Savage Tempest

by Cassie Edwards

  Tears had filled her eyes when High Hawk had taken his brother into his arms and comforted him as one would a small child. Afterwards, Sleeping Wolf seemed comforted and unafraid as he tried to help his mother with the final preparations.

  Clouds had suddenly covered the sun, and there was a hint of rain in the air as thunder boomed far off, coming from the very mountains in which they would seek shelter and make their new home.

  A chill wind came to Joylynn, causing a shiver to ride her spine, even though she wore a coat made of warm bearskin.

  She hugged herself, still watching the frantic activity around her, wondering if High Hawk regretted having slain the soldiers. But what else could he have done when they were planning to annihilate his people?

  He was a wise leader, one who thought over all decisions before acting on them. Since he had already chosen a place to take his people when the time came to leave their home, he had known he could escape the soldiers’ reprisals.

  Tired already, even before they had begun the rigorous trek up the mountainside, Joylynn had taken a short rest. She stood just outside High Hawk’s tepee now, listening to the echoes of thunder, a reminder that a storm could threaten their journey.

  She hugged herself and gazed heavenward, sighing with relief when the clouds slowly moved onward. The sun came out again, and the sky turned blue. Even the thunder had ceased to rumble in the distance.

  Hearing High Hawk’s mother’s voice, Joylynn turned and saw her hurrying to High Hawk, who was instructing a warrior about the people’s horses. Even now the horses were being taken from the personal corrals of the village, while other warriors had gone where the other steeds had been hidden, gathering them together for the long trek to their new home.

  “High Hawk, what of the food stored in the caches?” Blanket Woman asked, stopping and gazing up at her son, who now carried more weight on his shoulders than had ever been required of her chieftain husband.

  Her husband had struggled to keep his people safe from the white pony soldiers and outlaws. He had always feared that one day they would be forced to find a new home, or die, or worse yet—be penned up like animals on a reservation.

  Her husband had kept his Wolf band of Pawnee in their home, where so many generations of their people had been born and died, but he had also sent his second-born son away more than once to seek a new place for his people should danger ever threaten them.

  That place had not been found during any scouting trip, but instead, had come to High Hawk in a dream. He had followed that dream and found the place of his people’s future. He had kept the location locked inside his heart until only recently, when he had known it was time to share this knowledge with the warriors of his village.

  They were sworn to secrecy.

  That had kept the knowledge of their new home safe.

  High Hawk knew that once he took his people there, they would not have to concern themselves about such men as had been slain today.

  But Joylynn feared there was no place that could not be found by men who were determined to find it. She only hoped that many generations of Pawnee would be born before the people of her own race finally found them.

  “Son, there is much food in our people’s caches this year,” Blanket Woman continued. “Must it truly be left behind?”

  High Hawk placed a gentle hand on his mother’s bent, frail shoulders. “Ina, you and the other women are to take from your cache pits only what can be carried on the travois and packhorses. Some household items might have to be left behind in order to make room for the food we must take with us.”

  He looked at the women who had come and circled round him after hearing Blanket Woman’s question.

  He glanced from one to another, hating to see the fear in the eyes that until today had been filled with peace and joy.

  He could not fault himself, but instead blamed those white eyes who just could not allow the red man to live how they had lived for generations.

  The red man wanted nothing from white people but to be left alone on land that had always been his, but such was not to be. Every day, new interlopers arrived on Pawnee soil.

  The treaties that had been signed by the white chief in Washington were like falling leaves, fluttering around on an autumn day, having no true meaning any longer.

  They would tumble in the wind, drying up more as each day passed, soon to break up into tiny bits and pieces, to be lost in the dirt upon which people walked and rode their steeds.

  “Each of you decide what is best for your family to take to our new home,” he said solemnly. “But I must remind you, food is most important of all those things. Know this: Soon winter snows will fall, so no crops can be planted when we first arrive at our new home. Take food to eat and seed for spring planting. Think and choose wisely, for your family’s future depends upon your decision.”

  He gestured a hand toward them. “Go, time is wasting,” he said tightly. “We must hurry to leave this place, where our hearts will remain behind us. But your souls will soon be at peace when you see where your new home will be established. I have seen. I know. It is nothing less than a paradise.”

  This made the women’s eyes light up. If their beloved young chief said their new home would be a paradise, they believed him. They knew him to be truthful in all things. They trusted him in all things.

  “Children,” High Hawk said, his voice carrying to the ears of the young ones, who seemed stunned by what was happening, their eyes revealing their confusion. “Go into the garden and fields and make certain there is no stray corn left there, nor any remains of the recently harvested crops. We want to leave nothing there for the soldiers.”

  What he said next caused the women to stop almost in mid-step and turn to look at him once again with shock in their eyes.

  “You women, burn the caches of corn and vegetables that you cannot take with you so that no white man or soldier can profit from your hard work,” he said firmly.

  Joylynn was as stunned by his order as the women.

  She recalled the hard work of making the caches and then filling them with corn.

  As each moment passed, the truth of what was happening seemed to cut more deeply into the hearts of these wonderful people.

  She tried to put from her mind the sadness of it, the heartache. Instead, she hurried with Blanket Woman toward the older woman’s personal cache pit.

  “We must first take food to sustain us through the winter, and carefully choose the seeds we take with us for our future crops,” Blanket Woman said. “For corn, we must select the very best from the braided strings. We need five braided strings of soft white and thirty ears of yellow, and ten ears of gummy corn.”

  Blanket Woman huffed and puffed as she hurried onward, explaining what they must take in order to have everything that would be needed for their new homes, and in their new gardens.

  “Joylynn, while selecting corn with me, choose only good, full, plump ears,” Blanket Woman said. “And take only kernels in the center of the cob, rejecting the large at one end and the small at the other. In shelling the seed corn, remove the kernels from the cob with your thumb. Since seed corn can be kept for two years, all families reserve enough for two crops. So shall we today.”

  They hurried to where the cache pit had been hidden. Joylynn tried to remember all the instructions as she helped uncover the pit.

  She smiled over her shoulder at a young brave who brought a horse with a travois dragging behind it. The travois would carry the food that was taken from Blanket Woman’s personal cache pit today.

  Blanket Woman thanked him, and he began helping dig through the twigs and leaves that had been lain on top of the cache pit, to conceal it from anyone who might happen along.

  When the cache pit was open, Joylynn worked tirelessly alongside the young brave and Blanket Woman, marveling at the old woman’s stamina as she continued to take the stored vegetables and fruit from her cache pit. She loaded it all on the travois in bags.

  Clo
thes, blankets, lodge coverings and other belongings had already been loaded on another travois and on the packhorse’s backs. They were ready for the long climb ahead.

  Joylynn turned and gazed at the mountain that was their destination. A sense of dread filled her soul, for she knew that some of the passes would be narrow and steep. Could the packhorses make the dangerous climb? Could all the people, some of whom were frail with age?

  Those people would travel by way of travois, too, as would Sleeping Wolf, since he was not able to ride, or even walk for any amount of time.

  Blanket Woman hugged the boy who was helping them and thanked him in the language of the Pawnee.

  He smiled and ran to help others.

  “We have chosen the most excellent of seeds to start our new crops,” Blanket Woman said, groaning as she placed a hand at the small of her back. “And we have enough packed to sustain us until the new crops can be harvested next year.”

  Blanket Woman turned to Joylynn. Her eyes wavered as she gazed at the younger woman. “Thank you for helping,” she said, her voice breaking. “I am beginning to understand why my son loves you. Although you were born into the white world, your heart beats with the feelings of us Pawnee. My son High Hawk is a very astute man. He saw in you what I stubbornly would not allow myself to see.”

  “That’s because you and your people have been given cause not to trust anyone whose skin is white,” Joylynn said. She was ready to hug this woman who was admitting things Joylynn knew were hard for her to say. The moment Blanket Woman had first seen Joylynn, there had been hatred etched in her eyes.

  But now? Joylynn saw something very different. She saw kindness. Joylynn hoped that in time Blanket Woman would love her as she would have loved a daughter.

  Finally everyone was ready to leave. Before their departure, Two Stars said a prayer aloud to Tirawahut, asking for a safe journey.

  Other prayers were said by various people, and High Hawk’s voice joined them, reaching for the heavens.

  Tears came to Joylynn’s eyes at the injustice of it all. Like so many Indians before them, the Wolf band was being forced to leave their home, taking with them their cherished memories of the time when no white people walked on Indian soil. They would have to leave behind the life they had loved, with only the faint hope that they could reestablish it where they were going.

  And they set out with the possibility that even their new home might be invaded eventually by the evil of white men who would not leave them in peace.

  “It is time to go,” High Hawk said, looking over his shoulder at his brother, who lay on a travois. In Sleeping Wolf’s eyes was a deep sorrow at leaving behind the only home he’d ever known.

  High Hawk was swamped with guilt at the knowledge that he was, in part, responsible for this flight into the mountains. Yet he knew he was not truly to blame. He had avenged his father’s death. He could not have done anything less. Nor would any of his people. And he could not stand by while white soldiers plotted the deaths of his people.

  Because they had aligned themselves with the white devil, they, too, had had to die.

  The procession was long and quiet as the Pawnee began their long journey.

  Joylynn had spotted her binoculars in one of High Hawk’s bags. Knowing that a close watch must be kept for pursuing soldiers, she had taken the binoculars and hung the leather strap around the pommel of the saddle on her horse.

  She wanted to do everything in her power to help keep these people safe!

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Still feeling useless and more dispirited than ever before in his life, Sleeping Wolf lay on the travois, glancing over and over again at the steep drop-off at his left side.

  Today as the journey contined, once again the Pawnee were traveling along a narrow mountain pass. Everyone was quiet and alert, for one wrong slip of a horse’s hoof and someone’s life could be lost as he or she went tumbling down the mountain.

  Sleeping Wolf knew that the warrior who rode the horse to which Sleeping Wolf’s travois was attached held his reins firm and steady. His eyes were kept straight ahead as he watched the trail for dangerous spots.

  As always since the journey to their new home had begun, Sleeping Wolf was on a travois pulled by the very last horse in the procession. He had requested this position, saying he enjoyed the scenery better if he didn’t have to be between other travois and packhorses.

  But he was not enjoying anything except the eagles that occasionally soared in wide circles above him. He felt more and more in the way, especially knowing that he was slowing his people down since he could not ride a horse.

  The long days on the travois gave him too much time to think about the worthlessness of his life. There was nothing positive he could add to the lives of his people.

  Instead, he needed someone to look after him all the time. His mother, upon whom most of the burden fell, had surely grown tired of her nuisance of a son, but worked hard to cover up those feelings by overprotecting him.

  No, he could not hunt to supply meat for his mother’s cook pots. . . .

  He suddenly saw a soaring gathering of bald eagles above him, their huge, widespread wings casting massive shadows onto him. One by one the mammoth birds came close, then circled back.

  Suddenly he had a strong desire to join them!

  They seemed to be beckoning him!

  “I am coming,” he whispered as he watched them soar now below him, beside the mountain, instead of high in the sky.

  They would sweep up close to the side of the mountain, then fly again further away from it. He could feel their eyes on him when they came closer.

  He knew that they wanted him to be a part of their flight today!

  His heart pounding, he gazed up at the warrior on his horse before Sleeping Wolf’s travois. He was ignoring the eagles, instead still carefully watching where he was traveling.

  Ho, everyone was too intent on navigating this narrow pass to notice Sleeping Wolf. He gazed at the birds again as they soared above him, and then again swept down lower to fly alongside the mountain.

  With a peaceful, serene smile on his face, feeling triumphant for the first time in his life, Sleeping Wolf threw off his blankets. At last, he was actually doing something that he wanted to do, and without the help of his mother, shaman or chieftain brother. As quietly as possible, he rolled gently off the travois and immediately found himself tumbling down a steep incline, then falling free, like the eagles he had been watching. They were flying and soaring above and then beside him, their eyes ever watching him.

  He was an eagle . . . flying!

  He could not walk without much effort, but he could fly effortlessly!

  He smiled as he continued to fall, his long black hair blowing away from his shoulders, his face feeling the soft sweetness of the air, his heart filled with joy, for he was now free . . . free . . . free!

  When he finally came to an outcropping of rock, he hit it with a hard thud, dying immediately with a smile on his lips.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Having finally cleared the dangerous path he and his people had been riding on, High Hawk sighed deeply. He was relieved that there had been no mishaps. Now there was more earth than rock on their right side, and they could travel more safely. High Hawk’s first thoughts were of his brother. He had not been able to check on him for some time because everyone had to ride in single file. High Hawk was at the head of the procession, Sleeping Wolf at the tail.

  He felt that his brother needed some reassurance, for this morning, before they had set out on another day’s grueling journey, he had seen something in Sleeping Wolf’s eyes that he had never seen before. Total defeat.

  And High Hawk understood. Sleeping Wolf was the only one besides the elderly and ill who traveled on a travois to their new home. If he had felt useless before, he must feel doubly so now.

  High Hawk no longer knew what to say to his brother to lift his spirits. Sleeping Wolf seemed to have retreated to his own little wor
ld, one of stark loneliness.

  And the way their mother constantly coddled him, treating him more like he was a baby than a grown man, had made Sleeping Wolf feel even more helpless. He had grown tired of not only her, but also her voice, Sleeping Wolf had confided to High Hawk. He craved to be alone. To him, that was better than being treated like a child.

  High Hawk nodded a quiet hello to those he rode past as he moved down the line to see how his brother fared. Surely it had frightened him to be riding on a travois so close to the steep drop-off.

  Perhaps now that their path was not so treacherous, Sleeping Wolf would feel less anxious. Perhaps he would even smile when he saw his brother High Hawk.

  High Hawk looked over his shoulder and saw Joylynn glance back at him, as though she had known he was going to look at her.

  Last night, beneath the stars, he had wanted her ever so badly.

  But everyone lay in close proximity of each other. Their blankets were arranged as close as possible to the campfire, in order to make certain no mountain lion could come upon them as they slept and drag them away.

  A fire always kept the night’s animals away, for a fire was something unknown to them, and the unknown was feared by all beings; not only animals.

  He gave Joylynn a smile, then turned and made his way again down the line of people. He was almost at the end of the procession, where he hoped his brother lay as comfortably as possible on the travois.

  High Hawk had seen to it that he would rest on many blankets and pelts, in order to cushion his twisted back.

  His mother had placed one of her more beautiful blankets on him, taking the time to lovingly tuck in the sides before they headed out this morning.

  High Hawk nudged his steed with his heels and rode onward, nodding a hello to the warrior whose horse pulled Sleeping Wolf’s travois.

  Then High Hawk’s heart went cold as he saw that the travois was empty, the blanket that had covered his brother dragging on the ground beside it.