by Kat Flannery
“Hotah, you have to aid us in this,” Davis said.
“I do not have to help you with anything.” Anger dripped from his lips. He owed them nothing. They’d broken every promise to his people, and when he’d begged for their weapons to hunt more food, asked for their tipis back they’d ignored him. For this alone he would deny the general his request.
“No.” He turned from him and walked back to Kimimela.
“Please, you’re the only one who can help us.” Davis placed his hand on Hotah’s shoulder to stop him.
He gave the man a deadly glare, and the cavalry man abruptly removed his hand.
“I do not care.”
“You must! It is your blood killing children. Do you know how this can affect you and your people? How it will affect Kimimela?” The veins on Davis’s forehead popped from his skin, and spittle flew from his lips.
Hotah advanced on him.
“Kangi is not of my blood. He is no longer Paha Sapa.”
“He is your brother, Hotah!”
“Why should I help you when my people starve? When they shiver at night with no blankets and no wood to keep them warm?” He folded his arms. “You and your men have done nothing to aid me in these things. I have asked countless times, and you”—he poked his finger into Davis’s chest—“have swatted me away as if I were a bothersome fly. If not for Colonel Black, my people would be dead.”
“Those things, Hotah, you must understand. I am shorted too. My men go without as well. The government seems to think there are only a handful of us out here.” He blew out a breath that moved his moustache. “I’ve written letters and telegrams, but they still do not hear me. Colonel Black has authority I do not have.”
“You speak with a forked tongue.”
“I speak the truth.”
Hotah walked away.
“If you do not help us, things will get worse for your people.” The general’s voice changed from drawn to short.
It was a threat, one he’d heard before, and he kept walking.
“I can assure you of this. People will die.”
Hotah turned to face the general.
“By your hand?” Any tolerance he’d had for the man vanished within the words he’d spoken.
“I will be given orders that I cannot ignore.” Davis looked at Kimimela, his shoulders straight and his thick chin jutted out, but it was the malice Hotah saw in the cavalry man’s eyes that told him he’d spoken the truth.
He glanced back at his niece holding the broken bow, and knew what he had to do.
“Give my people more food, blankets, and water. Then I will consider.”
The general nodded.
“No harm will come to my niece by your hand or anyone else’s.”
Davis nodded again.
Hotah stepped toward him so they were an inch a part.
“If you do not succeed in my requests, know this: I will kill you.”
Chapter Two
Ivy leaned her back against the tree. The rope around her wrists chaffed, and the skin peeled from the constricted limbs. Her captor had not returned since last night, and she wondered if he’d come back. She’d traveled with the disgruntled man for over a week until they’d stopped here yesterday. After trying to escape countless times but never succeeding, Ivy had all but given up. The repercussions of her escape were brutal. She rubbed the cut on her cheek from the last attempt.
Her stomach growled, and she shifted her hands to her abdomen. The rope wasn’t long enough for her to walk a few feet into the bushes behind her, and she felt about the grassy floor until she sought out the stem of a bush. To her surprise and delight, small berries were growing on the leaves. She picked a handful and popped them into her mouth. Though they were a bit sour, they quenched her thirst and sated her appetite, so she took some more.
She heard the horse’s hooves touch the soft ground before a rider came into her fuzzy view. She squinted to get a better look, but colors smudged together and again she wished for her spectacles. Her shoulders sank. He’d returned—the tall, dark-skinned man she’d come to know as an Indian warrior. The night he’d captured her he’d shouted orders in his native tongue. With little sight and no knowledge of the man’s language, Ivy could only guess at what he wanted. When she was wrong, a strong blow to the side of the head with the back of his hand, or the pull on her hair, reminded her to pay better attention. Even then understanding the man had proved difficult. She’d begged him to let her go, but he continued their trek.
What she’d give for better eyesight right now. She’d have to rely on scent, touch, and the shadows displayed before her. Living blind had taught Ivy to use her other senses. She inhaled taking in all the smells around her, when she bolted upright. This man was not her captor. This man possessed a different odor. Wood smoke and lye soap invaded her nostrils instead of the usual sweat and stale meat of the other man.
She shuffled her feet to get his attention. When he rounded the bushes, she noticed the pants and white shirt he wore. She was going home. A white man had come to save her!
“Nituwe he?”
Ivy scrambled backward into the tree, every inch of her shook. It was an Indian!
“Please, please go!” She pressed her body into the trunk, willing the wood to swallow her.
“I am not here to harm you.” He laid his hand on her shoulder, but she turned as far from him as the ropes allowed. “My name is Hotah, great chief to the Paha Sapa tribe. I have come to help you.”
Most of the Indians were now on reserved land, and the few that remained free had become hostile. Ivy was no fool. “Back away, or I will be forced to kill you.” She mustered up the best impression of her crass sister, Poppy, she could find.
He chuckled as he untied the twine wrapped around her wrists.
The cool air felt good as it caressed the torn skin, and she flexed her fingers.
“How did you get to this place?” he asked.
His English was good, and she squinted to get a better look at him. The sun was bright, but he was close enough for her to see his face. Sharp lines formed chiselled cheeks and jaw. Dark eyes stared into her cloudy ones, and he smiled. He moved away from her to stand. Now she was back to seeing him only in shadows and blurred color. The harmony of his voice settled her rattling nerves. He was Indian, but she sensed kindness within him.
“I was kidnapped.”
He was staring at her. It happened most times when people saw that the color had drained from her blue eyes and were now almost a milky white.
“Why do your eyes see through smoke?”
It was an unusual description, but it fit. Her eyes had a film over them. Fern had not seen it in anyone else before, nor could she fix them.
“Are you sick?” he asked.
“I am blind!” she snapped, tired of his observation. Ivy stood. Her legs a little shaky felt as if they were rubber bands that had been stretched out for days.
“You should sit.”
Again he was offering his help, and Ivy refused. Isn’t that what had gotten her into this mess? Fern and Poppy and the bloody rules they insisted she abide by. She rebuked them. Her shoulders slumped. She was so tired of being a nuisance, a weight on everyone’s shoulders. She’d be subservient to no one and nothing—least of all this damn blindness!
“Thank you for releasing me, but I must be on my way.” She turned from him and walked right into a branch hanging from the tree. She swatted the air trying to grab it, but the darn thing wound into her hair and she was stuck. Tears formed in her eyes, and she bit her lower lip. Ivy wanted to fall to the ground and bawl like a baby, but she remained standing partly because she had to and partly because she’d not show weakness.
She felt the small but gentle tug on her hair as he slowly unwound the tresses from the tree’s claws. Once free, she made sure to flatten down any unruly hair before facing him.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
“I do need to get going.” Her toe hi
t against a stick and she knelt, feeling the rod for its length. A foot too short, but it’d have to do. She picked it up and placed the end in front of her feet.
“What are you going to do with the stick?” he asked.
“It will aid me in finding my way home.”
“A stick can do this?”
She nodded.
“But how?”
“It will be my eyes.”
He crossed his arms, and she didn’t have to see his face to know he thought her foolish.
“Watch.” She held the stick out, skimming it on the ground in front of her, and walked away from him. She counted her steps—seven in total before she turned toward him. “See?”
“You cannot go that way.”
“Why not?”
“In twenty more steps you will fall into the water.”
She shrugged. “I will go this way then.” She turned and headed in another direction.
“Tsk tsk.”
Ivy stopped. “What now?”
“Too many hills. Large rocks and cactus.”
Blast! There was only one other direction she could go. She stepped forward.
“Forest,” he said.
Ivy tossed the stick and stomped her foot.
“Come…sit.”
“I do not need to sit, Mr. —”
“Hotah. My name is Hotah.”
“Mr. Hotah. I need to go home.”
“I will take you, but first you must tell me how you became captured.”
Ivy blew out a defeated breath. With the stick thrown somewhere on the ground, she’d need to concentrate on the direction of his voice and walk back to where he stood. She took a shaky step and knew he was right in front of her. He placed his hand on the crook of her arm.
He was much taller than she, and yet, for his size, he was very gentle. She walked the route he guided until he stopped and lightly pressed his hands into her shoulders.
“Sit.”
She did so and cringed when her butt met the hard end of a tree stump. The earth swayed. She shook her head. Her stomach lurched, and she pressed her arms around her middle.
“Now, tell me how you came here.”
“I was out for a ride when I was pulled from my horse and taken.” She didn’t think telling him she snuck out in the dead of night to escape the prison she’d lived in was necessary. Her mouth felt dry, and she smacked her lips together.
“How long have you been here?”
“Almost two days.”
“Did you travel far from home after you were captured?”
“I can’t say for sure, but close to six days. I was unconscious for some of it.”
She didn’t miss the low feral growl emitting from his closed lips and involuntarily shivered.
“He struck you?”
“Yes.” Her face was a mess. The smacks and backhands she’d taken from the kidnapper were still fresh, and some places still hurt to touch.
He said no more.
Ivy sensed his anger but could not understand why.
“Do you know who took you?” he asked.
“An Indian.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could you see his face?”
She raised her brow.
“Is there anything you can tell me about him?”
“He was unkind, and I was sure he’d kill me.” She felt lightheaded, and again her stomach seized with the need to vomit. She placed her hand over her mouth and inhaled through her nose.
“Do you know why he didn’t?”
Ivy hadn’t thought about it. When he left she was sure he wouldn’t be gone long, but he never returned. He did not like her, she knew that much…but why didn’t he kill her, and why was she feeling so odd?
Hotah walked away from the girl. He needed space to process all she’d said. The skin on her cheeks was scraped, and the bone above her right eye was swollen and bruised. Upon a closer look, he could see the marks on her neck where she’d been strangled. He kicked at the dirt to release the anger inside him. The moccasin scuffed the ground, leaving dirt on the soft leather. It was the one thing he’d refused to give up when the white man insisted his people wear their clothes. The moccasins remained. Hotah wore them with the long denims and cotton shirt, both uncomfortable in the heat and when riding a horse. He’d give anything for his deerskin pants.
He surveyed the meagre camp. There wasn’t much to go on, other than the word of a blind girl. If Kangi had taken her, she’d be dead by now. He never left any survivors. There was no trace of a fire or weapons of any kind. What had been the purpose of capturing her?
“When he brought you here, how long did he remain?”
“A few hours.”
“How many days have you been here?”
“Two, I think.”
“He has not returned since then?”
“I believe I already said this.” She swayed and caught herself before falling off the stump.
Kangi wouldn’t leave without a reason, and Hotah wasn’t even sure it was him who had taken her.
“Did you have a horse?”
She nodded.
Whoever had taken the girl had left the horse.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Ivy Montgomery.”
Hotah mouthed the name. “Why are you named after a weed?”
“Ivy is not a weed, it is a plant.”
“It makes you sick.”
She turned from him.
He followed the prints closer to the water’s edge and knelt to inspect the ground. The markings from the hooves of two horses were pressed into the mud, one with the indentation of metal shoes, the other without it. The Lakota did not alter the horse’s hooves in any way, and Hotah knew the shoeless horse could be Kangi’s. He spotted something else. He moved closer to get a better look. It was a footprint, but not from a moccasin.
He went back to Ivy and without a word lifted her foot to look at the bottom of her shoes. It was not the same. Hers had a raised heel, while the other print was larger and flat.
She yanked her foot from his grasp and glared at him.
“Was there no one else here other than you?” he asked.
She shook her head while pressing her hands into the skirt to lay it flat once more. Her complexion had changed, the cheeks now rosy and flushed.
“But you cannot see, and the distance to the river is quite far,” he said.
Her pale-blue eyes narrowed as she thought about what he’d said.
Hotah walked the camp again. He went to where Ivy had been tied and examined the area. Then looked back at the river. It was a fair distance, and he guessed she’d not seen the other man who had met with Kangi.
Ivy swayed back and forth on the stump. She seemed off all of a sudden. He stared at the tree again, when he recognized the cotoneaster berries growing on bushes around the stump. They were poisonous if eaten. He glanced at the girl, resting her cheek against her hand now.
“Did you eat these berries?” he asked pointing to the bush.
“I cannot see you, so I do not know.”
“Did you eat any berries while tied?”
“Yes, I was famished.”
“When did you eat these?”
“A half hour ago. Why?”
The berries will slow the heart, and if too many has been eaten she could die. He went to his saddlebag and took out the small sack where he kept remedies for sickness and his sun ailment. Hotah took out one stalk of bulrush and pressed the fat end between his hands. He did not have time to heat and mash the brown stalk, so she’d need to eat it this way.
“This will help.” He handed her a small piece of the flattened stalk.
“What is it?”
“Eat.”
“I am not hungry.”
“You will soon be vomiting and very ill if you do not eat this.”
Her face lost all color.
“How many berries did you consume?”
&
nbsp; “I cannot remember.” She slurred and stuck her tongue out, biting it with her teeth.
It was as he thought. The cotoneaster took some time to affect the system, and by the looks of her, the berries were beginning to show now.
“Small bites.”
She did so, but he could see she was having trouble, and so he took the plant from her hand and fed the pieces to her.
“Mr. Hotah?”
He glanced at her just before she threw up all over his moccasins. It did not stop. She continued to vomit until her body shook and sweat dripped from her temples onto the dirt. Hotah held on to her weakened frame as she violently expelled all the remnants of her stomach again.
She mumbled something he could not understand, and without another thought he picked her up and ran to the water. He walked into it with her in his arms and dunked them both. The frigid river did little to revive her. She was lethargic and immobile, and Hotah worried for her life.
He took her back to the camp and laid her gently on the ground before he began feeding small morsels of the bulrush into her mouth followed by short sips of water from his canteen. There had to be a better remedy for her ailment than the swamp plant. With a need to stay busy, he placed a blanket over her and started a fire to keep her warm. Hotah searched his mind for things his ina may have used. Icahpe hu! A flower his mother had given him when he was twelve winters old and a rattler bit him.
He ventured into the forest. It took longer than he’d wanted, but he found the purple flower growing at the base of a pine tree. He plucked four and hurried back to Ivy. The small pan he carried within his saddlebags would work to crush the flower’s root, and he could then boil it in some water.
She continued to shake, her muted eyes staring off into the distance.
Hotah moved quickly. He released a breath once the concoction boiled, then set it aside to cool before feeding it to her. He positioned her head against his chest and began administering the liquid. Her jaw was clamped shut, and with his free hand he pinched her cheeks together to loosen the muscles. Once she opened her lips, he brought the cup to her mouth and prayed most of it was getting into her stomach.