Gunfire cracked here and there and she saw to her horror that soldiers were scattered in the shadows. Ahead of her, a Cheyenne woman paused to scoop up snow and put it in her mouth. In that moment, her thirst cost the woman her life as guns blazed and she went down.
Glory felt rising panic as she dodged those soldiers and went on. Behind her now, soldiers shouted and guns thundered. When she glanced back over her shoulder, she saw sleepy men running out of army barracks in their long handles, confused, and without boots. However, others fired at anything that moved and more lights came on all over the camp. “After them! They’re getting away!”
She kept sloughing ahead, the snow deep as her knees in spots, which made it difficult to move. She gasped for air, her lungs felt as if they were full of cold fire, and her legs and feet grew numb. Ahead of her, she saw an occasional Cheyenne running, too. Each showed up clearly on the white, white snow, the full moon throwing long shadows across the drifts. It was as bright as noonday, she thought in horror, seeing her breath hanging on the cold air ahead of her.
Behind her, the soldiers seemed to be getting organized; at least there were more shots, more shouting and cursing. A young Cheyenne boy was running ahead of her, she could see and recognize him although she could not recall his name. The frozen stream of the White River lay up ahead; Glory could see its ice shining in the moonlight. The boy fell down on the bank, attempting to break the ice. There were other desperate ones there, too, she saw, stopping for water, no matter the danger.
She must not stop; to stop was death. She saw a woman break through a thin place in the ice as she struggled to cross and go into the water up to her waist. To get wet in this weather was to freeze to death. Glory took a deep breath and ran across the hard surface, slipping on the ice, expecting any moment to fall through. There were small trees along the bank on the other side. She ducked into the shadow of those even as several women who had stopped to drink attempted to stand and were cut down by a volley of shots.
Oh, God. She closed her ears to their dying screams and took off running again. Two miles. Dull Knife had said it was two miles, but she had no idea whether in her starved and weakened condition, she could run that far or even if she was heading in the right direction. Nothing mattered but that she keep moving. She was passing others now; those who were too weak to go on, those who had been wounded. Those who were dead. She recognized the body of one of the dog soldiers who had been covering the retreat.
Behind her, the soldiers’ guns roared again like deadly thunder, and they sounded closer. Ahead of her, sprawled the body of an old woman, grotesquely spread across the white snow. Oh, please don’t let it be Moccasin Woman! The old grandmother had held Grasshopper and her doll as she went out the window. Glory paused to lift the body, didn’t recognize the woman who was already stiffening in death. The body’s warmth had melted a little hollow in the snow.
She let go of the old woman, knowing she must keep moving. Her legs felt like lead weights as she struggled through the snow, and she wasn’t sure she could feel her feet anymore. She could freeze to death out here. No, she shook her head stubbornly; she hadn’t gone through all she had endured throughout her life only to die out in the Nebraska cold. Besides, Two Arrows might be wounded, and if he were, he would need her. That thought fueled her weary body, and she began to run again.
Ahead of her were desperate, running Indians of all sizes and ages and, behind her, soldiers were coming. She could hear their shouts and curses, and every few seconds a rifle cracked. It seemed she could feel the lead flying past her ears, and she braced herself, thinking any moment now slug would catch her. Would she even feel the bullet that killed her? Or would she fall wounded in the snow to bleed in agony or freeze to death? She must not think of that now; nothing mattered but rejoining Two Arrows.
Then far ahead of her like an answer to her prayers, she saw him running through the woods. He looked like a strong, magnificent stag, she thought; he would make it to the tops of the bluffs and the safety of the cave beyond.
Glory redoubled her efforts; determined to catch up to him. She had waited all her life for a love like this, and she was not going to lose him; by God, she was not going to lose him!
The soldiers were gaining on her. She was afraid to look back, but she could hear them crashing through the crusted snow behind her, swearing and shooting at anything that moved.
An old man staggered almost abreast of her, and he gave her an encouraging nod even as the guns boomed again. He cried out, threw up his hands, and was dead even before he hit the ground. The scent of fresh blood filled her nostrils and ahead of her, melting the snow, was a patch of blood from some wounded soul who must be still running. The dark blood looked so stark smeared across the white drifts. She watched Two Arrows’s back as he ran, started to call out to him, knew he would be in danger if he returned for her, kept silent and continued to run. Ahead of her, Two Arrows paused to lift a fallen one, urge him on, still covering the retreat, even though he could easily outrun the others and make it to safety.
The soldiers were gaining on her. She must run faster, she told herself; but she couldn’t run any faster. She had reached the top of a bare knoll, where there were no shadowy trees to hide her movements. She would be outlined against the full moon, an easy target for the vengeful guns.
At that point, she tripped and fell in the deep snow, struggling to get to her feet. The shock of the icy chill against her hands and face shocked her back into reality. She didn’t mean to call his name, but he was her link to life, to everything good and true. “Two Arrows!” she screamed. “Two Arrows!”
He paused and whirled.
“No!” she shouted. “Go on! I—I can make it!”
His love for her was in his eyes as he turned and came running back, an old rifle in his hand. The soldiers’ guns blazed at him, but he didn’t stop. He swung the gun like a club, roaring like a bear at his enemies as he charged right into the gunfire. Even as she struggled to get up, he hesitated, dropping the old rifle, grabbing at his side.
“Oh, no! Two Arrows! My love!”
At the sound of her voice, he straightened, her small daguerreotype falling from his waistband as he ran toward her, his hand on his wounded flesh, the blood seeping between his fingers. He was charging right into the gunfire, right into certain death to save her. She held up her hand, reaching for him. If they were going to die, they would go down together, holding on to each other. He was all that meant anything to her, love and truth and courage!
“I’ve got you, Proud One! I’ve got you!” With tremendous strength, he bent and lifted her, swinging her up in his powerful arms.
“Leave me! You can make it alone!” she screamed, as he staggered. “Leave me!”
“Not in this lifetime will I ever leave you again!” He gasped and turned and began to run with her in his arms. She clasped her arms around his sinewy neck, feeling his great heart beating hard against her body and his warm blood wet on her doeskin shift as he staggered forward, the soldiers right behind them, guns blazing.
“Oh my dearest.” She wept. “I’ve gotten you hurt! Leave me and go on!”
“Hush,” he commanded, and kept moving forward.
In the moonlight, she saw the strain in his face, the sweat on his dark forehead from the pain. His lifeblood was trickling out but he staggered on across the snow, past dead and dying Indians. “We can make it! We can make it, my Proud One!”
Ahead of them, she saw the bluffs looming darkly through the snow. It looked like a thousand miles to the top and safety. He might make it alone, but not carrying her added weight. He was weakening and slowing, yet he hung on to her as if she were the most precious thing in the world to him; more precious than his own life.
At that moment, he stumbled and fell, and she went into the snow. “I—I’m sorry,” he gasped.
She scrambled to her feet, caught his hand, and pulled him up, terrified of the bloody smear he’d left in the drift. “Come on, my dea
r one,” she urged. “We’ve got to get to the top of the bluffs!”
“Yes,” he murmured and stumbled ahead, his hand clutching his wounded side, “but if I fall again, don’t wait for me. Go on and save yourself.”
“Like you did?” She began to walk toward the bluffs, half-urging, half-dragging him with her. Up on the bluff, in the moonlight, the silhouette of the giant wolf appeared suddenly and it threw back its head and howled, a long lonesome sound that echoed and reechoed across the snow, a challenge to a hostile world. “Do you hear him, my darling? He’s singing to us the Cheyenne song, a song of freedom!”
Two Arrows looked encouraged as he stared up at the wolf, staggered on. There was a trail through the rocks ahead, a path to the top of the bluffs. Two Arrows’s wound left a trail of scarlet droplets on the white snow as he stumbled and paused. “Forget about me,” he urged. “Go on!”
She ignored his command, gripping his hand and pulling him with her. Either they were both going to make it or neither would. “It’s not much farther,” she pleaded. “And the bluecoats are coming! You’re a dog soldier, not a white man’s Injun; don’t quit on me now!”
Her challenge seemed to revitalize him, and he began to climb, following her up the twisted path toward the top of the bluffs.
“We’ll make it,” she promised herself, the wind cold against her face as she labored across the rocks, reaching back to keep him with her. “We’re got to make it!”
Despite her brave words, she wasn’t sure he could climb all the way before the bluecoats caught them. Oh, dear God, please, we need this chance! Behind them, the soldiers sprayed the rocky bluffs with gunfire, but the pair kept moving. Finally, they reached the summit.
“We’re here!” She gasped and put his big arm around her, attempting to help him walk. She could feel his blood on her arm, hot and sticky as she half helped him, half carried him along, his tremendous size threatening to take her to her knees.
His face had gone pale. “Proud One, leave me and try for the cave yourself; I can’t possibly walk that far.”
“Oh, of course you can,” she lied, looking around desperately. Maybe if he could rest a few minutes, and she could get the bleeding stopped....
She started across the bluff, helping him along. A few hundred yards ahead, she saw a rocky outcrop. “We can get out of the wind there, rest a little.”
He was protesting that she should abandon him and save herself.
Instead, she dragged him under the rocky ledge and knelt next to him. “Even if I would leave you, which I won’t, I don’t know where that cave is; I couldn’t find it alone.”
She inspected his wound in the moonlight. He had stopped bleeding, but he was too hurt to walk any farther, and they both knew it. Glory curled up against him, attempting to keep him warm. If only we had horses, she thought, horses and coats and food, we could make it to the cave. As it was, this was where they would die or be captured.
Two Arrows held her close. “I wonder if Moccasin Woman and little Grasshopper made it?”
“I hope so.” In her mind, she saw the child, with her big brown eyes and the china doll. Glory noticed then with consternation that somewhere in this frantic climb, she had lost the beaded bracelet little Grasshopper had given her. She had felt the bracelet was a lucky charm, and now all their luck had run out.
Two Arrows touched her face very gently with a blood-smeared hand. “I want you to know how much I love you, Proud One.”
“Don’t talk like this is the end; we’re going to make it,” she lied, wondering whether to tell him her secret; she might not get another opportunity. Yet if she told him, he would insist that she try for the cave by herself, and she was determined not to leave him. He was hurt too badly to walk, so they could only wait for the soldiers to hunt them down and kill them—that is, if they didn’t freeze to death first. They had done the best they could, and now, only a miracle could give them that chance they needed so badly. Glory did something then she hadn’t done for a long time; she closed her eyes and prayed for that miracle.
Now all she could do was hug Two Arrows to her, attempting to keep him warm while they settled down under the lee of the ledge and waited for whatever fate awaited them. She felt strangely at peace. Maybe nothing else mattered as long as they were together.
Back at the fort, confusion reigned. Captain Wessells was running up and down in his underwear, shouting and cursing. “Gott! What in hell happened?”
David saluted, trying not to notice the officer was barefooted in the snow. “Captain Krueger reporting for duty; the Cheyenne have broken out!”
The other swore in German. “Guards! Where were guards?”
David glanced over at Muldoon’s sweating face, “Uh, temporarily diverted, I think.”
“By Gott, the savages won’t get away with this!” Wessells glared at Muldoon. “Sergeant, everyone be assembled in ten minutes with full gear!”
“Yes, sir.” Muldoon snapped him a salute.
Wessells looked down at his cold, bare feet, seemed to realize for the first time that he was standing outdoors in his underwear while the other two men wore full uniforms and thick buffalo fur coats. He turned loose a torrent of German curses, headed back inside, yelling behind him, “Captain Krueger, pass word there’s a promotion and reward to the man who gets the ringleaders!”
“Yes, Captain!” David saluted smartly and turned to run to the stable, Muldoon right behind him. “Did you hear that, Muldoon? A promotion and a reward; but I’d pay to kill that damned arrogant savage myself!”
In his heart burned a rage that threatened to choke him. Oh, he had looked forward to this moment, all right! In his mind, he put his gun against Two Arrows’s head, and said, “This is for Glory!”
Behind him, Muldoon said, “I don’t understand; I thought Two Arrows was leavin’ the lass behind for you.”
David whirled on him. “Muldoon, are you sure it’s Glory?”
The Irishman rubbed his hands together and grimaced in pain. “Aye, I swear by all that’s holy.”
David swore under his breath as he strode into the stable, ignoring the confusion as the other troopers saddled up and Muldoon gave orders. David led Second Chance out, began to saddle him, good to see his favorite horse. “Good boy! Good boy!”
To the sergeant, he said, “So Two Arrows has dragged Glory along as a hostage again to protect their retreat. Damn him for his cruelty!”
“I—I don’t think that’s the case, Davie.” The older man fell suddenly silent, and David wondered what the sergeant was thinking.
“Saddle up Gray Mist, too,” David ordered. “We’ll need blankets and medical supplies, canteens. Get the cook to fill one with hot broth.”
“Sure, lad.” Muldoon saddled up the fat buckskin and pulled his heavy buffalo fur coat closer around his ears.
Abruptly, David remembered. “I’ll be right back!” He ran to his quarters where his luggage stood unopened on the floor. He grabbed up the box, ripped it open, took out the fine sable coat with its fox-trimmed hood. It was meant to be Glory’s Christmas gift; now its warmth might save her life. David pressed its soft richness against his face, praying she was still alive. His concern for her was equaled only by his fury at the drunken scout. There was no doubt in David’s mind that Two Arrows had taken Glory from the barracks as a final, defiant gesture against the officer he neither liked nor respected.
Throwing the fine coat over his arm, David ran back out to the stable, where Muldoon had the three horses saddled and - equipped as ordered. The troop was mounting up now.
David threw Glory’s fur coat across the cantle of his saddle and mounted Second Chance, took Gray Mist’s reins from the sergeant. Then he turned in his saddle, looking back at the troopers. “Men, Captain Wessells has offered a promotion and reward for whoever brings in the ringleaders.” He paused. “I assume he meant dead or alive. That big one, Two Arrows, may have a hostage, so take care. Lead out, Sergeant!”
The troop left
the stable area at a smart canter, the horses spirited in the cold weather, blowing and snorting. They crossed the snow of the parade ground, following the echoing sounds of gunfire past the old barracks. There was infantry out there following the tracks through the snowy woods. Now and then, they heard shouts or echoing gunfire. David reached to touch Glory’s fine coat for reassurance, not even wanting to think that those screams might be hers.
God, it was cold. David had a sudden vision of warm yellow sunshine and lazy guitar music, fiery chili peppers and tortillas. Texas. Perhaps now he could finally face the tormenting past, get on with his life
David glanced back to see Muldoon pulling his fur coat closer around his red ears and rubbing his aching hands together. “Rheumatiz gettin’ so bad, sir, I don’t know if I can pull a trigger.”
“You’ve got to find a warmer clime,” David said with affection, trying to keep his mind off Glory’s fate.
“Army only sends me to frozen hells like this,” Muldoon muttered, “and I know nothin’ but horses.”
The shots were louder and echoing up ahead as they pushed into the woods. The snowdrifts grew heavy enough that they had to slow the horses to a walk. David looked back at Gray Mist, reassuring himself that the food, blankets, canteens, and medical supplies were there. If she were hurt, all these supplies might make the difference between life and death for his beloved. As for Two Arrows—David gritted his teeth and reached for the reassurance of his rifle. He would cut him down like a rabid dog without a thought of mercy.
The Irishman rode next to him.
“Damn it, Muldoon, if you knew she was with the Indians, why didn’t you take her out of that barracks?”
“Well, sir,” Muldoon lowered his voice as they rode, “if I’d identified her, I was afraid before you could get here, the soldiers might try to make free and easy with her, figuring if some Indian buck already had—”
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