In the Shadow of the Hills

by Madeline Baker

  “What’s wrong?” she asked tremulously.

  “Nothing. It’s time to move on, that’s all.”

  A line furrowed her brow as she glanced at my bandaged hand, at the bloody rag tied around my left thigh.

  “Just how do you propose to go anywhere?” she asked. “You’re in no fit condition to sit a horse, if we had one, much less walk.”

  “I plan to lean heavily on you,” I retorted. “Come on, help me up.”

  The land stretched out before us, flat as a tabletop, endless as the sea. No trees, no rocks, nothing to break the monotony of those seemingly endless miles of tall yellow grass.

  Our progress was slow. I hadn’t been kidding when I told Laurie I planned to lean on her, and lean I did, walking with my left arm around her shoulders, letting her take some of my weight.

  I cursed aplenty as we staggered across the moonlit grassland. My left leg throbbed with the steady precision of a Cheyenne war drum, each beat sending fresh waves of pain skittering up and down the length of my leg. I think I’d have sat down and bawled like a baby if I’d been alone, but I knew Laurie would fall to pieces if I showed the slightest sign of weakness, so I plodded on, teeth clenched, muttering obscenities under my breath.

  I guess we made about three miles before my leg gave out completely. By then, my whole left side felt like it was on fire. I swore aloud as my leg buckled beneath me, and I hit the ground. Laurie collapsed beside me. She wasn’t wounded, but she was still in shock from the Indian attack, and things would only get worse when the full realization of her family’s deaths hit home.

  She was tired, too, and I knew her arms and shoulders had to be aching from supporting my weight, but she never complained.

  We ate jerky and tinned peaches for dinner, washed it down with frugal drinks of water from the canteen.

  Laurie had to feed me, of course, and it made me feel like a little kid. It wasn’t a good feeling. I didn’t like being dependent on anyone, not even Laurie. I was used to doing for myself, and I liked it that way just fine. The fact that I wouldn’t be able to defend her if the need arose weighed heavily upon me.

  I felt myself scowling as I realized I was going to be dependent on Laurie for everything until my hands healed.

  With dinner over, a heavy silence fell between us. Laurie sat with her knees drawn up to her chin, staring out into the darkness. She was shivering slightly, whether from the cold or fear I couldn’t say. Likely both, I mused, and shivered some myself as a cold wind gusted across the prairie, keening like the souls of the damned. Overhead, a bright yellow moon gave us its light. In the distance, a buffalo wolf raised its lonely lament, filling me with a melancholy sadness.

  “Let’s get some sleep,” I suggested, breaking the silence between us. “Since we’ve only got one blanket, we’ll have to share it.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Good, ‘cause it’s gonna get a lot colder before morning. Another thing, since I can’t use my hands, you’ll have to do all the work for a while. Do you mind?”“

  “No.”

  “Good girl.”

  I took a deep breath, seeking a delicate way to broach the next problem. After several false starts, I asked Laurie if she’d ever been intimate with a man.

  “John McKenna, you ask the most impertinent questions!”

  “Yeah, well, like I said, I can’t use my hands, so you’re gonna have to help me, uh, answer nature’s call when I get the urge, if you know what I mean?”

  Laurie nodded.

  “Good, ‘cause I’ve had the urge for the last half hour.”

  It was a humiliating experience for her. I knew she had to have seen her brothers in the raw, but I wasn’t her brother. Even in the dark I could see her cheeks flame with embarrassment as she unfastened my britches.

  Later, huddled beneath the blanket, she kept her face turned away, refusing to meet my eyes.

  My leg was badly swollen the next day, but we managed to make about five miles before the sun went down. That night we crawled under the blanket, too tired to eat.

  The next day, my leg was so swollen I couldn’t stand on it, let alone walk.

  “You need a doctor,” Laurie wailed in despair.

  “Yeah,” I muttered under my breath. “Or a good medicine man.”

  But we weren’t likely to find either one.

  “We’re going to die out here, aren’t we?” Laurie murmured.

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “But you can’t help it!” she cried, and burst into tears. “Oh, John, I’m so afraid. I don’t want to die out here. I want to go home. Please take me home.”

  Sighing, I took her in my arms and held her while she cried, releasing all the anguish and fear she had been holding in for so long. I wanted to tell her that everything would be all right, that we’d make it to Fort Bridger somehow, but I couldn’t lie to her.

  By the fourth day, I was burning with fever. My leg was swollen to twice its size and streaked with red. I knew what those streaks meant, and so did Laurie. She hovered over me, her green eyes dark with worry. We were out of food, out of water. And if I died, Laurie would be all alone in a hostile land, prey to wild animals, hunger, thirst, and Indians.

  I stared out at the sea of grass that spread out around us as far as the eye could see. It was a big land, rich with game and timber. But it was an unfriendly, unforgiving land to those who were ill equipped to meet its challenges.

  And, at the moment, Laurie and I were sadly ill equipped.

  Personally, I faced the thought of dying with mixed emotions. Part of me welcomed death as an end to suffering. I was hungry and thirsty, and the pain in my thigh was growing steadily worse. Then, too, everyone I had ever loved was dead, and I was eager to join them. But there was a part of me that longed for life, for the life I had known before Sand Creek.

  Along about sundown, a half-dozen Indians rode into view. Laurie went white with fear as the warriors came toward us, but I breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief as I recognized Lone Bull and his braves.

  Help was on the way.

  Chapter 20

  The rest of that day is filled with blank spots punctuated with excruciating pain.

  I passed out when two of the warriors lifted me onto the back of a horse. When I came to, I was lying on a buffalo robe inside a Sioux lodge, naked as the day I’d been born. The pungent aroma of sage and sweet grass permeated the air. A fire burned in the center of the lodge, and a beautiful Indian woman knelt before it. But I had eyes only for the long-bladed knife she held over the flames.

  When the thin blade glowed white-hot, she left the fire and came toward me, a look of grim determination in her eyes.

  I knew what she planned to do with that knife, and the thought made me break out in a cold sweat. I shook my head violently as she knelt beside me. I had endured pain in my life, both physical and emotional, and I wanted no more. I was tired of living, tired of hurting, and I wanted only to close my eyes and drift away into the quiet emptiness of oblivion.

  “No!” I spit the word through clenched teeth as the woman leaned toward me.

  She voiced a low command, and two burly warriors appeared out of the shadows in the rear of the lodge. Stone-faced, they held me down while the woman lanced the angry wound in my left thigh. There was an ugly hissing sound as the hot blade touched my sweat-sheened flesh, unleashing a great flood of evil-smelling greenish-yellow pus.

  A hoarse cry filled the lodge. It was a terrible sound, full of torment, and I wished it would stop. And then, with shame, I realized the cry was coming from my own throat.

  Abruptly, I clamped my mouth shut, and the cry died away to a low moan.

  I glanced at the two warriors, expecting to see disgust in their eyes, but no emotion of any kind showed on their faces.

  Feeling sick to my stomach, I turned my head to the side and retched. And then darkness swirled around me, and I seemed to hear my father’s voice coming to me from far away.

  A warr
ior does not cry out, Sun Seeker admonished sharply. A warrior does not show pain, or fear. A warrior endures all things.

  I passed out again as the knife sliced into my thigh a second time, plunging down, down, into endless blackness.

  When I regained consciousness, the two warriors were gone and the woman was applying a compress to my thigh. With an effort, I choked back the hard sob of pain that rumbled in my throat as the steaming poultice penetrated my tortured flesh.

  “Cry out if you must,” the woman said softly. “There is no one to hear you but me.”

  Wordlessly, I shook my head, and the woman smiled. Her black eyes were warm with understanding as she said, “I am not your enemy. I will not think less of you if you give voice to your pain.”

  Again, I shook my head, determined not to appear weak before this woman.

  When she finished applying the poultice to my thigh, she offered me a drink of cool water. Then, her face devoid of any emotion, she removed the cold poultice from my thigh and replaced it with a fresh one. Blackness dropped over me, dragging me down, down, into blessed oblivion once more.

  The days that followed were a blur. There was pain when I was awake: a steady pulsing pain in my left leg, a dull constant ache in my hands.

  Asleep, I wandered down the corridors of the past, and there, in that shadowy twilight world, my father and Quiet Antelope lived again, buoying me up with their love and concern. Snow Flower was there, too, her warm pink lips curved in a wistful smile of what might have been if Chivington had not come. And there was my sweet daughter, Angela. And Clarissa, as beautiful as always, her deep green eyes filled with love. One night, I heard her voice speaking softly to my mind. Be strong, John, she whispered, you have so much to live for...don’t grieve any longer.... live the life you were meant to live...

  I woke with her name on my lips to find the Lakota woman beside me. She was ever there when I awoke, hovering over me, her dark eyes filled with worry, her delicate black brows drawn together in a frown. Her voice was low and husky as she made supplication to the Lakota gods in my behalf. Her hands were soft and cool against my fevered flesh as she spread healing salve over my wounds, or sponged the sweat from my brow.

  Sometimes, she sang softly as she sat beside me. Her voice was low, vibrant, conjuring up memories of my childhood with the Cheyenne.

  Even in my sleep, I was aware of her beside me. We had said little to each other. I didn’t even know her name, and yet I felt as though she were a part of me, a part of my soul that had been missing.

  She bathed my body with cold cloths when my body burned with fever, laid beside me, her body warming mine, when I shook with chills.

  One night, upon waking from a troubled sleep, I found her kneeling beside the fire, her eyes closed, her hands raised in prayer. She was hauntingly beautiful as she knelt there, her slim figure silhouetted against the lodgeskins, her face and hair reflecting the red-orange glow of the flames, so that she looked like a finely-chiseled statue cast in bronze.

  I found comfort in her presence. Somehow, I knew she would mourn for me if I died, and I found comfort in that, too, knowing that she would hack off her beautiful black hair and sprinkle her head and clothing with ashes.

  But I didn’t die, and the day came when I woke clear-headed and ravenous as a winter-starved wolf. Glancing around, I saw that I was alone in the lodge. Had I dreamed her? But no, there she was now, looking even lovelier than I remembered as she stepped into the lodge.

  “It is good to see that your spirit has returned form the Shadow World,” she said, kneeling beside me.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Old Father Wi has walked the sky ten times since Lone Bull found you,” she answered gravely.

  Ten days. It was incredible.

  “Where is the girl who was with me?” I asked.

  “Lone Bull has taken her into his lodge. She is well. Do not worry.”

  “I guess I owe you my life,” I said, spellbound by her extraordinary beauty. “I am grateful.”

  “You owe me nothing. I was given the gift of healing by Wakan Tanka. I would be ungrateful if I did not share that gift with others.”

  She removed the old dressing from my thigh. The wound was healing. The skin around the wound was a healthy pink where it had once been a bright angry red.

  “I am called Mo’ohta-vo’nehe.”

  “I am Wahcawin, daughter of Tall Bear. Are you hungry?”

  “Starved.”

  Wahcawin, Flower Woman, was not only a woman of magical healing powers and incredibly lovely, but a good cook, to boot. I ate three helpings of the thick venison broth she brought me, washing it down with a weak drink made of herbs and roots.

  Wahcawin stayed by my side during my convalescence, feeding me, washing me, telling me of herself and her people. There was a great deal of unrest among the Lakota, she said. The whites were crossing the plains in ever-increasing numbers, ignoring the treaty that promised this part of the Dakotas to the Lakota Nation. Crazy Horse was raiding to the south. Sitting Bull was on the move, talking to the tribes. There was talk of war...

  But there was always talk of war on the Plains, and I was more interested in Wahcawin. Not only was she the daughter of a chief, she was a medicine woman mightily gifted and revered. She could also foretell the future, and she predicted that one day soon the Lakota would win a great battle against the bluecoats, and then be driven from the Black Hills.

  I listened without hearing, conscious only of her beauty, and of her great dark eyes that seemed to penetrate my very soul.

  “You have known much sadness in your life,” she remarked one night. “I can see it in your eyes. I see the death of your loved ones there. And loneliness. Much loneliness.”

  “You’re very perceptive,” I replied quietly. “I have been lonely for a long time. And sad, too.”

  “I would wipe the sorrow from your past if I could,” she murmured.

  “The past is over and done,” I said with forced cheerfulness. “I would rather have you touch the future.”

  “What would you like to see in your future?” She tilted her head to one side, and her hair fell over her shoulder like a black waterfall. I longed to reach out and touch her hair, to see if it could possibly be as silky soft as it looked.

  “The past,” I said after a while. “I would like to see the past in my future, to be a young warrior again, riding into battle for the first time.”

  Wahcawin stared into the flames for several moments, her dark eyes opaque. She looked very mysterious sitting there, and very desirable, and I wished I had the right to hold her close, to run my hands through her hair, to bury my loneliness within the warmth of her body.

  “It will not be the first time,” she said in a curious monotone, “but you will ride into battle before the next year is gone.”

  “With whom will I fight?”

  “An enemy from your past. You will know him when you see him.”

  “Will I be victorious?”

  “Yes, but a part of you will die in battle.”

  I leaned forward, caught up in the magic of the moment. I gazed into the fire, but saw only the dancing flames.

  “What else do you see?”

  “You have been searching for something for many years,” she said in the same hushed tone. “Something elusive and intangible. Many people seek for this treasure, but few ever find it.”

  “Will I?”

  Wahcawin pulled her gaze from the fire and looked directly into my eyes. “It is already within your grasp,” she said, smiling mysteriously. “But you have not yet recognized it.”

  “Do you know what I’m looking for?”

  “Yes, but you must find it for yourself.”

  I pressed Wahcawin for more information, but she refused to give me a clue, and I spent many long hours puzzling over the meaning of her words.

  Another week passed by. My hands ached, my leg throbbed with a nagging pain that sapped my strength and left me feel
ing as weak as a day-old pup.

  I could handle the pain, but being bed-ridden was driving me crazy. I chafed at the enforced inactivity, even though I knew I was too weak to get up, and would probably fall flat on my face if I tried.

  With both hands heavily bandaged, I was helpless, totally dependent on Wahcawin to fulfill my every need. My pride suffered more than anything else as Wahcawin fed me and bathed me and assisted me when I felt the need to relieve myself.

  Laurie had handled such intimate necessities with obvious embarrassment, but Wahcawin took care of my most personal needs as if she’d been doing it all her life.

  At last the day came when I could use my hands again, when my leg was strong enough to bear my weight. Feeling like I’d been reborn, I slipped into the clothes Wahcawin had brought me and went for a walk.

  It was good to be outside in the fresh air. Good to see the familiar sights of an Indian village. The Lakota lodges were laid out in two concentric circles, with the chief’s lodge occupying the place of honor in the middle, and the other lodges arranged around it according to a warrior’s rank in the tribe. Drying racks stood in the sun, heavy with fresh meat; here and there a shaggy brown hide could be seen pegged out on the ground. Bright-eyed children ran naked through the streets, or tumbled on the ground like bear cubs. As in all Indian camps, there were dogs everywhere: sleeping dogs, growling dogs, barking dogs. Dogs in the stew pot.

  I watched the warriors with interest as they went about the camp, talking, wrestling, gambling in the shade of a gnarled oak. Many of them nodded at me as I passed by.

  Here and there, groups of women sat outside, sharing each other’s company as they sewed clothes for their children, or fashioned new moccasins. I saw an old woman fleshing a hide; a young mother nursing her child.

  I found Laurie sitting in Lone Bull’s lodge, looking lost and forlorn, and very becoming in a fringed doeskin dress and soft-soled moccasins. With a strangled sob, she hurled herself into my arms.

  “Take it easy, Laurie,” I admonished gently. “Everything’s all right.”