The Cry of the Wind

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

  “What? Now you are worried?” Speaks While Leaving asked with a laugh. “We will be fine. I traveled many, many miles by myself before I married your brother. As a healer, I traveled between the bands, between the tribes, and even to the trader outposts. I learned much from them.”

  “From the vé’hó’e?”

  “Yes, even from the vé’hó’e,” she said. “I learned from their holy men and from ours. I learned of vé’ho’e healing, and of our own sacred medicines. It was from the vé’hó’e at the outposts that I learned the Trader’s Tongue, for the vé’hó’e never learn the language of other peoples. But...” She looked over at her bed, and saw the chubby fingers and black-feather hair of her sleeping daughter.

  Mouse Road deduced her concern. “You should leave Blue Shell Woman here,” she said.

  “If I woke my mother to leave her,” she said, frowning again, “my father would surely keep us from going.” She remembered the panic of her dream when she could not find her daughter. “No, I will not leave her.” She took a deep breath and consciously removed the frown from her features. “Besides, we will not be gone for very long. A moon’s time, or perhaps a little more. We will tell my grandmother, so that they do not worry, but we will not tell them where we go.”

  Mouse Road was smiling. “Where will we go?”

  “Just as you said,” Speaks While Leaving told her, feeling her own conviction grow with saying it. “South. We will find him in the south.”

  Chapter 8

  Light Snow Moon, Waxing

  Fifty-seven Years after the Star Fell

  Beyond the Elk River

  Land of the Crow People

  The whistlers sang quietly to one another as the war party climbed the steep hillside beneath the ancient pines. The riders were anxious and edgy. Storm Arriving sensed the men’s nervousness in the way they shushed one another, and in the rough way they handled their mounts.

  The air was thick with moisture. Mist rose, lazy wisps lifting through the bright sunlight that fell from the canopy in lances that pierced the matted forest floor. Droplets pattered down from a thousand snowy branches, and the steaming flanks of tired whistlers created a spice-scented vapor that hung in their wake like a cloud.

  “This doesn’t seem as good an idea now as it did last week,” Whistling Elk said in a strong voice. “In fact, now I think it might even be a very bad idea.” Some of the other riders grumbled their agreement with his assessment of the situation.

  Storm Arriving looked over at the man-becoming-woman who rode beside him. Though he wore a dress instead of leggings and kept the braids of his hair coiled up as a woman might, he also carried a club, knife, and rifle, all of which he had used well in years past, and it was not like him to complain about the danger of a war party’s mission.

  “You have ridden into the lands of the Crow People before,” Storm Arriving said.

  “Of course I have,” he said, glancing at some of the other members of their group. “We all have ridden into these lands before, but why? We rode here to steal whistlers, to count coup, or to take a few women to bring back as workers or second wives. But never have I ridden north with such a purpose as the one you propose.”

  Storm Arriving was perturbed by this change in Whistling Elk’s attitude. Many of the other soldiers respected Whistling Elk for his knowledge, his bravery, and the spiritual power that came from being a man-becoming-woman. Imbued with the nature of both male and female sides of creation, the men-becoming-women were revered for their wisdom and practicality. For Whistling Elk to speak against their purpose in this way was very unhelpful. He looked around and saw clumped brows above eyes that watched the shadows beyond the bright shafts of light. The soldiers were nervous enough as it was without such talk to worry them further.

  “Well, then now you have a new reason for riding to the Crow People,” Storm Arriving said, trying to lift the mood.

  “A new reason, indeed!” Whistling Elk said, turning to gather the agreement of his fellows. “But we will get an old reception, I think, and I am not the first one to say it.” Other riders muttered their support. “The Crow People will not greet us with open arms, I think. More likely, we will get a club in the head or an arrow in our belly. No, we may come to them in peace, but I doubt the Crow People will receive us that way.”

  Storm Arriving ground his teeth. “Then perhaps you should have gone with Two Roads to gather soldiers from the other bands.”

  Whistling Elk grinned. “And miss all the excitement?” He laughed. “No, this may be a bad idea, but it will definitely be interesting. I just hope I live through it so I can tell the story when I get home.” He laughed again, and the others all joined. Storm Arriving realized what the man-becoming-woman had been doing, and saw the lightened spirits of the other members of their group.

  “You are too sly for me,” he said to Whistling Elk.

  “In some things, perhaps,” the other said.

  Storm Arriving called them to a halt before they crested the rise. Dismounting, he motioned to Whistling Elk, Knee Prints by the Bank, and a veteran Little Bowstring soldier named Sharp Knife to come with him. They went forward, keeping low, moving from tree to tree, avoiding the patches of stubborn snow. They reached the crest of the ridge and looked down into the long, deep valley.

  The Crow lived much as the People did, in hide-covered lodges that could be taken down and moved as they followed the herds of buffalo and other game that were their lifeblood, ranging from the Elk River far north into Grandmother Land. It had been over the lands between the Elk River and the northern course of the Big Greasy that the two tribes had often fought. Storm Arriving knew that the People did not need any of the Crow lands in order to survive, but knew, too, that the Crow People were envious of the Alliance control of the southern plains. The People fought the Crow in order to weaken them, as much as to keep them on the northern side of the Elk River.

  Looking down through the shadowed greenery of pine and spruce, the quilt of dark trees and bright snow, he saw a winter encampment that was much like one of his own camps. Cone-shaped homes stood in profusion, lodgepoles bristling up from the smokeholes, feather and fox-tail over-the-smokes dangling; whistlers rested nearby, halter ropes tied to stakes, their eyes sleepy as they soaked up the afternoon sun; women scraped skins or carried wood, cradleboarded babies strapped to their backs or toddlers close at hand; men fletched arrows or helped to butcher a kill, and some sat like the whistlers, taking their ease in the sunshine. Storm Arriving heard chickens and dogs and whistlers and even what he thought might have been a bleating goat. Youngsters played. Grandfathers told stories. Their clothing was a bit heavier than what the People wore, and the men were fonder of fur headdresses than of feathers, and most women wore dresses of Trader cloth rather than of deerskin, but other than those things, they were as were his own; regular people living their lives, wanting peace rather than war.

  At least he hoped so.

  “How should we approach them?” asked Knee Prints by the Bank.

  Storm Arriving eased a few steps forward. The valley walls were steep and rocky, eliminating any threat from three sides. “Here or at the valley top we would have to enter carefully and on foot. That could easily be seen as a raid.” He pointed left toward the valley mouth. “If we enter from there, it will be easier to convince them of our purpose.” He looked to the others.

  “Agreed,” said Whistling Elk.

  Knee Prints by the Bank signed with his hand. Yes.

  Sharp Knife scanned the valley from right to left and then agreed.

  They crept backward, away from the brink of the valley wall, and once back among the trees, turned and walked back to the others. It was just as Storm Arriving put his hand on his whistler’s riding gear that he heard the shout.

  With a high-pitched yi-yi-yi, the attackers ran at them from three directions.

  Storm Arriving tossed his halter rope to Whistling Elk. “Do not move!” he shouted to the others, and ran forwa
rd toward the charging men.

  There were eight of them, Crow warriors, and one was coming straight at him. The badger fur of his headdress danced as he ran. In one hand he carried a war-axe and in the other, a thin riding quirt. His eyes were wide in a face painted black and red, and his white teeth shone in a screaming grin. Storm Arriving stood, hands at his sides, facing the oncoming Crow.

  “Do not move!” Storm Arriving shouted once more, and as the warrior neared, he saw the puzzlement in his eyes.

  The raised his war-axe, the dark blade high above, at the end of the arm-long handle, feathers fluttering. Two steps away.

  Storm Arriving stood his ground but did not move.

  The Crow twisted as he passed, slapping Storm Arriving across the chest with his riding quirt. Behind, Storm Arriving heard other slaps as the Crow counted coup on them with quirts and open hands, touching but not killing, showing their bravery in the face of the enemy.

  The Crow walked among them, counting coup upon them, but disconcerted by the inactivity of their enemy.

  “What is wrong with you?” the first Crow said in his own language. He came back over to Storm Arriving and struck him again in the chest with his quirt. When Storm Arriving did not react, he struck him again, counting a third coup, the most that could be counted on one man during a single battle. “Why do you not fight us?”

  Storm Arriving looked over his shoulder. His war party stood as still as the trees around them. Only the whistlers moved, shying from the Crow warriors and flashing battle colors of red and grey and white across their snouts.

  He looked back at the warrior that faced him. “I am Storm Arriving,” he said in the language of the Inviters. It was a tongue that was very similar to that of the Crow, and one that Storm Arriving spoke easily. “We are not here to fight you or to attack you or to steal any of your belongings.”

  “Then what is a group of the Cut-Arm People doing on my land?” he asked, using the language of the Inviters, as well.

  Storm Arriving took a deep breath and willed his heart to slow, for if he failed now, he would never see his home again.

  “We are here to speak with your chiefs. We are here to speak of peace between our two peoples.”

  The Crow reached back and struck him a blow across the face with his quirt, then lunged and knocked Storm Arriving backward onto the ground. Storm Arriving cried out in surprise, tried to shout an order but a kick to his gut prevented it.

  Whistlers bugled and the clearing was filled with the sounds of men striking men with fist and club.

  “Stop!” Storm Arriving shouted, holding up a hand to ward off the attack. “Soldiers, you will stop.”

  The Crow held off his next kick, and with a quick glance, Storm Arriving saw that so had the others. One man moaned, a hand to his head, and heavy breaths came from all. Slowly, Storm Arriving got to one knee, and rose. He smarted from the blows of the quirt, tasted blood in his mouth, and felt a creaking in his ribs. With eyes politely averted, he repeated his purpose.

  “We are here to speak with your chiefs, if you will allow us. We have come only to talk of peace.”

  “They are well enough armed,” the one of the Crow said, pulling a rifle from a whistler’s pack.

  The first Crow motioned to the other. “What of that, Cut-Arm? You all carry the whiteman’s weapon, and we found you creeping around outside our camps. Is that how you speak of peace?”

  It did look bad, he realized, but was just the way it had happened. If they killed them all here, it would be months before Two Roads sent another party to find them. There was only one thing he could think to do.

  “You protect your people well,” he said to the Crow. “All of you. But to kill us here would not be your duty—”

  Another blow caught him across the face.

  “How do you know what my duty is?” the Crow shouted.

  “Because I am a soldier, too,” Storm Arriving shouted back. “We all are soldiers, sworn to protect our families and our people from those who threaten them. And that is why we are here.” He wiped at the new cut on his cheek. The blood steamed across the back of his hand. “We are here to tell your chiefs that we no longer wish to be enemies. If you kill me now, I will not be able to tell this to your chiefs, and you will only have done half of your duty. But, if you wait until morning to kill me, I might have the chance to speak with your chiefs, and then your duty will be complete.”

  The Crow soldier thought it over, and in glances and signs discussed it with his fellows. Their decision was quick in coming.

  “The morning will be soon enough to kill you,” the soldier said to Storm Arriving. “Take their weapons.”

  The whistlers were strung together on a rope line and the captives forced to walk behind them. The snow deepened with the shadows as the Crow escorted them down from the ridgetop toward the valley mouth. Winter held on to the land with a grip as cold as stone. Whistlers pushed and slipped through heavy drifts, and Storm Arriving and his fellows trudged along in their wake, their calf-high moccasins sinking deeper than the whistlers’ wide, three-toed feet. As they neared the valley floor, however, their track crossed an established path, and they turned to take it into the village, hemmed in by walls of snow that at times were taller than any man could reach.

  They reached a meadow, and the snows leveled out. Ahead, Storm Arriving saw the village and smelled aromas that reminded him of home: happy woodsmoke, the resin of freshly-split wood, and the low, promising scent of whistler dung. He saw that there were actually three valleys here that flowed together in this one place. What he had first thought to be a fair-sized village proved to be a major encampment. Lodges were clustered throughout each of the three arms, densely packed in spots. Some of the paths had been worn through the snow, revealing the muddied ground beneath, and deep in the western arm, he saw the dark flowing mass of whistler flocks, well protected from weather and predators.

  The Crow People did not use walkers, as the northern winter months were too long and too severe for the large beasts. But they did use dogs to a much greater extent than did the People, and their barks echoed along the steep valley walls.

  Their guide let out a high-pitched yell that cut through all the sounds of home and industry. Storm Arriving heard the sounds first of curiosity and then of fear as the inhabitants came forward and passed back the news of what their guardsmen were bringing in.

  Crowds quickly gathered; shouting men with clubs and knives, youths looking in wonder perhaps for the first time on their tribe’s hated enemy, and women standing at the back of the crowd, holding their babies closely, cautious but curious all the same.

  Storm Arriving saw the hatred in their faces, saw the weapons in their hands, and suddenly lost sight of how alike they had seemed from up on the ridgetop. Here, where he could smell the rancid frying of bear fat and beaver tail, where he could see the garish decorations on their clothing and their homes, and where he could hear harsh, guttural words issuing from their long, narrow faces, they were alien. They were the raiders of his flocks. They were the stealers of his children and women. They were killers.

  They were the enemy.

  A man came forward and struck Storm Arriving on the shoulder. Another came forward but Storm Arriving raised his hand and snarled, unwilling to let any more of these creatures count coup upon his person. They retreated then and gave him room, but increased the fervor of their imprecations. The captives were led forward, and Storm Arriving felt like a wild animal being brought forth to the slaughter. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned.

  Whistling Elk walked beside him, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. “Remember why you brought us here,” he said. “Remember what it is we mean to do.”

  Storm Arriving swallowed his anger.

  We need them, he reminded himself. There is a common enemy that threatens us all.

  He tried to put the jeers out of his mind, but amid the din of shouts and epithets, one voice broke through to him. It was a woman’s voice, and
her words were out of place. He looked forward and saw her, reaching toward them, held back by others. Her words were not sharp-edged like the others, but easy and light despite her shouting. She was speaking the language of the People, and though her clothing was thick and gaudy like the others here, her features told of a different beginning.

  “Save me!” she shouted at them, one hand outstretched. “Take me away from here!” As they neared her, she broke away from those who held her back. She came to them, on her knees. She grabbed onto Storm Arriving’s leg. “I beg you, I beg you. Help me! I am Bright Star Woman, of the Flexed Leg band. I am daughter to Black Bull. My mother was Sweetgum Woman, who was also known as Sleeps a Lot. Please!”

  The Crow soldiers pushed the woman aside and shoved Storm Arriving ahead. But Bright Star Woman scrambled to her feet and followed.

  “I was captured when I was a young girl. I was made wife to a man who beat me and destroyed my honor. You must take me home. I am of the People. I am Tsétsêhéstâhese.”

  Storm Arriving clenched his teeth. “I can do nothing,” he told her in their own language.

  “You must kill these people and bring me home!”

  “We are not here to make war against these people.”

  “Then you are cowards!” she screamed. “Cowards!” And as she took breath to scream it again, a man stepped forward from the crowd and struck her a blow across the side of her head. She crumpled across his arm.

  Sharp Knife broke away from the others and lunged for the man but Storm Arriving grabbed him with an arm around his throat.

  “Let me go!” Sharp Knife demanded.

  “No!” Storm Arriving said, and then turned to the rest of the war party. “Remember why we are here,” he shouted at them in their own language. “We are not here for personal honor. We are not here to avenge old wrongs.”

  “Let me go!” Sharp Knife said again.

  “I will not,” he said. The crowd had grown silent and the procession through the encampment had halted. All eyes watched in wonderment, eager to see how this would play out.