Death Chant

by Judd Cole

  His quick, furtive eyes mocking Touch the Sky, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling made a great show of cleaning his rifle—as if to once again remind Touch the Sky that once it had been his.

  “I will kill many whites,” he boasted as he wiped trail dust out of the breech with a patch of chamois cloth. “One bullet, one enemy. And if I fall, it will be on the bones of a paleface.”

  More than fear for Honey Eater filled Touch the Sky’s breast. There was also the raw bitterness of rejection. It was this empty sense of solitude, of being shut out of the white man’s world, that had sent him into the wilderness to find the Cheyenne. Now where would he go? There was no place left for him. An Indian without a tribe was a dead Indian.

  And after he had done what his vision told him to do, he would surely be an Indian without a tribe.

  However, he reminded himself again that he had no choice. The medicine vision had spoken. He could only pray that it was a true vision and that he might save Honey Eater. If that could be accomplished, then the threat of death held no sting for him.

  “Sleep now,” Black Elk commanded, “for tomorrow we rise even before the sun. According to the scouts’ report, the scar-face’s camp lies less than half a sleep away. Because he waits for the word-bringer, we know that he will not slip away to another camp before we arrive. Drink much water tonight.”

  The Cheyenne were notorious late sleepers; so before important occasions they filled their bladders with water. The need to relieve themselves would wake them early.

  By the time the sun was high enough to make shadows the next day, Black Elk’s band had entered the Bighorn Mountains. The scouts had left signs for them to follow— notches in the trees or rings where bark had been stripped off. When they stopped at midmorning to water their ponies in a mountain streamlet, Black Elk gathered his warriors around him.

  “We are close to our enemy’s camp. They are located over the next ridge in the saddle formed between two mountains. Sentries will be posted. From here, remove your bright blankets and never once leave the shelter of the trees. Follow me, and open your eyes and ears to every sight and sound. We must not lose the element of surprise. Nor can we attack until we have studied their camp carefully. Should they once learn of our presence, all hope is lost. We are too few to overwhelm their numbers and weapons.”

  Touch the Sky’s heart sank at these words. If he failed at what he was about to do, he would surely ruin the band’s chance to launch a surprise strike.

  They resumed their silent trek down the side of the forested mountain. Touch the Sky had been riding last since they set out from Yellow Bear’s camp. Now, absorbed in the watch for their enemies, none of the others noticed when he started falling farther and farther behind.

  They reached a deep ravine. One by one the Cheyenne angled their ponies around it. High Forehead was riding ahead of Touch the Sky. When he saw High Forehead’s pony disappear in the oak trees, Touch the Sky suddenly reined his pony to the left.

  The surefooted dun picked her way quickly down the mountain, each step placing more distance between Touch the Sky and the others. Soon he was alone—alone with his misery and his fear and the awful realization that he had just defied Black Elk, his war chief. But in the midst of his misery came the image of Honey Eater.

  He chided himself, for his thoughts must be set on nothing else except saving her. He set his mouth in a grim, determined slit and rode in the direction of his enemy’s camp.

  Touch the Sky moved as quickly as he dared. He knew he must arrive at the camp first and strike before Black Elk could. His medicine vision had already assured him that a strike by the war party would surely kill Honey Eater.

  Several times he hobbled the dun and climbed trees to reconnoiter. At first, even after he had cleared the final ridge Black Elk spoke of, there was no sign of a camp. His fear began to grow that Black Elk might track him down before he could strike.

  But finally he found the scar-face’s camp. And when he did, every hope of rescuing Honey Eater was dashed out of him. The discovery came the fourth time he climbed high up in the branches of an oak tree to scout the terrain. Until then the white men’s camp had been sheltered by a thick copse of trees. Now, by chance, Touch the Sky had selected a tree at the perfect angle to glimpse beyond the shelter of trees.

  As Black Elk had said, the camp was positioned in the saddle formed by two mountains. The sides were too steep to scale easily, cutting off any attack from the east or west flanks. To the north, behind the camp, aspen and birch trees grew so thick that no mounted assault could possibly succeed. The only approach was from the south. And in that direction the whites had concentrated their defenses.

  Imposing breastworks had been erected in a strong perimeter, with at least two well-armed whites behind each set of sharpened logs. The camp was crawling with whites. Each carried a rifle, and most wore a brace of pistols. Their horses and mules were gathered in a rope corral well behind the breastworks.

  His heart pounding in his ears, Touch the Sky fought back tears of grief when he failed to spot Honey Eater. Had they already killed her? If so, Touch the Sky vowed that he would at least kill the scar-face before taking his own life.

  But suddenly hoped surged in his breast when he spotted her. He had not noticed her, at first, behind the two guards posted to watch her. They had not bothered to tie her up. She sat on a buffalo robe under a golden-leaved aspen tree. It was well behind the breastworks, toward the rear of the camp. Anyone attempting to free her would have to cover the entire camp.

  The impossibility of the situation struck Touch the Sky in its full force. Any raid by Black Elk and his band would surely be doomed; the medicine vision had spoken truly on that score. But how could he alone hope to have any better chance?

  As he climbed down from the tree, he reminded himself either he placed faith in the medicine vision or he did not. The vision had foretold that if he entered the camp alone he would rescue Honey Eater and they would escape alive. He must dwell only on that thought and nothing else. Otherwise, fear would turn his muscles too weak to be of any use.

  By now the sun was westering, growing dim as she sank beneath the spires of the Bighorns. Touch the Sky fortified himself with jerked buffalo from his sash, drank cool water from a nearby stream. As the light began to grow grainy with twilight, he began his final preparations.

  He found ripe serviceberries and crushed handfuls of them. He smeared the juice on his skin to cut reflection from the moon. Then he removed the Colt Navy pistol from his legging sash and made sure the firing mechanism was clean and functioning. Finally, he found a flat stone and spat on it. Then he removed his knife and carefully honed the edge until it was lethally sharp.

  After that came the awful task of waiting. Darkness had settled completely now, a deep blackness there under the trees where no moonlight broke through. He knew, however, that the camp would be well lit from the full moon and the blazing fires.

  When the noises from the camp had finally tapered off, Touch the Sky began his first movements forward. Before he did, however, he gathered his courage by reciting the simple battle song that Walking Coyote had sung upon discovering his brother, Buffalo Hump, dead in the trail:

  “Only the rocks lie here and never move.

  The human being vapors away.”

  He moved as silently as he could, protected by the cloak of darkness. But soon the trees began to thin out as he approached the campsite, and silver shafts of moonlight forced him to a low crawl. He edged around a clump of hawthorn and felt his breath catch in his throat. There, outlined in silhouette only three feet away, was a sentry!

  Touch the Sky fought down his panic and thought quickly. He could perhaps spend much time backtracking to avoid the man. But if he killed him there would be one less threat should he and Honey Eater choose this route of escape. His mind made up, he slid his knife out of its sheath and coiled his muscles to leap.

  He struck straight and true, sliding his blade between the fourth and fifth rib
s and into the heart as Black Elk had instructed him and the other youths. The sentry gave out only a surprised sigh as his final breath escaped his lips. He slumped dead, blood spuming from his chest.

  As badly as he wanted the firepower, Touch the Sky decided to leave the sentry’s long Henry rifle behind. There was no way he could easily carry it and still move silently along the ground. Besides, any fighting he did that night would be close in, where a pistol would be best. Unfortunately, the sentry wore no short iron.

  Heartened by this kill, he continued forward. It took a long, agonizing time to reach sight of the breastworks. Now he was completely in the open moonlight. Fires blazed in the camp, throwing eerie, long shadows from the pointed tips of the breastworks.

  He saw that he could not hope to penetrate the fortifications directly. This meant slipping around at either end. Yet, again, a sentry waited at each point.

  The left hand side was more in darkness; so he chose that route. His heart racing in fear at the dreaded exposure, he crawled inch by slow inch across the clearing. At every moment he expected a warning shout and the blazing of many rifles.

  Finally, mercifully, Touch the Sky had crawled to within yards of the sentry. The white man sat on a tree stump, his rifle propped between his knees. He was playing a Jew’s harp, holding it in his teeth while he plucked it.

  Touch the Sky gathered himself to leap. Suddenly, a stick underneath his elbow snapped loudly. The guard dropped his Jew’s harp and strained his eyes into the darkness in front of him. Touch the Sky was still on the ground when he realized he had been spotted.

  He leaped at the same moment the sentry raised a shout of alarm. Touch the Sky rammed his head into the white’s ample gut, knocking the wind out of him before he could finish his shout. But in the confusion when they toppled, Touch the Sky ended up on the bottom with his knife hand pinned under him.

  Their flailing legs had already kicked the sentry’s rifle off into the surrounding brush. Once, twice, a third time the strong white man brought his knee up hard into Touch the Sky’s ribs and stomach, battering him painfully. But the determined Cheyenne refused to relinquish his one-handed grip on the man’s throat, knowing he was doomed if his enemy shouted the alarm.

  He had lost his knife somewhere in the carpet of leaves and debris. But now his right hand was free, and he added it to the death grip on the sentry’s throat. Again a knee struck him hard, this time knocking the wind out of him. But like a tenacious wolverine, he refused to loosen his grip on the white man’s throat. It seemed to take forever, but finally the sentry lay still beneath him, all the fight gone out of him along with his final breath.

  For a long time Touch the Sky lay beside his fallen enemy, gasping and heaving. He feared that the struggling man had injured him too seriously to continue. Pain sank deep knife points into him each time he breathed in or tried to move. Finally, however, the pain abated enough to allow slow and gradual movements.

  He was past the breastworks. But the real task lay ahead. He had to cover almost the entire expanse of the camp to reach Honey Eater’s robe. Fortunately, most of the men had rolled into their own robes and were snoring in sleep.

  But surely someone would soon discover one of the dead sentries? And even if that didn’t happen, how would he get Honey Eater back out alive?

  “Trust in the medicine vision,” he reminded himself fiercely as he recovered his knife and inched past one of the dying fires. Nonetheless, Arrow Keeper’s words plagued him over and over: “Bad medicine may place a false vision over our eyes, and we may act upon it, aiding our enemies and destroying those whom we seek to help.”

  The torturously slow, low-crawling journey seemed to go on forever. Insects bit at his exposed skin; every sound made his heart leap into his throat. But finally, miraculously, he recognized the aspen under which Honey Eater had been sitting. And there, an indistinct shape in the darkness, lay Honey Eater asleep on her buffalo robe.

  For the first time, despite the sentries flanking her, hope surged within the youth’s breast. Perhaps the vision had spoken truly after all!

  Sudden footsteps only a few feet to his right made him press himself flat into the ground.

  “I’m going out to check on the guards,” a man said.

  Cautiously, Touch the Sky lifted his face. In the flickering light of a nearby fire, he recognized the speaker’s raw, red, ugly scar. A moment later he was gone, heading out toward the perimeter.

  Touch the Sky fought back his welling panic. He could only pray that the scar-faced leader would begin his check with the sentries Touch the Sky had not killed. But even so, he must move fast.

  Before he could think what to do, however, two more white men edged into the circle of firelight. Instantly he recognized the two men who had gotten him drunk at the trading post.

  “Why don’t you two boys go take a long piss?” said the one with the coarse-grained face. “Me ’n’ Stone got us a little piece of business with this Injun filly. We won’t be long.”

  One of the sentries offered halfhearted objections until coarse-face handed him a small buckskin pouch. “That-air’s pure gold dust, hoss. You two split it up even while you’re out there takin’ a piss. Doan worry ’bout this Injun sayin’ nothin’ to Lagace. She doan savvy no English.”

  A moment later the two sentries had slipped off into the shadows beyond the firelight. By now all the talk had woken Honey Eater. Touch the Sky, a cold knot of hate and fear forming in his belly, watched her sit up and draw back against the aspen as she recognized the two new arrivals.

  “I paid,” coarse-face said to his partner as he began to unfasten his buckskin trousers. “So I’ll go first.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was all happening too fast for Touch the Sky to form a plan. His eyes flicked from Longstreet to Honey Eater, his mind in a welter of confusion.

  McMasters laughed. “You best be quick, Jed. I aim to plant my carrot in her, too, afore Lagace gets back. He figgers to save her all for hisself.”

  Honey Eater had drawn as close to the tree as she could. From habit, her hand groped for the knife she usually wore around her neck. But Lagace had already removed it. Now, as she turned her face into a stray shaft of moonlight, Touch the Sky spotted the dark, swollen place over her temple where she had been pistol-whipped during her capture.

  Longstreet, his aroused breathing whistling in his nostrils, reached out to hitch her dress up. The next moment his head exploded in a burst of bright orange light. He fell at Honey Eater’s feet, dead before he hit the ground.

  Touch the Sky knew full well that the proud Honey Eater would choose suicide at the first opportunity if she were defiled by these white dogs. He also knew he could not be sure of killing both men with just his knife. A bullet from his Navy Colt had just shattered Longstreet’s skull.

  The cylinder had revolved to a new shell, but there was no time to insert a primer cap. He dropped the pistol and, knife in hand, leaped on the surprised McMasters.

  The huge man was quick for his size. Touch the Sky drove his right arm up toward his vitals, knife in hand. But McMasters caught his arm in a grip as strong as a bear trap. Even through the desperation of his struggle, Touch the Sky could hear confused shouts of alarm all around him. His shot had aroused the entire camp.

  Remembering a trick Black Elk had taught his band, Touch the Sky swept his right leg in a hooking motion, his foot catching McMaster’s left leg and toppling him. As the big-white man fell, he pulled the Cheyenne down with him.

  McMasters yowled in pain as he fell on the edge of the knife blade, slicing his meaty shoulder to the bone. This loosened his grip on Touch the Sky. Now the desperate youth raised his knife for the final, lethal plunge into his enemy.

  “Touch the Sky!” Honey Eater screamed. “Watch out!”

  But her warning was too late. Lagace brought the butt of his rifle down hard on the Cheyenne’s skull; splitting his scalp open and knocking him out cold.

  Honey Eater leaped to
Touch the Sky’s side. Lagace did nothing to stop her. By now a circle of well-armed men had formed around the aspen, craning their necks to see what was happening. Longstreet lay dead, and McMasters was bleeding furiously from his wounded shoulder.

  “Don’t stand there with your thumbs up your sitters!” Lagace shouted to his men. “Can’t you see that Indians have infiltrated our camp? At least three men are dead. You, Beckmann, and you, Rogers—form the men into a skirmish line quick! Hell only knows how many more are out there.”

  “Well, it won’t take long to find out,” McMasters said grimly, busy wrapping a strip of deerhide over his wound to stem the bleeding. He had just caught sight of the young Cheyenne’s face in the moonlight. “That-air’s the buck from the trading post. The one I told you about what speaks good English. We’ll by God make him talk!”

  Slowly, his thoughts swirling on a river of pain, Touch the Sky opened his eyes. It took him a long time to realize that the glittering white pinpoints overhead were stars blazing in the night sky. His head throbbed hard, the pain like a heavy, sharp weight pressing into the side of his skull. He tried to move his arms and legs, but they were stretched rigid and refused to respond.

  For a moment fear lanced through him. Was this immobility death? Had he crossed to the Land of Ghosts? Or, since he had perhaps died without singing the death song, was he trapped forever in the Forest of Tears?

  Suddenly, pain exploded in his right ribcage and he tensed. A moment later he realized he was still in the land of the living.

  “You cut the wrong hoss, Injun,” McMasters said, kicking him again with the toe of his boot. “By beaver, I’m gonna have your topknot danglin’ off my sash. But first, you’re gonna watch while I leave my jizzom in that squaw of yourn!”

  Touch the Sky realized he was staked out spread-eagle beside a roaring fire. He could feel the heat close to his face. His scalp was tacky with half-dried blood from the wound Lagace had inflicted.