by Karen Kay
A war party returned. A beaten war party; the same party that had gone out to teach the Pawnee a lesson about Lakota borders.
Neeheeowee groaned. How many were dead?
He watched the men filter into the camp, noting that no packhorse carried a body. Were there no casualties, or had the warriors been unable to recover the bodies?
If this latter were the case, it was indeed a grim day for the Minneconjou camp.
By this time, Julia had awakened and had come out to see what was the matter. She stood behind Neeheeowee, and, for a moment, just one delicate instant in time, his head spun. Perhaps it was her scent, perhaps it was simply her presence, or maybe it was a premonition of things to come; whatever it was, Neeheeowee found himself wanting to reach around him and take her into his arms, never to let her go.
Something had happened between them last night. He had told Julia that if he made love to her in the way that he did, that it would draw the two of them closer together.
He had been right.
He had touched the essence of exactly who and what she was last night, and he had found himself loving her more now than he could ever remember loving anything or anybody. He didn’t want to leave her now, he didn’t want to lose her.
And yet, here were the warriors that had set out against the Pawnee. Beaten, defeated.
Could he allow the Pawnee to triumph? Could he allow the Pawnee into his own country, letting them commit murder again? Could he allow them anywhere close to Julia?
He knew the answers to his own questions before he even asked them, just as he knew what he had to do.
He had to go find the Pawnee. But this time, in tracking his enemy, he had to be successful. He had to bring an end to this once and for all.
Turning around, he stalked away from Julia without so much as a glance at her. He knew his action hurt her; he knew he should at least smile at her and give her tender greeting, but he couldn’t.
If he turned to talk to her now, he would most likely break down in front of her, in front of the whole tribe. He didn’t want to go to war. He didn’t want to do what he had to do.
He must.
There was a difference.
“What’s wrong?” Julia wanted to know.
She had seen Neeheeowee return to their tepee, she had noted the grim expression on his face, and she didn’t understand. He had merely watched the war party return to the camp. What could have happened to him so quickly? True, the war party had not done well, but neither had they done too badly. No one had been killed during the skirmish; and for that all the people were happy. So why did Neeheeowee look so dispirited?
She came into his tepee. He didn’t turn around to acknowledge her, nor did he even look up.
“Are you going to answer my question?” she asked, then repeated, “What is wrong?”
He drew a deep, steady breath, though he still did not look at her. “I go now to find the Pawnee. I have been too long off of this purpose. It has brought us harm.”
“I disagree,” she said evenly. “The Pawnee have been routed home. Didn’t you hear the stories of the warriors? The Pawnee are on the run.”
Neeheeowee merely shrugged, not even turning around. “It makes little difference to me. The one or ones I look for are still here. I must seek them out; it has been my duty these past years. It is time now for me to bring this to an end.”
“And what about me?”
“What about you?”
“Are you going to leave me now after you asked me to marry you last night?”
Neeheeowee stopped all movement. And though his back was still toward her, she saw him gaze upward while his hands came down to his sides. Finally, he bent his head. “I should not have said that to you,” he said. “I am not free to take you as wife. I do not know what happened to me last night.”
“Do you shame me before the whole camp then? All in the camp circle know I spent the night here with you.”
He breathed out heavily. “I do not throw you away. I would never do that. You may stay here while I am gone, you may tell everyone here that I married you last night. I would see that you can hold up your head with pride. I would not take that from you.”
“Do not go,” she pleaded.
“I must.”
It was all that he said, but it was enough. Julia knew without doubt that nothing she could do or say would keep him here.
“I will follow you.”
“You will not.”
“I will,” she said. “There will be no one here to stop me.”
“No, Julia, you will not come with me,” he said. “You would only get in my way, and you would get yourself killed, and probably me, too. You do not know the prairie well enough to survive on it.”
“True enough,” she said. “Nevertheless, I intend to follow you if you insist on going alone.”
“I will not allow it.”
“And why not?”
Neeheeowee turned back toward her, but still he didn’t look at her, and Julia knew he pretended interest in the parfleches in his hand, if only to hide the emotion she thought she had seen there within his composure. At length, he said to her, “That is how my first wife perished. I allowed her to talk me into letting her go with me on a hunting trip. I did what she wanted and she died. I will not allow that fate to happen to you.”
“Neeheeowee,” Julia said, scooting forward toward him. “It is not the same thing. I am not the same person as your former wife. You are not planning to be gone on a hunting trip. This is not five years ago. This is now, and I promise you, if you leave, I will follow. Besides,” she said, “I am not so certain you are following the correct path in your life.”
He looked down his nose at her. “Say what you mean.”
“You talk about your purpose in life, you tell me about your lack of a vision and you tell me that you arrived at your purpose now because of the death of your wife and child. I believe that you chase a ghost. I do not think that you follow the right path.”
He shrugged. “It makes little difference now. I am set upon this course, I have long put this into action and I must now complete it. The Pawnee must die.”
“Neeheeowee,” she reached out to touch his hand. “I ask you to think about this. Will killing the Pawnee make you a better person? Will your life be better because of it?”
He shrugged, throwing back his head. “Perhaps not. But it makes little difference anymore. I do this thing now not because I want to but because I have to. I could never live with myself if the threat from the Pawnee walked into our own camp, putting you in danger. Who could I turn to then? Could I say that I had decided that protecting my loved ones was not my chosen path? What man who would claim this has any pride? No, Julia, I do what I have to do. I tried to make you see that. I’m sorry that the day for me to leave has come so soon.”
Julia bit her lip. “Neeheeowee…”
Neeheeowee shook his head. “I do not have time to argue with you. I must leave today and quickly before the tracks of these Pawnee are forever gone. If I could change this part of my life for you, I would. I cannot.”
“All right,” she said. “If you have to go then take Tahiska or Wahtapah or both. Don’t go alone.”
Neeheeowee shook his head. “What I do is mine alone to do. It is not something I can charge another with, nor share. If I had done this a few years sooner, the Pawnee would not now be here threatening and scaring our villages.”
“Fine,” she said, “then take others.”
Neeheeowee sighed. “Julia,” he said at last, “I cannot change the way things are, nor can I change the vow that I made to put this to an end.”
“I see,” she said. “Then I will come with you.”
“You will not.”
“I will.”
He drew himself up to his full height. “We will see,” he said, and stepping past her, he flung open the tepee entrance.
And as Julia watched him walk away, she began to make her plans.
“Keep her safe, my brother,” Neeheeowee told his kola, Tahiska, the two of them standing outside Tahiska’s lodge a few hours later. “And do not let her follow me.”
Tahiska grinned. “My friend, if you cannot keep your own wife here with wise counsel, how do you expect me to?”
Neeheeowee grunted, the sound deep in his throat. Shaking his head, he turned, jumping onto the mustang whose reins he held in his hand, while he clicked his other pony forward. He threw a quick look over the supplies he had stashed on the pack pony, satisfied that he had enough to get him into the country of the Pawnee.
He glanced down briefly at Tahiska, saying, “Do what you can to keep her here. I am afraid she would perish out there and I have no time to teach her the means of survival on the prairie, nor to watch over her.”
Tahiska nodded. “I understand your concern.”
Again Neeheeowee grunted, and with a quick jerk of his head, he scanned the crowd for a glimpse of Julia. He could see her nowhere. Was she purposely staying away? He hoped not, for he had wished to see her one more time before he left camp.
But he could not find her, and he would not demean himself by going to look for her in their lodge. If she had decided to send him off with no farewell, so be it. Her pouting would do her no good. He would still go.
A crowd had milled around him, but he ignored the people, himself not seeking the glory and admiration they gave. He had turned his horse around, he had started to click his mount forward when—
“Neeheeowee!” Julia ran up toward him. “Do not leave yet! I have something for you.”
Neeheeowee watched her run toward him, observed her as she tied a blanket onto his pack pony. “I just decorated that blanket this morning,” she said, albeit a little nervously. “I did not want you leaving without it.”
Neeheeowee nodded and Julia came around toward him. And though she knew it went against Indian etiquette to show affection in public, she reached up to take Neeheeowee’s hand in her own. And looking up to him, she said, “May you put this thing to rest once and for all.”
Neeheeowee acknowledged her with a quick nod and, bending down to touch his forehead lightly to the top of her head, he said, “Wait for me,” to which Julia simply smiled.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I worry about her.”
Tahiska sent his wife a look of agreement.
“She does not know the prairie well enough to do this. Did you see her sneaking away to follow him?”
“Yes,” he said. “I saw it.”
“Will you follow her?”
He nodded. “Of course. I will watch over her for a little while, at least until she reaches my Cheyenne brother.”
Kristina frowned. “I wish I could be certain she would find him right away.”
Tahiska grinned. “My wife. I will have to teach you better in observation. Did you not see that blanket she put on the pony? It is one of those white man’s gifts we received recently.”
“Yes? And?”
“It is a very cheap blanket and I have often thought it was not worth what I traded for it. It unravels too much…all the time…in fact, it will catch on everything it comes in contact with, leaving Julia with an easy trail to follow. I gave it to her to put on the pack pony.”
Kristina smiled. “Why, my dear husband,” she said, “I believe you have devised an excellent plan. Let us only hope that what I did will slow him down long enough to allow Julia to catch up to him.”
“What did you do?” Kokomikeeis asked, as she and her husband, Wahtapah, came to stand with Kristina and Tahiska. All watched as Julia made plans to sneak away.
“I did not do much,” Kristina said, “just enough to make him slow down. I put a cut into his reins. After an hour or two, the reins will break.”
“Ah,” said Tahiska. “That will work well with what I did, for I slipped a few sand burrs beneath the blanket where he rides his pony. Within a short time, his pony will buck and refuse to move. That, too, will slow him down.”
“My friends,” Wahtapah said, shaking his head. “Perhaps we should have talked to one another first before we let him leave the camp.”
“Did you do something, too?” All three people stared at Wahtapah.
He shrugged. “I simply put a small hole in his water bag. He has others. I ensured that. But this first one will leak and he will have to stop for a while to refill it.”
“Oh, dear,” Kokomikeeis said. “I think someone should follow our friend to be certain he comes to no harm since he may find himself defenseless soon.”
“My friend,” Kristina said, looking closely at her. “You did not do something, too, did you?”
Kokomikeeis looked away. “I thought I did it for the best. I did not want him to go without Julia when she was so determined.” She gulped. “I untied his supplies. They will fall off soon.”
The other three people stared at one another for a short while before laughing, Kokomikeeis the last one to join in. And so involved were they in their own conversation that no one noticed the camp historian joining them until the man came right into their midst.
“I have come to ask you and your friend to follow that young man. He will need some protection on this, his first day on his trek,” the old man said.
Tahiska was the first to respond. “What do you mean, grandfather?” he asked, addressing his elder with the customary term.
“Our friend, the Cheyenne; he will not get far,” the old man said. “I am afraid I have done something that will require you to follow your friend. I began to get distraught over our friend having to leave when he seemed so happy. I have known that young man as long as you have and I do not remember ever seeing our friend so contented. And when I saw his wife making plans to leave to follow him, I decided she should have the opportunity to catch up with him.”
“Grandfather”—it was Tahiska who spoke—“what did you do?”
“It seemed a harmless thing at the time. Now I am not so certain,” he said. “I gave him a draft with a small amount of a sleeping aid in it to make him tired. I did not mean harm, I only thought to allow the young white woman to find him.”
All four friends stared at their grandfather, then at one another.
“It is all right, grandfather.” It was Wahtapah who spoke. “We, too, did something to slow our friend down, and my cousin and I were about ready to mount up and follow our Cheyenne brother anyway.” He glanced toward Tahiska. “We had better get our mounts and take our friend some new rope and water bags and watch over him when he falls asleep. I believe he may need our help soon.”
Tahiska nodded his agreement, but before the two men left to collect their mounts, all five people looked toward one another, and together they all laughed.
Sometime later, Julia began to despair. She had been riding most of the day, following the path of the raveling blanket, but now she could find no trace of it. Either the blanket no longer existed, or it had developed a knot in it. Whatever the case, she could find neither it nor Neeheeowee.
She glanced around her. None of this landscape looked familiar, and the sun had begun its descent from the sky, Julia estimating the time at around eight o’clock in the evening.
That would account for her hunger, she thought, and, dismounting, she quickly hobbled her pony while she reached into one of her bags for some wasna, the same concoction that Neeheeowee called ame. She left her mare to graze while she strolled a short distance away to sit down on a nearby stone, preparing to enjoy her lonely meal as best she could. That’s when she heard it: the neighing of a horse, then the deep, human sound of a moan.
She sat up straight, her head tilted as though that angle might help her to hear better. There it was again, the sound of…an injured man?
Julia gazed around her, seeing that she was quite alone. She listened again. There. It came from the other side of that slight rise in the land, just over there to her right.
She stood up and moved toward the sound, slowly, quietly at first. Would i
t be friend or foe? Should she prepare herself to fight, draw her knife, perhaps? Should she run back to the camp to get help from the others? She gazed in one direction and then in the next. Which way was the camp?
Suddenly she realized she was quite lost, and she found herself awash with a terrible feeling of helplessness. Still, she edged farther toward the sound, the action conquering her fear to some degree, and getting to her hands and knees, she inched her way forward. Before she reached the top, she drew her knife for safety, then with more curiosity than courage, she popped her head over the rise. Up, then down.
She hadn’t seen a thing. She tried again. Horses, two horses, that’s all she’d seen. She looked back at her own mare, still safely hobbled a short distance away. She sighed, knowing she would have to take a better look. She didn’t want to, and she debated a short time with herself, finally deciding she had no choice but to look more closely.
She raised her head again, espied the horses, and was about to fall back down the rise, when her gaze caught upon a sight that looked more ridiculous than she would have cared to admit. Her blanket, or at least what remained of it, lay stretched out on the ground before her, its yarn bunched up into neat clusters, looking more like a cat plaything than a blanket. She gulped and looked again.
Was Neeheeowee down there? He must be.
She inched her way farther and farther up the rise.
Then she saw him; down there, off to the right of the ponies. Neeheeowee. He lay stretched out on the prairie, one of his parfleches full of clothing acting as his pillow. Why, it looked as though he had suddenly taken the urge to nap.
Strange.
Beside him, the packhorse had thrown off all her bags into a mess stretching out across the prairie, and though hobbled, his favorite mount had chewed her way through her reins, the buckskin noose lying flatly upon the ground. Neeheeowee’s water bag lay empty beside him.