Night Thunder's Bride: Blackfoot Warriors, Book 3

by Karen Kay

  Night Thunder…

  She saw him around every bend, over the top of every elevation, behind every tree. She dreamed of him, longed for him, listened for his voice on the wind.

  And she realized, she would go on loving him—no matter if or when he married another, no matter where her life took her from this moment forward. Always, she would love him.

  She had been on the trail with Robert Clark and his two friends for over a week and she had to admit that the three men were kind, though they often gave her strange looks, perhaps wondering why she rarely spoke to them or answered their questions. But they neither said nor did anything to make her nervous.

  Their party traveled mostly at night, the men telling her that even though she had lived among the Blackfeet, that tribe and others in the vicinity remained antagonistic toward the white man.

  It was safer that they travel at night.

  Rebecca had simply nodded agreement. She didn’t care. Nothing appeared to matter to her anymore, and she wondered if it might not have been better if she’d stayed in the camp and let Night Thunder marry the other woman.

  Her life wouldn’t have been so bad, would it?

  But at times like this, reason would again come to her rescue and she would affirm once more what she knew in her heart: she could not have suffered it. Her convictions wouldn’t allow her such an arrangement. Always, she would berate herself, think less of herself. Surely that was no way in which to live.

  No, she had made the right choice. She would return to her own world, to her mistress and her friend Katrina. She would go again to the east, perhaps even venture across the ocean to Ireland. Though oddly, the prospect of doing that no longer held the gladness in her heart that it once had.

  She wanted her life back. Wanted her husband back.

  But she could not have it, or him.

  Her thoughts caused her anguish, and she told herself that she would live through this—for herself, for her baby.

  Her baby. A part of Night Thunder. Rebecca’s heart softened and she could little understand the pleasure that the thought gave her. Perhaps because she knew that she would always have a part of him, there within her child. Her child would be a testimony to the love she felt for Night Thunder, the love they had shared.

  It would have to be enough.

  Night seemed to come early, spreading around them like darkened mist, with only Old Woman, the moon, and the stars to guide them.

  Old Woman. Had she even begun to think like an Indian?

  What was it Night Thunder had said? Spirits are everywhere, but there is only one Creator? Was Old Woman a spirit? What would happen to her if she, a white woman, appealed to Old Woman for advice?

  Nonsense.

  Rebecca trudged on ahead with the others, her pony snorting at her as though the animal knew her thoughts.

  The sound of drums, far off in the distance, came to her softly at first, easing her tension so much so that Rebecca didn’t register the clamor of them until several minutes later. Suddenly she listened more intently.

  Indian drums?

  She asked the man ahead of her, “Do you hear it?”

  At first, the man had seemed startled that she had taken to talking to him, but he recovered swiftly enough, and looking over his shoulder, had asked, “Hear what, ma’am?”

  “The drums,” she responded. “Let us stop for a moment.”

  “Now, ma’am, we can’t be doing that.”

  But Rebecca wouldn’t be put off. She reined in her horse, the others having no choice but to do the same. She said, “Sh-h-h. Do you hear it?”

  The men listened. “No, ma’am, I don’t hear nothing. Does any of you fellas?”

  “No,” replied one, then the other.

  “But it’s right there,” she insisted, “not too distant from us. Shouldn’t we investigate it and see about it?”

  “No, ma’am. We needs ta get ya back ta the fort in one piece, now.”

  “But I hear it. Please, let us go and see about it.”

  The man in front of her sighed and turned back toward her. He said, “Jack, ya get yerself ta go with her, see if there’s any Injuns over that way. We’ll wait here for ya.”

  Jack, the man in back of her, simply nodded and took the lead, saying only briefly to her, “Come on, ma’am.”

  She went.

  Strikes The Bear jumped upon his pony.

  “Where do you go, my cousin?” Night Thunder had barely recovered enough to stand. But upon witnessing the other man mount his pony, he had pulled himself up from his bed. He now strode up to the man.

  Strikes The Bear sneered, “It is nothing to you.” Pretending more strength than he felt, Night Thunder said, “It is everything to me if you go to hunt my wife.”

  Strikes The Bear growled. “She is nothing to you now. She has left you. No longer is she Blackfoot.”

  “She is Blackfoot and I will go and get her and bring her back. By the laws of our tribe, you have no right to find her and use her, if it is still revenge that you seek.”

  “You have no right to tell me what I can do. She is white, or are your eyes so blind to her that you cannot see it?”

  “Aa, my cousin, she is white.”

  “And did not white people kill my wife? Did not white people abuse her? Did not white people cause me all of my pain? I hate all white people.”

  A crowd of people had gathered around the two men, listening, murmurs of awe or perhaps dissatisfaction on their lips.

  But Night Thunder ignored them. He mimicked. “You hate all white people?”

  “They killed my wife. Have I not the right?”

  “Do you hate even those traders who give us the beads and the guns and the steel flints?”

  “Humph.” Strikes The Bear jerked back his head.

  Night Thunder went on, “I say it was only a few who did this to your wife, my cousin. Do not we also have those among us who do bad things? If I were to believe as you say, would that not make all of us bad, too?”

  The larger man growled.

  Night Thunder continued, “Why do you not seek to discover the identity of those few who did this thing to you and have your revenge upon them, and only them? Is this not your duty? Not to seek out one with the same color of skin who knows not the injustice done to your wife.”

  Strikes The Bear dismounted, and shouting, he took a few steps toward Night Thunder. He said, “You speak as a coward who cannot let go of a woman who does not want him.”

  Night Thunder ignored the insult and said, “I speak as a man about his Blackfoot wife. Blackfoot, I say. For you to seek revenge upon her is to do harm to the people and act as a murderer. Do you seek the sure justice of being labeled a murderer?”

  Strikes The Bear howled.

  Night Thunder continued, though, sweeping his arms around the circle of people. “What manner of this? Is a person now good or bad according to his skin color? Is an Indian now not bad when he kills one of our own? Is a white man now bad when he trades with us the guns and blankets that we need? I say this is foolish. A person is a person of worth or not, depending upon his honor and his character, not his type of skin. How can those of us pretend to say that we are brothers to the wind, to the bear, to the wolf, and to all things around us, and forget that we are also brother to our own kind? Are we as a people to forget that there are only few who do terrible things, white man or red?”

  Night Thunder had no more than finished when a sudden wind swept up behind him, rushing howling across the prairie. And for those who lived and breathed upon the prairie, there was another name put to this sort of wind—a spirit wind. Voices could be heard from above it, old voices, speaking in tongues no one could understand—no one but a medicine man.

  Tepees around them rocked and tilted in the gale, and still the voices continued, swelling, getting louder until at last, with a sudden jerk, the tepees around them came flying off their pegs.

  Into this chaos stepped Old Lone Bull, the tribal medicine man,
his wise, aged eyes scanning first Night Thunder, then Strikes The Bear. The old man raised his rattles toward the sky and sang out his medicine song until the wind quieted.

  At length, he spoke, saying to one and all, “I have talked to the spirits and they have answered me. Know this. The spirits have decreed that Night Thunder’s plea, and his plea alone, has been heard; we will do the white woman no harm. She has become a part of our tribe as much as anyone here. Go back to your lodges, now. There is nothing more here to see.”

  Strikes The Bear screamed, and as though unable to accept the truth of the statement, hurled himself forward, pulling a knife and lunging at Night Thunder.

  But the big Indian never made contact. In midair, the spirit wind whipped toward him, as though it were a living thing. It propelled the Indian upward, taking him into its whirlwind, carrying Strikes The Bear from the crowd, and dumping him out onto the prairie.

  At such a fantastic sight, murmurs of wonder and fear swept through the crowd. But the medicine man continued to speak to them, pressing his point: “Know that the spirits have spoken. Go against their desires at your own risk.”

  But though he might have spoken out against what Strikes The Bear had attempted to do, the medicine man left, going out on the prairie to the man, and touching him on the shoulder, he said, “Come, I see many ponies in your herd. Perhaps we can make enough payment to the spirits in order that we discover the identity of those who wronged your wife.”

  Night Thunder watched the big Indian rise to his feet, then saw the other man glance around the crowd, but all that was said was, “Soka’pii-wa, it is good.”

  Night Thunder heaved out a sigh. It was time. He was well enough; his body needed to recover no further before he went after his wife, if for no other reason than to ensure that she arrived at the fort safely.

  He braced himself against what he might find, for she might not wish to see him or come back to him. And if it were true, if she no longer wished the protection of his lodge, there would be little he could do about it.

  He began to move away from the crowd. The spirits, however, were not finished with him.

  Whipping back into the encampment, the whirlwind came to twirl before him, not moving away, not ceasing its spin, but remaining before Night Thunder. Night Thunder attempted to move away. The whirlwind went with him, and Night Thunder had no choice but to turn and confront it.

  Gradually the whirlwind began to take form, turning into a being Night Thunder had already encountered: the old man.

  Misty substance shrouded the old man, and as Night Thunder began to speak, a sudden, forceful gale sped toward him, pushing at him as though he stood in the midst of a thunderstorm. Weak though he was, he stood his ground, letting the strong currents push back his hair, his clothes.

  His courage never deserting him he said, “Old man. We meet again.”

  The old man paced toward Night Thunder on feet that never once touched the ground.

  “What is it you want from me?”

  “Waapo’to, freedom for my people,” the old man said.

  “Freedom? I have not that power.”

  “Have you not?”

  “I know not the ceremony to free yours from the bonds that hold them.”

  The old man came to stand before Night Thunder. Reaching out a hand, the spirit touched the younger man, the feel of it, Night Thunder thought, like that of a cold, shivering mist.

  “Many years ago, in time before mind,” said the old man, “your people killed mine in a terrible fight over a woman. Decided I then, for all time, to seek out yours and kill them. I was young and foolish. I was not good. Killed I your people, many of them. At last, though, your people sought out me and killed me and mine. They took our legs, our arms, our hearts. We could not walk to our ancestors.”

  “You have legs now.”

  “But not the will. I am forever lost from my wife, the heart of me. It is she that I seek.”

  Night Thunder said, “I have not seen her.”

  The old man stared up at him with eyes, sad. “Find the one that you love and bring her back to you. Mat’-ah-kwi tam-ap-i-ni-po-ke-mi-o-sin, not found is happiness without woman.”

  Night Thunder opened his mouth to say more, but it was useless. The spirit of the old man had disappeared as quickly as it had come.

  The people stared at Night Thunder for many moments, stunned at what they had seen. At last, however, Night Thunder found the strength to move, and strode toward the pony herd, to find and prepare his own mount.

  He hadn’t needed the old man to tell him to go and find his wife. Nonetheless, he now felt driven to do just that.

  Rebecca was afraid. Without Night Thunder to guide her and protect her, she had little courage to confront these spirits, if that was what these were.

  She could see them there, on the plains; she could hear them, the steady drum, the ghostly sound of their singing, the thump of their feet. There, under the silvery strands of moonlight.

  She said to her companion, “Do you see them, now?”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t see nothing.”

  “Come,” she said, “follow me.”

  She dismounted, bringing her horse forward with her. “There they are, there in the distance. They’re having a dance.”

  The man looked at her strangely.

  “Ma’am, I still don’t see nothing.”

  What was it that Night Thunder had told her, that few people could see the shadows of the dead?

  She said to her companion, “I understand. You wait here for me. I will go on.”

  “I can’t allow that, ma’am. I been told to accompany ya.”

  “Then come on with me. Let’s move closer.”

  An ethereal quality of the drums called to her, the singing enchanted her. She had to be closer to it. Why, she did not know. But she suspected that it was because the spirits, the singing, even the dancing reminded her of Night Thunder.

  She stepped toward them, not caring whether her escort continued on with her or not.

  Closer she came, closer and closer, her fear a tangible thing. But she would not stop.

  Finally she stood at the outskirts of their encampment.

  Said she in Blackfoot, as loudly as she was able, “Who are you?”

  No answer.

  “Why do you follow me?”

  Again, no answer. No change.

  “What do you want from me, from my husband, Night Thunder?”

  A brief silence and then, “Do you believe now that he is your husband?”

  Who had spoken to her? It had been a baritone voice. Was it one of the braves, or perhaps the old man? The same one who had married her to Night Thunder, he who had spoken to Night Thunder at the Dog Society dance?

  She answered, though not aloud, “Aye, my husband.”

  “Then why did you leave him?”

  “If you be truly shadows of the dead, then you know why.” Her words were in thought only and she wondered that she could carry on a conversation such as this. Yet she did.

  “He loves Blue Raven Woman,” the old man said.

  “Do you think I do not know that?”

  “But only as a man might love his sister.”

  Was it true? And even if it were true, did it matter? “Still,” thought Rebecca, “Night Thunder has his honor to keep. And you must know that Blue Raven Woman loves him.”

  “As a sister loves a brother.”

  Hope suddenly flared within her. But she dared not hope too well. Not yet. She asked, in thought alone, “Why do you care? Why are you here?”

  “Some things you will have to discover on your own.”

  The drums crescendoed, becoming louder and louder until they sounded deafening, and wind rushed toward her as though it were a tornado, howling around her, blowing her dress, her hair forward. Bells and jangles on the dancers’ feet jingled in time to the beat, though the dancers began to part, the wind sweeping in among them and into the center.

  She caught her br
eath.

  A long figure stood in the midst of the center, his form as misty as that of the old man.

  Night Thunder?

  “No,” she screamed. “He isn’t dead, is he?” she asked the old man.

  Night Thunder spoke, “I am alive.”

  “In shadow form only?” she asked.

  “A medicine man has many mysterious powers. One of them is to be able to take form elsewhere. I have come to find you, to ask you to come back to me.”

  Said she, “I…I cannot. I would not bring hurt to you.”

  “How is it that you hurt me?” he asked, beckoning her forward.

  She took one step toward him. She couldn’t help herself. “I asked you to give up your honor, to put Blue Raven Woman from you.”

  “Worry no more. She is married.”

  “No.” Rebecca backed away. “You married her when I was ill?”

  “She is married to Singing Bull. It happened while you were gone from us in spirit.” Again Night Thunder beckoned her forward.

  “Singing Bull?” she asked. “I do not know him.”

  “And yet Blue Raven Woman has been in love with him for many years, and he with her.”

  “Did you know it all this time?”

  “Saa, no, I have only discovered it.”

  “But your pledge, hers…”

  “Was never made by the two of us. Our parents made the vow, and all are glad now that it is broken. My heart, hers, have been caught up elsewhere. The spirits of my father and mother can now rest easy.” Again he bid Rebecca to come forward. “My heart has been sad since you left.”

  Rebecca shut her eyes. “I cannot believe any of this.”

  “Come here to me.”

  As though mesmerized, she did as he beckoned, the line of dancers parting for her.

  Drums increased their beat, sounding faster and faster, and as she swayed forward, the singing grew louder.

  She stepped up to him quickly, the drums urging her on, and he took her in his arms, as though he were made of substance instead of shadowy mist.

  “Kitsikakomimmo, I love you. I will always love you, no matter the flesh, no matter where or what we are. Come back to me. Spend your life with me.”