, talking to her in Sioux. Hannah could not understand what Star Path was saying, but she knew the Indian woman was trying to comfort her, and she was glad for it. Not since her family was massacred had she felt so vulnerable. Tears seeped out as she began to sob. Star Path brushed the tears away, still talking in her soft, singsong voice.
“Can you speak English?” Hannah asked suddenly, realizing that in all the time they had been with the Colonel’s brigade together she had never heard Star Path say anything in any language other than Sioux.
Star Path nodded. “Some.” She began eating and motioned Hannah to do the same. “No worry. You not be hurt much. You for Elk Horn. He important man. He take care of you.”
Hannah shuddered. “What’s gonna happen to us?” she whispered.
“You be Elk Horn’s woman. Me, too, maybe. He not let us be hurt bad. Other wives no like us. Try to hurt us.”
“How many wives does he have?”
“Two. Was three. One die.”
“You know their language?”
“Little. Like your talk. I understand them.”
“Will you teach it to me? If I know it, maybe they won’t hurt us so much. Maybe they’ll get to trustin’ us and we can escape.”
“Yes, I will teach what I know. But no escape. We can’t travel back to Lakota alone.”
“We can get back to the others, though.”
The Sioux woman shook her head sadly. Then she smiled. “You are like a little flower born too soon. Still snow on ground, but brave little flower come out. That is what I will call you— Little Flower. ”
Hannah smiled and softly touched Star Path’s fleshy arm. “I like that, Star Path. Thank you.”
They talked often on the long journey, when Hannah was not pining over Train. And as her understanding of the Blackfoot language grew—both from Star Path’s tutoring and her own newly discovered talent for picking up the language on her own—the tormenting from Elk Horn’s two wives lessened. Soon they only had to tell her what to do, and she would do it. She also found she could easily learn Star Path’s language, and in turn she taught the Sioux woman better English.
Most of her mind was occupied, however, by thoughts of Train. She wondered and worried what he would do when he found her—if he was still alive. For all she knew, the Blackfeet had killed him right off. But she knew in her heart that if he was alive, he would come for her.
The trip was harsh, tormented as she was by her thoughts, the beatings, the fierce cold, the hard work and the long days of riding. Weariness, hunger, fear and worry were her constant companions. And each night she sat near Star Path, waiting in dread that Elk Horn would come for her.
There were times when she caught herself watching Elk Horn as he rode proudly ahead of them. She had to admit that in a savage sort of way he was handsome, with his strong face and dark eyes. He was an impressive sight in his war shirt—which was decorated with porcupine quills, eagle bones and colorful beads—and the four-point Hudson’s Bay blanket wrapped around him.
But he was not Train, that was for sure. She giggled once when she thought about Train, tall and proud, young and handsome. She had accidentally seen Elk Horn naked one night, ready to bed one of his squaws, and she knew for certain he could not compare with Train.
There could never be another man for her, she thought. Never! Train was hers, and would be until one of them died . . . She tore her mind from that thought right away. He was alive, she told herself firmly. She knew the Blackfeet had split into smaller groups. Perhaps he was with one of them. Perhaps Squire had saved Train and Li’l Jim, but Squire was . . .
She saw vividly the scalp tossed carelessly across the fire from Zeb Willis to Elk Horn, and despair settled over her like syrup on her mother’s flapjacks.
But she held her head high and vowed that Elk Horn would not break her. Train was alive! She had to believe that. And she believed there would come a day when he would save her. Or, she thought more than once, maybe she would get free and go to rescue him.
With her growing confidence, Hannah began to assert herself a little. One day she asked one of the squaws for a blanket or robe to protect her and Star Path from the bitter mountain nights.
“No,” the Piegan woman shouted, hitting Hannah with a stick. The woman raised the stick to strike again, but Hannah grabbed it.
“Don’t hit me again,” Hannah warned, proud that she was able to say it in Blackfoot. “I’ll kill you if you hit me again.”
The woman’s face wrinkled with surprise, but she backed off, chattering in agitation. And that night Hannah and Star Path slept close together under the warming comfort of a heavy four-point blanket.
Hannah had seen little of Strapp and Willis on the journey. There were only glimpses here and there as they struck camp in the mornings, or set up camp at night. Usually, the two white men rode behind her and Star Path, and Hannah was sure Willis was constantly staring at her back.
But one evening after camp was made, the two strode to where Hannah and Star Path sat, chewing on jerky. Willis, who held a folded blanket in his hand, plopped cross-legged on the ground facing them. Strapp remained standing, unwilling to have his filthy pants soaked by an inch of muck from snow trampled into the ground by feet and hooves.
“How’d y’all like to have this here blanket, ladies?” Willis said with a sneer.
“We have a blanket,” Hannah said stiffly. “But thank you anyway. ” It was her mother’s training that made her so polite, and it annoyed her.
“Think nothin’ of it. But remembah, if’n y’all was to have this here blanket, you’d each have one. Well, Ah’ll just leave it here and y’all can thank me fo’ it tonight.”
“No, thanks. Now get away from us.”
“Y’all ain’t bein’ very kindly now, girl. Ah been keepin’ my eye on y’all ever since Ah first learned yo’ little secret, and Ah ain’t gonna wait much longah befo’ I take y’all. And,” he said with an evil smile, “after Ah get through with y’all, it’ll be William’s turn. But Ah doubt you’ll find him as much of a man as Ah am.”
“You make my stomach turn, you goat-faced sack of buffalo droppings. You’re worse’n any ruttin’ hog I ever saw.”
Willis laughed harshly. “Is that so, girl? Ah figure y’all been layin’ reg’lar with that goddamned Abner, but he ain’t as good as Ah am. Y'all will find that out right off. Y’all got to have a man’s tools,” he said with a disgusting laugh, grabbing his crotch, “if’n y’all want to do a m
an’s job.”
Hannah’s stomach twisted into a knot, but she could give back as good as she got. There was no one who was going to put down her man like that. “I reckon you ain’t got enough there to satisfy a ’skeeter,” Hannah said, forcing a smile of derision.
Star Path snorted, and Strapp stifled a laugh as Willis’ eyes snapped angrily. He sputtered a few times before managing, “You’ll see, girl. Ah’ll show ya.”
“You ain’t got nothin’ I want to see, Zeb Willis,” she said, laughing though she felt sick, “even if you could find it. Now you best go on back to Hell, where you come from, dammit, for you’ll get nothin’ but trouble from me.”
Strapp snickered as Willis seethed. He fought to regain control of his temper before saying mostly calmly, “If y’all don’t give me what Ah want, girl, Ah’ll just take it. Ah brought y’all this here blanket as a gift, thoughtful-like. And y’all ought to be thankin’ me fo’ it.”
“You’re trying to buy me, you no-account bastard,” she said, still shocked at herself for the way she was talking, but knowing it was the only thing Willis would understand. She had spent enough time dressing and acting as a man to have picked up many of their ways—including the worst. “And it won’t work. Now slink back under your rock. And take that mouse over there with you,” she said, stabbing an accusing finger at Strapp.
Strapp flinched. “I’m of a good mind to slap your face, young miss,” he said in high indignation. “If you really are a miss.”
“You hit me, William, and I’ll knock you flat on your skinny ass and do a war dance all over your ugly face, just before I rip down your breeches and show everybody what you ain’t got.” If she didn’t hate him so much, she might have felt sorry for Strapp. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes ringed from lack of sleep. Strapp scrunched his legs together and looked frightened. “Y’all ain’t scared of that little gal, are ya, William?” Willis taunted. “Go on and hit her. Might teach her a thing or two.”