by Ron Schwab
This night there was no talking by the campfire. Skye silently re-bandaged Ethan’s wound with hands that seemed unnecessarily rough and harsh, but he apologized to her mentally when she served the banquet of roasted trout, hot black coffee, and the traditional sourdough bread.
“Delicious,” he commented, breaking the silence between them.
“You may prepare breakfast. You will not be pampered after tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied meekly.
Drowsiness overtook him early again, reminding him that he had not yet recovered his strength. The cool night air had turned downright cold, and he was ready to burrow into his bedroll for refuge. “Damn, it’s cold,” he remarked as he stood up. “I’m going to move my bedroll next to the fire and turn in.”
“You have a fever,” she said. “I noticed when I dressed your wound. I think it is nothing serious; the wound does not seem to be festering.”
He spread out his bedroll next to the fire; then as he crawled into the cocoon of blankets, he saw that Skye was laying her own bedroll out next to his. He looked at her quizzically, hopefully, but his hopes were quickly dampened.
“Our blankets will remain between us,” she said, “but you will be warmer if I sleep here.”
She was right. The woman on one side made him warmer than the fire on the other. Nonetheless, sleep eluded him only briefly, and soon, he surrendered to death-like slumber.
8
SKYE SHOOK ETHAN awake the next morning. His eyes opened and then scrunched nearly shut as they were blinded by the early morning sunshine.
“Ethan,” Skye whispered, “we will have visitors soon. I think they are warriors from Lame Buffalo’s encampment. There are five or six of them from the sound. They are coming up the trail. It is probably a hunting party.”
“Or a war party,” he said glumly as he got up.
“No, I think not. Not this soon.”
“Shall I fix breakfast?” he asked. “Maybe some bacon and biscuits for our guests? We have plenty.” He got up and commenced rummaging through the supplies. Skye moved to help him.
“You do not seem greatly disturbed,” she said.
“I’m scared as hell,” he growled, “but right now, my fate is in hands of God, or the Great Spirit or whatever else you want to call Him. All I can do is give Him a little help.”
Skye tensed and her eyes fixed on something behind Ethan. “What is it?” he asked, knowing the answer to his own question.
“They are here. On the ridge, behind you.”
Ethan turned slowly and looked toward the rise from where the five mounted warriors surveyed the camp. “Should we call them in?” Ethan asked.
“Yes, I think so. Do you speak our language?”
“Some, but I’m not fluent. I think it’s best if I play dumb for now. You do the talking.”
“Very well.” She lifted her hand in greeting, and in Brule dialect invited the warriors to enter the camp. They rode their horses single file, slowly and cautiously, down the shale-covered slope. As they rode closer, Skye said, “I know several of them. The front warrior, the small one, he will be the spokesman. He is called Badger Claw. He is a fine warrior . . . and a cunning fox. When I was but a girl, he asked my uncle if I might be his second wife. It is said that a mighty weapon lies under his breechcloth.”
He caught a trace of an impish smile on her lips, and it made her face seem warmer and less severe. From their first meeting, she had been so businesslike, almost cold-blooded, that now the change in her demeanor puzzled him.
“Do not worry, Ethan,” she said. “We will get to the village. Badger Claw controls these men . . . and I can control Badger Claw.”
The Indians rode into the camp, their unpainted faces stoic, their eyes wary. Several had feathers knotted in their hair. Three wore buckskin leggings and one, a stiff, soiled war shirt.
But Badger Claw was naked except for the narrow loincloth that girded his loins and the moccasins that covered his feet. In spite of the Sioux’s small stature, Ethan could see from the sinewy muscles that sheathed his frame that the man would be a superb athlete. The body would be quick and finely coordinated. The Indian, probably approaching forty, was handsome by any standards—hair braided neatly and his bronze skin clean and glistening in contrast to the dirty, greasy appearances of his comrades who showed effects of a long absence from the village. This warrior Indian was a peacock, but he flaunted his body instead of his feathers.
Strangely, Ethan felt a pang of envy when he saw Skye’s eyes surveying the obvious leader of the hunting party. Badger Claw’s eyes locked on the wrapped bodies that had been left some distance downwind from the camp. “You have come to visit Lame Buffalo?” the warrior asked in Sioux. “We have not seen you in our village for many moons.”
“I am returning the bodies of two brave boys to their people,” Skye responded in her native language. “This man helps me.”
“And how did these boys come to die?”
“My cousin Bear Killer was there. My uncle knows,” Skye said. “It is his place to say.”
Skye was trading heavily on her relationship to the Chief. Ethan could see that the warrior was miffed by her evasiveness, but that he was hesitant to do anything that might invoke the wrath of the Chief. Badger Claw studied Skye appraisingly.
She met his gaze evenly. The warrior edged his pony closer to Ethan, glaring at the white man, his eyes seething with hate. This would have been the end of the journey if he had come alone, Ethan thought.
“Do you know this man, Sky-in-the-Morning?” the Indian asked, without taking his eyes off Ethan.
“Of course,” she said nonchalantly, “I have traveled with him.” She added meaningfully, “For two days and two nights. He is a good friend—an honorable and brave man. His name is Ethan Ramsey.”
“He is the Puma,” the Indian said. “He is an enemy. I have fought him.”
“He is no longer an enemy. We are at peace. This man no longer rides with the pony soldiers.”
“Then he is a coward,” Badger Claw declared.
“He is a friend and under the protection of your Chief,” Skye lied. “We leave for Elk Valley this morning, but first we must eat. You are invited to join us.”
Badger Claw turned and nodded to his companions. They dismounted and tied the ponies at the edge of the clearing.
Ethan turned to the supplies. “Pompous little bastard,” he grumbled. “Too bad we don’t have some rat poison.”
“Ethan, sit down,” Skye commanded. “I will fix breakfast.”
“I’ll do it . . . I’ll help anyway.”
“No,” she said, “just add another meal to your debt. They know who you are. A great warrior does not do women's work. They do not like you, but they respect you . . . and we may need the respect later on.”
“I’m glad you’re finally acknowledging that something is women’s work,” he said.
“I am not acknowledging anything. I am telling you how the Sioux look upon it. That is one reason I cannot live permanently in their world.”
“Hell, I don’t see what difference it makes. You’d have everything changed a year after you moved into the village anyway.”
“I think you would do well to get along with me,” she cautioned as she commenced slicing a slab of smoked bacon.
9
THEIR DESCENT DOWN the narrow mountain trail that led into Elk Valley was a silent, sober one. Badger Claw headed up the caravan while the other warriors followed Skye dePaul and Ethan, who led the pack animals. Their approach through the lush meadow that surrounded the Sioux encampment did not go unnoticed, and by the time they broke through the perimeter of tepees, some of the squaws, guessing the contents of the shrouded bundles, burst into eerie wailing and chanting, and fell in beside the horses as they continued slowly toward Lame Buffalo’s tepee at the far end of the village.
The busy, ant-like activity of the camp came to an abrupt halt. Sullen-faced braves and warriors watched the proc
ession as it weaved through the village. The children, who had been absorbed in play, scurried out of the riders’ path.
Skye had been silent and thoughtful throughout the journey and offered him no encouragement. “It will be difficult,” she declared solemnly in a soft voice. For the first time since he met her, Skye’s demeanor seemed something less than confident.
Moments later, as they sat cross-legged before Lame Buffalo in the Chief’s lodge, a demure, almost shy side of the woman emerged. She sat solemnly beside Ethan, her head bowed slightly before Lame Buffalo’s scrutiny. Ethan knew it would be disrespectful of him to speak first, and he suspected that Skye was accepting her own subservient status as a woman in the village and would not break the silence.
The grim-faced Badger Claw, hate burning in his obsidian eyes, sat to the right of the Chief, confirming that he was a man of some import in the tribe, perhaps a sub-chief.
To the Chief’s left sat an ancient, white-haired man, his body squat and fat, his jowly, stoic face dominated by porcine eyes that disclosed nothing. The elderly Sioux was clad in buckskin and the strips of beadwork that adorned his shirt indicated he, too, was a person of some rank, probably a medicine man. A man of such heft was a rarity among the plains Indians, and such a man, even in his prime, could not have been a war chief of the Brule Sioux.
Lame Buffalo carried himself with a bearing appropriate to his status. As the older Indian was unusually rotund for one of these people, so was Lame Buffalo exceptionally tall, and Ethan could see that Skye’s own unusual height would have come from her uncle’s side of the family. From what Skye had said, he surmised the Chief was in his late forties, but his powerful chest and shoulders were those of a man much younger. Most Indians he had known aged before their time. Lame Buffalo was a handsome man by any standard, his aquiline nose suited to the angular features of his unblemished face. He wore leggings with his breech cloth, but his torso was naked and absent any accoutrements of rank. But beyond this, and except for the slight limp from which Ethan assumed the man had derived his name, the Chief was a dime novel’s stereotype of all that a chief should be.
Finally, the Chief spoke in Brule dialect, his eyes locked upon Skye, seemingly indifferent to Ethan’s presence in the tepee. “Sky-in-the-Morning returns to her people bearing sad gifts,” the Chief said. Skye looked up but did not reply. “My niece still refuses to behave as a squaw,” the Chief added, with a faint tone of reprimand in his voice. But was that a glint of pride Ethan caught in Lame Buffalo’s eyes?
“I am sorry, my uncle,” Skye replied in Sioux. “But the way of the Brule is not my way.”
“Then why have you returned the murdered youths? Why did you not leave them to rot in the village of the white man?”
Skye seemed less reticent now, her instincts, Ethan thought, beginning to overpower her desire to show respect for her uncle and his people.
“Because I do not accept the ways of my people, does not mean I cannot love my people,” Skye replied, “or respect and honor their ways. My father was white and I have spent most of my life in the white world. I am Sky-in-the-Morning, not my mother, Singing Lark. I am the offspring of two worlds, neither of which I revere more than the other. But the great Sioux nation will someday be consumed by the white world. If the Great Spirit wills that I someday bear children, those children shall be raised in a white world as shall your grandchildren, my uncle, and great-grandchildren thereafter. I say this sadly, but it is true; therefore, I have chosen to accept that world and make my place in it.”
The Chief nodded his head slowly, suddenly changing languages and speaking near-perfect English. “I understand, Sky-in-the-Morning, daughter of my sister. What you say is true. I feel it in my heart. But I cannot accept it. Not yet. And neither will my people.” He was silent a moment. “You say that you will follow the ways of the white world. Will the white world accept you?”
“I shall make the white world accept me, my uncle,” Skye replied.
Traces of a smile crossed the Chief’s lips but quickly faded. He turned to Ethan, “In our village, she is still a squaw,” he said. “If there is something to be said, it is better that you speak. Do you speak our tongue?”
“Yes,” Ethan said, “some. But not nearly so well as you speak ours.”
“Sky-in-the-Morning is a teacher in this place she calls the white man’s world. She is also a teacher in her own village. She has taught me and many others your language. We shall use the tongue of the English between us. Badger Claw and Lone Elk will understand little of what we say; perhaps that is well.” The Chief paused. “You are the one called the Puma, so I am told. You are a respected enemy of our people. You are very brave to come to our camp . . . or very stupid.”
“Probably the latter,” Ethan said sardonically, “but I do not think of myself as an enemy of your people. We are at peace now, and I no longer ride with the soldiers. Like your own warriors, I was a warrior fighting for my own people. I admire the Sioux, and I am not proud of much that my government has done to your people.”
“Have you lain with Sky-in-the-Morning?” the Chief asked.
“No,” he replied, meeting the Chief’s gaze evenly. “Of course not. I am her lawyer, not her man.”
“Lawyer?”
“Yes. Among my people are those who are paid to speak for others. They are called lawyers.”
“Why do your people not speak for themselves?”
“Because we have a set of laws, written rules, by which our people must live. These rules are sometimes very complicated, hard for people to understand. A lawyer is trained to understand them and to help others understand them. We have judges who settle disputes over those rules and decide if people have broken them and how they should be punished if they did.”
“Yes, I have heard of these judges, but I cannot see their purpose. I am the judge in our village. We need no written laws here, for our rules are simple and they have been passed from father to son for more winters than man can count. A man speaks for himself. We have no need for lawyers. I think that is good.”
“It may be,” Ethan said, “I sometimes wonder myself.”
“But you have not lain with Sky-in-the-Morning? You do not like her?”
The Chief had a one-track mind. “Yes, I like her. She is—” He glanced at Skye, whose laughing eyes could not hide her amusement at his discomfiture. “She is a stubborn, contrary woman, on occasion not unlike the jackass. But I try not to hold that against her. Anyway, what I think of her is not important. I am not her man, but her lawyer, her spokesman among the white eyes. Besides, one who would seek to lie with Sky-in-the-Morning without first being her man would end up dead, I think.”
Lame Buffalo nodded his head in understanding. “You are a wise man. I do not like this thing you call a lawyer. Sky-in-the-Morning can speak for herself. But it is not proper that she speak here, so I will listen to you. Tell me, why are you here?”
Ethan related the story of his first meeting with Skye, and appreciating the Indians’ susceptibility to superstition, mentioned the coincidence of the coyote’s howling and Skye’s inspiration to contact him. He affirmed his own belief in the Indian boys’ innocence in no uncertain terms, and then told the Chief about the attack on the first night of their journey into the mountains. “I am convinced these things are related,” he said, “but it must be proven. We think that your son, Bear Killer, should return with us to Lockwood so that he can tell our sheriff what he knows or does not know. Our sheriff is a good man. It is possible that Bear Killer would not even be charged with a crime. If he should be, I would be his lawyer and represent him before the judge and jury.”
“Jury?”
“Yes, a jury is a group of citizens who decide whether one is innocent or guilty, and the judge decides the punishment based upon the law.”
“This jury . . . they would be men from Lockwood?”
“Yes, and from some of the surrounding farms and ranches.”
“And would this jur
y be fair? Would it say that an Indian is innocent?”
Ethan paused. “I cannot say that, Chief Lame Buffalo. If we can discover proof that someone else did it, then yes, I am confident the jury would find your son innocent. But many of these men have fought your people, lost wives and children in the Indian wars. I cannot promise how they would decide if we do not provide definite proof of Bear Killer’s innocence. The burden of proof is supposed to work the other way, but it is not always so.”
“You ask me to put my son to death. Do you think I am a fool?”
“No. That is why we are here. If this is not settled in the white man’s court, there will be more wars. Already, the people of Lockwood are angry. Most will do nothing, but there are some who are looking for an excuse to kill. And this is the problem. They will find some of your people and kill them. Then your warriors will seek vengeance and kill whites. Then there will be more killing . . . and more. Many white men and Sioux, perhaps including your own son, will die in such a war. Blood will paint these mountains. We must stop it if it is within our power to do so, and I think it is.”
“There are already those among my people who are impatient to take scalps.” The Chief shot a meaningful look at Badger Claw. “They say that I, like Spotted Tail, have become an old woman. If I let you take my son and he does not return alive, they will not be stopped. I must lead them into battle, or they will choose another Chief. If my son should die, I will gladly lead them. It will not be these mountains, but the village of the white eyes that will be covered red with blood. You yourself have said my son did not do this thing. My people know this is true. I do not see why I should deliver him to this white man’s jury. Why should I trust you with the life of my son?”
“You know the wisdom of my words, Lame Buffalo. You are a Chief because you see your people as tribe . . . a people. You know that the life of one cannot be permitted to jeopardize the existence of an entire nation, even when that one is your own child. That is the difference between a chief and a warrior.”