Charish laughed. “How do you suppose she got it away from the scout?”
Crow frowned, knowing what the younger man hinted at. He liked the dour brave less and less all the time, but he was at least a more traditional Pawnee, in sympathy with the old ways. He looked back over his shoulder at the small girl tied like a sack of trade goods across the saddle at the end of the line. She was pretty–pretty enough to take the notice of any man. His daughter would be in a fury with jealousy if she thought the scout had been keeping this half-breed enemy girl as his woman.
Had he? No, surely not even a white man’s Indian like Johnny Ace would stoop to sharing his blanket with a Cheyenne girl. It was unthinkable. The two tribes had been enemies for generations, ever since the Cheyenne had carried their Sacred Medicine Arrows into battle and the clever Pawnee had managed to capture the holy symbols. The Sioux had helped finally negotiate a return of two of the arrows, but Crow wasn’t sure what had happened to the other two. He thought maybe Kiri-kuruks, Bear’s Eyes, had hidden them. No one would ever know, because Bear’s Eyes was dead, killed more than ten years ago by a big half-breed Cheyenne named Iron Knife for killing the Cheyenne’s father, War Bonnet.
Crow Feather sighed. Bear’s Eyes had been horribly disfigured by a grizzly, his face almost torn away as he came face to face with it. Perhaps that was why he had been a cruel man and not much of a father to his sons. Perhaps it was not Asataka’s fault that, having been dumped at the boarding school for a handful of orphan Pawnee children, he had, under the influence of stern Elvira Platt, become a white man except in skin color.
Charish interrupted his thoughts. “Do you intend to let the braves enjoy and then torture the girl when we get her to our village?”
Crow glanced back at the girl, hanging helplessly over the saddle, her black braids swinging. Even if she spoke Pawnee, she could not hear them from her place in the line. “I haven’t decided what to do with her. Maybe we should just turn her over to Asataka and let him deal with her.”
“Deer will be very jealous,” Charish reminded him. “She, too, will wonder how the girl got the horse.”
“She stole it! What other answer could there be?” Crow almost shouted at him, He had been wondering why Johnny Ace had been hesitating about making an offer of marriage for Deer, even though all knew the girl wanted him to ask her very much, Crow had thought it might be because Asataka preferred to be Johnny Ace and couldn’t–or–wouldn’t ever again fit into a traditional Pawnee culture.
Charish smiled. “If we are to return to the old ways, we should start with the Morning Star sacrifice. I have heard from my grandfather that times were good for the Pawnee long ago when we kept the traditions.”
“The Lachikuts, the Big Knife American soldiers, don’t approve,” Crow said.
“They hunt down our enemy, and kill them. Why would they care if we used one to bless our spring planting of corn?”
“That is true enough.” Crow slumped in his saddle. Once again, now that the thrill of the chase was over, he felt like an old man and he ached all over from the chase. He yearned to sit before his fire with grandsons playing about him while his daughter and the other women harvested corn and squash to go with the meat the hunters killed. The harvest had not been good in the last several years.
“Have you seen such a sacrifice?” Charish asked curiously.
Crow nodded. “The last time it was done, I was a boy. The Skidi clan sacrificed an Oglala Sioux maiden. The soldiers did not like it. Before that, in my grandfather’s time, a young Pawnee chief, Pitalesharo, rescued an Ietan girl just as she was about to be killed. The whites thought it so romantic, they gave him a medal. I don’t think your uncle, the chief, would even consider such a thing.”
“Let me deal with my uncle.” Charish turned in his saddle, the leather creaking, and looked back at the trussed girl. “Tell me about it, since I have never seen it done.”
“You were probably a babe at your mother’s breast, it’s been that long ago,” Crow mused. “If you had seen it, you would never forget. She was a pretty virgin. Our people kept her for some weeks until the Morning Star would be at the right position in the sky to assure a good omen.”
“According to the star chart?”
Crow nodded. The Pawnee had an ancient map of the evening sky painted on a buffalo robe by medicine men of long ago. The painting charted the stars’ courses and was so old, no one remembered when it had been painted, except that it went back long before anyone had ever seen or heard of white men. They were the old, good times for the Pawnee.
“When the time was right,” Crow said as they rode toward the east, “the people did elaborate ceremonies. The girl had been with us many weeks and had lost her fear because she had been treated so well. It is always a good omen if the victim shows no fear and walks up the steps to the platform of her own will.”
“And?”
Crow shrugged, shifted his weight in the saddle. “She was very pretty and a virgin. The people had feasted and celebrated all night long. Just before dawn, the priests stripped the girl naked and painted her with magic symbols, then they led her out to the roaring fire where the platform had been built.”
He fell silent, remembering. The Sioux girl had been very pretty, with big, dark eyes. Crow had been young and kindhearted. He whimpered to his father that they should not do this thing, but his father had shushed him sternly. The Pawnee would have good fortune as long as they kept to the old ways. The boy should always remember that.
He remembered now staring up at the lovely, naked girl as a priest led her to the steps by the fire. She hesitated only a moment, looking uneasy, but the people had been good to her for many weeks. Perhaps she could not yet comprehend that she was about to be a living offering.
He was a boy breathing the scent of the roaring fire, the dirt damp beneath his moccasins. The girl began her ascent, reached the top of the platform, and looked out at the crowd uncertainly. Her dark eyes seemed to look directly into his. The crowd had fallen silent now, the only noise the crackle of the roaring bonfire. In the predawn darkness, the red and yellow flames threw ghostly lights and shadows across the upturned faces of the crowd.
The girl looked down into his eyes and, perhaps from his expression, realized suddenly that she was in danger. With a small cry, she half turned and tried to run back down the steps. But the priests caught her, bound her, then looked toward the east. In only a moment or two, the Morning Star would be at the proper place on the eastern horizon. It shown bright as a white fire in the blackness of the night.
His father nudged him and handed him his bow. All around him, the men were taking up bows, readying arrows. Crow Feather was big enough to make his own shot, but fathers would shoot the ceremonial arrows for baby boys too young to pull a bow themselves.
The girl screamed and writhed, but a priest moved quickly to stuff something in her mouth. This was a solemn sacrifice that must not be marred by cries of the dying virgin. Even as he watched, the bow trembling in his hands, the priest tied the girl with a rope that hung out over the fire from the platform, and pushed her off.
She hung, writhing and naked over the roaring fire, a living thing being burned alive. Her tortured gaze seemed to find his again as she twisted at the end of the rope, swinging slowly over the flames.
The priest watched the Morning Star on the horizon. It was time. The girl’s struggles made her swing slowly, turning. Turning. And finally she twisted so that she swung directly to face toward the star on the horizon. The priest raised his arm, The men fitted arrows to their bows, pulled back, and waited for the signal.
The boy’s hands were clammy and cold with sweat and he did not want to do this thing, but it was expected of him. It was the tradition–good planting luck for the Pawnee. He would not look into her tortured face. He concentrated again on her painted, naked body, writhing at the end of the rope. She had rounded breasts and a smooth belly that made his small man’s part harden a little as he stared at h
er nakedness. The silence echoed. There was no sound, save the crackling of the fire and the creak of bows being pulled to their limit.
Now! The priest brought his arm down at the exact moment the Morning Star was in its proper position on the horizon, the girl facing straight toward it. With a great shout, the men loosed their arrows, and they sang through the air, striking the girl with a rush of wind. She hung there, writhing still, arrows sticking out at odd angles all over her naked body, in her belly, in her breasts. At least one had caught her in the heart and she twisted no more but hung limp now over the flames as the bright blood trickled on her bare, painted skin down her smooth thighs.
The crowd set up a ceremonial song. Men put another arrow to their bows for male children too young to pull a bow by themselves. Crow’s arrow had fluttered feebly and landed on the edge of the fire.
“You should do another!” his father shouted, but Crow only stood staring at the arrows sticking from the limp body, the blood making scarlet trails down her legs to drip into the fire. A blood sacrifice to ensure that the earth would now give a good harvest.
At least her eyes no longer looked at him. The dark eyes were glazed with death as the body swung a little from the impact of the second flight of arrows. As the blood ran in red rivers down her body to the fire and earth below, the people set up a great rejoicing with singing and dancing.
The ceremony would continue for some time and the boy knew it was good because the tradition had been kept; the planting would go well. But for himself, he went off and hid until the body was consumed by the flames because even though she was dead, the dark eyes seemed to be looking at him accusingly.
Charish said something to him and he started, coming out of his memories. “What?”
The younger man looked at him dourly as they rode back toward camp. “Was the sacrifice good for the people?”
“We had a fine harvest that year, so in spite of everything, I suppose following traditions without question is good.” He sighed heavily. “Maybe that is why the Pawnee fare so badly these days. They have not done the ceremony since I was a boy.” He looked back at the beautiful girl tied across the black horse. “Yes, perhaps we should prevail on the elders to try the Skidi clan’s ceremony. We have a sacrifice who is pretty enough for Morning Star!”
It seemed to Luci that they rode for centuries. Perhaps not, but tied and thrown across Katis’s saddle, she was so miserable, that every minute seemed like a year. What had she gotten herself into? She wished she spoke a little Pawnee so she could understand the warriors’ words. They had evidently recognized the horse. Would they rape and kill her when they reached the Pawnee village, or would they send for Johnny Ace and turn her over to him?
She winced at the thought. That scout would be in a fury and they were far from the fort. Probably anything he decided to do to her would never be known, and anyway, who would care if she disappeared forever without a trace? Rape was probably the most merciful of all the things the Pawnee warriors had in store for an enemy Cheyenne girl!
Chapter Six
Johnny Ace went to the stable at dawn to feed Katis. For a long moment, he blinked in disbelief, staring at the empty stall. Could he have absently left the gate loose and his stallion had wandered?
What other answer could there be? No man at the fort would dare to ride the great stallion. He looked around outside with growing apprehension. Finally he went to see the guard who had been on duty the night before.
The soldier yawned, just heading for his bunk to sleep. “Why, that little half-breed girl took it. She said she was on an errand over to North Platte.”
“Oh, of course. I–I had forgotten.” Johnny tried to hide his surprised fury as he shrugged and strode away. He wasn’t going to have every soldier at Fort McPherson laughing at him over the chit making a fool of him. The slight female had been nothing but trouble to him from the first moment he saw her. No man would dare take anything that belonged to Johnny Ace, but Star Eyes had done it. If he ever got his hands on that half-breed Cheyenne again . . .
He tried to think of grabbing her small shoulders in his two big hands, shaking her until her teeth rattled. He tried to tell himself he would strike her again and again, never mind that she was a woman. First of all she was an enemy. But when he visualized her, he suddenly saw himself jerking Star Eyes into his embrace, kissing her deeply while she struggled against him. And in his mind, she stopped struggling and responded warmly, pressing her soft curves against him while he sheltered her against his body. As long as she was close to him, she would always be safe. He wanted only to hold her; make love to her. . . .
He stopped abruptly, swore white man’s curses under his breath. He had been too long without a woman. That was the only reason he couldn’t get the chit off his mind. He should marry Crow Feather’s pretty daughter. She would produce strong Pawnee warrior sons for him, warm his blankets, and serve a man’s needs. Yes, that was what he should do. Yet in his heart, he knew he was not truly Pawnee, and could never be happy in their village.
Did his brothers have the same conflicts? He hadn’t seen them in years, and didn’t know much about them. Johnny Ace was a man caught between two cultures whose only friend was a black horse that an enemy girl had stolen. The thought set him in a fury again and he went to see Major North for permission to ride out.
North leaned back in his office chair. “Ride where?”
“I–I need to do a little advance scouting before we go after the Dog Soldiers.” Johnny stared down at his feet, which were placed wide apart, and fingered the knife in his belt.
“I see.” The slight officer pulled at his mustache. “Scouting for Cheyenne?”
Johnny shrugged uneasily. “What else?”
“Or only one Cheyenne?”
Johnny looked Pani Le-shar in the face, and saw the knowing smile. Fort gossip. It spread word faster than the telegraph. “I should have known it would be talked about. I suppose everyone laughs at me.”
“No man who values his life would dare laugh at the scout called Johnny Ace,” Major North said soberly. “They all know your skill with fists and weapons. The men say that if Johnny Ace hungers for the enemy girl, he should stop playing games and take her–be done with it.”
Take her. Force himself on the girl? Rape her? Terrify her? Use her to satisfy his hunger for a woman?
“I–I want no enemy girl in my blankets. I think to marry a pretty Pawnee girl in a village some miles from here. Besides, the Cheyenne wench has vanished.”
“With your horse, I hear.” The officer’s dark eyes twinkled with amusement. “Helluva situation to be in, Johnny. You ever read a story called Romeo and Juliet?”
He shook his head.
“It’s about two warring clans. A man and a girl from two enemy tribes fall in love even though the two sides hate each other.”
Johnny pulled out his “makin’s,” and began to roll a smoke. “So how does the story end?”
“Unhappily. There was no way the couple could bridge that gulf between them.” Pani Le-shar frowned and began to steeple his fingers absently, looking over his shoulder at the bookcase.
After rolling his smoke, Johnny stuck it between his lips, feeling his insides in turmoil. Of course that was the only way such a love could end. “I think about marrying a Pawnee girl and finally returning to my own people,” he said, striking a match.
“It will never work, Johnny, you’re like an apple–red on the outside, white on the inside. You won’t fit in. Your enlistment’s almost up. Reenlist with the cavalry.”
Johnny took a deep, bitter drag on the smoke, knowing it was true. He belonged nowhere, really, and couldn’t be happy in either world. He needed to build his own Eden. But every Adam must have an Eve and the gulf was too deep to cross. Indian Romeos and Juliets.
He shrugged with annoyance. “All I asked for was permission to track down my horse. Is it given, Major?”
The slight officer nodded and stood up. “Permission granted.
If I’d lost a horse as fine as Katis, I’d be in a fury, too. However, do I need caution you the girl may be headed back to her people, if she can find them? Your horse would make a good marriage gift to some Cheyenne brave.”
Johnny swore aloud, and tossed the cigarette into the spittoon. “Some damn Cheyenne riding my horse? I’d kill him first!”
“Is it the horse . . . or the small filly becoming a Dog Soldier’s possession that worries you?”
He was so angry that his gut hurt because he didn’t know the answer. “That little half-breed deserves to live as a squaw and be bedded by some big Cheyenne. But she won’t be giving my stallion as a gift to that brave!”
North started to say something, then seemed to change his mind. “Do you want to take Cody or my brother, Luther, with you?”
Johnny shook his head and turned toward the office door. “I’m a loner, you know that. I’ll travel faster that way!”
The major pulled at his mustache. “Johnny, let me give you some good advice: forget about that girl. Luci will bring you nothing but heartache. Your two tribes are too far apart.”
That was true. He didn’t need to be told. He started for the door, hesitated, then looked back over his shoulder. “You’re right, Major. I’ll take your advice. I guess I’m just in need of a woman. A good whore in North Platte will take care of that after I get Katis back.”
“If you get Katis back,” the major corrected.
The anger against the girl flared up and burned bright in his soul. “I’ll get him back, but I’m not sure I can control what I do to her for stealing the horse!” He turned on his heel and left the office.
Johnny borrowed a chestnut cavalry mount and rode out, following Katis’s trail. The fast-melting snow had made the ground muddy enough to hold a track. The black’s hooves were big, compared to the average horse, and the prints he made were deep because of his weight. For a skilled tracker, it wasn’t a hard trail to follow.
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