Scarlet Plume, Second Edition

by Frederick Manfred

  The smell of sweet peas came to her again. She could just see them where they vined over the wooden fence around the garden. The potato vines had long ago ripened and lay in neat brown crumbled rows. The carrots were ready to pull. The beans were in seed. The lilacs were silent.

  Birds lifted and sank above the flowing prairie grasses. The plover were plentiful. Asters grew in islands of gold glory. A timber wolf sat on a low mound sunning itself. The wolf’s red tongue lolled wetly as if it were laughing and laughing to itself. The sound of Sioux drums continued to jolt the morning air. The drumbeat seemed to pound into Judith’s very belly.

  A film formed over Judith’s blue eyes. She brushed her forehead, then brushed her sun-whitened gold hair back and down. She really still hadn’t got used to being out on the wild and lonesome prairie. She missed St. Paul and all the good times.

  After Vince had left for the wars, Judith had suddenly on an impulse decided to get away from St. Paul for a while and visit her sister Theodosia. Theodosia and her missionary husband, Claude Codman, lived among the Sioux Indians in southwestern Minnesota. The next thing Judith knew, she had agreed to stay at Skywater and help Theodosia teach Sioux children. Judith had once had a Sioux maiden work for her and from her had picked up a working knowledge of the language. Judith was also a quick learner and soon was able to handle the four clicks and the two gutturals and the nasal of the Dakota language.

  Judith’s friend and neighbor in St. Paul, Mavis Harder, whose husband had been killed in the First Battle of Bull Run, had also decided to visit Skywater with her. Mavis in turn found herself running a store and a post office on the frontier.

  Judith looked musingly around inside the log cabin: at the rough oak table, at the circular rag rug on the puncheon floor, the precious single glass window, the bunk beds along the far wall, the precious china and silverware on the shelving, the red pipe of peace hanging above the mud-brick fireplace, the gold lettering on the thick Bible on top of her brother-in-law’s bookcase. Her eye in particular fell on an old copy of Harper’s Weekly. Only the day before, she and Theodosia had read an article in it telling of the terrible massacre at Spirit Lake. The story of the rape and captivity of Abbie Gardner was especially haunting. What a monster that Inkpaduta must have been. Evil.

  Judith said aloud, “Yes, what in the world am I doing way out here? The farm country around Davenport was brutal enough.” Slowly she rocked back and forth. “This is all so wild here.” She rocked some more. “It’s still all like a dream to me!”

  She heard yelling outdoors. Looking out, she saw first Ted and little Johnnie running for all they were worth through the tall tangled grass, then her own Angela running as if her life were at stake. Angela had on a green dress, which she held up at the hips to run the better. Angela’s blond hair flashed silver in the sun. Pursuing the three was a young Indian lad named Two Two. Two Two at fifteen winters was considerably taller than her ten-year-old Angela, and he actually towered like a man over Theodosia’s Ted and Johnnie, who were six and two.

  For a second, cold sweat broke out on Judith. A redskin chasing their children? Stars alive.

  A moment later Judith heard wild, merry laughter burst from all four. And understood. Two Two had probably seen the children playing Indian and had joined them in the game. Two Two was whooping and making motions as if about to scalp Angela. A big smile opened Two Two’s face. His teeth gleamed white. Judith let go a relieving sigh. Thank God it was only play.

  Judith couldn’t help noticing the sharp contrast between the young Sioux with his black hair and red-brown skin and Angela’s silver hair and gold skin. There was a difference, all right, a big one.

  The children playing Indian called something to mind. A few nights ago she had awakened out of a bad dream. She had dreamed that a tall, howling Indian had scalped a cowering white settler. The white settler was Vince, her husband. The dream had been so real, she could still see in her mind’s eye Vince’s scalped head: a long, narrow skinned place, red, with working arteries, and bloody hair to either side. She shivered, thinking of the bad dream again.

  Then something off to one side caught Judith’s eye. She turned her head slowly and looked up. Someone had been standing beside the purple hollyhocks and had been looking in through the window at her. The hollyhocks still were parted where the someone had stood.

  Again Judith broke out in a cold sweat.

  Judith just couldn’t get used to the habit the Indians had of looking in on them through the window. It was probably true, as her missionary brother-in-law Claude often told her, that an Indian thought he was doing the white man an honor when he looked in on him, but to her it continued to be an unholy heathenish trick.

  She blinked.

  Before her, filling the doorway, stood a magnificent Sioux. He had one hand behind him, holding something. He was tall, well over six feet, with big bull shoulders, a large head, an aquiline nose, and black glittering eyes. He looked to be about thirty. He wore his black horsetail hair in the old manner, loose and falling to the shoulders. A single eagle feather, dyed scarlet, stood erect at the back of his head. The scarlet feather was slightly bent against the cabin doorhead. Except for buckskin moccasins and breechclout, he was naked. His skin gleamed a shining bronze in the sun. He had one face marking: a daub of yellow inside a circle of blue earth on his left cheekbone. The yellow daub was a sign to let the sun know that all men recognized that its light was needed to sustain life. The blue earth was a symbol of peace, like the blue sky above.

  She recognized him. It was Scarlet Plume. She had first seen him about two weeks ago when he suddenly appeared in the new little Indian village across the swale. Word was that he was the chief’s sister’s son. His tall muscled physique and wide rich lips caught Judith’s eye. When she asked her brother-in-law Claude about him, Claude told her that Scarlet Plume was one of the better Indians. “The pity is, though,” Claude added, stroking his narrow chin, “the pity is, Scarlet Plume has resolutely refused to have anything to do with the white man or his Christian religion. He is an old-line Yankton Sioux. Just like his uncle, Chief Whitebone. Pure heathen.” Again Claude rubbed his chin. “There was once a time when I hoped to convert him. That was when his wife hanged herself two years ago. She was childless. Great was his grief. Yes. Scarlet Plume became a changed man overnight. And a strange man, I might add. He became very gentle with the children. At the same time he became more offish and distant with grownups. Yet his grief was not great enough to make his heart receptive to the Christian message.”

  A look of calm gravity lay upon Scarlet Plume’s broad face. Too calm. His full, liberal lips were as if graven upon weathered copper. His breath came as if by afterthought, occasionally, barely lifting his powerful chest. Only his black eyes were alive. They were intent, brilliant, deep-set under the smooth dark eyebrow. His air reminded her of a picture she had once seen of a puma—full of pounce and just barely restrained.

  Abruptly, for a fleeting second, hardly longer than the blink of an eye, a superior grimace touched his full carven lips. Then it was gone.

  Almost immediately after, tears started in the corners of his eyes. A few of them ran down each cheek. And equally suddenly, the tears stopped. The quick tears made vividly real for Judith the story that in ancient times the Sioux chiefs were known to be great weepers, that they made much of letting their tears fall on the heads of those about whom they knew something bad.

  Before Judith could wonder what next, Scarlet Plume’s other hand came from behind him, where he had been hiding it all along, and he threw something at her feet. The thing was ashen gray, and fluffy, and rather large. It flopped over twice, and rolled under the oak table.

  Judith stared at it. Why, it was a dead goose. Scarlet Plume had brought them a present. Something to eat.

  “Why,” she began, “how kind of you to—”

  But when she looked up, the doorway was empty. Scarlet Plume had vanished as abruptly as he had come.

  She
got to her feet, hand to her brow. Her gray dress and apron fell to her ankles. She swept to the door and looked out. Scarlet Plume was nowhere in sight. Not even the grass was bent to show where he might have gone.

  She went over to the table and bent down to pick up the whitish gray fowl. The bird was quite heavy. It had a long, slim neck, and black bill and legs.

  “Why, it’s a wild swan. A young one. The kind Claude calls the trumpeter.”

  She examined the wild cygnet more closely. Its neck was broken. The bird had been strangled, and then, seemingly, its neck had been deliberately broken.

  This meant something. She had heard Theodosia and Claude talk about Indian sign a number of times. Scarlet Plume had thrown the wild swan under the table for a reason. As a runner and newswalker, he probably knew something. Tribal custom, perhaps the grim soldiers’ lodge, forbade him to speak of it. But the soldiers’ lodge could not prevent him from leaving mute sign about.

  As she was turning the dead bird over yet again, stroking its miraculously soft down, she heard footsteps on the path outside. It was Theodosia. Ah, her sister would know what the sign meant.

  Theodosia stepped into the cabin with a swishing of long skirts. She wore blacks mostly: high black kid shoes, black dress, and gray sunbonnet. She was slender and quite tall, much like Judith herself. But where Judith walked with easy grace, Theodosia had stiff knees. And where Judith’s cheeks had the clean pink glow of vigor, Theodosia’s face was grainy and blotched over with freckles.

  The eyes were the life of Theodosia. Hazel and gentle, they were full of Christian forbearance. They drew one with their sweet compassionate expression. They were the type men revered, would think of as mother eyes. Lust, passion, even simple man-woman love were foreign to them. Judith, in fact, had often wondered how Theodosia and Claude had ever gotten around to having children. Mavis Harder, more frank about such matters, had laughingly remarked one day that the two pure-in-hearts had probably cohabited while sound asleep, maybe while sharing the same deep dream.

  “Theodosia, am I glad to see you!” Judith gave her sister a quick smile. “A strange thing happened. An Indian brought me this only a minute ago. Wild fowl.”

  A serene expression opened Theodosia’s pale lips. “How nice. We’ve not had goose for supper in some time.” She took the wild swan from Judith. “The Lord does provide, doesn’t he?”

  “But that’s just it, Theodosia. It’s not a goose at all. It’s a wild swan.”

  “So it is.”

  “With a broken neck. See?” Judith described how Scarlet Plume had suddenly appeared in the doorway, how he had for a moment wept tears, how then without a word he had tossed the wild swan under the table. And disappeared.

  At that, the serene expression slowly left Theodosia’s face. She looked down at the wild swan in her hands. “A broken neck then.”

  “Yes. That means something, doesn’t it? A sign of some sort?”

  “Yes. It is a message. We had better call Claude.”

  “What does the sign say?”

  “It means,” Theodosia said, “‘The white man must fly or his neck will be broken.’”

  Both women looked at each other. Both immediately thought of the Spirit Lake massacre. Theodosia’s hazel eyes momentarily filmed over, and darkened with disappointment; Judith’s blue eyes opened high and wide, and turned an almost hailstone gray. Theodosia stood calm and resigned, and her rustling black dress slowly fell silent. Judith swelled and rose, so that her gray skirt lifted off the floor a little.

  Theodosia said, “May the Lord be with us in this time of extremity.”

  Judith said, “Hadn’t we better warn the other settlers?”

  “Of course.”

  Even as they talked, the sound of wild galloping came to them.

  Both women hurried outdoors.

  It was Billy Vikes, bachelor. He lived in a sod shanty on the north point of the lake. He was riding a gray workhorse. The gray’s harness had slid down and it dragged along on the ground. The skin over Vikes’s cheeks resembled soot-mottled snow. The whites of his eyes showed stark.

  Vikes had trouble talking. “Henry Christians. He’s . . .” Vikes’s teeth chattered like little gourds rattled together. “He’s . . .”

  “Yes? What is it? What about him?”

  “He’s . . . He’s . . .” Vikes sucked quick shallow breaths. “Poor Henry.”

  Theodosia tottered a little. But her voice was calm. “Speak up, man. What about him?”

  Vikes bit his teeth tight together for a moment to stop the chattering. Then he managed it. “I just found Henry Christians murdered on his front doorstep.” Again Vikes had to bite down the chatters. “He was hit in the chest and scalped.”

  Again Theodosia tottered. “May the Lord have mercy on his soul. And his wife?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see her anywheres.”

  Judith thought, “Dear God, Scarlet Plume’s sign came too late for poor Henry. The Indians must have struck quicker than even Scarlet Plume expected.” Judith shivered. “And they picked Henry off first because the Christianses live alone on that neck of land in the middle of the lake there.”

  Judith glanced over at Whitebone’s village.

  All seemed calm enough over there. The little children were playing in the deep grass, the squaws were out airing the buffalo-fur bedding, the braves were sitting in the morning sun, smoking and gossiping.

  “It must be those renegade Indians living on the other side of the lake then,” Judith said. “Mad Bear’s band.”

  “Yes.” Theodosia nodded. “It’s just come to me.”

  “Or else some of the wilder ones from Pounce’s band. From over the hill there by the mission church.” Judith pointed toward a rise in the land which separated Whitebone’s camp from Pounce’s camp.

  “But that can’t be,” Theodosia said. “Pounce and his group are all members of our church. They’re friendlies. You know that. You’ve been teaching their children.”

  “I know. But I never did trust that scheming Pounce. Nor those lazy converts of his. They’re candidate backsliders if I ever saw any.”

  “They’re not lazy. They’ve learned to farm a little.” Theodosia stood quite still. “Let’s hope it’s only a pet of some sort the Indians have fallen into, that it will soon pass away.”

  Both Vikes and his horse stood puffing above them. Vikes said, “There was an arrow right through Henry’s heart. Slick and clean.”

  Arrow? That really did prove then it was Indians. But which Indians?

  Theodosia said, “Yes. Well, I will hurry and fetch Claude.”

  Judith said, “And I’ll hurry and find the children. God knows where they’ve gone playing by now.” With a shudder Judith recalled that the Indian lad Two Two had been chasing them in play earlier in the morning.

  Theodosia said briskly, “Billy, hurry and warn the other settlers.” Theodosia stuffed the wild swan in the cooler against the north wall of the cabin. “Tell them they must all come here. At once. This cabin is the strongest. Hurry.”

  “I’ll round ’em all up, ma’am. Don’t you worry.” Vikes set down his chin. “Poor Henry. Laying there scalped. My God, what’s this world coming to, anyway?” Vikes picked up one of the loose tugs and walloped his horse over the rear with it. The heavy horse slowly gathered itself into a lumbering gallop and was off. Vikes rode with elbows flopping, whites of the eyes wild and high.

  Theodosia hurried north across the swamp to get her husband. Despite stiff knees, Theodosia moved with surprising swiftness.

  Judith scurried south toward a deep grassy meadow. Judith remembered that the children on occasion went there to play.

  As Judith ran, the story of Abbie Gardner’s rape and captivity came vividly to mind once again. Was another Spirit Lake massacre about to take place? Was it now little Angela’s turn to be raped and tortured? Judith stumbled and almost fell at the thought of it.

  As Judith breasted the first rise, she heard screami
ng on her right. It came from Jed Crydenwise’s sod shanty at the edge of the woods next to a small field of barley. Crydenwise was a farmer in the summer and a trapper in the winter.

  Judith stopped, and stared. Lord in heaven. Crydenwise had caught a timber wolf and had trussed it up on a wooden frame. The timber wolf’s four legs were spread-eagled and Crydenwise was skinning it alive. Crydenwise was almost finished. The timber wolf’s thick gray fur, still attached at the tail, lay at Crydenwise’s feet in a pile of loose folds. Jaws wide, the timber wolf was yowling for all it was worth, its gleaming fangs and fierce eyes oddly out of place. The raw skinned wolf shivered in jerks, and humped up violently every few seconds, trying to free itself. Glistening bloody muscles worked in spasmodic clutches all along its lean carcass.

  Judith swayed. She touched her lips with her fingers. She had often seen her brothers skin out wild animals, and had often helped them with the fall butchering, but this—this was too much. “Mr. Crydenwise!” she cried. “What are you doing to that poor beast?”

  Crydenwise hardly looked at her. He twitched heavy shoulders at her as if at a biting fly. “The son of a bitch,” he growled. “I’ve been laying for him for months, and I finally caught him, ha!” Crydenwise’s brown pig eyes glittered in triumph. Crydenwise wore boots, a pair of black trousers, and a faded blue shirt open at the throat. “This’ll teach him to steal my fresh calves.”

  “But that’s inhuman! Cruel. An awful thing to do.”

  “What is?”

  “What you’re doing. Why, it’s bestiality itself.”

  “I know. I mean it to be.” Crydenwise stuck his bristly chin out at her. “How would you like it if you brought a favorite prize-winning cow all the way from Ohio, walking, and with her bred there before you left because you knew there was no bulls in the new land, and then a sneaking son of Satan comes along and gobbles up that bull seed, ha? All the more so when that bull seed was twins, ha?” Crydenwise spat so forcibly that his cud of tobacco fell out of his cheek. His sailing spittle almost hit Judith where she stood.