by John Legg
As time passed, though, those fears seemed to lessen, and the Blackfeet returned more to their normal ways.
Strapp and Willis each had his own lodge. When the weather permitted, Strapp would ride out in the company of a Piegan, and review over and over his plans for the fort he would build as soon as spring arrived. He had picked his spot and drawn up plans. He had found sufficient wood close by and was ready. All he needed was spring. .
Willis did not come for Star Path once they arrived at the village. Big Tree offered his eldest daughter, a comely thing of fair beauty, fine figure and unbridled lust. So, soon after their arrival, Star Path was given to a well-respected war chief named Left Behind. Star Path was his second wife, but older than the first and so fairly well placed.
Village life did little to change the feelings of Elk Horn’s two wives for Hannah. Singing Grass was the older, at thirty years, and looked worn and tired. Bird Woman, the second wife, was not yet eighteen. She was very pretty, but what she had in beauty, she lacked in benevolence. The two women abused Hannah constantly.
Until she rebelled.
One evening, Singing Grass threw a few pieces of jerky at Hannah for her meal. The Blackfeet had been lucky, catching a stranded buffalo and an elk. Both animals were well past their prime, and so the meat was stringy and tough. But it was fresh meat, and Hannah wanted her share.
Elk Horn and his two wives glanced up in surprise when Hannah threw the hardened meat strips back at Singing Grass. “I want fresh meat,” she said in Blackfoot.
Singing Grass and Bird Woman shook their heads, holding small hunks of meat in one hand and knives in the other.
“Then I’ll just take some,” Hannah said in Blackfoot. She grabbed a horn spoon from the ground and reached toward the cooking pot that dangled from a blackened iron tripod over the fire.
Bird Woman’s knife flashed in the firelight as she nicked Hannah’s hand with the blade. The two Blackfoot women laughed when Hannah jerked her bloody hand back.
Hannah leaped at Bird Woman, one hand reaching for the woman’s throat, the other for the knife hand. The two women rolled on the dirt floor of the lodge, each trying to gain the advantage, silent except for the grunts brought on by their efforts. They struggled to their feet, scratching and spitting.
Singing Grass moved to help her sister wife, but Elk Horn grabbed her and pulled her back.
Hannah shoved Bird Woman away and jumped to the fire. She snatched up a burning brand and whirled to face Bird Woman again.
The Blackfoot woman edged slowly backward as Hannah closed in on her, swinging the blazing stick in front of her. Bird Woman felt for the tipi flap behind her. In an instant, she had spun and ducked outside.
Hannah followed, but with wariness. Knowing that Bird Woman would be waiting for her, she dived through, the flap, ducked and rolled, and then was back on her feet, facing Bird Woman.
Blackfoot men and women began gathering despite the bitter wind and the blowing snow. They laughed and yelled crude remarks. Some of the men made small wagers.
The two women faced each other, hatred blazing in their eyes. Suddenly Hannah threw down the stick, which hissed in the mushy snow, and jumped at Bird Woman. The Blackfoot squaw found herself on her back with a raging Hannah on her chest.
They struggled, sweat beading on their foreheads. Hannah grasped Bird Woman’s knife hand and squeezed as hard as she could. The knife fell, and Hannah clamped her hands around the woman’s throat, choking her while pounding the Blackfoot’s head on the half-frozen muck.
“I . . . aim . . . to . . . have . . . fresh . . . meat . . . god . . . damn . . . it . . .” Hannah yelled in English, punctuating each word by pounding Bird Woman’s head on the ground.
Someone strong peeled Hannah’s fingers from around Bird Woman’s neck and yanked her up. She kicked and screamed as powerful hands restrained her.
Bird Woman choked, gasping for air. Her neck was a mottled black-and-blue color against the natural duskiness of her skin. She was helped back into the lodge; Hannah was dragged in just after that.
Inside, nothing was said, but Bird Woman was taken to her bed of robes and comforted by her sister.
Hannah sat near the fire and faced Singing Grass, who glared at her. Hannah reached out to take a piece of meat from the cooking pot. Elk Horn stopped her and handed her the spoon. He almost smiled.
“Thank you,” Hannah muttered as she took the spoon and scooped up a piece of meat.
Singing Grass and Bird Woman left her mostly alone after that, but Hannah could often feel their eyes burning into her back as she worked.
Though she did not show it, Hannah was twisted with fear and worry inside, her stomach in knots. She feared Train and Squire would not be able to find her; she worried that she was becoming too accepting of her life here; she feared she might be turning into one of these savages she so hated.
But mostly she was afraid of Elk Horn and what he would do to her sooner or later. She could not understand why he had waited so long. He had not approached her, and Hannah frequently recited the prayers she remembered from her childhood, hoping against hope that Squire and Train would find her and save her before that happened.
Chapter Forty-One
HANNAH dropped another load of firewood on the community pile off to one side of the village. She turned, wiping her poorly made fur mittens together to remove the bits of bark and to warm her hands a little. Suddenly Elk Horn loomed before her, larger than life.
“You come now,” he ordered.
“You’ll have to drag me,” she snapped.
He slapped her, knocking her asprawl. Before she could move, Elk Horn had her ankles in a steely grip and was dragging her across the frozen ground with its thin covering of slush.
“Let me go, you bastard,” she yelled. “Let me go!” Her hands scrabbled on the slick ground, trying to find something to grab onto. But there was nothing she could use amongst the accumulated human and animal refuse. One mitten snagged on a buried root, and was pulled off.
Elk Horn paid no attention to her screaming, though he grinned acknowledgment to the laughter of the crowd that had gathered to watch the unseemly procession.
At the flap to his tipi, Elk Horn dropped Hannah’s feet. She was up in an instant, swinging and trying to kick. Elk Horn cuffed her good and hard. She did not fall, but her head was ringing, and the conical tipi did a merry dance before her eyes.
With one hand Elk Horn grabbed the shoulder of the plain buckskin dress Singing Grass had given her after they had gotten to the village. With the other he opened the lodge’s flap. Then he shoved her inside and followed her. He pushed her inexorably toward the robes.
She fought, throwing all of her slight body into her frantic struggle. Her other mitten went flying, as did one of her moccasins. She tried to kick Elk Horn in the crotch. He blocked the kick with his knee and hit her twice, snapping her head from one side to the other and then back. She slumped against him, dizzy, her nose wrinkling at the odor of the man and his grease-laced clothing.
Before she could stop him, Elk Horn had grabbed the hem of her dress, yanked the garment over her head and tossed it aside. Still reacting slowly because of the blows, Hannah stood woozily, wearing nothing but a moccasin and her leggings.
With a start, she realized she was standing before the panting savage almost as naked as the day when she and Train . . .
Tears started to form, but she batted them back. She could not think of Train now. Such thoughts would betray her.
She shuddered with disgust as Elk Horn’s calloused hands traveled across her body. She cringed against the cold that seeped into the lodge and licked at her pale flesh. She pushed against Elk Horn’s chest, knowing it would do no good, but having to resist at least a little more.
If only she could keep herself safe from this animal. Then she could stay true to Train. Stark, abject terror clouded her mind, making it hard to think. She did not want to stand here gibbering like an idiot. She had to thi
nk of something, and fast. He was pushing her down toward the robes. But what? What could she do to stay true for Train? How?
Star Path’s words moved into her consciousness. She would free her mind of what was happening. Keep her mind clean of this lice-infested beast, ignore his grunting thrusts.
Hannah relaxed a little as Elk Horn eased her down onto the soft, thick buffalo robes. She fought hard to keep from dwelling on her situation, as his calloused, greasy hands slid over her breasts and belly, then lower. Fright made her breathing ragged and caused pains to lance into her stomach. But slowly, ever so slowly, she succeeded in closing her mind to what the man was doing to her.
Hannah lay perfectly still, unmoving. She hardly felt Elk Horn’s hurried penetration. And after a few moments, his grunting passion seemed to her like that of a hog. If she had not been so terrified and sick to her stomach at what was happening to her, she might have laughed at the mental picture.
Sooner than she had expected, it was over, and Elk Horn took his sweaty bulk from atop her. Silently Hannah gave thanks to Star Path’s wisdom, which helped to comfort her now.
Elk Horn was asleep when she stood and slipped on her dress and other moccasin. Shakily she straightened her leggings. She found her mitten and went outside to see to her needs. She wanted to vomit, but she forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply to keep it down. She went looking for her other mitten, steeling herself against the inquisitive, crude looks of the Blackfeet. It was not long before she found the mitten, but her ears were burning and her face was colored with shame by the time she slinked into Left Behind’s lodge, where she curled up on Star Path’s bedding and cried.
The next night was the same, and the night after that. Each time it was a little easier for Hannah to remove herself mentally from the ravishing of her body. And people no longer stared at her as they had the first time. That helped, too. As did the kind words Star Path offered on those rare occasions the two women could talk privately.
Hannah breathed a sigh of relief when Elk Horn did not seek her out the next night, or the three after that. She began to think the Blackfoot had had his fill of her. Then he came for her again.
Revulsion swept over her anew, but she fought it back. It was afternoon when Elk Horn dragged her to the robes. Unthinking, unfeeling, she skinned off the buckskin dress and her leggings. They were the only clothes she had, and she had to protect them as best she could. She stood stiffly, neither hiding her body nor displaying it. She just stood.
He growled at her lack of response and pushed her down. Roughly he shoved her legs apart and knelt in the V they formed. He was hard as rock and prepared to mount her.
He pulled back in disgust and said a few sharp words she did not understand. He rose and was gone, flaccid, unfinished. As Hannah dressed, Singing Grass and Bird Woman entered the lodge and grabbed her by the arms. “Come,” Singing Grass said sharply. The two women dragged her outside and toward a lodge set off a little from all the others.
“Where’re you taking me?” she demanded, trying to fight them off.
Neither woman answered. When they reached the tipi, they shoved her inside. “You stay,” Singing Grass said in poor English. “Until clean.”
“Until what?” Hannah asked. But they were gone. She turned and saw a girl about her own age. The young woman was the only other occupant of the lodge. Slowly it dawned on her that she was menstruating and that that must have been what scared Elk Horn off. She had done so once on the journey here, but no one had been paying attention to her then.
She found peace in the dark, quiet lodge. The girl with her—White Buffalo Bird—was attractive and quite talkative. The two chatted much in the few days they were together, using each other’s language whenever possible.
When she was finally taken back to Elk Horn’s lodge, Hannah missed the solitude and serenity of that other tipi.
The next time she talked to Star Path, they discussed her separation from the others during her unclean time.
“You remember talk of bad medicine?” Star Path asked. “The spirit of L’on Farouchel When Big Tree lost A’ner and the other?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe it was not spirit that made the bad medicine. I know L’on Farouche alive. Maybe it was you who brought the bad medicine.”
“Me?”
“Oui. You were unclean on trip. Yes?” When Hannah nodded, Star Path said, “Maybe you caused trouble for damn Blackfeet.”
“How do you know it was me? Maybe it was you.”
“No. I only Lakota. You white-eyes. Big medicine. Blackfeet not think white-eyes warriors had women. All white-eyes come here and take women from Lakota or Absaroka or others. We never saw white-eyes woman. So you big medicine. Yes. You cause trouble for Piegans.”
“That’s bad, ain’t it?”
“No. It’s good. You cause A’ner to be free. He and L’on Farouche come. Soon. You’ll see.”
“I wish I had your wisdom, Star Path,” Hannah said wistfully. “You are you, Little Flower. I am me. Different. All good. They come soon. L’on Farouche and your A’ner.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just know, Little Flower. They’ll come soon.”
There was much arguing in the next several days, and Hannah finally figured out that she was at the center of it. The Blackfeet had come to the same conclusion as Star Path—that Hannah had brought bad medicine to the Piegan band. Some wanted to kill her, to excise the bad medicine.
Finally it was decided that Elk Horn would take those who would follow him and move to a new camp two miles west on Muddy Creek, toward the mountains. Big Tree and the others would stay at the camp in the small northward curl of Muddy Creek. That way, they would feel safe, while those with Elk Horn would try to prove there was nothing to fear.
The move was made without pomp, in a driving snowstorm. Hannah had been afraid that Star Path’s Blackfoot man would be one of those who stayed behind. But he was not. Like Elk Horn, he could not believe that one little white-eyes woman could cause so much bad medicine. Instead, they thought perhaps Big Tree had broken a taboo, which had brought the bad spirit of L’on Farouche amongst the band.
Nine lodges, with fourteen warriors, pulled out. Plus the two lodges used by Strapp and Willis. The new camp, in another crook of the creek, was a very small one.
A week later, Hannah was sitting outside working in the cold and flurries of snow when there was a rushing of wind, as if spirits swept over the land. Then she heard a voice roaring Elk Horn’s name. Her head snapped up. The camp burst into activity, though no one saw anything.
Then someone pointed to the top of a bluff to the south side of the camp. There was a howling, and warriors trembled. Women screamed and grabbed children and ran in all directions but toward the bluff. Some raced across the frozen Muddy Creek, heading north, but most headed, running, eastward toward the lodges of their relatives.
Then Hannah saw them far up on the rise, and her heart slammed inside her chest until she thought it would smash its way out. Squire was easy to pick out because of his size and his massive black stallion. And, yes, she could see Train, too, his large young frame reassuring, even at this distance.
There were three other men. She could not recognize them, but she thought one might be Li’l Jim. Her heart leaped with excitement, but fear trickled icily down her spine, too. They were so few, the five on the hill, and they had so many to fight. She smiled grimly. Of course, one of the five was a “ghost.” That should help.
Elk Horn stepped from his lodge, a look of resignation on his face. There was fear in his eyes, and he seemed to surrender to the inevitable. He looked up toward the ridge, and his face blanched.
Hannah was grabbed from behind by Singing Grass, Bird Woman and Willis. They shoved her toward Strapp’s lodge and pushed her inside. In the dark interior, she saw a nervous Strapp armed with a pistol. And there was a young warrior she did not know. He looked very frightened.
Willis’ face was as wh
ite as the snow on the top of the mountains, and Hannah grinned savagely at him. He growled and threatened her with his fist. But he decided he had more important things to worry about just now. He stomped out of the lodge, with Singing Grass and Bird Woman. The warrior motioned Hannah to sit. She did.
And she waited, her heart singing.
Chapter Forty-Two
THIRTY-TWO days after they had left Melton’s winter camp, Squire and his two companions saw smoke. The day was brilliantly bright. It was hard for the men to see, since the sun’s reflection off the snow blinded them. And it was bitterly cold, although at least the wind had calmed some.
“How far off ya think it is, Nathaniel?” Train asked when they saw the lazy plume in the distance. He was bundled deep into his buffalo robe. He wore a beaver-fur hat, and his lower face was wrapped in fur. All that poked out were his eyes.
“Full day’s ride, I reckon. Mayhap a bit more.”
“Think it’s the Blackfeet we’re lookin’ for?”
“Nay. Too small a smoke. I figure it be a white man’s fire. ’Less’n it just be a couple Blackfeet out on a hunt. It be too small for a village, though Injins like to spread out into small camps come winter. It be too hard findin’ enough feed for the horses durin’ the winter to get too many of ’em together.”
“We gonna have a looksee?” Li’l Jim asked. He was bundled up, wearing a thick, striped capote, woolen cap, scarf and fur mittens.
“Ye anxious to tangle with somebody?” Squire asked with a low chuckle. It was the first sign of humans they had seen in some time.
“Well, maybe not to tangle. But I’m plumb tired of settin’ a rock-hard saddle freezin’ my ass off. If’n it’s Injuns, I’ll fight ’em. That’ll take the edge off this goddamn cold. If’n it’s white men, I aim to see if’n they got any whiskey to warm my bones.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, lad.”