Infinite Loss (Infinite Series, Book 3)

by L. E. Waters

  I don’t pay any attention to him but walk toward the horses.

  “It would have been good to have told your best friend what you were up to. I thought the wolves got you!”

  He gets angrier the more I ignore him.

  “You are lucky Mato’s too foolish to have figured this out!” He stops finally. “Maybe someone will tell him.”

  “I do not care what you do.”

  And I don’t.

  I go straight back to my pelts and bring them the long journey into the small village. I sneer at the way these white men live—log homes, dug into the mud by the side of the mountains, or scanty and leaking lean-tos. The only decent structure in the whole village is the trading post, built with logs and a tar roof. I stay by my horses, not wanting to leave them alone in a place like this. As I wait for the traders to see me, I watch hunched-over, disheveled squaws working in front of their white husbands’ pile of sticks: washing their ridiculous clothes, tanning their pelts, and cooking their meat. Half-breed children, of all shades between red and white, run through the road chasing a wheel ring with a stick. I study each one, trying to find Wakinyan but don’t see her. I shoo Nagi off my shoulder, and he goes and lights in a high pine above the trading post.

  Heavy boots stop in front of me. “Looking to trade, Sioux?” he says in my language. My hand grips my tomahawk handle at the mention Sioux, but I relax since I can see he’s impressed with the amount of pelts I carry.

  “Looking for Peirpont.”

  He’s disappointed but calls back behind him in the post. “Peirpont!”

  The yellow-haired trout face emerges, and his grin makes me clench the handle once again.

  “Chase,” he calls, and Chase comes forward to translate for us.

  Chase sits on the edge of the porch.

  “I have come to trade for Wakinyan.”

  Once Chase repeats my words, Peirpont throws his head back in laughter and holds his side. He makes a great show and laughs much longer than is necessary.

  I try to focus on bringing her home. “I have here many fine pelts. Pelts that will trade you far more than four guns and five boxes of lead.”

  Peirpont quiets, goes over, and flips through the pile of pelts on one of my horses. He walks back up, enjoying the drama of the moment. “I will trade with you.”

  I take a deep breath in and untie my first load of pelts when Chase continues translating. “For four guns and five boxes of lead.” And Peirpont’s strange overdone laughter rings out again as he points to my fallen face. He says something that Chase chooses not to translate.

  I try to keep myself calm. “She means nothing to you. I have more than a fair trade here.”

  His laughter stops, and he gives me a sudden strange look. “I know you, Sioux”—and he smiles when he says this—“have strange customs where you can buy another man’s wife but not my kind.” He turns to the other trapper and laughs. “Once she’s used, she’s mine.”

  I pull my tomahawk up and hold it above my head as Peirpont and the other trapper reach for their guns. Chase puts his hands up between both of us and speaks to them. Chase then turns to me. “I asked him to reconsider the good offer.”

  Peirpont says something back that makes the other trapper laugh heartily.

  Chase does not translate it.

  I shout, “Tell me, Chase!”

  “He says, ‘Then where will he get another green-eyed slave to clean his pelts for him.’”

  With a great shriek, I turn and throw my tomahawk into a trading post log. Chase jumps on their guns, keeping them from firing.

  “Wakinyan!” I yell down the dirt path, shaking the shoddy dwellings. She immediately dashes into the road from a dugout farthest up on the right.

  She is so changed. Her face falls upon seeing me, and she screams, “Forget me, Kohana!”

  Peirpont laughs at the scene and shouts up to her in probably the only Lakota words he knows, “Go work!”

  She buries her face in her hands and turns back to go into her dreary cage. I whip back to Chase and say, “Trade me everything I need to kill this bastard.”

  Chase laughs and goes across the way to a modest dugout and brings back three of the best guns, many boxes of lead, and a small keg of powder. Peirpont watches him jealously as he takes the pelts off each pony and takes them away. The other squaws watch me with worn faces as I leave without Wakinyan.

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  I go back into camp and take my guns into my teepee. When I head out to the fire, Hanska sits there grinning. “Have you left her behind then?”

  I stare ahead at the fire. “Only for now.”

  He scoffs. “You still have not given up?”

  I turn to him. “And what if Chase had won Mika, would you have just forgotten her?”

  “If Otaktay chose him, I would have moved on to another.”

  I blow out my breath slowly to show how much he lies.

  “Which is what you need to do—go find another.”

  “If Chase comes now and offers you more than Mika’s worth, you would still not let her go. You even rope her at night!”

  He doesn’t look up, only pulls apart the rabbit he’s eating. He shoves a greasy piece in his mouth, the fat sparkling on his fingers and mouth. “That is different now. She is my property, just like Wakinyan is the trapper’s.”

  I get up to find another fire to sit at and follow behind a man with a terrible limp—Paytah. I’m surprised he hasn’t healed any since I last saw him.

  “Paytah, how are you?”

  He turns to me without even a smile hello. “Just like I look.”

  He keeps dragging his leg to the other fire and almost falls over when he lowers himself down slowly on the sitting log. I sit down across from him, and he says, “Most are afraid of my bad medicine now.”

  I sigh. “I don’t think mine can get much worse.”

  He smiles slightly. I pull out some dried meat from my bag and hand him some strips. He looks much thinner and since he takes the meat so fast I wonder if he hasn’t been able to hunt at all since I’ve been gone. I think about Weayaya’s words and feel guilty. He laughs strangely and says, “Did you hear how that pony I was riding that day was made into a sacred pony?” He laughs far too loudly. “I go for glory and come back like this, and my pony gets the honors.”

  He quiets down and stares at me. “I cannot even ride anymore.” He throws his arms up. “I can only trap animals close enough for me to hobble to.” He drops his head into his hands.

  Life is so unkind.

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  Later that night, I head to Weayaya’s medicine lodge. He sits, humming to himself, in the center. I settle beside him and, when he finishes, he opens his eyes slowly. “I sensed it was you.”

  I crack a smile. “Do I smell that bad?”

  “Self-pity has a strong odor.” His face is serious.

  “Grandfather, why has the Great Spirit taken Wakinyan from me?”

  “The Great Spirit is the creator of everything. Just as he is the creator of all things good, he is also the creator of all things bad. He brings life and death, love and hate, joy and sorrow. Why do you deserve only good?”

  “I understand, but I have done everything to win her back. I have tried many different ways, and she is still not with me.” I stop there so that I won’t cry.

  “Grandson, it is his will.” He puts his arm around mine, and I nod, then get up to go.

  “Kohana.”

  “Yes, Grandfather?”

  “Do not let yesterday use up too much of today.”

  Chapter 20

  The wind picks up, and the frost thickens in the early mornings. Weayaya announces that it’s time for the Buffalo Hunt, and the camps gather together again. Mato rides his horse beside mine as we line up before the grazing herd and spits down between us, giving me a steel glare. I decide right there I’m going to kill more buffalo than him, and I do.

 
Mother charges up. “I cannot skin and prepare nine buffalo in two hours!” She flaps her hands down. “Kohana, this was wasteful.”

  I get back on my pony. “I will find some other squaws to give these to.”

  I ride right back into camp and find the one I’m looking for.

  “Paytah, I have great news. I have shot far more than my mother can manage and thought you might come and take some for the winter.”

  He turns red. “I have no squaw to go cut them. My mother has to see to my father’s kills.”

  “I was thinking that you might want to cut them your—”

  He flies up unevenly on his good leg and rages. “I am no winte! I will not put on a skirt!”

  “I was only thinking I could take you out on a travois so that you could provide for yourself.”

  He turns his head away from me in thought and then turns back slowly with purpose. “Just because Wakinyan did not want you, does not mean that I will be your squaw.”

  I leap forward, grab his robe, and hold my knife under his throat. I’m about to at least send him crashing to the ground for speaking to me that way, but I see in his eyes a desire to die. He is trying to get me to kill him.

  I drop my knife to my side, let go of his robe gently, yet even that sets him off balance, and he falls down, hard, on the log.

  “Kill me you coward!” he yells through tears of self-pity. “And you call yourself my friend!”

  I glare at him. “I do not kill children.” I walk to my pony as he struggles to get to his feet. Dragging his legs, he hobbles off in great fury, and I turn to see Apawi crawling on his belly toward him, dragging both limp legs behind him. Paytah seeing what he is illustrating, hobbles over and kicks Apawi in the side with his good leg, and Apawi screams a silent scream. If it hadn’t been so pathetic, I would have laughed at the strangeness of it all.

  I decide to go to the edge of camp and give all but four of my buffalo away to the wintes and widows. I even let them use my ponies and travois, for which they all give me blessings. It’s nice to do something good.

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  The next morning, when I ride out with Chayton and Hanska to scout for the best herd to hunt, I find that Nagi has learned another great skill. He flies out in all directions and then comes back cawing for us to follow him to the largest herd. By the end of the festival, I have the most buffalo kills, and I’m popular in camp with all that I’ve given away. Weayaya stands proud.

  After the festival is over and the camps split for winter, I pack up my pony again for another hunting trip. As I walk my pony out of camp, a wind sweeps the prairie grasses, reminding me of something important.

  I leave my pony so as to swim through the grasses, parting them with both arms and search the muddy ground below. Finally, I spy the bright stitching of one moccasin, and I bring it up to examine. It’s dried, rough, and a bit misshapen now after the weather I’ve left it in, but the beads are still intact and tight. I do circles around where the first moccasin was found, and my heart beats faster as I worry some animal must have taken it away. But then farther away than I thought I’d thrown it, I see the bright blue beads and pull it up out of the grasses. Both are in the same wrinkled shape. I peel off the red-beaded ones mother made me and pull and squeeze to get Wakinyan’s on. Although now they’re a terrible fit, it’s my penance to wear them back in for discarding them so. Each blister earned and each painful step reminds me of her and, thankfully, displaces the pain from my heart.

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  Nagi now flies so well he has to flap in circles to stay with me. He also disappears for some time to return with berries, an egg, or a small rodent. He always brings it back to my shoulder to share with me, but I shoo him off to enjoy it on his own. Even if Nagi isn’t the best medicine, he quickly becomes my best friend.

  If an animal crosses my path I kill it, but I’m not tracking four-legged prey. I search out the hunting paths that lead from the white settlement. I follow many trappers deep into the woods, only to see dark hair when they remove their fur hats. One day, my pony keeps bucking when I try to move her forward. Her eyes show white as she sniffs the air ahead of us.

  Bear.

  I heed my mare’s warning and retreat down the path. I hear voices coming up the mountain path beneath us, and I jump my pony over the brush in order to watch them pass. Two men on horseback come by, one with yellow hair poking out under a beaver hat. I point my musket straight at his head but see it’s not Chase with him but the other trapper. I know I won’t be able to reload quickly enough before he shoots one of the many muskets hanging at his side. I have to wait until I find Peirpont alone.

  After they’re high up the path, I decide it’s safe to go down and try to see Wakinyan. As I lean back for my pony to make the steep descent, I pray to the Great Spirit that the bear will find him and solve my problem.

  I cross the dirt road in town above where her dugout is and tie my pony behind some rocks so I can sneak up behind on foot. She’s there, plunging his dirty clothes into a rusty bucket of water. She scrubs them aggressively and keeps slapping the cloth with a bar of soap. She wears the tight and restrictive clothing of the white man, and as she leans back to take off the strain of bending over, I notice her protruding belly. My stomach churns at the sight of it.

  Evidence that she truly is no longer mine.

  I look around, and not seeing any white men, I scramble down the side of the dugout and she turns in fear at my sudden intrusion. She, at first, smiles at the sight of me but then puts her finger up to her mouth and points to the dugout next to her. As I stand before her, I hear the trappers talk and laugh within.

  But being so close to her is worth the worst risks, and I stay silent as I burn every curve and color of her face into my mind. She brings her finger to her lips again to make sure I remain quiet, exposing large purple and yellow bruises on her wrist. I grab her arm below the bruise and she opens her mouth in pain. I release my grasp but tear the button and pull up her sleeve to see not only bruises in every color of healing, but burn marks all up her arm. A rage surges through me, and if he were there, I would have killed him with my bare hands. She takes my head in her hands and gives me a look that tells me she’s given up long ago.

  The sun breaks through the pines above and shines down on us. Her hair has lost its brilliant sheen and even her green eyes have dulled. I take her hand in mine and pull her up the bank with me, but she yanks back and drops my hand. She shakes her head and pulls her clothes tight over her swollen stomach. I nod sadly, and she sees my moccasins and smiles. She leans in to me, gives me a quick kiss on my cheek, and waves her hand.

  I don’t know how many times I can say goodbye to her before I will not survive it. But I take one last look and make my way back up the bank to my pony and gaze down at her one more time. She has already started her work again and, just in time, since one of the trappers walks out. After he passes, she looks up at me, and I turn my mare to go.

  I understand Paytah’s wish.

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  As I cross the path far up ahead and find the trail that Peirpont took, I decide I don’t care if his companion shoots me. As long as I get Peirpont first, that is all that matters. But something catches my eye. Chase leans against a tree on the path, whittling. I stop my pony, and he finally looks up and points his knife down in Wakinyan’s direction. “Truly heartbreaking that was.”

  I realize he’s been watching us. I start my mare up again, not wanting to deal with his jokes. But he puts his hand up again. “Sorry. It’s not a joke.” I stop again, waiting for him to tell me what he wants. “Look, Kohana, we understand each other.”

  I wonder if that is true.

  He continues, “I know who lies up this path, and I’m telling you that would be a mistake.”

  I kick my pony to go again, but he says even louder, “It would be a mistake because then no one would take care of Wakinyan and
her baby.”

  He’s right. She’d probably end up in a bad position, being husbandless in the white settlement. “What can I do though? You must know he is beating her.”

  He nods with his eyes downcast but then brings them back up to me. “There is a better way.”

  “What is that?”

  “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.”

  My face twists in disgust at his proposition and he laughs. “No, that means I’ll help you, and you help me.”

  “What could you want from me?”

  He takes a step forward. “I need you to speak to Mika to see if she would leave Hanska for me.”

  I shake my head right away. “Hanska is my friend.”

  “I thought Mika was your friend too?”

  He’s right. I think about her face and the sadness she carries with her now and know she suffers as much as I do. “And if she does?”

  “I know of your custom where an unhappy wife can leave if she escapes to another man’s teepee before her husband finds her.”

  I nod. “But if Hanska were to find out he might hurt her.”

  “That is why I would need your help. You can talk to her and come up with a plan. Maybe even draw Hanska away—”

  I shake my head. “I will talk to her and be your go-between, but I cannot deceive Hanska by luring him away.”

  He thinks about it. “Fair enough. Speak with her, and I will find you.”

  “And what will you do for me?”

  He points to Wakinyan. “If Mika gets to my teepee safely, I will get Peirpont to trade Wakinyan to you.”

  “How would you do that?”

  He walks toward me. “He owes me. So do we have a deal?”

  I shake his hand, as white men like to do, and ride off, away from Peirpont’s trail.

  A week later, I find the perfect opportunity when my mother and Mika go to the river for water together. Mother heads up stream so I can talk to her alone.

  “Mika, I have been sent by Chase.”

  She drops one of the water bags into the river but grabs it up again and holds it, empty, in her hands.